After 2 years of waiting for the home console version, was it worth it? Yeah, I'd say so.
I honestly wasn't that excited for Tekken 7. I wasn't even planning on buying it until it was much cheaper. I don't know what compelled me to pick it up, but I pre-ordered it and hoped that I wouldn't be disappointed with it like I did with Street Fighter V. I played through Story mode and was sadly disappointed with it. It wasn't as contrived as Street Fighter V's story mode, but I didn't really like the reasons that panned out the events that has happened. Heihachi threw Kazuya down the mountain because he knew he's survive the fall? WHAT? I think "trying to kill him" would've been a better reason as evil as it seemed. And I find it strange that Kazumi wants to kill Heihachi because "he'll be a threat to the world" AND YET STILL HAD A SON WITH HIM! Things don't add up and it bugs me.
As for the game itself, it's oddly refreshing and feels new to me. The core basis of Tekken is still there, but the addition of Rage Arts (a revenge super) is an interesting new mechanic. The cast of characters is much smaller than Tekken Tag Tournament 2, but has a decent variety of unique styles to choose from. The graphics are beautiful playing on my own monitor (didn't seem much different from TTT2 watching on stream). The music is some of my favorite in the series aside from TTT2's music. But what really got me into the game (and still has me playing the game) is Treasure Battle. It's a mode where you fight one opponent after another and the more wins in a row you get, the better your rewards. The only consequence of losing or quitting is breaking the bonus chain (and maybe your own pride). You can use the fight money you earned to unlock items and outfits to customize your characters, unlock images and videos from the gallery, or unlock banners and stuff for your profile card. It's the incentive that drive me to keep playing, the bonus chain that makes me want to get better, and the depth of each character that makes me want to learn another character so I can play some more treasure battle to unlock stuff for. This is what I was hoping for from Street Fighter V: being able to enjoy the game with single-player content and earn in-game currency to unlock new content to further enjoy my experience (this might still be possible with Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition update coming next month). Tekken 7 lacks content with modes and characters compared to its predecessors, and yet I'm so drawn to it. I think I've played Tekken 7 the most among the fighting games I bought this year.
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Let's talk about Sonic Forces [SPOILERS]
Sonic Forces was another game that had a lot to live up to because of how well Sonic Generations was received, how poorly Sonic's franchise has been perceived the years after it with Sonic Lost World and Sonic Boom, and how incredibly well Sonic Mania sold just a month before it.
Sonic Forces has a similar concept as Generations where you play as Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic along with the player's own original character (OC). Stages are separated between character types: Classic Sonic Stage, Modern Sonic Stage, OC Stage, and OC + Sonic Stage. Classic Sonic stages focuses on platforming. Modern Sonic stages focuses on going fast. OC stages focuses on semi-exploration and combat with wispons scattered throughout the level which are power-ups that allow you to get to hard to reach areas. OC + Sonic Stages are a mix of combat and going fast. Sonic Forces had a lot going for it and did some things right.
Pros of Sonic Forces:
+ Incredible graphics. The environment is so beautiful!
+ One of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in a Sonic game!
+ Making an original character is incredibly entertaining in of itself
+ GOTTA GO FAST! I adrenaline rush of the speed without losing control of Sonic
+ Some stages have some really nice paths and secrets to them
+ Creative ways to deal with enemies with the different wispons
+ They took out the lives system. There's really no point in it for this kind of game
+ Jump into a spin dash (from Sonic Mania) is a nice addition
But as I played the game, I started having problems with it.
Cons of Sonic Forces:
- An edgier than edgy story. Sonic is captured, Eggman takes over the world
- Builds the expectation that you'll get to fight all previous games' bosses (you don't)
- A lot of Classic Sonic stages are rather boring or have tedious platforming
- Most Classic Sonic music range from boring to "ugh" (EXCEPT FOR GHOST TOWN!)
- Levels are super short. They average between 1-2 minutes.
- Color blend too much. Dark enemies blended in with dark backgrounds, ugh!
- Unskippable in-game cinematics
- Lack of creative Boss fights. Metal Sonic, Infinity 1&3, and Final Boss fights are the same!
- As fun as creating original characters are, the options are limited
- Some stages lack variety in paths
- Super short game, even for $40. It's about 5 hours long leisurely.
Despite the game's shortcomings and flaws, I had so much fun playing the game. I kept creating new characters, kept improving my times, and tried to find all the secrets until I reached 20 hours of gameplay time. I loved going fast and trying to find ways to go even faster (but never faster than people on the leaderboards, holy smacks). But beyond anything, I really love the music so much. I think it's some of my favorite music I've listened to this entire year. I might revisit the game one day because of how much fun I had with it. I quickly played through it and deleted it because I was running out of hard drive space.
Seriously though, listen to the music:
Sonic Forces has a similar concept as Generations where you play as Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic along with the player's own original character (OC). Stages are separated between character types: Classic Sonic Stage, Modern Sonic Stage, OC Stage, and OC + Sonic Stage. Classic Sonic stages focuses on platforming. Modern Sonic stages focuses on going fast. OC stages focuses on semi-exploration and combat with wispons scattered throughout the level which are power-ups that allow you to get to hard to reach areas. OC + Sonic Stages are a mix of combat and going fast. Sonic Forces had a lot going for it and did some things right.
Pros of Sonic Forces:
+ Incredible graphics. The environment is so beautiful!
+ One of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in a Sonic game!
+ Making an original character is incredibly entertaining in of itself
+ GOTTA GO FAST! I adrenaline rush of the speed without losing control of Sonic
+ Some stages have some really nice paths and secrets to them
+ Creative ways to deal with enemies with the different wispons
+ They took out the lives system. There's really no point in it for this kind of game
+ Jump into a spin dash (from Sonic Mania) is a nice addition
But as I played the game, I started having problems with it.
Cons of Sonic Forces:
- An edgier than edgy story. Sonic is captured, Eggman takes over the world
- Builds the expectation that you'll get to fight all previous games' bosses (you don't)
- A lot of Classic Sonic stages are rather boring or have tedious platforming
- Most Classic Sonic music range from boring to "ugh" (EXCEPT FOR GHOST TOWN!)
- Levels are super short. They average between 1-2 minutes.
- Color blend too much. Dark enemies blended in with dark backgrounds, ugh!
- Unskippable in-game cinematics
- Lack of creative Boss fights. Metal Sonic, Infinity 1&3, and Final Boss fights are the same!
- As fun as creating original characters are, the options are limited
- Some stages lack variety in paths
- Super short game, even for $40. It's about 5 hours long leisurely.
Despite the game's shortcomings and flaws, I had so much fun playing the game. I kept creating new characters, kept improving my times, and tried to find all the secrets until I reached 20 hours of gameplay time. I loved going fast and trying to find ways to go even faster (but never faster than people on the leaderboards, holy smacks). But beyond anything, I really love the music so much. I think it's some of my favorite music I've listened to this entire year. I might revisit the game one day because of how much fun I had with it. I quickly played through it and deleted it because I was running out of hard drive space.
Seriously though, listen to the music:
Let's talk about Destiny 2 [SPOILERS]
I remember when I returned Destiny 1, I said to myself "maybe I'll pick up the game if it ever came out on PC".
I'm pretty sure I posted something about Destiny 1 back when I tried it out. It was my friend's birthday and he said he wanted to rent Destiny 1 and blast through the story over the weekend. He brought his PS3 over with a monitor and set it up right next to mines and we fired up the game. Both of us had the expectations of an experience as unforgettable as Halo. Sadly, our two days of blasting through the game was filled with a boring campaign, a convoluted story, and countless disappointments. The thing I remember most was spending over an hour on a strike mission because we were heavily under-leveled and under-geared with my friend walking out of the room while I was carefully sniping a boss for over 45 minutes. Still, we didn't regret playing the game since it was a long while since we played any games together. I returned the game with little incentive to ever pick it up again unless it was maybe on PC.
And then Destiny 2 was announced to be on PC. I pre-ordered the game with uncertainty and hopes. After trying out the short open beta testing, I was impressed with the beautiful graphics, the humor filled-dialogue, and the smooth gameplay. Playing through Destiny 2 with my friends, I felt that I had found the Game of the Year (GOTY) for me. But I think I had a change of heart after I got to the end.
Destiny 2 prides itself for being an involving MMORPG Shooter, but suffers from the lack of end-game content that could keep me interested in the game. I really like the game though. Level designs are more reasonable, story is easier to follow, campaign is more evenly paced, there's lot of neat weapons to collect and use, and combat feels satisfying. What I looked forward to most was the Strike Missions and Raids. Strike missions are a lot easier than I thought they'd be and there are only about 5 of them. Running them after a while becomes pointless because the rewards weren't worth the effort. Raids are notoriously difficult, and we are always short 1 player from a full 6-man party. When you get to max level, there's little incentive to continue playing because there's nothing to work towards and no new content to keep things interesting. My main reasons for continuing playing now is doing the weekly objectives for a chance to get slightly better items than what I'm carrying or to create a new character.
I'm making it almost sound like Destiny 2 is a bad game. It isn't. It just didn't have the lasting appeal I was hoping from it. Combat really does feel satisfying, boss fights are creative and challenging, and public events can feel involving. I just think that I have to re-evaluate how I feel about the game being GOTY because as fun as it is, it lacks depth and content compared to some of the other games I've played this year. I'll probably still continue to play Destiny 2, but I hope there's so fun and long-lasting content to enjoy in the future because going through what we have now over and over is going to grow old, fast.
I'm pretty sure I posted something about Destiny 1 back when I tried it out. It was my friend's birthday and he said he wanted to rent Destiny 1 and blast through the story over the weekend. He brought his PS3 over with a monitor and set it up right next to mines and we fired up the game. Both of us had the expectations of an experience as unforgettable as Halo. Sadly, our two days of blasting through the game was filled with a boring campaign, a convoluted story, and countless disappointments. The thing I remember most was spending over an hour on a strike mission because we were heavily under-leveled and under-geared with my friend walking out of the room while I was carefully sniping a boss for over 45 minutes. Still, we didn't regret playing the game since it was a long while since we played any games together. I returned the game with little incentive to ever pick it up again unless it was maybe on PC.
And then Destiny 2 was announced to be on PC. I pre-ordered the game with uncertainty and hopes. After trying out the short open beta testing, I was impressed with the beautiful graphics, the humor filled-dialogue, and the smooth gameplay. Playing through Destiny 2 with my friends, I felt that I had found the Game of the Year (GOTY) for me. But I think I had a change of heart after I got to the end.
Destiny 2 prides itself for being an involving MMORPG Shooter, but suffers from the lack of end-game content that could keep me interested in the game. I really like the game though. Level designs are more reasonable, story is easier to follow, campaign is more evenly paced, there's lot of neat weapons to collect and use, and combat feels satisfying. What I looked forward to most was the Strike Missions and Raids. Strike missions are a lot easier than I thought they'd be and there are only about 5 of them. Running them after a while becomes pointless because the rewards weren't worth the effort. Raids are notoriously difficult, and we are always short 1 player from a full 6-man party. When you get to max level, there's little incentive to continue playing because there's nothing to work towards and no new content to keep things interesting. My main reasons for continuing playing now is doing the weekly objectives for a chance to get slightly better items than what I'm carrying or to create a new character.
I'm making it almost sound like Destiny 2 is a bad game. It isn't. It just didn't have the lasting appeal I was hoping from it. Combat really does feel satisfying, boss fights are creative and challenging, and public events can feel involving. I just think that I have to re-evaluate how I feel about the game being GOTY because as fun as it is, it lacks depth and content compared to some of the other games I've played this year. I'll probably still continue to play Destiny 2, but I hope there's so fun and long-lasting content to enjoy in the future because going through what we have now over and over is going to grow old, fast.
Let's talk about Cyberdimension Neptunia [SPOILERS]
It's Nep-Nep time!
Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online was a game I was both excited for and worried about. On paper, it sounded really exciting: Hack 'n Slash Action-RPG in an MMO setting. But seeing videos of it in action, I had a different impression. Combat looked a bit stiff, graphics were rather poor, and gameplay looked repetitive. But I'm stubborn and I was prepared to buy and play through it. I was sadly hit with a ton of disappointments when I first started.
Things that disappointed me:
- The beginning is so long with lots of talking
- Environmental graphics were not that good
- Camera angles can be awful and the environment can sometimes block the entire screen
- Enemies looked cheap and lazy
- Combat felt stiff and clumsy
- Lots of revisiting areas (though I kind of suspected that from previous games)
- No exciting item drops like in a real MMO
But after about 6 hours into the game, things started to change:
+ I got the 4 little sisters, they're so much fun to play! AND THEY'RE SO CUTE!
+ More skills were added and combat suddenly got a lot more interesting
+ There are a lot of original music for once!
