I cared enough to click on the link, read the post and the following replies, and conclude that the story had very little weight to it and was probably not as dramatic as the title implied.

travo said:

Gg, where did your avi with the girl farting green gas go?

She was destroyed by the Salmon Run horde.

travo said:

Can someone show me how to access Gaming Discussion again?

Click on "Forum" at the top of the page. Then click "Gaming Discussion"

If you right click it and open it in a new tab, that works. If you’re using an iPhone, holding down on the Gaming Discussion link is like right clicking on it.

gamingeek said:

How sad it is that this story was posted and no one cared.

Retro Studios to shut down? Negative Retro Studios job review from former employee says staffers are expecting the studio to be shut down resetera.com

Shows how low our opinion/expectation about Retro Studios has fallen

I didn't even notice the story....makes me sad, but not surprised at all with how they weren't selected for the new Metroid.

"1. Poor leadership and management / peter principle. Most of the reviews "Disapprove of CEO"

2. Major talent has left since Metroid series and were replaced with people who were not adequate for the job"

Shit, this is exactly what I was expecting since all those original top guys left. They had a really strong group in the Metroid era, then too many of them bolted and didn't get replaced by people who were as good. Sounds an awful lot like fucking Rareware, actually.

So Nintendo gave them the Donkey Kong series where they could supervise the thing and Retro could just copy the old Rare template. Those games are cool don't get me wrong, but it always felt a little weak to have such a studio who were capable of ridiculous, cutting edge modern 3d worlds, working on old school side scrollers.

Ehh...I just feel like it's such a waste of what seemed to be a studio destined to be one of the all time greats. When Metroid Prime and Metroid Echoes came out in the early to mid 00's, these guys seemed to be just getting started. I just expected a ton more from them and they kind of fizzled out.

travo said:

I can’t get it to go to the page once I click it.

Heh. It works fine for me.

Ravenprose said:

travo said:

I can’t get it to go to the page once I click it.

Heh. It works fine for me.

Are you using IE 3.0?

"Octopath Traveler has been developed as a spiritual successor of FFVI" Takahashi-san:

- When Takahashi entered Square-Enix, he wanted to do these kind of games but he was told that it was easier to develop more modern-looking games. After years of hard and successful work, he was finally able to do the kind of projects he initially wanted to work on.
- In terms of game mechanics, if Bravely was a spiritual successor of FFV, Octopath has been developped as a spiritual successor of FFVI- He wanted to work on a new IP with a strong visual style that players would enjoy.
- When the development of Octopath began, they made a demo exclusively in pixel-art. They then realized that it was prettier in their memories and that's why they decided to include modern effects with the Unreal Engine, especially lightning effects. They feel that it is a good mix between both generations.

- Nishiki-san grew up with games like Final Fantasy and the SaGa series. Both franchises have influenced his work on Octopath

- He initially wondered whether he should try to adapt to the global audience or keep his own style. He asked himself what Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy) would do in the same situation and therefore he finally decided to keep his own style.

- Octopath's OST is influenced by his love of clasical music, he mentionned Bach, and movie musics.

The first demo has been downloaded 1,5 millions times.
- People's reactions to the demo were overwhelmingly positive, even more so in Europe than in Japan.
- their demo target was gamers in their 30s,40s who were seeking the same great sensations they had during the Golden Era of JRPGs.
- They felt that the Switch was the perfect platform for that with its ability to play 1h in bed before sleeping.

That last line is perfect. Love to play this game in bed.

Nintendolife Hands On Octopath Traveler :

Octopath Traveler isn’t just shaping up to be the game that you hoped it would be, it’s quickly proving itself to be even more. Even in its first few hours, this game has proven that it’s more than capable of carrying on the dream of the '90s JRPG, while still doing enough new things with it to keep the experience fresh. This is a game that’s all killer, no filler, and proves that Square Enix still has the talent to remain the highest authority on RPG production. Although the official Final Fantasy XVI may still be quite a few years off, we firmly believe that it’s already arrived under a different name.

All this time I thought Octopath Traveller was a new mode in Splatoon 2 that GG was playing.

I've read a few previews of Octopath, and they seem to agree that it's really not THAT similar to FF6, other than the art style maybe. I think it was some Kotaku guy who said it's more like the Saga series than anything else. People all like it, but they also say it has some issues. It'll probably be a fun but flawed old school RPG.