BloodyTears92
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[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Apr 10, 2019 7:33:07 GMT -6
Man, the improvements are so evident with regards to the visuals, and I cant stress how necessary that was.
Now when I say that I dnt mean it in a "games should always try to look cutting edge" or something, art style trumps graphical horsepower every time, but if the game had looked *less* impressive than the trailers on release, we'd have another Dark Souls 2/Watch Dogs scenario where the game gets raked over the coals for lying to consumers about its actual visual quality and it would be a disaster if the game were to get wrapped up in another controversy, its had its fair share with the delays and platform cancellations.
But yes, game looks fantastic, any misgivings the previous demo left me with are pretty much gone, and I only say pretty much because I do agree some things still need a little work like adding physics to the hammock platforms in the Minerva etc. Though her jumping through platforms isnt an issue, every single -vania game ignored having a "climbing" animation and its almost certainly for the sake of keeping the pace of exploration smooth and steady. I for one would get very, very annoyed if they felt the need to add some kind of physical interaction with the platforms considering just how much jumping and platforming occurs in any IGAvania.
And after typing out and deleting a big rant, I'll just say I firmly agree with Ciel. If IGA and crew have a nice set level they want the game to be experienced at, aka "Normal", and they decide not to add an easy mode, and it proves to be too hard for some people, those people need to admit the game isnt for them and play something else instead of demand the team add an "easy mode" post launch like some people demanded of games like Dark Souls or Cuphead. Games nearly always turn out better by finding an audience and sticking with it instead of trying to appeal to as many people as possible. Is that gatekeeping? Im willing to admit it probably is, but if the easiest mode is "normal" and someone cant beat the game on normal and complains there isnt an easier mode, I'll be happy to stand at that gate and suggest they go play something else instead of demand the devs cater to them. My opinion was the same when FROMsoft never added an easy mode to the Soulsbourne games, when Cuphead stayed the course, and its why I was so damn happy Fire Emblem Echoes removed the Casual modes from earlier 3DS titles.
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BloodyTears92
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[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Mar 28, 2019 18:59:24 GMT -6
Super glad this is here, shortcuts and weapon sets are always nice!
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BloodyTears92
Loyal Familiar
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Dec 7, 2015 22:34:49 GMT -6
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Mar 24, 2019 20:42:02 GMT -6
Two of my biggest are already out, being Resident Evil 2 and Devil May Cry 5. But someday I'll have the money to buy a Switch and my hype for Fire Emblem 3 Houses and Bayonetta 3 can be unleashed too.
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BloodyTears92
Loyal Familiar
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Mar 17, 2019 1:21:30 GMT -6
I'd expect somewhere between 10-15. I also want them to be more useful than most of the previous familiars besides the Innocent Devils of CoD. Hell one of the biggest reasons I adore that game is its focus entirely on familiars. There were a lot of great designs and most of them felt useful. Birds were by far my favorite with the two dragons and the phoenix, even the Crow was a favorite since I just love crow calls and the zombie crystal Crow looked so cool; but Corpsey and the mages were great too.
I'd love it if they learned abilities, like if the fairy learned healing spells and buff spells or something but I HIGHLY doubt this is the case. I expect the other style: more or less a moving hitbox that may or may not be useful.
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BloodyTears92
Loyal Familiar
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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Jan 28, 2020 3:45:53 GMT -6
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BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Feb 28, 2019 18:05:14 GMT -6
Oh wow, the visual improvements are massive. Bloodless looks so much better with the richer red and makeup. Everything looks so much richer in terms of color, the improved physics with Miriam's hair and the environment will help a great deal with immersion, and I feel like the "Invert" shard was a fantastic way to please the SOTN fans that have been begging for that gimmick to come back for 20 years without actually just copying the gimmick wholesale. Overall, a fantastic update and almost all the concerns I've had building these last few months have been soothed.