+ Revisiting areas and killing the boss over and over felt relaxing and somehow familiar
+ And then I realized it's very similar to Phantasy Star Online, one of my favorite games
+ Boss fights can be quite challenging and preparing my team for them is entertaining
+ Story took a different turn and it really got me into it
The familiar feeling of grinding and farming felt almost cathartic despite it usually feeling like a tedious chore in other games. The fact that it reminded me of the days of playing Phantasy Star Online is probably what got me really into the game. I finished the main story, then the MMO's game story, and stopped right afterwards because post game was mostly just grinding and farming to fulfill quests and I really wanted to move onto new games. It took some time to get used to, but learning how to dodge, parry, and use skills effectively really changed how combat felt. I liked arranging my party and leveling them up. Switching between the different characters and utilizing different skills kept the game from being monotonous. The character designs are great. Tsunako did a wonderful job. Bouquet is flippin' adorable! I really like all the new and different outfits the characters wore, especially after seeing them in their familiar attire for so many games in a row. The game has a lot of flaws, but it was well worth playing through and I had a lot of fun.
Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online was a game I was both excited for and worried about. On paper, it sounded really exciting: Hack 'n Slash Action-RPG in an MMO setting. But seeing videos of it in action, I had a different impression. Combat looked a bit stiff, graphics were rather poor, and gameplay looked repetitive. But I'm stubborn and I was prepared to buy and play through it. I was sadly hit with a ton of disappointments when I first started.
Things that disappointed me:
- The beginning is so long with lots of talking
- Environmental graphics were not that good
- Camera angles can be awful and the environment can sometimes block the entire screen
- Enemies looked cheap and lazy
- Combat felt stiff and clumsy
- Lots of revisiting areas (though I kind of suspected that from previous games)
- No exciting item drops like in a real MMO
But after about 6 hours into the game, things started to change:
+ I got the 4 little sisters, they're so much fun to play! AND THEY'RE SO CUTE!
+ More skills were added and combat suddenly got a lot more interesting
+ There are a lot of original music for once!
+ Revisiting areas and killing the boss over and over felt relaxing and somehow familiar
+ And then I realized it's very similar to Phantasy Star Online, one of my favorite games
+ Boss fights can be quite challenging and preparing my team for them is entertaining
+ Story took a different turn and it really got me into it
The familiar feeling of grinding and farming felt almost cathartic despite it usually feeling like a tedious chore in other games. The fact that it reminded me of the days of playing Phantasy Star Online is probably what got me really into the game. I finished the main story, then the MMO's game story, and stopped right afterwards because post game was mostly just grinding and farming to fulfill quests and I really wanted to move onto new games. It took some time to get used to, but learning how to dodge, parry, and use skills effectively really changed how combat felt. I liked arranging my party and leveling them up. Switching between the different characters and utilizing different skills kept the game from being monotonous. The character designs are great. Tsunako did a wonderful job. Bouquet is flippin' adorable! I really like all the new and different outfits the characters wore, especially after seeing them in their familiar attire for so many games in a row. The game has a lot of flaws, but it was well worth playing through and I had a lot of fun.
Let's talk about Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash [SPOILERS]
For a game that would've been perfect for Summer, it was sad to see it released near the beginning of Autumn.
Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash is a Third-Person Shooter that utilizes ability cards that buff/debuff allies/enemies, assist with various attacks and summon little helpers. At its core, it's a 5-on-5 competitive arena shooter. With the single-player content, there's story mode, side-stories, and tournament mode along with the usual dressing-room where you can also pose your favorite characters to take pictures. In single-player modes, there can be hordes of enemies running up to you to smack you with a noodle floater, water balloons, and tackle you head on.
I wasn't expecting the game to have semi-auto-aim as part of its mechanic, but I didn't mind as much since I was only playing the single-player content (I don't have PS+ so I can't play online anyways). For the most part, I liked the game. Being able to jet high up into the sky or sliding around the ground like in the game Vanquish felt really nice as the options for movement were fast and exciting. I didn't like all the weapons in the game since some of them use up ammo (water) really fast and knocks out enemies too slowly, but I found ones I liked and stuck with them. The abilities can be kind of confusing since there are so many, but I have to admit that not having them would kind of make the game bland.
Despite its cheery appearances, I was expecting another moment from the game to mess me up again since every game in the series (other than Senran Kagura 2 Deep Crimson) and I was right. Gessen Girls' Academy's story focused on Shiki. She seemingly acted suspiciously throughout the story, saying that she should enjoy her time with her friends as it may be the last time. I suspected that she probably got an offer to study overseas judging from the promise she made to her grandfather in Estival Versus. And I was right! She was offered a scholarship to study abroad and further develop her English skills (Or French from the English translations). She was torn between staying with her friends or following her dreams and study abroad. In the end, all her friends supported her decision to study overseas. It was a nice, simple story that connected with the previous game's story. Here's the one that messed me up. Hanzou National Academy focused it story on Ikaruga (yay, my favorite character!) and started by talking about how she and Katsuragi was going to take their final exams soon and graduate. It dawned on her that graduating meant becoming a full fledged ninja, working away from the friends she had made. This made her depressed and throughout the story, the others were worried about her well-being and thought that she might be nervous about the final exams. After attempts of talking to Ikaruga and cheering her up, Katsuragi confronted Ikaruga and wanted to know what was causing this shift in mood. When Ikaruga started breaking down and explaining to Katsuragi, I started tearing up and really tried to hold it back because the last time I cried playing a video game (The Last of Us, I was bawling that time), my mom walked in on me. Sure enough, she walked in right then and wanted to tell me something really quick. I'm just sitting there saying "okay", trying to hold back tears. I got through that scene and continued to play the game. When it got to the end of the story, Ikaruga explained her recent disposition to her friends and cleared things up. She started crying, then her friends started crying, then I started crying, ugh, why did it have to have this scene?! I liked it though, it was my favorite story out of the game. It just hit a little too close to home as I felt the same exact way on my last year of college and knew I'd be saying goodbye to a lot of friends and perhaps never seeing some of them again. Hebijo Clandestine Girls' Academy had the two pairs of siblings arguing with one another while their leader brings them back together. Homura and crew's story was them trying to garner attention for more part-time jobs so they can earn the money to eat decent food. All the stories led up to a final story which hinted at possibly one of the biggest battles they'll ever have. I'm worried because it's they're building up quite the expectation, but can they live up to them?
The side stories were kind of a drag to get through and they weren't as funny as the ones from previous games. Aside from that, there's the tournament mode. It's pretty fun since it's simulating what you would experience playing online. I stopped playing from there though as I have a lot of other games to get through. I also messed around in the dressing room and took 2 neat pictures of my favorite characters before I shelved the game away.
I didn't like it as much as the main series games, but I enjoyed it.
Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash is a Third-Person Shooter that utilizes ability cards that buff/debuff allies/enemies, assist with various attacks and summon little helpers. At its core, it's a 5-on-5 competitive arena shooter. With the single-player content, there's story mode, side-stories, and tournament mode along with the usual dressing-room where you can also pose your favorite characters to take pictures. In single-player modes, there can be hordes of enemies running up to you to smack you with a noodle floater, water balloons, and tackle you head on.
I wasn't expecting the game to have semi-auto-aim as part of its mechanic, but I didn't mind as much since I was only playing the single-player content (I don't have PS+ so I can't play online anyways). For the most part, I liked the game. Being able to jet high up into the sky or sliding around the ground like in the game Vanquish felt really nice as the options for movement were fast and exciting. I didn't like all the weapons in the game since some of them use up ammo (water) really fast and knocks out enemies too slowly, but I found ones I liked and stuck with them. The abilities can be kind of confusing since there are so many, but I have to admit that not having them would kind of make the game bland.
Despite its cheery appearances, I was expecting another moment from the game to mess me up again since every game in the series (other than Senran Kagura 2 Deep Crimson) and I was right. Gessen Girls' Academy's story focused on Shiki. She seemingly acted suspiciously throughout the story, saying that she should enjoy her time with her friends as it may be the last time. I suspected that she probably got an offer to study overseas judging from the promise she made to her grandfather in Estival Versus. And I was right! She was offered a scholarship to study abroad and further develop her English skills (Or French from the English translations). She was torn between staying with her friends or following her dreams and study abroad. In the end, all her friends supported her decision to study overseas. It was a nice, simple story that connected with the previous game's story. Here's the one that messed me up. Hanzou National Academy focused it story on Ikaruga (yay, my favorite character!) and started by talking about how she and Katsuragi was going to take their final exams soon and graduate. It dawned on her that graduating meant becoming a full fledged ninja, working away from the friends she had made. This made her depressed and throughout the story, the others were worried about her well-being and thought that she might be nervous about the final exams. After attempts of talking to Ikaruga and cheering her up, Katsuragi confronted Ikaruga and wanted to know what was causing this shift in mood. When Ikaruga started breaking down and explaining to Katsuragi, I started tearing up and really tried to hold it back because the last time I cried playing a video game (The Last of Us, I was bawling that time), my mom walked in on me. Sure enough, she walked in right then and wanted to tell me something really quick. I'm just sitting there saying "okay", trying to hold back tears. I got through that scene and continued to play the game. When it got to the end of the story, Ikaruga explained her recent disposition to her friends and cleared things up. She started crying, then her friends started crying, then I started crying, ugh, why did it have to have this scene?! I liked it though, it was my favorite story out of the game. It just hit a little too close to home as I felt the same exact way on my last year of college and knew I'd be saying goodbye to a lot of friends and perhaps never seeing some of them again. Hebijo Clandestine Girls' Academy had the two pairs of siblings arguing with one another while their leader brings them back together. Homura and crew's story was them trying to garner attention for more part-time jobs so they can earn the money to eat decent food. All the stories led up to a final story which hinted at possibly one of the biggest battles they'll ever have. I'm worried because it's they're building up quite the expectation, but can they live up to them?
The side stories were kind of a drag to get through and they weren't as funny as the ones from previous games. Aside from that, there's the tournament mode. It's pretty fun since it's simulating what you would experience playing online. I stopped playing from there though as I have a lot of other games to get through. I also messed around in the dressing room and took 2 neat pictures of my favorite characters before I shelved the game away.
I didn't like it as much as the main series games, but I enjoyed it.
Let's talk about Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite [SPOILERS?]
I'm not sure if I can really spoil Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite other than revealing what the last boss is like (It's Sigma and Ultron combined together). So Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite lead up to its launch with criticism and controversy from the community. None of the X-Men were going to be part of the roster, a lot of the characters looked ugly, the roster felt uninspiring and the lack of female representation made it that much worse. And like always, they asked fans to pay for a season pass for 6 additional characters with only one of them revealed. I've always hated the idea of having to pay extra game content when you don't know what you're going to get. But the roster was leaked and proved to be quite accurate up to that point, and one of the characters was "Monster Hunter" and I really wanted to play as that character.
Before it was announced, I discussed with a friend on who I would like to see added in as a character. I said I wanted to see Samanosuke Akechi from Onimusha, Yukimura Sanada from Sengoku Basara, The Arisen from Dragon's Dogma, and/or Leon S. Kennedy from Resident Evil on Capcom side. None of those showed up. For Marvel, I threw out some names: Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, and/or Squirrel Girl. Surprisingly, the first two characters are part of the roster. Sadly, they're kind of boring.
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite had a lot to live up to because I absolutely loved Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and even then fans of the previous games didn't like it. So you could imagine how a lot of those fans felt about MvC:I. With the inclusion of X from Mega Man X and Monster Hunter, I was too excited to wait for a future discount and pre-ordered the game along with the season pass. Playing through the game, I just kept feeling.....disappointed.
Things that disappointed me in MvC:I
- Ugly character models; it's like Capcom forgot how their characters looked like
- Only 6 out of 36 of the characters are female (13 out of 50 for UMvC3 - 16% vs. 26% ratio)
- Uninspiring character roster (I really like Gamora and Monster Hunter though)
- Music makes me mad, sad, and angry. I don't like any of Marvel character's themes.
- They changed Marvel character's awesome themes to generic film like ones.....
- The art style is boring; more detailed and realistic compared to UMvC3.....but boring
- Story is contrived and seems to focus on making Marvel look better than Capcom characters
- Poor representation of characters: Marvel = generic with no souls; Capcom = A Joke
There's probably more, but I don't remember them all. But least they got the most important thing right: The gameplay. Combat is closer to the original two games and the inclusion of the Infinity stones does add a whole new layer of strategy and options. Combos don't feel overly complicated, movement feels fast and free-flowing, and the comebacks are still really exciting to watch. I feel thankful that there's an arcade mode and a solid local/online versus mode after experiencing both those things go wrong in Street Fighter V, but I have to remember that they're standard things that should already work right from the beginning. Despite the many disappoints I've had with the game, I can't deny the fact that its base game is a lot of fun. So I would say that it's a "fun" game, but not a "good" one. They can still continue to improve the game by adding more characters, add in an extra mode like Heroes & Heralds from UMvC3, or simply revamp the entire game's graphics (some modders added some thick ink lines on character models and they look really cool). Story mode was pretty dumb, but I can still find enjoyment in playing Arcade mode and Versus. I can only hope for a fun mode to be added in for that extra incentive to keep playing the game.
