Tothoro

Does anyone have any questions about our update I can answer?

A couple I've seen elsewhere (it might be good to put these in an FAQ somewhere):

• Does this mean trading cards are gone for good, or will they still be produced/purchasable separately?
• Is anything else going to replace the trading cards? Are the newsletter digest things coming back, stickers, etc.?
• For the collector's items "without complication" - what does that entail exactly? Steelbooks, acrylics, art cards?
• For the collector's boxes, are there any existing games that use this box or a "prototype" of this box?

From me personally: Given the current production/shipping backlog and the flow of new releases, when do you expect the improvements to have a visible impact on queue and turnaround time? Q3? 2024? Later?

Update on some of LRG's "shipping initiatives": https://limitedrunga...nitiatives-2023

Some of this feels like really basic, common sense stuff that they should've been doing all along (like having everything needed for manufacture when pre-orders end) but I guess better late than never? Credit where credit's due, the attempt at increased transparency is nice. I just wasn't aware their logistics processes were so immature.

Overall I remain cynical, though. Their 2021 update identified a lot of the same issues and nothing noticeably improved in the following two years.

One thing to keep in mind about Rightstuf is that they've always had a huge, overaching emphasis on customer experience and customer satisfaction. The founder called it "Super Service" and spoke about it in detail in his retirement message from a few months ago:

I am a bit concerned about how the company will adapt to the Crunchyroll acquisition but they've always done right by me in my 7 or 8 years shopping with them. Recently they even started sending out reminder emails listing all of my open pre-orders. Great company altogether.

Unfortunately, I don't feel like that is a priority for LRG. In the early days, sure. Even up to the release of Celeste and the accompanying apology card, it felt like it. But it's been downhill since, and pretty much every piece of feedback falls on deaf ears. They don't even bother responding to the feedback channel in their own Discord anymore.

It's going to be pretty challenging to make a reliance argument on something that was barely confirmed to exist.  I certainly don't recall any of their public statements during the Fireside Chats where I believe this was mostly mentioned rising to that level of specificity and I feel pretty comfortable that this would be legally considered to be a gift just as the coin was.  I guess I could be convinced otherwise if they published some specifics outlining what the requirements were to qualify well in advance of the final vita titles being sold.   

I have no idea if it'll legally qualify as a gift (I am not a lawyer) but both Josh and Doug have talked about it in public settings. The first time it was mentioned it wasn't specified as Bird King, but it was noted as a free bonus game to thank people who have supported the company. That was an interview Josh gave in the 2017-2018 timeframe after some kind of presentation (maybe GDC or PAX?). I couldn't find the video from a quick search but I did find a string of tweets saying the same thing:

And here's their "main" account confirming it:

Either Doug or Josh mentioned on Discord that purchases from secondhand locations would still count toward the full set, but that was on the old AMA channel they nuked. There might be screenshots on Reddit, but Reddit's been shitting the bed the past several hours.

Our of curiosity, how does a longer wait result in more damage?  How does vita collectors getting over this and moving on help LRG?  I mean, I agree that they should probably just do it already, but I don't really see any upside to LRG of doing it now versus later as most Vita full setters that I know don't even collect limited stuff anymore and the free bonus game won't change that.  

Having to constantly keep an ear out for when/if/how the game will be available is pretty embittering. Imagine that something you want will be available in the future, with potential for it to only be available on a specific date, for a few hours, or if you checked your email at just the right time. I doubt anyone's seriously being kept up at night waiting for it or anything, but given the number of people who collect for the Vita there's definitely FOMO in the community.

As for how it helps LRG, it might win some goodwill with the community and get people to stop bugging them about it. It comes up a lot whenever Doug or Josh go on forums like this or Reddit. I know I'm an anecdote in the grander scheme of things, but it's the only reason I follow LRG/limprint socials as closely as I do because I don't want to miss whatever redemption window occurs. Beyond that, I've largely stopped buying from limited print publishers due to the state of the niche. I do still pick up some stuff from Amazon, but there are so many releases I have a hard time keeping up with what is/isn't some kind of limited print or distributed release anymore.

Since Doug is back, any updates on:

1. Bird King Vita, since there's been a copy in the wild for some time?
2. LRG EU (slated for "Q2")
3. "Signing less" or "making and shipping products faster"? Or just reducing the number of CEs?
4. Sharing sales numbers again?

I get that change takes time, but in addition to the myriad individual production/shipping delays some of this stuff has been hashed and rehashed for years without any real semblance of progress.

