NIS America has delayed htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary for PC again.
The game has been delayed to May 18th, forgoing its planned April 25th release date. NIS America originally planned to release the game for PC on March 14th (this is its second delay).
The reasoning behind the delay comes from some issues users ran into with the PC version’s closed beta:
- 60 FPS was causing gameplay to react incorrectly to how the game was intended to be played.
- Framerate drops when switching to Umbra mode.
You can find our review for htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary for PS Vita here.
Heavily Augmented
April 24, 2016 at 10:51 pm“60 FPS was causing gameplay to react incorrectly to how the game was intended to be played.”
I wish more developers in general would stop tying the framerate of their game to the speed of the game itself so issues like this could be averted.
Karo
April 24, 2016 at 11:26 pmAt least it looks like they’re trying to fix it rather than cap the game at 30.
Dewey Defeats Truman
April 24, 2016 at 11:31 pmconsidering these are the same people that caused people’s PS3s to fucking melt I don’t think asking for common sense in such a situation is likely to actually pan out.
Kiririn51
April 25, 2016 at 2:28 amIt largely depends on the engine and how development began in the first place.
catazxy
April 25, 2016 at 2:38 amWell, pc gamers appreciate 60fpg games, so I’m glad they try….
Smug
April 25, 2016 at 2:58 am30fps or 60fps is not going to change much considering you dont control directly the character and she moves at a slow pace
DynastyStar
April 25, 2016 at 3:17 amThe name of the game is still retarded. Why don’t they just stick to “The Firefly Diary” or something else? Why does it have to have the htoL#NiQ in it?
Smug
April 25, 2016 at 4:38 amIt’s some kind of acronym for Hotaru no Nikki which literally mean “Firefly Diary”.
It has also something to do with the story itself.
Mr0303
April 25, 2016 at 5:24 amIt is a good thing that they are trying to improve the game, but if they don’t fix any of the gameplay issues it will not be any better on PC.
catazxy
April 25, 2016 at 6:36 amif timing is something important in this game, then 60fps will double the accuracy of that
Smug
April 25, 2016 at 7:44 amAgain, you dont control the character directly and the deer girl is rather slow, so you will gain no real advantage with 60fps
Nagato
April 25, 2016 at 7:45 amMhm, definitely a commendable course of action; if stuck at 30fps for the official release, I would’ve been forced to avoid this game. Now, however, there’s this news that NISA’s dedicated to performance, so I feel much more confident about this being a quality product.
Nagato
April 25, 2016 at 7:47 amDedicated handhelds slowly going the way of the dinosaur will be a decent step in avoiding such issues in future games, thankfully.
Smug
April 25, 2016 at 8:20 amIt wont make a difference again
Smug
April 25, 2016 at 8:27 am“if stuck at 30fps for the official release, I would’ve been forced to avoid this game.”
You’re showing again your plebian attitude regardless of how the game actually work in the first place.
At least NISA plan to fix the framerate issue on PC when in shadow mode.
Nagato
April 25, 2016 at 8:38 amPlease do elaborate on how I’m all sorts of awful for having standards and keeping to them~
Smug
April 25, 2016 at 8:53 amActual standards would be good optimization (such as working on toasters – unlike what the recommended configuration list was implying with the GTX260 for a 2D platformer) and steady framerate.
Refusing to play a platformer game where you dont even control the character directly and move at snail’s pace no matter what, just because it wasnt in “muh 60fps” is just making you look like an elitist idiot.
Eldhin Hellknight
April 25, 2016 at 9:26 amActually, 60fps are unnecesary in this game.
Chocolate ISISCream
April 25, 2016 at 10:32 amCan’t wait to see another article regarding yet another delay. Get fucked.
Joan Tesh
April 25, 2016 at 11:25 amHoT#bbQ
that name…that stupid name. This is one of the rare instances I fully support ‘localization’.
I get it, Japan. The English language is a *niche* language over there and adding random letters like R,S, and Z to the title of your anime makes it seem interesting in Japanese.
Over here though HoT#bbQ looks stupid and people will no buy.
Joan Tesh
April 25, 2016 at 11:30 amUnfortunately the average OCD person doesn’t know that and regurgitates “60fps or bust” on every message board. So publishers bend over backwards for these dummies.
60fps or higher = needed for twitch reflexes
24fps=traditional cinema
in between 24fps-60fps = animation
Joan Tesh
April 25, 2016 at 11:37 ambasically, you have no idea what you’re talking about and regurgitating memes.
Unless you’re half squirrel I highly doubt you can tell if a puzzle platformer runs at 30fps, 40fps or 60fps with the naked eye.
DizzyGear
April 25, 2016 at 1:56 pmFor once Smug’s Smugness is appropriate. The game is very slow paced. 30 or 60 FPS would not make a sliver of difference.
Its about as stupid as refusing to buy a visual novel because its locked at 30FPS.
DizzyGear
April 25, 2016 at 1:58 pmThe game forcibly shuts off the Vita’s Wifi to free up horsepower when you launch the game. This should tell you something on how its optimized.
DizzyGear
April 25, 2016 at 2:06 pmThe Japanese surname is Hotaru no Nikki (Meaning, you guessed it, The Firefly Diary). Guess how you are supposed to pronounce htoL#NiQ in Japanese?
The odd title actually will make sense in context somewhere late in the game.
Adohleas
April 25, 2016 at 2:51 pmVideo games ≠ cinema.
Higher pixel velocity will cause distortions even to a static image that is moving, for example an image that isn’t animated but moves across the screen. With higher FPS the distortion becomes less noticeable.
Even 60 fps can get distortions to an image on a slow pace 2D game depending on how fast the image travels. For example lets say they made a meteor fall, generally that wont be traveling slow so the image can easily become distorted. Also having a higher resolution will distort the image further due to higher pixel density which then increases the importance of fps further.
First person shooter games are often the most noticeable due to them having a camera which when rotated, speeds up the pixel velocity. Even so there are many scenarios where a 2D slow paced game will get some distortion.
In the end, FPS doesn’t just affect twitch reflexes due to input lag. But image distortion due to pixel velocity which gets distorted depending on how many pixels are in the image and how fast it travels.
Eldhin Hellknight
April 25, 2016 at 3:20 pmYeah, it’s pretty sad. Hopefully, everything will work fine, because this game is beautiful.
Eldhin Hellknight
April 25, 2016 at 3:27 pmThis is not a fps game, not even half the speed of Súper Mario bros. It will be actually hard to find any difference between 30 and 60fps since it’s a slow paced game
scemar
April 25, 2016 at 4:24 pmIdeally at some point they’ll stop doing that.
But it seems tying those things together is something some devs have been used to doing, and with no reason not to do it, they just stuck around doing it.
scemar
April 25, 2016 at 4:25 pmGood move I’d say, the game wasn’t really depending on a temporary wave of hype to succeed, so a delay if short won’t really hinder it.
And on the other hand, being able to boast the best specs on PC, without issues, is a huge benefit to any game that guarantees a lot of nice word of mouth advertising.
Kiririn51
April 26, 2016 at 10:48 amI was talking about games being locked to 30fps, not really about performance so bad it can shut off your console.
DynastyStar
April 27, 2016 at 12:05 amWell, I still think “The Firefly Diary” would’ve been enough.