Before it was announced, I discussed with a friend on who I would like to see added in as a character. I said I wanted to see Samanosuke Akechi from Onimusha, Yukimura Sanada from Sengoku Basara, The Arisen from Dragon's Dogma, and/or Leon S. Kennedy from Resident Evil on Capcom side. None of those showed up. For Marvel, I threw out some names: Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, and/or Squirrel Girl. Surprisingly, the first two characters are part of the roster. Sadly, they're kind of boring.
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite had a lot to live up to because I absolutely loved Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and even then fans of the previous games didn't like it. So you could imagine how a lot of those fans felt about MvC:I. With the inclusion of X from Mega Man X and Monster Hunter, I was too excited to wait for a future discount and pre-ordered the game along with the season pass. Playing through the game, I just kept feeling.....disappointed.
Things that disappointed me in MvC:I
- Ugly character models; it's like Capcom forgot how their characters looked like
- Only 6 out of 36 of the characters are female (13 out of 50 for UMvC3 - 16% vs. 26% ratio)
- Uninspiring character roster (I really like Gamora and Monster Hunter though)
- Music makes me mad, sad, and angry. I don't like any of Marvel character's themes.
- They changed Marvel character's awesome themes to generic film like ones.....
- The art style is boring; more detailed and realistic compared to UMvC3.....but boring
- Story is contrived and seems to focus on making Marvel look better than Capcom characters
- Poor representation of characters: Marvel = generic with no souls; Capcom = A Joke
There's probably more, but I don't remember them all. But least they got the most important thing right: The gameplay. Combat is closer to the original two games and the inclusion of the Infinity stones does add a whole new layer of strategy and options. Combos don't feel overly complicated, movement feels fast and free-flowing, and the comebacks are still really exciting to watch. I feel thankful that there's an arcade mode and a solid local/online versus mode after experiencing both those things go wrong in Street Fighter V, but I have to remember that they're standard things that should already work right from the beginning. Despite the many disappoints I've had with the game, I can't deny the fact that its base game is a lot of fun. So I would say that it's a "fun" game, but not a "good" one. They can still continue to improve the game by adding more characters, add in an extra mode like Heroes & Heralds from UMvC3, or simply revamp the entire game's graphics (some modders added some thick ink lines on character models and they look really cool). Story mode was pretty dumb, but I can still find enjoyment in playing Arcade mode and Versus. I can only hope for a fun mode to be added in for that extra incentive to keep playing the game.
Let's talk about Metroid Samus Returns [SPOILERS]
Oh man, I didn't expect to be so incredibly busy these last two months. Right after finishing the Super Mario Medley Remix, I started working on the Ghosts 'n Goblins Medley Remix and it took a lot of work. Here it is:
It originally had 3 more songs than this, but I wasn't sure if I was able to meld it in well while making in interesting and short. It was the first time I worked with sidechaining and I'm glad I finally have that skill in part of my repertoire. It was a nightmare balancing and mixing the tracks this time around as it reach up to 32 tracks. But now that it's done, I'm taking the rest of December off from working to catch up on other things and relaxing. One of the things I need to catch up on is writing about games because there are a LOT of games I want to talk about. I think the only way I can reasonably do this without taking all of December to write about them is by keeping them short and writing many at a time. In fact, it'd be great if I can finish them all today so I can focus on playing and finishing up some games for the rest of December. It will be difficult to write about most of the games in detail anyways as the experience and memories of them aren't as fresh as when I had finished them.
So first up is Metroid: Samus Returns for the Nintendo 3DS.
I was obviously excited for the game as it has been over a decade since the last 2D Metroid game and I absolutely love Metroid. But when I saw that MercurySteam was co-developing the game, I got worried because of their work on Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate on the 3DS. I also really didn't want to compare the experience to the fan-made game Another Metroid 2 Remake (AM2R) released last year, but it's impossible not to since both game's objective was the same: to recreate Metroid 2. Having played AM2R kind of set the bar of expectation and what I wanted out of a Metroid game.
Pros of Metroid: Samus Returns:
+ Beautiful 3D graphics, environments and creatures
+ Sound effects were of high quality
+ Combat has a nice flow to it
+ Interesting new abilities and uses for them
+ Not particularly short or long gameplay time
+ Had speed running in mind for level design
+ Last boss almost ruined the experience for me, but the true last boss made up for it
Cons of Metroid: Samus Returns:
- Few and unmemorable boss fights
- Music were high quality and had some familiar tunes, but was mostly unmemorable
- Melee counter gets old and tedious half-way though and free-aiming can be annoying
- Area Themes were weak; it made everything kind of meld and feel the same
- Backtracking had little purpose and felt more tedious than rewarding
- Boss fights are tedious and drawn out unnecessarily
- Hard mode offers nothing new except for enemies doing more damage
Things AM2R did better:
+ Quite a few memorable boss fights that were challenging and exciting
+ Strong sense of area themes and atmosphere
+ Smarter level designs that made exploration interesting
+ Metroid fights were fast-paced, exciting, but still challenging
+ Controls were nicer with better air movement
+ Lots of "moments"
+ A true challenge in Hard mode with new AI movements, less resources, and higher damage
I played through Samus Returns three times: Casual run on Normal Difficulty, 2nd run on Hard, 3rd run as speedrun on Normal. I felt iffy about everything the first run, more sure the 2nd run, and certain on how I felt about the game the 3rd run. To boil it down in general terms, I found the game to be mildly entertaining and enjoyed it, but it was sadly an unmemorable experience that seems to be outclassed by the experience I had with AM2R of which I played 5 times. Invincible enemies that need to be flipped with melee counter or invincible indefinitely, Metroid fights with invincibility states, the digger bot with a few repeating patterns with a small window of vulnerability and the Metroid Queen having long attack patterns with invincibility state made everything feel tedious like it's wasting my time. If it weren't for the True Boss fight with Proteus Ridley at the very end of the game, I would've been pretty angry about how the game ended because the fight against the Metroid Queen was long and boring. I liked the fight against Proteus Ridley in terms of presentation, from its familiar and exciting music to the fast-paced combat that didn't involve invincibility states. In all honesty, the actual fight itself wasn't spectacular as it's pretty easy to learn his pattern after a few tries and he becomes really easy. So while I'm glad they finally made another 2D Metroid and having enjoyed it, it was honestly the least memorable 2D Metroid game in the series.
It originally had 3 more songs than this, but I wasn't sure if I was able to meld it in well while making in interesting and short. It was the first time I worked with sidechaining and I'm glad I finally have that skill in part of my repertoire. It was a nightmare balancing and mixing the tracks this time around as it reach up to 32 tracks. But now that it's done, I'm taking the rest of December off from working to catch up on other things and relaxing. One of the things I need to catch up on is writing about games because there are a LOT of games I want to talk about. I think the only way I can reasonably do this without taking all of December to write about them is by keeping them short and writing many at a time. In fact, it'd be great if I can finish them all today so I can focus on playing and finishing up some games for the rest of December. It will be difficult to write about most of the games in detail anyways as the experience and memories of them aren't as fresh as when I had finished them.
So first up is Metroid: Samus Returns for the Nintendo 3DS.
I was obviously excited for the game as it has been over a decade since the last 2D Metroid game and I absolutely love Metroid. But when I saw that MercurySteam was co-developing the game, I got worried because of their work on Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate on the 3DS. I also really didn't want to compare the experience to the fan-made game Another Metroid 2 Remake (AM2R) released last year, but it's impossible not to since both game's objective was the same: to recreate Metroid 2. Having played AM2R kind of set the bar of expectation and what I wanted out of a Metroid game.
Pros of Metroid: Samus Returns:
+ Beautiful 3D graphics, environments and creatures
+ Sound effects were of high quality
+ Combat has a nice flow to it
+ Interesting new abilities and uses for them
+ Not particularly short or long gameplay time
+ Had speed running in mind for level design
+ Last boss almost ruined the experience for me, but the true last boss made up for it
Cons of Metroid: Samus Returns:
- Few and unmemorable boss fights
- Music were high quality and had some familiar tunes, but was mostly unmemorable
- Melee counter gets old and tedious half-way though and free-aiming can be annoying
- Area Themes were weak; it made everything kind of meld and feel the same
- Backtracking had little purpose and felt more tedious than rewarding
- Boss fights are tedious and drawn out unnecessarily
- Hard mode offers nothing new except for enemies doing more damage
Things AM2R did better:
+ Quite a few memorable boss fights that were challenging and exciting
+ Strong sense of area themes and atmosphere
+ Smarter level designs that made exploration interesting
+ Metroid fights were fast-paced, exciting, but still challenging
+ Controls were nicer with better air movement
+ Lots of "moments"
+ A true challenge in Hard mode with new AI movements, less resources, and higher damage
I played through Samus Returns three times: Casual run on Normal Difficulty, 2nd run on Hard, 3rd run as speedrun on Normal. I felt iffy about everything the first run, more sure the 2nd run, and certain on how I felt about the game the 3rd run. To boil it down in general terms, I found the game to be mildly entertaining and enjoyed it, but it was sadly an unmemorable experience that seems to be outclassed by the experience I had with AM2R of which I played 5 times. Invincible enemies that need to be flipped with melee counter or invincible indefinitely, Metroid fights with invincibility states, the digger bot with a few repeating patterns with a small window of vulnerability and the Metroid Queen having long attack patterns with invincibility state made everything feel tedious like it's wasting my time. If it weren't for the True Boss fight with Proteus Ridley at the very end of the game, I would've been pretty angry about how the game ended because the fight against the Metroid Queen was long and boring. I liked the fight against Proteus Ridley in terms of presentation, from its familiar and exciting music to the fast-paced combat that didn't involve invincibility states. In all honesty, the actual fight itself wasn't spectacular as it's pretty easy to learn his pattern after a few tries and he becomes really easy. So while I'm glad they finally made another 2D Metroid and having enjoyed it, it was honestly the least memorable 2D Metroid game in the series.
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Demon's Souls Sever Shut Down (this time for real)
I've been busy this month, yet I don't really remember what I did other than work on my latest remix. Here's a small rant I wrote on Facebook on the servers of Demon's Souls getting shut down.
https://atlus.com/fond-farewell-demons-souls-servers/
Demon's Souls is one of my favorite games on the PS3. It was one of the first games I bought after graduating college and I heard lots of great things about it.
My initial reactions to the game were less than favorable: "The opening music sounds cheesy!" "It's not a fast-paced Hack 'n Slash?" "Enemy placement never changes!" "The graphics are only okay..." "It seems so boring without music playing." "That death just wasted all my efforts and time..." I walked around the first area quite a few times and just couldn't get into it. I took a break for a month and still kept seeing posts and articles about how exciting boss fights were and how engaging combat felt. I went back to it, beat the first boss, and then it clicked.
I went to the next area, and then the next, and then I continually played the game until I beat it. It was a strange and different formula that's partially familiar, but done in a meaningful way. Combat forced the player into creating strategies for each engagement by limiting the amount of actions they can take before tiring out. Exploration punished the reckless, but rewarded the meticulous and daring. All builds worked and allowed a variety of ways to play the game. The game wasn't about the triumphs and victories, but the mistakes and failures that led up to them.
Demon's Souls isn't the most polished or highest quality of games, but its design is solid and delivers a kind of satisfaction few games has done before it. I haven't revisit it in a while because of my ever-growing backlog, but it still remains one of my favorites on the PS3 and perhaps all time.
https://atlus.com/fond-farewell-demons-souls-servers/
Demon's Souls is one of my favorite games on the PS3. It was one of the first games I bought after graduating college and I heard lots of great things about it.
My initial reactions to the game were less than favorable: "The opening music sounds cheesy!" "It's not a fast-paced Hack 'n Slash?" "Enemy placement never changes!" "The graphics are only okay..." "It seems so boring without music playing." "That death just wasted all my efforts and time..." I walked around the first area quite a few times and just couldn't get into it. I took a break for a month and still kept seeing posts and articles about how exciting boss fights were and how engaging combat felt. I went back to it, beat the first boss, and then it clicked.
I went to the next area, and then the next, and then I continually played the game until I beat it. It was a strange and different formula that's partially familiar, but done in a meaningful way. Combat forced the player into creating strategies for each engagement by limiting the amount of actions they can take before tiring out. Exploration punished the reckless, but rewarded the meticulous and daring. All builds worked and allowed a variety of ways to play the game. The game wasn't about the triumphs and victories, but the mistakes and failures that led up to them.
Demon's Souls isn't the most polished or highest quality of games, but its design is solid and delivers a kind of satisfaction few games has done before it. I haven't revisit it in a while because of my ever-growing backlog, but it still remains one of my favorites on the PS3 and perhaps all time.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Let's talk about Warriors All-Stars [SPOILERS]
I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting out of this game. As excited as I was for this whacky cross-overs of mis-matched heroes from various Koei Tecmo games, I imagined the game being a bit more shallow. I was wrong, and I'm couldn't be happier about it.
