Electronic Arts continues to expand its Origin Access service with some pretty strong titles across various genres. The publisher announced that this month would see Tropico 5, Opus Magnum, Project Highrise, Deponia, Tharsis, Cosmic Star Heroine, Slime-san Superslim Edition, and Sudden Strike 4 entering the Vault. Don’t worry – there are some decent standouts in that bunch.

Tropico 5, for instance, is a decent city-building management title from Haemimont Games (currently working on Surviving Mars). With Tropico 6 coming up, it’s a good way to get into the series. Zachtronics’ Opus Magnum is a puzzle game that focuses on “programming” and discovering multiple solutions for different puzzles. It’s crazy addictive in a good way, though not for the less puzzle-oriented players.

Cosmic Star Heroine is a pretty good turn-based RPG title from Zeboyd Games that’s very underrated. Daedalic’s Deponia is an excellent point and click adventure title with good writing (especially for those who like comedies). Overall, with a growing collection of titles, early access demos, and deals on EA digital content, Origin Access Basic continues to be a good deal at $5 per month and $30 per year.

The Nintendo Switch has become a haven for indie games, and multiple indie game developers have gushed about how much support they have received from not just the Switch community of players, who buy their games in droves, but also Nintendo, who apparently go the extra mile in being accommodating for them.

However, not all developers have a happy story when it comes to working with the Big N. For instance, take Zeboyd Games, who released Cosmic Star Heroine, an indie turn based RPG, for the Switch recently (previously, it had been launched for PS4, PS Vita, and PC). Speaking on ResetEra, Zeboyd’s Robert Boyd explained that he was frustrated at the lack of support he and his game had received from Nintendo.

“We got an okay number of reviews, but yeah, we couldn’t get Nintendo to mention the game anywhere,” he said. “Real shame since even a retweet from Nintendo probably would have given us a big boost in visibility. I get that it was just a port, but after spending months getting stonewalled by Nintendo when we were trying to get permission to release on Switch, going “fine, we’ll play by your rules” and getting a publisher so we could get approved, and still getting ignored by Nintendo when the game was done and set to release is highly frustrating.”

He talks about how the Switch community, which clearly enjoys turn based RPGs (going by the success of Octopath Traveler) and might have enjoyed Cosmic Star Heroine, if only they knew the game existed.

“It’s a good game and I daresay a good percent of those million+ people who bought Octopath Traveler would like our game if they knew it existed,” Boyd said. “We couldn’t even get somebody to fix our store page before launch (which never indicated that the game had a preorder/early purchase sale and until just recently, didn’t even have our trailer on it) and the page went up about a month before launch so there was plenty of time.”

It’s disheartening to hear that Nintendo did not support Boyd with his game. Yes, in general, they seem to be very good at working with developers now, but they shouldn’t let games like Cosmic Star Heroine slip under the cracks, either. As Boyd notes, the game might have done better if only people actually knew it existed.

Zeboyd Games’ Cosmic Star Heroine is finally available on PC via Steam. Funded through Kickstarter and from the team that brought us Cthulhu Saves The World, Cosmic Star Heroine is a 16-bit RPG throwback which promises the “bst of classic and modern RPGs”.

The game sees you playing as Alyssa L’Salle, an agent at the Agency of Peace & Intelligence, who discovers a dangerous conspiracy. This prompts her to go rogue to save the galaxy. Along with seamless battles and animated cutscenes reminiscent of the Sega CD era, Cosmic Star Heroine features a soundtrack from HyperDuck SoundWorks (of Dust: An Elysian Tail fame).

And if the unique turn-based combat or 100 minutes of music isn’t enough to draw you in, you’ll be able recruit other agents to your spaceship and increase the size of your home base.

If you want to pick up Cosmic Star Heroine on PC, you should act quick. The Steam release is currently 20 percent off till April 18th.

Remember Cosmic Star Heroine, the old-school RPG from Zeboyd Games of Cthulhu Saves The World fame? It seems that the release date is closer than we think. This is according to Limited Run Games co-founder Josh Fairhurst who attended GDC 2017 and spotted what seemed to be a release date – April 11th – for the RPG.

He noted that, “I didn’t realize Cosmic Star Heroine was coming so soon! I need to keep better track of these things.” Thus far the developer hasn’t officially announced as much though so take this with a grain of salt.

Cosmic Star Heroine promises to combine all the things that defined old-school RPGs including a 16-bit art-style, a soundtrack from HyperDuck Soundworks (of Dust: An Elysian Tail fame), seamless battles, animated cutscenes and turn-based combat among other things.

What are your thoughts on the April release date? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks.

Ravi Sinha: Alyssa L’Salle vs. The World. Is that the default storyline for Cosmic Star Heroine? Because if so, it would be amazing.

