Google has seen its fair share of problems recently with its premiere streaming service, Stadia. Between studios shutting down and lawsuits over “greatly exaggerated claims”, a small bright spot in the clouds has appeared in the form of a handful of games coming to the platform.
When it launched in November of 2019, Google Stadia promised to free gamers from the constraints of console gaming, directly streaming games onto any device with a screen. While most outlets agreed the execution largely worked as advertised, Stadia suffered from the same launch problems as traditional home consoles: a lack of new games.
Stadia has taken a small step in the right direction with the recent edition of four popular JRPGs. These titles are Ys 8: Lacrimosa of Dana, Ys 9: Monstrum Nox, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 3, and The Legend of Heroes, Trails of Cold Steel 4. All four of these games received generally favorable reviews, with Ys 8 often recognized as one of the best modern JRPGs available. For those unfamiliar with these two series, here’s a quick summary:
Ys is a real-time JRPG series with a complex timeline that spans over nine games. The games feature a party system that lets the player directly control their party members, as well as given them commands in combat. The latest game – Monstrum Nox – was originally released in Japan way back in 2019, but was only recently released in other regions in the first half of February 2021. Ys 9 is currently only available on the PS4, though PC and Switch ports are slated for release in mid-2021.
Unlike the real-time combat of the Ys series, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel uses a traditional turn-based system with many layers to facilitate strategic choices. While The Legend of Heroes has been around since the late 1980’s, the Trails saga has received entries since 2004. The latest game – Trails of Cold Steel 4 – was released in 2018 in Japan, 2020 everywhere else. This is the final game in the Cold Steel subseries, and while already available on the PS4, Trails of Cold Steel 4 is also expected to release on PC and Switch in the Spring of 2021.
The recent news of Google’s first-party game studios closing left many in the industry wondering if Stadia was on the way out, but the has been slowly adding more games to the service over the last few months. Big-name titles such as Resident Evil Village are also slated to release on the platform, so hope endures for the ambitious streaming platform.