Warriors All-Stars takes characters from Dynasty Warriors, Toukiden, Opoona, Atelier Sophie, Samurai Warriors, Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time, Nioh, Ninja Gaiden, Samurai Cats, Dead or Alive, Deception, Rio, and Nights of Azure and thrusts them in an unknown world that is dying. Heroes from all times and space are summoned to help revive this dying land. But as the journey begins, the heroes find themselves amongst a three way family feud. Each one of the family members have a reason for fighting. The princess Tamaki is the only one with enough energy to restore the power of the world as it once was. The older brother of the princess Shiki takes on an aggressive stance against his younger sister and cousin with mysterious motives. The cousin of the two heirs Setsuna sets off to be the one to restore power to the world once more and take his rightful place as King as his father before him had reigned before Tamaki and Shiki's father took over. So what are the true motives for each of these characters? Is restoring the energy to the planet the only threat? I guess you'll have to play it to find out!
So I actually didn't know there was an overarching story involving original characters. I actually thought this was supposed to be a continuation of the Warriors Orochi series. It is not. Other than the base combat and the inclusion of characters from many different games, the game showcases a wide variety of mechanics and design choices that sets it apart from the Warriors Orochi series.
Let's list some differences of All-Stars to Orochi:
- Orochi's theme was darker while All-Stars is bright and colorful.
- Orochi allowed up to 3 main characters in party while All-Stars has 1 main with 4 supports.
- Party building revolved around character types and passives while All-Stars' characters each had active abilities that attacks, buffs, heals or protects the main character in some way.
- The player can freely switch between the 3 characters in Orochi while summoning a support character or using their ability puts them in a cooldown state.
- Orochi mainly focused on characters from Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors while All-Stars had equal representation for all the games involved.
These are just some of the differences. Needless to say, they are two different games. You could say that Warriors All-Stars feels familiar, but fresh.
So how the game actually works is a bit different from most Warriors games. There isn't a linearity to the game, per se, but rather a somewhat open-ended experience that shapes depending on player choices and random chance. The sanctuary is a central hub that allows you to raise the bond levels between characters, buy/sell/upgrade cards, train character levels, and pick up requests. On the main map, you can return to the sanctuary, fight of bandits for cards, take on quests to raise money, participate in challenges for experience points, fulfill character requests, or proceed with main missions. Special quests periodically pop up on the map for a few seconds before disappearing again. Sometimes, finishing certain main quests will lock you out of other ones. Giving that freedom to the player was pretty cool, but it also felt like a way to virtually extend the gameplay time as character level and money can be a bit difficult to keep up with.
Once you get into one of the missions, you'll be directed towards various objectives. Some are optional and can help give bonus items, money or experience points. But other times, they can be the condition that causes a failure. One of the new mechanics in the game is the Bravery level (I believe that's what it's called) where the player will always start at level 1 out of 9 at the beginning of each mission. As the player defeats more opponents and fulfill objectives, their bravery level goes up. It is safer to be at the same level or above of the bravery level of your opponent before taking them down. I believe this mechanic was implemented to prevent players from taking their strongest character and diving straight towards the main enemy to try to end the mission immediately. It can be a bit of a drag sometimes, especially if the mission decides to throw enemies with bravery level 6 or 7 at you right at the beginning. But it does add a new layer of strategy into the game. There are number of ways to confront each situation in battle. If the player is surrounded by a large number of enemies, they can summon their support characters and extend their weapon reach further horizontally up to 5 characters wide (by summoning all 4 support characters). If a particular general is too difficult to defeat, the player can use their support characters' abilities to raise the advantages in their favor. If there are too many generals after the player and want to be able to fight all of them at once without the fear of hit-stun lock or juggles, they can activate Musou Rush where minion enemies pour out from all sides of the screen while the support characters perform actions to assist the main character as they enter an invisible state of euphoria where they can hack 'n slash all they want in those 20+ or so seconds without fear of being hit (it's quite cathartic). Enemies can be pretty relentless if you're not careful, and objectives test the players decision making and time management on the spot. If you don't pay attention to character conversations or gloss over an important objective, it'll end in failure with possibly restarting the entire mission over again. Objectives can range from defeating certain enemies, defending a point, escorting an NPC or saving someone in need. Warriors All-Stars simplicity in direction and depth in party building made the experience quite engaging.
Now that I'm done talking about the main portion of the game, I'd like to mention all the little things about this game that I liked. Personally, I find it difficult to create a cross-over game that will satisfy fans of each of the franchises as their characters can be vastly contradictory in terms of personality, style of play, or reference. The developers found a balance that highlights each individual character by showing the player what's so great about them through conversation, gameplay and music while still managing to have them interact in a believable manner. The very first character that came to mind was Lu Bu of Dynasty Warriors. This man was a renegade that no one could control. He betrayed various leaders and always sought to show everyone how fearsome he was. So my biggest question when starting the game and having him join my party was "how would that make sense?" At first, he dismissed the idea of helping the indigenous people of the world he was summoned to and began to walk away. I believe it was Zhou Cang that spoke up and said that "there would be strong fighters from different worlds they'd have to go up against." This peaked Lu Bu's interest and he agreed to fight if it would entertain him and that "if anyone got in [his] way, he'd take them down too." The writing for the characters was careful in keeping everything canon and believable whenever it came to having them interact. Millennia and Laegrinna of the Deception series expressed their hatred for humans and refused to fight alongside the other members. When they're finally convinced to join them, they would mention in conversations saying that they were thinking of how they would trap each hero based on their abilities. So not all the characters actually get along with each other, but their interactions (even when hostile) can be perceived as humorous or charming in the context of this world they're stuck in. One other example is a hero mission in which Lu Bu insists on dueling William from Nioh. William didn't want to fight Lu Bu and also had a request to fight off bandits. William tricks Lu Bu by agreeing to his duel and bringing him to where the bandits were. Each time Lu Bu was ready to fight him, William would point out that a villager needed help. After fighting off the bandits, Lu Bu becomes enraged and blamed the villagers for getting in the way of their duel. This charade goes on for a while until William is paid by the villagers for his help and tells Lu Bu that he's too wiped to fight and that he'd probably be dissatisfied with fighting him in such a state. William makes it up to him by using the money he made to treat him to alcoholic beverages and challenged in who could drink more. It was just so much fun seeing the ways all the character interacted with each other.
Not all characters come from action games, and that's when they had to be a bit more creative. With Sophie and Plachta, coming from the JRPG turn-based battle of the Atelier series, their attacks mimics skills and abilities from their game in an action form. The Deception series is all about setting up traps and having the humans run into them, and so the characters have various traps appear as their attacks in Warriors All-Stars. The little references and motions from its source material gave respectful homages to each of the games the characters came from.
Aside from the already beautiful recreations of each of the characters' models and graphics, playful dialogues, and fun gameplay, the game had an incredible soundtrack to boot. There are original songs specifically for the game, and those were really good: melodic, memorable, and moving. Then we have arranged songs from all the games the characters are from.
The music selection is just so much fun to listen to. It helps a lot that the source material is already great; however, the way they were able to transform each of those songs into one unifying style while still respecting the source material is truly beautiful. Before the game released, I got really into listening the music and finding the original songs to compare. There was one particular song that stood out to me while I was playing the game that I've never heard before:
"What game is this from? The melody is so beautiful and emotional!" I have never heard of this game before, but the song capture my heart. The music was so good that I felt interest in the game. If it ever got localized, I might give it a shot (btw, it's an otome. Meaning it's a romance game geared towards females). Often times, this is what they want in a cross-over game: to get the player interested in all the games the characters are from. But if you don't represent the character and its franchise very well in the cross-over game, it's much more difficult to convince the player to check it out (I'm hinting towards Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, and I'll be writing a review on that soon).
I had so much fun playing this game. The story (though a bit stereotypical) was simple, but a lot of fun to follow. The characters are full of personality and represented their games faithfully and respectfully. The gameplay could get repetitive in some parts, but I mostly had fun and really liked all the different teams I was able to form to change the experience of combat. The art style was easy on the eyes and I loved seeing the capabilities of the PS4 being showcased as opposed to the port of Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate where the game couldn't show of the technological advances the console has made from its predecessor. I played through the game three times with the first two times as a regular ending and the third time I accidentally stumbled into the true ending. I'm unsure if I'm going to be playing it more since there's still much I can unlock and discover, but I also have a lot of other games to get through. I loved it and I'm glad Koei Tecmo brought it over for us.
[STORY SPOILERS]
So if you'd like a quick run-down of the story, here it is:
-Tamaki wants to restore the planet's energy
-Setsuna doesn't actually care about "taking his rightful place as king" and wants to save Tamaki
-The only way to restore the planets power is by sealing yourself in the fountain
-Setsuna planned on taking Tamaki's place so that she wouldn't be sent to a sealed oblivion
-Shiki was so aggressive because in his father's dying breath, he was told that the sealed monster Yomi had already taken over someone close to him. He had to find out who
-On the true ending path, Sayo (Tamaki and Shiki's mother) is revealed to be the one controlled
-Continuing farther on the true ending path, it's revealed that Yomi is actually an ancestor in their family
-Rather than slaying her, the heroes were able to purge the darkness out of her and return things as they were
-Essentially, it's one plot twist after another and they're not too surprising. But I enjoyed it.
Warriors All-Stars takes characters from Dynasty Warriors, Toukiden, Opoona, Atelier Sophie, Samurai Warriors, Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time, Nioh, Ninja Gaiden, Samurai Cats, Dead or Alive, Deception, Rio, and Nights of Azure and thrusts them in an unknown world that is dying. Heroes from all times and space are summoned to help revive this dying land. But as the journey begins, the heroes find themselves amongst a three way family feud. Each one of the family members have a reason for fighting. The princess Tamaki is the only one with enough energy to restore the power of the world as it once was. The older brother of the princess Shiki takes on an aggressive stance against his younger sister and cousin with mysterious motives. The cousin of the two heirs Setsuna sets off to be the one to restore power to the world once more and take his rightful place as King as his father before him had reigned before Tamaki and Shiki's father took over. So what are the true motives for each of these characters? Is restoring the energy to the planet the only threat? I guess you'll have to play it to find out!
So I actually didn't know there was an overarching story involving original characters. I actually thought this was supposed to be a continuation of the Warriors Orochi series. It is not. Other than the base combat and the inclusion of characters from many different games, the game showcases a wide variety of mechanics and design choices that sets it apart from the Warriors Orochi series.
Let's list some differences of All-Stars to Orochi:
- Orochi's theme was darker while All-Stars is bright and colorful.
- Orochi allowed up to 3 main characters in party while All-Stars has 1 main with 4 supports.
- Party building revolved around character types and passives while All-Stars' characters each had active abilities that attacks, buffs, heals or protects the main character in some way.
- The player can freely switch between the 3 characters in Orochi while summoning a support character or using their ability puts them in a cooldown state.
- Orochi mainly focused on characters from Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors while All-Stars had equal representation for all the games involved.
These are just some of the differences. Needless to say, they are two different games. You could say that Warriors All-Stars feels familiar, but fresh.
So how the game actually works is a bit different from most Warriors games. There isn't a linearity to the game, per se, but rather a somewhat open-ended experience that shapes depending on player choices and random chance. The sanctuary is a central hub that allows you to raise the bond levels between characters, buy/sell/upgrade cards, train character levels, and pick up requests. On the main map, you can return to the sanctuary, fight of bandits for cards, take on quests to raise money, participate in challenges for experience points, fulfill character requests, or proceed with main missions. Special quests periodically pop up on the map for a few seconds before disappearing again. Sometimes, finishing certain main quests will lock you out of other ones. Giving that freedom to the player was pretty cool, but it also felt like a way to virtually extend the gameplay time as character level and money can be a bit difficult to keep up with.
Once you get into one of the missions, you'll be directed towards various objectives. Some are optional and can help give bonus items, money or experience points. But other times, they can be the condition that causes a failure. One of the new mechanics in the game is the Bravery level (I believe that's what it's called) where the player will always start at level 1 out of 9 at the beginning of each mission. As the player defeats more opponents and fulfill objectives, their bravery level goes up. It is safer to be at the same level or above of the bravery level of your opponent before taking them down. I believe this mechanic was implemented to prevent players from taking their strongest character and diving straight towards the main enemy to try to end the mission immediately. It can be a bit of a drag sometimes, especially if the mission decides to throw enemies with bravery level 6 or 7 at you right at the beginning. But it does add a new layer of strategy into the game. There are number of ways to confront each situation in battle. If the player is surrounded by a large number of enemies, they can summon their support characters and extend their weapon reach further horizontally up to 5 characters wide (by summoning all 4 support characters). If a particular general is too difficult to defeat, the player can use their support characters' abilities to raise the advantages in their favor. If there are too many generals after the player and want to be able to fight all of them at once without the fear of hit-stun lock or juggles, they can activate Musou Rush where minion enemies pour out from all sides of the screen while the support characters perform actions to assist the main character as they enter an invisible state of euphoria where they can hack 'n slash all they want in those 20+ or so seconds without fear of being hit (it's quite cathartic). Enemies can be pretty relentless if you're not careful, and objectives test the players decision making and time management on the spot. If you don't pay attention to character conversations or gloss over an important objective, it'll end in failure with possibly restarting the entire mission over again. Objectives can range from defeating certain enemies, defending a point, escorting an NPC or saving someone in need. Warriors All-Stars simplicity in direction and depth in party building made the experience quite engaging.