Robert Boyd: Alyssa L’Salle vs. EVERYTHING was actually the internal name I had for the premise early on. 🙂

Ravi Sinha: Japanese RPGs nowadays all seem to apply some sort of active-time based hook to their battles. Very few titles have bothered going with the traditional turn-based approach. What was the motivation for building Cosmic Star Heroine as a turn-based JRPG, especially one which doesn’t cut to a battle screen?

Robert Boyd: Turn-based was simple – it’s my favorite style of RPG and since most RPGs these days are Action/RPG hybrids, it makes our games stand out. Not using a traditional separate battle screen was a harder choice since it meant more work for us, but in the end, we felt that the increased consistency, reduced downtime, and possibility to have a location-focused battles was worth the extra effort.

"We watched and rewatched a LOT of cutscenes from that era to try to get a feel for that particular style of animation (Lunar & Ys being the main series)."

Ravi Sinha: The spy headquarters mechanic sounds intriguing. How will it work? Will recruits become party members?

Robert Boyd: Recruited base members won’t be active party members, however they will help to add features to your base, go on sub-missions, and support your main characters (giving them various bonuses in combat). We decided to go this route since we wanted to make sure that each playable party member was well developed, from a gameplay, animation, and story perspective, and we just don’t have the resources to have several dozen party members like the Suikoden series often has.

Ravi Sinha: Tell us about how you went about creating the Sega CD-esque cut scenes and what other retro-esque elements we can look forward to in the main game.

Robert Boyd: We watched and rewatched a LOT of cutscenes from that era to try to get a feel for that particular style of animation (Lunar & Ys being the main series). Then we write up descriptions of each scene that we want to include, draw the assets, and then actually animate them, along with any special effects or camera movement we might want. We got a lot of help early on from fellow developer, Dean Dodrill (Dust: An Elysian Tail) who has a strong background in animation & movie making.

Ravi Sinha: What can you tell us about the various battle mechanics in the game, such as the Transformations, Chained Attacks, etc.? As for the cast of characters, were there any specific properties that helped inspired the various colourful faces?

Robert Boyd: One thing we’ve been experimenting with is the use of a MP-less battle system. Without the usual balancing of MP, we’ve had to do other things to encourage the player to not just spam the same ability over and over again, like Hyper (special bonus every X turns), Style (abilities become more powerful if you use a variety), and Enhancers (modifiers you can equip to abilities to change their function or increase their power).

"Yes, Cosmic Star Heroine should support cross-buy & cross-save functionality. There should also be Remote Play functionality though you'd probably just want to play the native Vita version."

Ravi Sinha: Along with Araenu, Rhomu and Nulup, will there be any other planets in the Zevanii Star System? Will there be any means of exploring the universe, perhaps with a customizable star ship?

Robert Boyd: The vast majority of the game will take place on those three planets, but there will be a handful of events that take place elsewhere.

Ravi Sinha: Will the spy headquarters work in a manner similar to XCOM: Enemy Within, in which you can send off allies and agents to complete different missions while you tackle your own objectives? What kind of unique hooks and benefits will it offer the player?

Robert Boyd: Yes, we will probably have something like this in place where you can send secondary characters off on missions for rewards while you’re busy with the main game.

Ravi Sinha: Will Cosmic Star Heroine support cross-buy/cross-save functionality between the Vita and PS4? Will there also be Remote Play functionality thrown into the mix?

Robert Boyd: Yes, Cosmic Star Heroine should support cross-buy & cross-save functionality. There should also be Remote Play functionality though you’d probably just want to play the native Vita version.

"The game runs at a native resolution of 480x270 (thus allowing easy scaling to 1080p). Won't know fps until the game is done but since we aren't exactly straining these systems, I'm guessing it'll be 60fps."

Ravi Sinha: Ravi Sinha: When this year can expect the game to release? Also, what kind of play-time can we look forward to taking all the content into account?

Robert Boyd: We’re shooting for end of the year for release. Guessing between 15-25 hours of playtime depending on playstyle, difficulty chosen, and how much optional content you complete.

Ravi Sinha: So, this game is coming to Xbox One as well, in addition to PS4, PS Vita, PC, and Mac. Any chance we see this come to additional platforms? Maybe Wii U or Linux?

Robert Boyd: Right now, we’re planning on releasing the game on PS4, Vita, XBO, PC, Mac, and Linux. No plans for other platforms at this time but you never know.

Ravi Sinha: Will you be able to confirm the resolution and fps of the PS4 and Xbox One versions?

Robert Boyd: The game runs at a native resolution of 480×270 (thus allowing easy scaling to 1080p). Won’t know fps until the game is done but since we aren’t exactly straining these systems, I’m guessing it’ll be 60fps.