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BloodyTears92
Loyal Familiar
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Dec 7, 2015 22:34:49 GMT -6
December 2015
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Feb 14, 2019 7:10:24 GMT -6
*I'll fix that, been here for years and I always thought you were a she, sorry :3*
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BloodyTears92
Loyal Familiar
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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Jan 28, 2020 3:45:53 GMT -6
438
BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Dec 7, 2015 22:34:49 GMT -6
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Feb 14, 2019 6:38:35 GMT -6
I was waiting on that classic Pure Miriam breakdown post and he never dissapoints! That sword of light looks badass, I cant wait to see some of the other weapons, its clear there are a ton.
EDIT: I also want to say, Mana's box art is incredible! I was already excited since I backed the game high enough to get the Ayame Kojima box art as well but wow, I did not expect the team would actually let Mana do the main art herself. Well done!
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BloodyTears92
Loyal Familiar
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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Jan 28, 2020 3:45:53 GMT -6
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BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Dec 7, 2015 22:34:49 GMT -6
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Feb 13, 2019 20:15:57 GMT -6
His hope: Restored. His smile and optimism: Returned.
At last a release window! And pretty soon to boot! The game's visuals have really picked up from the demo in nearly every way. The colors are vibrant with good contrast. I also loved the array of weapons abilities on display, like the flaming metal boots that turn Miriam into DMC5 Dante with Balrog, and including the speed boost power to finally shut up people complaining that Miriam isnt faster. Also, the customization features are deeper than I expected with features down to changing her hair and skin color, i figured it would mostly be costume pieces and accessories.
All in all I'm thrilled!
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BloodyTears92
Loyal Familiar
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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Jan 28, 2020 3:45:53 GMT -6
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BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Dec 7, 2015 22:34:49 GMT -6
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Feb 3, 2019 7:34:23 GMT -6
The shard system in action is cool to see, but I will weigh in on the visuals ,which I think look much better. I firmly stand by making the game pop with color over toning down the color to make it gloomier and darker.
Then again "its too colorful" vs "Its to drab and boring" has been raging since the alpha shader picks we got over two years ago, and it will likely never make everyone happy.
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BloodyTears92
Loyal Familiar
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Dec 7, 2015 22:34:49 GMT -6
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Jan 17, 2019 6:02:23 GMT -6
I'm still quite excited, but its also easy to see why the project has been getting a bad rep lately. Multiple platforms have been dropped, publishers and developers have come and gone, some poor backers arent getting refunds, the game has been delayed twice etc. Now we know the first delay came from the fact the project was dramatically more successful than what was pitched, and the second delay was to address the many concerns from the beta backer demo. That part is actually very encouraging.
But when my mother or friends ask "Whatever in the world happened to that game you backed ages ago, you backed it for a lot, are you ever going to get it? " its hard not to think about how I've been waiting on the game for over 3 years now and how even if its good, will it live up to that many years of anticipation? For me the main thing that made me flinch was the very noticeable visual downgrade the demo had compared to the trailers with the bright, almost hand-drawn visuals replaced with very muddy, blurry textures It brought up so many memories of so many games that did the same thing. Watch Dogs, Dark Souls 2, No Man's Sky, the list goes on. Companies lie to us constantly about games to sell them.
And while I know that is being addressed it doesn't change the fact that when that was noticed I felt very scared that IGA and the team we trust were not going to be able to deliver and get raked over the coals for it. Wont lie, I backed high enough to get my stuff signed by IGA and Yamane-san because the project and its success brought me a lot of joy in a very, very dark point of my life. So I believed in the project and the people behind it, still do very much so, but the setbacks, sometimes its hard not to think about how awful I'm going to feel if this doesnt pull through.
And yes I know these setbacks are common, we just dont see them, But I cant lie and pretend I haven't been nervous.
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BloodyTears92
Loyal Familiar
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Dec 27, 2018 20:07:24 GMT -6
I had a feeling Wayforward were doing more than bug crushing, helping to refine the game in other ways. Still, this is good news, if asset creation is mostly done and they're just fine-tuning things now I hope this points towards a Q1-Q2 release.