Now that I'm done talking about the main portion of the game, I'd like to mention all the little things about this game that I liked. Personally, I find it difficult to create a cross-over game that will satisfy fans of each of the franchises as their characters can be vastly contradictory in terms of personality, style of play, or reference. The developers found a balance that highlights each individual character by showing the player what's so great about them through conversation, gameplay and music while still managing to have them interact in a believable manner. The very first character that came to mind was Lu Bu of Dynasty Warriors. This man was a renegade that no one could control. He betrayed various leaders and always sought to show everyone how fearsome he was. So my biggest question when starting the game and having him join my party was "how would that make sense?" At first, he dismissed the idea of helping the indigenous people of the world he was summoned to and began to walk away. I believe it was Zhou Cang that spoke up and said that "there would be strong fighters from different worlds they'd have to go up against." This peaked Lu Bu's interest and he agreed to fight if it would entertain him and that "if anyone got in [his] way, he'd take them down too." The writing for the characters was careful in keeping everything canon and believable whenever it came to having them interact. Millennia and Laegrinna of the Deception series expressed their hatred for humans and refused to fight alongside the other members. When they're finally convinced to join them, they would mention in conversations saying that they were thinking of how they would trap each hero based on their abilities. So not all the characters actually get along with each other, but their interactions (even when hostile) can be perceived as humorous or charming in the context of this world they're stuck in. One other example is a hero mission in which Lu Bu insists on dueling William from Nioh. William didn't want to fight Lu Bu and also had a request to fight off bandits. William tricks Lu Bu by agreeing to his duel and bringing him to where the bandits were. Each time Lu Bu was ready to fight him, William would point out that a villager needed help. After fighting off the bandits, Lu Bu becomes enraged and blamed the villagers for getting in the way of their duel. This charade goes on for a while until William is paid by the villagers for his help and tells Lu Bu that he's too wiped to fight and that he'd probably be dissatisfied with fighting him in such a state. William makes it up to him by using the money he made to treat him to alcoholic beverages and challenged in who could drink more. It was just so much fun seeing the ways all the character interacted with each other.
Not all characters come from action games, and that's when they had to be a bit more creative. With Sophie and Plachta, coming from the JRPG turn-based battle of the Atelier series, their attacks mimics skills and abilities from their game in an action form. The Deception series is all about setting up traps and having the humans run into them, and so the characters have various traps appear as their attacks in Warriors All-Stars. The little references and motions from its source material gave respectful homages to each of the games the characters came from.
Aside from the already beautiful recreations of each of the characters' models and graphics, playful dialogues, and fun gameplay, the game had an incredible soundtrack to boot. There are original songs specifically for the game, and those were really good: melodic, memorable, and moving. Then we have arranged songs from all the games the characters are from.
The music selection is just so much fun to listen to. It helps a lot that the source material is already great; however, the way they were able to transform each of those songs into one unifying style while still respecting the source material is truly beautiful. Before the game released, I got really into listening the music and finding the original songs to compare. There was one particular song that stood out to me while I was playing the game that I've never heard before:
"What game is this from? The melody is so beautiful and emotional!" I have never heard of this game before, but the song capture my heart. The music was so good that I felt interest in the game. If it ever got localized, I might give it a shot (btw, it's an otome. Meaning it's a romance game geared towards females). Often times, this is what they want in a cross-over game: to get the player interested in all the games the characters are from. But if you don't represent the character and its franchise very well in the cross-over game, it's much more difficult to convince the player to check it out (I'm hinting towards Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, and I'll be writing a review on that soon).
I had so much fun playing this game. The story (though a bit stereotypical) was simple, but a lot of fun to follow. The characters are full of personality and represented their games faithfully and respectfully. The gameplay could get repetitive in some parts, but I mostly had fun and really liked all the different teams I was able to form to change the experience of combat. The art style was easy on the eyes and I loved seeing the capabilities of the PS4 being showcased as opposed to the port of Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate where the game couldn't show of the technological advances the console has made from its predecessor. I played through the game three times with the first two times as a regular ending and the third time I accidentally stumbled into the true ending. I'm unsure if I'm going to be playing it more since there's still much I can unlock and discover, but I also have a lot of other games to get through. I loved it and I'm glad Koei Tecmo brought it over for us.
[STORY SPOILERS]
So if you'd like a quick run-down of the story, here it is:
-Tamaki wants to restore the planet's energy
-Setsuna doesn't actually care about "taking his rightful place as king" and wants to save Tamaki
-The only way to restore the planets power is by sealing yourself in the fountain
-Setsuna planned on taking Tamaki's place so that she wouldn't be sent to a sealed oblivion
-Shiki was so aggressive because in his father's dying breath, he was told that the sealed monster Yomi had already taken over someone close to him. He had to find out who
-On the true ending path, Sayo (Tamaki and Shiki's mother) is revealed to be the one controlled
-Continuing farther on the true ending path, it's revealed that Yomi is actually an ancestor in their family
-Rather than slaying her, the heroes were able to purge the darkness out of her and return things as they were
-Essentially, it's one plot twist after another and they're not too surprising. But I enjoyed it.
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Let's talk about NieR: Automata [SPOILERS]
It's actually been two months since I've completed NieR: Automata, and so my thoughts and opinions aren't as fresh as I'd like them to be. This will probably be a short rant.
Man, what do I say about this game? I'm not sure if I could call it "Game of the Year". It certainly was fun and I enjoyed it a lot more than the original game (which I still haven't beaten yet). But I can see why the game touched so many people beyond it being a fun game.
The whole premise behind the game is that aliens invaded the Earth and their machines stood as a threat to Humanity. Humanity created androids to save them as mankind was already slowly dying out from a disease. With the Alien invasion, Humans escaped to the Moon while the Androids formed YoRHa in order to come together and fight off the machines. Throughout the game, you take the roles of battle android 2B and scouting android 9S. They take on various tasks of fighting off the machines and finding a way to bring Human back to Earth once more. All androids of YoRHa takes on the responsibility of serving mankind and saving them from this foreign invaders. It was their purpose; their reason for being and fighting. There was a problem though.
Part way through the game, the two androids find the aliens. They have already long passed. It seemed as though the true enemies were the machines and not the aliens as the machines killed their creators and sought to kill off the androids. Determined to see things through and save humanity, the two androids continued their fight. However, another discovery is made. By chance, 9S found out that Humanity had been long extinct and androids had already failed to save the mankind. YoRHa was created to give androids purpose to their lives once more as the fabricated transmissions to the Moon was a beacon of hope for them. The machines sneak a virus into the android database and all of YoRHa is wiped out. As 2B and 9S make their escape, the infected YoRHa units pursued them. 2B has 9S' flight camouflage him and send him away from the enemy pursuers. 2B is shot down and continued to fight off her former comrades. She notices that she was slowing becoming infected. When it seemed as if she couldn't fight anymore, another android by the name of A2 appears and fights off 2B's attackers. As the battered and corrupted 2B looks upon A2, she requests her to end her life before she becomes entirely taken over by the virus while defeating the rest of the machines. A2 fulfills 2B's last request as 9S had just arrived. Furious and with all hope lost for YoRHa, 9S had lost all reasoning with one last purpose: to kill A2. The game concludes with A2 and 9S defeating the last remaining main machine only to confront each other in one last fight. They end up killing each other. It was a solemn ending that had the player question the time they spent on the game. "What was the purpose of the androids fighting so hard for something that didn't exist? Couldn't the androids live out their own lives in peace? Did they really need a purpose to live beyond saving humanity?" It reached deep into the hearts of many players. I could be wrong, but I interpreted the game in this manner:
Man, what do I say about this game? I'm not sure if I could call it "Game of the Year". It certainly was fun and I enjoyed it a lot more than the original game (which I still haven't beaten yet). But I can see why the game touched so many people beyond it being a fun game.
The whole premise behind the game is that aliens invaded the Earth and their machines stood as a threat to Humanity. Humanity created androids to save them as mankind was already slowly dying out from a disease. With the Alien invasion, Humans escaped to the Moon while the Androids formed YoRHa in order to come together and fight off the machines. Throughout the game, you take the roles of battle android 2B and scouting android 9S. They take on various tasks of fighting off the machines and finding a way to bring Human back to Earth once more. All androids of YoRHa takes on the responsibility of serving mankind and saving them from this foreign invaders. It was their purpose; their reason for being and fighting. There was a problem though.
Part way through the game, the two androids find the aliens. They have already long passed. It seemed as though the true enemies were the machines and not the aliens as the machines killed their creators and sought to kill off the androids. Determined to see things through and save humanity, the two androids continued their fight. However, another discovery is made. By chance, 9S found out that Humanity had been long extinct and androids had already failed to save the mankind. YoRHa was created to give androids purpose to their lives once more as the fabricated transmissions to the Moon was a beacon of hope for them. The machines sneak a virus into the android database and all of YoRHa is wiped out. As 2B and 9S make their escape, the infected YoRHa units pursued them. 2B has 9S' flight camouflage him and send him away from the enemy pursuers. 2B is shot down and continued to fight off her former comrades. She notices that she was slowing becoming infected. When it seemed as if she couldn't fight anymore, another android by the name of A2 appears and fights off 2B's attackers. As the battered and corrupted 2B looks upon A2, she requests her to end her life before she becomes entirely taken over by the virus while defeating the rest of the machines. A2 fulfills 2B's last request as 9S had just arrived. Furious and with all hope lost for YoRHa, 9S had lost all reasoning with one last purpose: to kill A2. The game concludes with A2 and 9S defeating the last remaining main machine only to confront each other in one last fight. They end up killing each other. It was a solemn ending that had the player question the time they spent on the game. "What was the purpose of the androids fighting so hard for something that didn't exist? Couldn't the androids live out their own lives in peace? Did they really need a purpose to live beyond saving humanity?" It reached deep into the hearts of many players. I could be wrong, but I interpreted the game in this manner:
We, as humans, may never find our true purpose for existence.
One day, the inevitable extinction of our race may come.
Why do we work so hard for a better future when it may not matter one day?
Perhaps it's not important to our future, but it certainly feels important to us now.
At the very end of the game, after the true ending, the player is presented with a shoot-em-up mini game that's excruciatingly hard. With each failure, you'll see words of encouragement or sympathy pop-up asking if you'd like to try again. After a certain amount of failures, the game asks if you would like help from other players. If you say "yes" many other players appear spinning around you to fight and protect you. If one of the player is hit, their ship is destroyed and you see their names appear reporting that their save file was permanently deleted. After completing the mini-game, you have a difficult choice to make: sacrifice your save file in order to help another player in the same way the other players helped you. It asks you multiple times if you really want to do this: "the one you're helping may not remember your name; they might not be grateful for your help; your sacrifice could even be in vain; even with all those in consideration, do you want to go through with it?"
I agreed and saw the game go through my equipment, my inventory, my 30 hours of effort put into the game being slowly wiped out of existence in front of me little by little. "What's the purpose of putting so much time into the game when it's going to wipe your progress? Why did you play the game when it ended the story on such a somber note?" As painful as it seemed to have my progress wiped at the end of the game, I felt no regrets. I was happy I played the game. I enjoyed the combat and was enthralled by the progression of the story. That was the whole idea behind the game.
To reflect that concept back to what I wrote in italics up above: we often question our existence as a species. "Where did we come from? How did we come to be? What is our purpose here?" As long as our human history have been recorded, no one knows for sure why we're here or what we're supposed to be doing. Like all living things in our world, we only know that our instincts compels us to survive and continue our existence. But what if there is no purpose to our existence? Do we still want to continue a futile effort of a possible non-existence in the far future of humanity? The androids of YoRHa seemingly wasted all their time, effort, and lives for something that no longer exists. All of Humanity's information and proof of existence was sent to a database on the Moon and playing as 9S, you could choose to protect it or not. For the androids, serving mankind was their purpose. But what if they didn't have that responsibility? They would simply exist and be there. In some subtle sense, I believe Yoko Taro wants to convey the message that "we should live our lives to the fullest and not take for granted the brief time we have. It may not matter one day, but it matters now. So until that day comes, see things through." I spent 30 hours on the game and agreed to have my save filed erased to help another player on the ending Shoot-em-Up mini-game. I didn't get a happy ending that I wanted, but I'm glad I got to experience the adventure of 2B, 9S and A2. I have no regrets. I can only hope I can live my life with that sense of appreciation.
As many players before me have said: "What a beautiful game."