I was interested in a couple of the figures but it looks like free shipping doesn't work with some of those even after you hit the $100 mark ($60 for shipping to the States is rough ...)

Yeah, the free shipping is size and weight restricted. It's listed in the finer print somewhere, but usually not called out in their banners/promos. BBTS and Sideshow usually run similar sales and ship from the US, so keep an eye out there if you're looking for something specific.

Is it me or does Playasia deactivate coupons when they have these sales?  The box is not there at checkout on multiple devices each with a different web browser.  

Coupons are typically deactivated when you've got sale items in your cart. Want to say that started around 2019 or so? There have been a few occasions where it's been glitchy and let you use both but those are the exception and not the norm.

Remember when Signature Edition said "No 8-9 month wait here" for their edition of Shredder's Revenge?

Seems like they were giving LRG too much credit.

Those are my thoughts and I believe all the ports (Beseria, Symphonia, Zestiria) have fixes and should be applied for a much better experience. I will give Tales of Symphonia more time, but Zestiria likely goes on hold unless someone here really tells me it's one of their favorites.

Zestiria is generally panned within the community as the worst modern entry. The combat is clunky and often boils down to spamming Armitization, the dungeons are hit-or-miss with more missing, the main character is pretty bland, the equipment system is awful, and the story is a hot mess. It does have some of my favorite characters in the franchise and it's interesting to see the tie-ins to Berseria, but I have a hard time recommending when the pro/con is so skewed.

I still enjoyed it in spite of its shortcomings, but you can get most of the good and avoid most of the bad by watching a Let's Play. Unless someone's a big fan of the series/franchise, that's generally what I'd recommend.

In case anyone was hoping for a Bird King Vita update after Doug's last PR tour, here you go:

Between the games being a meme in and of themselves and LRG being at the helm I can't really say I expected much. It's got save states and that's about the extent of what I expected. Any issues with the gameplay? Framerate, crashes, etc.?

But at least they took the time to shove in their own branding with two different LRG borders. Spending the time on the important things, as ever.

Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon are both excellent JRPGs, I'd highly recommend them. Lost Odyssey has a phenomenal story and Blue Dragon is JRPG comfort food a la Dragon Quest. Kind of bummed that Mistwalker's been so quiet and that Fantasian is stranded on Apple Arcade.

The Agarest War series is also on PS3 (though Agarest 1 is digital-only in the US). It's an okay SRPG series. It doesn't compare to Tactics Ogre, Fire Emblem, and so on. But it is a niche genre and if you're hungry for something relatively competent it can probably scratch that itch.

Infinite Undiscovery was the most middle-of-the-road game I've ever played. I didn't hate it, I didn't love it. The plot twists were predictable (obnoxiously so in some cases) and it takes multiple long playthroughs to get the true ending so I gave up after a while.

Spectral Force 3, Operation Darkness, Magna Carta 2, and Culdcept Saga are other notable 360-only JRPGs or JRPG-adjacent games that I never got around to playing before I bailed and moved to the PS ecosystem. No clue what's available digitally or even BC, but I still have my physical copies and a 360 laying around somewhere.

I don't think it's just physical games that people aren't buying on Xbox. They're steering people from digital purchases, too. If you try to buy a game for $60 that's on GamePass, they'll give you a prompt for GP when you try to buy it.

It's a phenomenal deal for the consumer, honestly. I wish something like that existed when I was a kid. But I do worry about the impacts it will have on the industry. It trains people not to buy games and the smaller developers will almost certainly be hit hardest by that. Not to say that there aren't benefits to it as well (discoverability being a big one), but I'd hate to see another mobile game-esque race to the bottom with console gaming.

As far as Xbox games go, Hi-Fi Rush seems like the most interesting exclusive in a while. Pit People was the last exclusive that really got my attention and that's been what, five years?

A temp staff-up is a good idea, but they would've needed to do it around the holidays for it to be impactful now. There's a decent amount of lead time associated with hiring, training, and onboarding. If they started trying to find people now they might have more bandwidth in March.

If only there was some way to know they'd get an influx of orders from the Blowout Sale or trying to fulfill Dead Space orders at launch. Too bad there's absolutely no historical data, warehouse velocity tracking, or pre-order count. (/s) Oh well:

It's interesting to see the split in opinions on Engage so far. I'm not a fan of the social links/slice-of-life stuff so 3H and Fates were a letdown for me (Fates also had an atrocious story). But a lot of the people who don't like the game seem to feel that way because of the lack of those elements. So I'm cautiously optimistic, personally, but I'm trying to finish up Crisis Core and the upcoming SoP DLC before diving in.