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BloodyTears92
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[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Nov 29, 2018 17:33:13 GMT -6
Yeah, Wayforward being in any capacity is pretty great news. Though I too would be willing to bet they're doing more than help find and fix bugs.
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BloodyTears92
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[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Oct 26, 2018 6:56:08 GMT -6
First off, seeing things like this is interesting, watching some ideas get heavily altered or scrapped altogether is nice because sometimes you have this great idea only to realize its impractical or impossible. As a fledgling writer I can't tell you how many times I *thought* I had a cool idea only to realize it doesn't work, or that to make it work I'd have to pull nonsense out of thin air to try and justify it etc. I think IGA was right on the money dropping the multi-limb drops and alchemy power system for a simpler, easier to program and understand shard system even if some reviewers will deride it being a copy of the Sorrow games.
I do really wonder if, provided this game comes out a success, IGA will revisit the globetrotting idea for a sequel. I loved it when games like Bloodlines and Curse of Darkness got away from the Castles for a wide array of different, but still Gothic, locales. Like ,imagine if the Stinger for a sequel is Zangetsu learning of a Demon outbreak back in Japan and he brings Miriam to help him fight evil in Meiji Era Japan! But for the record, making the 'IGA IS BACK' game a giant maze castle was absolutely the right call.
Also, just to offer some counterpoints for discussion, I don't think a 'choose a gender' lead character would work well in this kind of game since it has to be done in one of two ways: either the character has no voice acting at all, or there have to be at least 2 voice actors for every piece of spoken dialogue. Games like Dark Souls work because the character never speaks, outside a handful of grunts in combat, or the total opposite is to splurge like Dragon Age 3 did and hire 2 VA's per gender and pay 4 people to read thousands of lines of dialogue. For a midrange game like BS, picking a gender and hiring one actor was probably the best choice since they clearly wanted voice acting in the cutscenes as opposed to pure reading.
I'd also argue that desiring more female leads in games isn't a temporary fad. Going back to the Destructoid interview I have, IGA mentions that not only does he think male gamers are different nowadays and find female leads more compelling, but he also recognized that the number of women actually playing games shouldn't be ignored and that just as men tend to want to play male characters, women might also, you know, want to play as a woman too. Preserving the creator's vision is important, but I don't think its a bad thing if a creator decides they may be going about things wrong. The 'original' vision isnt always the 'best' vision.
I hardly think Miriam being the lead over Zangetsu has hurt the game. In all the years I've been reading articles and comments etc. I can count on one hand the number of times I've actually seen someone complain the lead is a girl. Besides, I know I wasn't the only one who finds it rather laughable that the only lady belmont in the old franchise was removed from cannon. You're gonna tell me that over the course of a millennium that not even ONCE 'ol Drac's ressurection was at hand and the only Belmont on hand was a woman?
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BloodyTears92
Loyal Familiar
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Oct 25, 2018 17:53:11 GMT -6
the before and after on Gebel is so eye-opening on why the game actually does need the additional time to clean up.
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BloodyTears92
Loyal Familiar
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Oct 23, 2018 4:46:50 GMT -6
Its funny, I've been getting back into playing board games with groups of friends, started back when Totalbiscuit (rip) was also talking about a renaissance of board games. I've personally nabbed the Bloodborne card game, which is a ton of fun, and other groups of friends have games like Sherriff of Nottingham or Smash Up.
So many left board games behind because we 'grew up' and now we're going back to them because board and card games are awesome XD
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BloodyTears92
Loyal Familiar
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Oct 22, 2018 18:55:59 GMT -6
Considering it was a nice feature in Ecclesia (and I think the other DS Castlevania games as well) I'd actually be a tad dissapointed it Bloodstained 'didn't' have equipment sets to swap on the fly.