Thursday, October 5, 2017
Productivity and Progress
September was quite a busy month with getting audio projects done and getting through some games. I created a few songs, covers and remixes for fun and practice while most of September was spent working on two remixes that's part of the 4 remix albums I set off towards working on last year. I wasn't sure if I could even finish the Ninja Gaiden remix before the end of the month when I suddenly got really sick in the stomach and threw up last week. Thankfully, I made a speed recovery and worked hard on it to get it done so I could enjoy the final product. I had those two remixes uploaded last night.
I really liked how the Double Dragon remix turned out. I wanted it to be kind of laid-back, but still be upbeat. But when I finished the Ninja Gaiden Remix, I felt like it paled in comparison since a lot more thought, work, and inspiration went into it. I've been wanting to make this remix for a while ever since I started listening to more music from the Synthwave/Retrowave and Darkwave genre. And it was no surprise that I was going to work on remixes from Ninja Gaiden when I decided to make a Ninja themed remix album. I was thinking about participating in INKtober this year like I did last year. But because of the momentum I gained from the work I've done in the past 2 months, I decided I would focus on my own projects throughout October. After getting the two remixes up last night, I have a bit of leisure time today to write and reflect as I'll probably continue working on Monday after some rest over the weekend.
Aside from work, I've been enjoying the games I've pre-ordered for the month of September and October. I've been so busy that I haven't had time to write about NieR: Automata. There are a few games I want to get into an in-depth analysis on, so for now I'm just going to briefly go over some of them.
After completing NieR: Automata and Final Fantasy Type-0 HD back in early August, I wanted to complete a few more games before all the pre-orders started rolling in. I managed to finish up Touhou Genso Rondo: Bullet Ballet and the original main story of Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate before Warriors All-Stars came in the mail. What I mean by that is that Warriors Orochi 3 originally had 4 chapters (or was it 5?) and it looks like all the other ones were added afterwards (10 chapters in total). So I'm probably going to go back to it and try to finish the extra content when I get the chance. It looks like I managed to finish Koihime Enbu, Necropolis (with a friend), and Kirby Triple Deluxe before I finished Warriors All-Stars. Nothing much to say about a lot of these games: Touhou was okay, Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate was a lot of fun, but there's still more I want to get around to playing in it, Koihime Enbu was pretty fun but frustrating sometimes, Necropolis was rather disappointing and bare-bones (not to mention how unreasonably difficult it seemed if we didn't find a ranged weapon that made it much easier), and Kirby Triple Deluxe was mediocre with a ridiculous 7 phase final boss. Warriors All-Stars is one game I'll probably want to get into a deep discussion about because I absolutely loved the game and had a lot of fun playing it. I finished Metroid Samus Returns and felt rather conflicted on what I thought about it throughout my playthrough. That's another game I want to go into detail with. I finished Story mode of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite with a lot of disappointment for the entire game, but still like the overall feel of gameplay. So I'll definitely talk about that game as well since I have a lot to complain about it. And just a little over a week ago, I downloaded a free Half-Life 1 modded game called "Half-Life: CAGED". I didn't like it very much. The puzzles and platforming were pretty good, but combat was quite awful. It made me want to play Half-Life, so I finally downloaded and played through Half-Life 2: Episode 1; it's a game I bought back in 2011. I started Half-Life 2: Episode 2 last night.
There's a lot I want to accomplish this month, so I'm sure it'll be interesting. I'm probably going to be writing quite a bit about the few games I mentioned in the following days or weeks.
I really liked how the Double Dragon remix turned out. I wanted it to be kind of laid-back, but still be upbeat. But when I finished the Ninja Gaiden Remix, I felt like it paled in comparison since a lot more thought, work, and inspiration went into it. I've been wanting to make this remix for a while ever since I started listening to more music from the Synthwave/Retrowave and Darkwave genre. And it was no surprise that I was going to work on remixes from Ninja Gaiden when I decided to make a Ninja themed remix album. I was thinking about participating in INKtober this year like I did last year. But because of the momentum I gained from the work I've done in the past 2 months, I decided I would focus on my own projects throughout October. After getting the two remixes up last night, I have a bit of leisure time today to write and reflect as I'll probably continue working on Monday after some rest over the weekend.
Aside from work, I've been enjoying the games I've pre-ordered for the month of September and October. I've been so busy that I haven't had time to write about NieR: Automata. There are a few games I want to get into an in-depth analysis on, so for now I'm just going to briefly go over some of them.
After completing NieR: Automata and Final Fantasy Type-0 HD back in early August, I wanted to complete a few more games before all the pre-orders started rolling in. I managed to finish up Touhou Genso Rondo: Bullet Ballet and the original main story of Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate before Warriors All-Stars came in the mail. What I mean by that is that Warriors Orochi 3 originally had 4 chapters (or was it 5?) and it looks like all the other ones were added afterwards (10 chapters in total). So I'm probably going to go back to it and try to finish the extra content when I get the chance. It looks like I managed to finish Koihime Enbu, Necropolis (with a friend), and Kirby Triple Deluxe before I finished Warriors All-Stars. Nothing much to say about a lot of these games: Touhou was okay, Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate was a lot of fun, but there's still more I want to get around to playing in it, Koihime Enbu was pretty fun but frustrating sometimes, Necropolis was rather disappointing and bare-bones (not to mention how unreasonably difficult it seemed if we didn't find a ranged weapon that made it much easier), and Kirby Triple Deluxe was mediocre with a ridiculous 7 phase final boss. Warriors All-Stars is one game I'll probably want to get into a deep discussion about because I absolutely loved the game and had a lot of fun playing it. I finished Metroid Samus Returns and felt rather conflicted on what I thought about it throughout my playthrough. That's another game I want to go into detail with. I finished Story mode of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite with a lot of disappointment for the entire game, but still like the overall feel of gameplay. So I'll definitely talk about that game as well since I have a lot to complain about it. And just a little over a week ago, I downloaded a free Half-Life 1 modded game called "Half-Life: CAGED". I didn't like it very much. The puzzles and platforming were pretty good, but combat was quite awful. It made me want to play Half-Life, so I finally downloaded and played through Half-Life 2: Episode 1; it's a game I bought back in 2011. I started Half-Life 2: Episode 2 last night.
There's a lot I want to accomplish this month, so I'm sure it'll be interesting. I'm probably going to be writing quite a bit about the few games I mentioned in the following days or weeks.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Waves of Pre-ordered Games
It's been difficult getting back into "work" mode, as expected. I had been working on applying for a QA position at Atlus, once again. I have quite a few projects I want to work on, but for the sake of actually getting anything done, I need to do some prioritizing.
Aside from work related stuff, I've been trying to focus on finishing certain games and freeing up hard drive space on both my PC and PS4. I haven't completed many games this month with NieR: Automata (PS4) and Final Fantasy Type-0 HD (PC) taking up most of my time (but at the very least I finished them). Despite the amount of games I'm trying to get through and the amount I've already pre-ordered, I still ended up picking up a few more games recently. The platform fighter (Smash Bros.-like) game Brawlout introduced The Drifter from Hyper Light Drifter as a guest character. What was a game I was somewhat interested suddenly became a game I really wanted to play right away, even if it's still in Early Access. It was 50% off for $9.99 and I got a friend to pick it up with me to play. It's rather unbalanced, but it made for some hilarious moments and entertainment. While I was making my pre-orders, I saw Kirby Triple Deluxe for $16 and decided to finally pick it up and play. I also picked up Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 3 V Generation to complete my collection of Neptunia games, even though I'm not exactly ready to play it yet. I had planned on buying it from Gamestop for $30, but it completely sold out and the cheapest price on Amazon was $45. To avoid the risk of it going any higher, I bought it. This past weekend, there was a Capcom sale on Steam and I ended up picking up Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 for PC. I got two other friends to pick it up and unfortunately the online experience was laggy and frustrating. Still, I kept the game and enjoyed the Single-player experience as it loads much faster than the PS3 version. I really do miss playing UMvC3. Besides that, I was talking about the Hatsune Miku games with some friends over the weekend and saw that Project Diva X was $30 from its original $50 and decided to order it. It should arrive in the mail today. Now onto the Pre-orders.
Warriors All-Stars (PS4) - August 29th
I'm pretty excited for this. I wasn't sure if we would even be getting the game considering how long it took before we got Warriors Orochi 3 after its initial release. Speaking of which, I never actually got through the game and have been trying to play through it ever since I completed NieR: Automata. It certainly feels much like a port of the PS3 version, which is why I'm that much more excited for Warriors All-Stars as it was developed specifically for the PS4 generation console.
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA (PS4) - September 12th
I shouldn't be picking this up as I have yet to play through Ys Origin, Ys VI, and Ys VII which releases on Steam at the end of this month. Still, I guess I felt a need to support the game and the fact that the Ys games are so disconnected from each other I was thinking of playing through this one before going back to the older ones. I'm glad we're getting this game as well.
Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS) - September 15th
Besides Warriors All-Stars, I'm possibly most excited for this game. It's been 13 years since we've had a 2D Metroid game and it just suddenly came out of the blue to surprise all the fans at this year's E3. I am a bit turned off by the art style, but the gameplay caught my attention and I'm looking forward to playing and replaying the game.
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite (PC) - September 19th
I am excited about MvC:I, but I'm also worried. Is the final product going to look alright? (They fixed a lot of characters' faces, but something about the art style still bothers me) Will I be able to play online without problems? Is the game going to be boring? (The roster is kind of boring) Will there be some good upgrades to the game rather than a separate, standalone expansion like in MvC3? I'm excited to play the game, but I'm approaching it with a lot of skepticism.
Mary Skelter: Nightmares (PSV) - September 19th
I might have bought this on a whim. It might have been a bad a idea...But it was so hard to resist. Look at how cute the characters are! Considering that it's a cRPG and how many I already have backlogged (Demon Gaze, Etrian Odyssey 4, 1U, 2U, and also 5 that I also pre-ordered), I really don't have the time to play it. Besides the characters, what got me really interested was the various classes you can switch around with. It's not a new mechanic in these sorts of games, but it's one that I like. My backlog for PS Vita is pretty impressive already, so it's a bit intimidating picking up a long cRPG like this one up to add to it. Hopefully it was worth it and it blows my mind.
Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash (PS4) - September 26th
I pre-ordered the special edition while I was writing this as I was looking up the release date. The trailer is for Europe and it seems they'll be getting the game 4 days earlier than US. I was hoping to buy a standard edition, but I did a little bit of research and realized the only method of getting a physical copy of the game was through the special edition. I can't say I'm super excited for this one since it's not a Hack 'n Slash this time around. But I do like 3rd-Person Shooters and I've become quite a fan of Senran Kagura so it's hard for me to ignore this one.
Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online (PS4) - October 10th
They finally announced a release date for this game last week and I'm pretty excited. I am a little concerned about the gameplay as the videos show it being a bit janky. But maybe I'll be surprised and find it really enjoyable. If it's really good, I might consider picking up the PC version as well to play Online with friends if they happen to purchase it as well.
Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth (3DS) - October 17th
Ever since I picked up Etrian Odyssey IV, I've been just picking up all the Etrian Odyssey games without actually playing through them because I'm still finishing up other 3DS games. There are so many long games on 3DS that I picked up! I've listened to the soundtrack for EO5 and like it as much as all the previous games. Perhaps I should jump straight into playing EO5 after finishing EO4 and play the remakes afterwards.
Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon (PS4) - October 24th
I haven't played through the first game yet, but with the addition of the main character into Warriors All-Stars, I had planned on getting through it before Warriors All-Stars releases. It doesn't seem like I can do that in time. But I should be able to finish the first game before this sequel comes out.
Destiny 2 (PC) - October 24th
I feel like it's been a while since I've bought a First-Person Shooter or even played one (this is probably not true). Although I found the first Destiny to be boring, there were certain aspects to it that I liked. I'm hoping that the sequel takes everything that was great about the first one, abandon everything that was boring, and add in new content that I'll like. It's a lot to ask for, but I think that I'll have fun playing this game in the end. I think quite a few friends will be picking it up, so I'll have friends to play with as well.
Well I hope I get some work done this week and be able to continue the momentum the following two months considering the amount of games tempting me to abandon productiveness. In any case, the next two months should be pretty fun on the gaming side of things.
Aside from work related stuff, I've been trying to focus on finishing certain games and freeing up hard drive space on both my PC and PS4. I haven't completed many games this month with NieR: Automata (PS4) and Final Fantasy Type-0 HD (PC) taking up most of my time (but at the very least I finished them). Despite the amount of games I'm trying to get through and the amount I've already pre-ordered, I still ended up picking up a few more games recently. The platform fighter (Smash Bros.-like) game Brawlout introduced The Drifter from Hyper Light Drifter as a guest character. What was a game I was somewhat interested suddenly became a game I really wanted to play right away, even if it's still in Early Access. It was 50% off for $9.99 and I got a friend to pick it up with me to play. It's rather unbalanced, but it made for some hilarious moments and entertainment. While I was making my pre-orders, I saw Kirby Triple Deluxe for $16 and decided to finally pick it up and play. I also picked up Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 3 V Generation to complete my collection of Neptunia games, even though I'm not exactly ready to play it yet. I had planned on buying it from Gamestop for $30, but it completely sold out and the cheapest price on Amazon was $45. To avoid the risk of it going any higher, I bought it. This past weekend, there was a Capcom sale on Steam and I ended up picking up Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 for PC. I got two other friends to pick it up and unfortunately the online experience was laggy and frustrating. Still, I kept the game and enjoyed the Single-player experience as it loads much faster than the PS3 version. I really do miss playing UMvC3. Besides that, I was talking about the Hatsune Miku games with some friends over the weekend and saw that Project Diva X was $30 from its original $50 and decided to order it. It should arrive in the mail today. Now onto the Pre-orders.
Warriors All-Stars (PS4) - August 29th
I'm pretty excited for this. I wasn't sure if we would even be getting the game considering how long it took before we got Warriors Orochi 3 after its initial release. Speaking of which, I never actually got through the game and have been trying to play through it ever since I completed NieR: Automata. It certainly feels much like a port of the PS3 version, which is why I'm that much more excited for Warriors All-Stars as it was developed specifically for the PS4 generation console.
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA (PS4) - September 12th
I shouldn't be picking this up as I have yet to play through Ys Origin, Ys VI, and Ys VII which releases on Steam at the end of this month. Still, I guess I felt a need to support the game and the fact that the Ys games are so disconnected from each other I was thinking of playing through this one before going back to the older ones. I'm glad we're getting this game as well.
Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS) - September 15th
Besides Warriors All-Stars, I'm possibly most excited for this game. It's been 13 years since we've had a 2D Metroid game and it just suddenly came out of the blue to surprise all the fans at this year's E3. I am a bit turned off by the art style, but the gameplay caught my attention and I'm looking forward to playing and replaying the game.
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite (PC) - September 19th
I am excited about MvC:I, but I'm also worried. Is the final product going to look alright? (They fixed a lot of characters' faces, but something about the art style still bothers me) Will I be able to play online without problems? Is the game going to be boring? (The roster is kind of boring) Will there be some good upgrades to the game rather than a separate, standalone expansion like in MvC3? I'm excited to play the game, but I'm approaching it with a lot of skepticism.
Mary Skelter: Nightmares (PSV) - September 19th
I might have bought this on a whim. It might have been a bad a idea...But it was so hard to resist. Look at how cute the characters are! Considering that it's a cRPG and how many I already have backlogged (Demon Gaze, Etrian Odyssey 4, 1U, 2U, and also 5 that I also pre-ordered), I really don't have the time to play it. Besides the characters, what got me really interested was the various classes you can switch around with. It's not a new mechanic in these sorts of games, but it's one that I like. My backlog for PS Vita is pretty impressive already, so it's a bit intimidating picking up a long cRPG like this one up to add to it. Hopefully it was worth it and it blows my mind.
Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash (PS4) - September 26th
I pre-ordered the special edition while I was writing this as I was looking up the release date. The trailer is for Europe and it seems they'll be getting the game 4 days earlier than US. I was hoping to buy a standard edition, but I did a little bit of research and realized the only method of getting a physical copy of the game was through the special edition. I can't say I'm super excited for this one since it's not a Hack 'n Slash this time around. But I do like 3rd-Person Shooters and I've become quite a fan of Senran Kagura so it's hard for me to ignore this one.
Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online (PS4) - October 10th
They finally announced a release date for this game last week and I'm pretty excited. I am a little concerned about the gameplay as the videos show it being a bit janky. But maybe I'll be surprised and find it really enjoyable. If it's really good, I might consider picking up the PC version as well to play Online with friends if they happen to purchase it as well.
Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth (3DS) - October 17th
Ever since I picked up Etrian Odyssey IV, I've been just picking up all the Etrian Odyssey games without actually playing through them because I'm still finishing up other 3DS games. There are so many long games on 3DS that I picked up! I've listened to the soundtrack for EO5 and like it as much as all the previous games. Perhaps I should jump straight into playing EO5 after finishing EO4 and play the remakes afterwards.
Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon (PS4) - October 24th
I haven't played through the first game yet, but with the addition of the main character into Warriors All-Stars, I had planned on getting through it before Warriors All-Stars releases. It doesn't seem like I can do that in time. But I should be able to finish the first game before this sequel comes out.
Destiny 2 (PC) - October 24th
I feel like it's been a while since I've bought a First-Person Shooter or even played one (this is probably not true). Although I found the first Destiny to be boring, there were certain aspects to it that I liked. I'm hoping that the sequel takes everything that was great about the first one, abandon everything that was boring, and add in new content that I'll like. It's a lot to ask for, but I think that I'll have fun playing this game in the end. I think quite a few friends will be picking it up, so I'll have friends to play with as well.
Well I hope I get some work done this week and be able to continue the momentum the following two months considering the amount of games tempting me to abandon productiveness. In any case, the next two months should be pretty fun on the gaming side of things.
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Let's talk about Final Fantasy Type-0 HD [SPOILERS]
I finally completed NieR: Automata this past weekend and Final Fantasy Type-0 HD on Monday. Although I want to talk about NieR: Automata, I feel eager to talk about Final Fantasy Type-0 HD first. NieR: Automata was a great game and I had very little to complain about other than some parts of the game being a bit of a time waster. FF Type-0 HD; however, had a LOT of problems and yet it left quite an impression on me. So let's get to it.
Final Fantasy Type-0 had originally released on the Playstation Portable system and was never brought to the Western market. I was excited about this Final Fantasy game that seemed like it was full of action and combat. Thankfully, they announced a Final Fantasy Type-0 HD version that was going to release for PS4 and PC. I had waited for a sale and picked it up for PC only to realize that my computer couldn't run it very well. I had gotten a new computer in the past year and so continued playing it on and off until I decided to really sit down and get through it the past two week.
Final Fantasy Type-0 is part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, which means it takes place in the same universe as Final Fantasy XIII. FF Type-0 takes place in the land of Orience where the regions of the land are divided into four nations, each blessed by a Crystal that grants its people powers. Like many other works of fiction that talks about divided land, one nation wants more power from the other nations which leads to political strife. What I believe the game wanted to achieve through its story was the depiction of human struggle on both sides of a battle, a common theme among stories of war.
The game starts off with scenes of an invasion to a city. A young man wanders the battlefield and asks around for someone in a red cape. Shortly after, soldiers march in and start blowing up buildings, impaling the man's comrades in front of him and getting shot in the process. The man is saved by his Chocobo and finds a sword to fight off the remaining soldier. He continues searching for the one with a red cape only to have the Chocobo shot and have soldiers surround him. At the last moment, he yells out for the boy he was looking for. The one called Ace fights off the soldiers and runs to the man named Izana to try to heal him. But it's too late and Ace's healing magic takes no effect to the severely injured and bloodied Izana. Up to this point, I don't really call that much blood (if any) being depicted in a Final Fantasy game. The one's dressed similar to Ace fights off the remaining soldiers in the area and turns to Izana. As Ace and company stood there, they witnessed a dying man and his Chocobo companion as they cry out in agony of not wanting to die. This opening felt so real, as in it didn't feel like a poorly written scene for a videogame like most cut-scenes in videogames. It was a surprising opening and I was taken aback by the grim scene from a Final Fantasy game. Despite this, I was excited to see how emotionally involving and deep the story was going to be throughout the game.
Well, I was pretty disappointed in that regards because everything after that opening took a sharp 180 turn into the other direction where the writing, characters, and delivery of dialogue were awkward, cheesy, humorous, and/or abrupt. This is just story we're talking about. In terms of gameplay, it's a game with good ideas mixed with a myriad of poor design choices.
[Pros of the game/Things I liked]
+ Characters: First and foremost, I want to talk about the characters of the game. With 14 characters all dressed the same way, I didn't think there would be much to distinguish the characters by other than the weapons they used. But as I played the game, I grew fond of each of the characters because of their specialty on the battlefield as well as their personality. I will admit now that the characters don't have much depth to them, that they're trope-driven, and that they're hardly believable in the scope of reality (considering how real the characters felt in the opening); however, the interactions between the characters were some of my favorite moments from the game.
[Class Zero]: An Elite group of individuals that carry out dangerous missions
= Ace (Cards): Ace is often depicted as the leader of the group, even though he really isn't. He's young, but has an air of maturity with a calm and collected way of thinking. He's the voice of reason in the group and the one that tries to keep everyone together.
= Deuce (Flute): Deuce is kind of hard to keep alive since she isn't much of an offensive character, but I like to have her in my party and buff the other two characters as it helps a lot. She's soft spoken and kind to those around her. She's among one of the girls that gossip within the group.
= Trey (Bow): Trey isn't exactly arrogant, but he definitely likes to show off his vast knowledge. I find it funny in one of the study events where their Commanding Officer asks them a questions, he's first to answer but answers incorrectly. When Cater starts experiencing cases of déjà vu and gets scared because of it, she turns to Trey for help. He could've said "it's probably nothing" or ask "do you feel ill in any way?" to reassure Cater that she was okay. Instead, he goes on a long winded explanation of what might cause it and the history and research that goes into that topic.
Trey was a really useful character and saved me a lot in missions with the ability to take down flying or unreachable enemies as he has the longest range in the game with lots of damage behind it.
= Cater (Magicite Pistol): She was a good support damage to have in the party as she's able to attack a decent amount of times at a mid-range without putting herself in danger and having to worry about healing her. She's blunt and headstrong so she doesn't hesitate to speak her mind, even if it might upset the people around her. She experiences déjà vu and didn't understand why she feels like so many events have happened before. It is revealed in a secret clip after beating the game that they have all looped the many events of the war over 600 million times.
= Cinque (Mace): I do not like playing Cinque as she's slow with attacks taking forever to bring out and recover from, but she's pretty awesome to have in the party because she's sometimes able to knock an enemy down or stun them. Why did they have a tiny little girl wield such a large and heavy weapon anyways? Cinque's voice makes me laugh. Her English voice (It's Cristina Vee, I can hear some Noel in the voice) makes her always sound out of it, slow and/or ditsy. Her Japanese voice makes her sound playful and child-like. She's the kind of girl who's in her own little world, so that's kind of what they're trying to go for. I didn't really like playing her, but she had a fun personality and liked her interactions with everyone. I also like how she gives endearing nicknames to everyone. Mog=Moglin, Queen=Queenie, Rem=Remski, etc.
= Sice (Scythe): Loud mouthed and vulgar, Sice is very much a tomboy. Her attacks kind of go all over the place as she dives forwards when she swings, but I really like the damage behind it. Her straight-forward, unabashed personality can come off as rude and conceited. But she shows that she expects a lot out of herself and doesn't want to rely on others. This still doesn't stop Trey from lecturing her about all the things he knows
= Seven (Whipblade): Seven looks pretty much like Lightning, but with silver hair rather than pink hair. Seven has a decent range in attack and damage, and she also can get an ability that has three different elements. Seven is the big-sister type character. She's mature and reliable which makes her a popular upperclassmen at the academy. One interesting thing about Seven's outfit is that she wears spats under her skirt because she often twirls upside-down with her whipblade to attack all around her.
= Eight (Knuckles): It might be just me, but I feel like Eight didn't have much of a presence within the group. I did take note of him whenever I used him in fights as he has this one move that lets him continuously punch an enemy as long as he has the energy to keep doing it. Personality wise, I feel like he was the most forgettable.
= Nine (Spear): Nine is brash, hot-headed, and dumb, yet I like him so much. If I were to choose who the most memorable male character was from the original 12, it'd be Nine. With the Japanese voice, he's the stereotypical meathead who wants things simple and would much rather fight things out rather than negotiate. With the English voice, he's an awkward dude who can barely speak correctly saying "hey" and "yo" a lot and it's entertaining to watch any scene he has a speaking role in. I mean, who even talks like that?
He has pretty good burst damage and defense which helps when you're left with ranged units that need protection.
= Jack (Katana): I didn't like Jack at first. With his weapon out, he has the slowest walk in the game. But then I thought of it in Monster Hunter terms and sheathed my Katana whenever I wasn't close enough and then attack to bring it out when I was in range. After doing this and utilizing dodge more often, he quickly became my favorite melee character to play. He has high damage and can quickly counter after dodging out of the way. He has a unique style of play that was a bit more challenging but satisfying. Jack is the class clown of Class Zero and is full of optimism. His easy going attitude is a nice contrast to every else who seems to be a lot more serious other than Cinque.
= Queen (Longsword): Queen is the studious and intelligent one of Class Zero. She emanates a sort of elegance that matches her cool and collected mind. It's strange that her weapon is a Longsword when her stance and style of fighting matches those who wield rapiers. She's fast and can quickly close the distance which makes her a good duelist and for taking out multiple weaker units.
= King (Dual Handguns): He's the strong silent type but is very manly when speaking. He can be pretty useful against close to mid-range enemies that fly or unreachable by melee characters. It's especially satisfying kicking an enemy down and shooting them while they're on the floor.