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BloodyTears92
Loyal Familiar
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Dec 7, 2015 22:34:49 GMT -6
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Oct 22, 2018 18:54:21 GMT -6
It's always fun to listen to you and Ben on Halloween! Also, those teases at the end, so mean!
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BloodyTears92
Loyal Familiar
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Oct 15, 2018 6:15:54 GMT -6
I've still got DxC for the PSP so while I don't persnally need it, I'm happy this exists. My best friend has wanted to play SotN for ages but he hates handhelds and his laptop cant emulate PS1 games properly (and he likes to play things legally when possible anyway) so this is perfect.
The only worry is that this might turn out like the Silent Hill HD Collection. If someone will screw up something as simple as a port, you can bet Konami will find a way.
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BloodyTears92
Loyal Familiar
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Dec 7, 2015 22:34:49 GMT -6
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Sept 27, 2018 18:02:23 GMT -6
I always look forward to Ben's participation in the BCB! Lets see these questions:
1. Favorite Indie Metroidvania: I'm going to go with Salt and Sanctuary here. The Soulsbourne series always shared a lot of DNA with the Metroidvania formula (and not for nothing are they often called 'the best 3D Castlevania games, especially Bloodborne) so when you make a 2D Souls game you've basically made a Castlevania game XD But that isnt giving the studio enough credit since they did it *well*. The envirnment art style is great, there are a lot of fun ways to build your character, its quite atmospheric and suitably challenging.
2. I feel the bevy of HD remakes and remasters is a double edged sword. It betrays a lack of creativity in modern game publishing to keep throwing the same games out, but at the same time, how many great games are nearly impossible to play today because they never got ported forward? The industry is generally BAD at archival. So frankly I think its acceptable, since I'd rather games like Resident Evil Remake or Dark Souls get ported over and over again than leave them behind on their home systems.
3. If I could remake one game from the Ps2 era back, I'd love Capcom to redo Devil May Cry 2. The character designs were solid, and the soundtrack has a number of good tunes. My opinion of the game softened a bit when it came out poor Itsuno was brought on a mere 6 months before the deadline to fix it with barely a skeleton of a game to work with. The fact the game even works is a miracle. But if they could redo it, I think Lucia is lost potential and in particular could shine in a proper DMC combat system, the story and ESPECIALLY Dante's character could be brought more in line with the rest of the games.
A runner up would probably be Dino Crisis, but I honestly feel like Capcom should simply bundle Dino Crisis 1&2 and sell them on the Playstation store just to test the waters and bring the series back if the bundle sold well. "Resident Evil, but its DINOSAURS" was always such a fun idea.
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BloodyTears92
Loyal Familiar
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
Posts: 342
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BloodyTears92
[TI1]It is time for darkness. It is a blood banquet.
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Dec 7, 2015 22:34:49 GMT -6
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Post by BloodyTears92 on Aug 21, 2018 16:28:04 GMT -6
I do agree with a sentiment, even if it is a cold one, I'm actually more confident that the visual quality and the speed of development will improve now that the team doesn't have to worry about the Vita port. Especially since the whole "we'll get Unreal to work on the Vita" is now off the table as well. Like the Wii U it seemed like a good idea at the time of the KS, but also like the Wii U, the platform never performed all THAT well and Sony itself never seemed to give much of a damn about the thing.
As much as I feel for the people who wanted the game on Vita and especially those backers who's only option was a Vita (granted I don't think there are *that* many people who own Vitas that dont also own at least ONE other platform for the game, but again, I feel for those people) the game will, to be blunt, be better off hacking the Vita port from the picture. Focusing on Ps4, Xbone, Switch and PC will just allow for a better, more consistent product.
EDIT: and just one last note, I do think its really nasty if backers ask for refunds from high tiers and only get the money for the game itself. Being out potentially hundreds of dollars for a game you can't even play is a bad deal no matter what, even with all the KS caveats of "its not a pre-order" etc.
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