= Machina Kunagiri (Twin Rapiers): They did a very poor job developing this character. There was quite a focus on this character in how he changes, how he grows, his relationship with the rest of the characters, but they were all so abrupt and scripted that he ended up being one of the most hated characters of the cast. In terms of combat, he was nice to have around to take down enemies with large health pools. But as a character in the story, he didn't quite seem realistic and his motives were confusing. Half way through the game, he disappears and isn't even playable on main missions.
= Rem Tokimiya (Twin Daggers): Much like Machina, she was supposed to have a big role in the story. But she was a rather boring character. Even worse, she didn't feel particularly strong in combat either. Her attacks were somewhat fast, but were so weak that it didn't compensate for it. At the very least, she was the "kind girl" who watched out for everyone with Machina in particular. So she wasn't a character I could really hate.
= Kurasame Susaya: The Commanding Officier of Class Zero. When he was introduced, he demonstrated his experience and abilities when Nine, Cater and Ace attacked him while he had total control over the situation without a bit of hesitation. It shows how powerful he was and that he's really "cool". Other than one other scene where he shows concern over the members of Class Zero, there were no other mentions of his character that would make the player understand who he was, why he's important and powerful, and his impact with the rest of Class Zero. When he was sent out to battle, all he did was sacrifice his power for the l'cie to summon an eidolon (really strong entity) and that was the end of his character. What I found out was that there is a manga that tells the whole story of his time at the academy, his contributions to the nation, the comrades he lost, and the sacrifices he made to led him to become the "Ice Reaper". He was a really cool character that was entirely overlooked in the game.
+ Music: The main theme had a nice melody that was memorable, but it's played in over a dozen different variations throughout the game. Overall, the music was pretty good and it was a pivotal element to the entire experience of the game. It's definitely not as memorable as the music from other Final Fantasy games, but I enjoyed it and it brought out the atmosphere and immersion of the game.
+ The School Theme: The setting of the game being set in a school was done in Final Fantasy 8 and I really liked it in that game as well. It was somewhat nostalgic of FF8 to see the characters be part of a school with other students, instructors, and such. It felt welcoming and familiar to come back to the school grounds after each mission and finding new events around the campus.
+ Combat: In all honesty, combat wasn't that great yet I enjoyed it so much. Setting up my party, choosing specific builds for my characters, and fighting off waves of enemies in real-time was a nice change in pace from the other Final Fantasy games. And since there's 14 characters to play, it never felt too repetitive.
+ Voice Acting: This is probably not a good thing, but I enjoyed how bad the English voice acting was. Having learned what it's like for voice actors who work on localized games, I can't blame them specifically for a lot of the bad voice acting. A lot of lines in the game don't feel like they have the correct contextual situation in mind when they're delivered which is common in a lot of localized games when voice actors are given the script but not the situation. This ends up with the English voice overs having some interesting results such as each character's personality exaggerated through their voices. The Japanese voices are quite stereotypical of each of their respective characters, so it matches up pretty well. So with the Japanese voices, it's not as entertaining, but it's certainly more believable thus more immersive.
+ Cinematics: Although the game was originally released on PSP, all the major cinematics that weren't in-game scripting were pre-rendered clips created in order to have PS3-like quality to them. During these Cinematics, movements were natural, voice acting were (usually) contextually correct, and the moments had impact. This is quite a difference from the in-game dialogues and scripted motions that looked awkward and jarring. The best Cinematics that held a lot of meaning was the very beginning and the very end of the game.
+ Humor/Dark Themes: With the way the game started out, I didn't expect much humor. But there are many moments that were so awkward or out of place that it's hard not to laugh (like anything that Nine says in English voice). There were moments in the game where the darker themes felt like it held weight and meaning behind the story, and yet so much of the game's story and character development was such a mess that it didn't do it well enough. The few events where it did have impact left an impression on me.
+ The "What-if" Ending: Even though this is the fake ending, it was cute and fun. I loved it so much. This ending showed what the lives of Class Zero would be like if there weren't a war going on and they got to enjoy their school lives. This makes it that much more harder to accept the true ending.
[Cons of the game/Things I did not like]
- Free Time: I actually liked the "Free Time" the first few times I had to go through it. You get to talk to your fellow schoolmates and see different events that ranged from informative, to funny, to sometimes being a waste of time. As the game goes on, there are less events to trigger and a lot more side quests you can do. These side quests were probably meant to get the player to go out and earn some levels; however, they were long, boring, and tedious without the rewards to compensate for them. Free Time became a waste of time and I ended up going straight to main missions after triggering all the events.
- Side Quests: As I mentioned, side quests just didn't feel worth the time and effort to do. I did all the side quests the first few times and realized how long it took to do them while not really being properly rewarded for them for the time I spent on them. It certainly felt like filler/padding to extend the time spent on the game and it just wasn't that fun.
- Conquering missions: I didn't expect to see a game of tower defense in an Action-RPG, but there it was. You choose one character to move around the overworld and lead your army into the opposing faction's city to weaken its defenses before invading it. It's a tedious process that requires you getting knocked down over and over again. It's clunky, boring and annoying.
- Slow and abrupt pacing: Perhaps it's because it was originally developed for the PSP, but cinematics and events tend to fade in and out a lot of scenes. When it's not doing that, the narration for the story is long winded and boring. It's trying hard to drive home the idea of "war is bad and everyone is affected" and it loses its audience through the droning of narration rather than just showing it through action or gameplay (like the beginning cinematic of Izana dying. That was powerful and had meaning).
- Lazy on story details: I had a similar complaint to Final Fantasy XIII when I read all the notes in-game and thought that the notes did a better job at telling the story than the game itself. That should never be the case for a videogame. At the very least, FF13's story was easy to understand even if it was told poorly. With FF Type-0, the story details are cryptic and sometimes never mentioned in game and can only be known to those who read everything from the notes. And even then, character development is non-existent for some which led to some dumb moments.
- No connection to characters: I did say I liked the characters, but unfortunately the game didn't really do much for them in terms of character development. Very little backstory, motives, and changes are given to characters throughout the game which made it difficult to connect with them. Lots of characters die throughout the game, and yet a lot of times it's hard to really feel sad for them when we barely got to know them at all. At one point in the game, Class Zero's little merchant girl Aria (who is hostage to the enemy) suddenly has a connection to one of the enemies. There is no build up to that moment, it just reveals itself and happens. The player confronts this one enemy multiple times and yet knows little to nothing about him. He tells Aria to go home and that there will be a lot of fighting and she refuses to go home and tells him not to die. Just when things are about to end and he was about to retreat from the fight, he finds a bomb near him set by one of his comrades without permission. He sacrifices himself and prevents the bomb from needlessly killing that much more lives. It sucks, but who was he? This happens quite a few times throughout the game and it just felt like cheap moments to try to make it feel deep.
- Level requirement spike: For about 35%-45% of the first half of the game, there is little need to grind for levels in order to get through the main missions. But at one point of the game, the recommended level spikes up by a large amount. As I've mentioned before, side-quests are boring and not really worth it. So the only other options is to either go into the arena to train, have a character go into secret training (and you can use an exploit to level them extremely quickly), or replay a previous main mission in order to level the characters. But then it presents another problem in the game:
- Leveling characters up: Characters level up individually. Only three characters can be in the party at a time. There are 14 characters in the game. This means you have grind levels for 5 separate groups every time they're under-leveled. With the amount of levels needed at that difficulty spike in needing higher level characters, it feels like an aggressive waste of time to repeatedly fight the same enemies over and over for hour on end before you can progress the story.
- The last area: Despite over-leveling my characters to avoid any further difficulty in confrontation, the game still decides to throw enemies that take forever to kill with some of them possessing the ability to kill you in two hits should the 2nd hit land shortly after the first one. I was well over 10 levels above the enemies and still took quite a bit of time to take down each enemy across the two dozen rooms laid out at the last area.
- The last boss: As if the game didn't waste enough of your time already, the last boss goes on with his soliloquy as your characters stumble around with the little bit of strength they have left to fight and overpowered gargantuan of a monster as it takes a swing at them every once in a while to take them out of their misery. After everyone falls in battle, another cinematic takes place and then each member is revived and controlled by the player. Each of those characters can't be killed and can continue to attack the monster until they take a set amount of health away before getting knocked out and switched out with another character. This process takes a LONG time as the boss is level 99. Even with invincibility, the characters can still be knocked around. It wasn't fun, it didn't have the dramatic effect that I'm sure they were going for when they designed this, and I did not feel satisfied after beating it.
- The True Ending: I don't think there was ever a more painful ending to watch from a Final Fantasy game than this one (except Crisis Core, everyone keeps mentioning, but I haven't played it yet). Much like the opening cinematic of the game, the graphics are pre-rendered and it looked really nice. The motions were more natural and the quality of the voice acting was much better (although it was still not very good in English). Also like the opening cinematic, it felt very real and meaningful as the twelves characters that I got to know and love are now facing the reality that they're dying from the damage done to their phantoma (kind of like their soul). They all begin to cry and share each other's sorrow. As that happens, Ace sings a song that calms everyone down. They didn't want to be sad and start imaging what life after the war would be like now that it's over. They laugh and smile as they wonder what kinds of places they can visit and things they can learn making for a hopeful future. As the credits roll, Machina and Rem burst through the classroom doors and find their former comrades and friends had already passed as they lay next to each other next to their weapons erected with their capes attached flailing to the wind like a flag. It was such a painful moment and the biggest slap in the face was the Machina survived. I can't say that the ending was bad, but it made me feel bad. It was a sad conclusion as it did off one of the main things I liked about the game: the 12 main members of Class Zero.
Despite it all, I'm glad I played through the game. It's definitely not one I could recommend and not a game I want to play again any time soon. But still, I'm glad they localized it and I got to play through it.
Final Fantasy Type-0 had originally released on the Playstation Portable system and was never brought to the Western market. I was excited about this Final Fantasy game that seemed like it was full of action and combat. Thankfully, they announced a Final Fantasy Type-0 HD version that was going to release for PS4 and PC. I had waited for a sale and picked it up for PC only to realize that my computer couldn't run it very well. I had gotten a new computer in the past year and so continued playing it on and off until I decided to really sit down and get through it the past two week.
Final Fantasy Type-0 is part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, which means it takes place in the same universe as Final Fantasy XIII. FF Type-0 takes place in the land of Orience where the regions of the land are divided into four nations, each blessed by a Crystal that grants its people powers. Like many other works of fiction that talks about divided land, one nation wants more power from the other nations which leads to political strife. What I believe the game wanted to achieve through its story was the depiction of human struggle on both sides of a battle, a common theme among stories of war.
The game starts off with scenes of an invasion to a city. A young man wanders the battlefield and asks around for someone in a red cape. Shortly after, soldiers march in and start blowing up buildings, impaling the man's comrades in front of him and getting shot in the process. The man is saved by his Chocobo and finds a sword to fight off the remaining soldier. He continues searching for the one with a red cape only to have the Chocobo shot and have soldiers surround him. At the last moment, he yells out for the boy he was looking for. The one called Ace fights off the soldiers and runs to the man named Izana to try to heal him. But it's too late and Ace's healing magic takes no effect to the severely injured and bloodied Izana. Up to this point, I don't really call that much blood (if any) being depicted in a Final Fantasy game. The one's dressed similar to Ace fights off the remaining soldiers in the area and turns to Izana. As Ace and company stood there, they witnessed a dying man and his Chocobo companion as they cry out in agony of not wanting to die. This opening felt so real, as in it didn't feel like a poorly written scene for a videogame like most cut-scenes in videogames. It was a surprising opening and I was taken aback by the grim scene from a Final Fantasy game. Despite this, I was excited to see how emotionally involving and deep the story was going to be throughout the game.
Well, I was pretty disappointed in that regards because everything after that opening took a sharp 180 turn into the other direction where the writing, characters, and delivery of dialogue were awkward, cheesy, humorous, and/or abrupt. This is just story we're talking about. In terms of gameplay, it's a game with good ideas mixed with a myriad of poor design choices.
[Pros of the game/Things I liked]
+ Characters: First and foremost, I want to talk about the characters of the game. With 14 characters all dressed the same way, I didn't think there would be much to distinguish the characters by other than the weapons they used. But as I played the game, I grew fond of each of the characters because of their specialty on the battlefield as well as their personality. I will admit now that the characters don't have much depth to them, that they're trope-driven, and that they're hardly believable in the scope of reality (considering how real the characters felt in the opening); however, the interactions between the characters were some of my favorite moments from the game.
[Class Zero]: An Elite group of individuals that carry out dangerous missions
= Ace (Cards): Ace is often depicted as the leader of the group, even though he really isn't. He's young, but has an air of maturity with a calm and collected way of thinking. He's the voice of reason in the group and the one that tries to keep everyone together.
= Deuce (Flute): Deuce is kind of hard to keep alive since she isn't much of an offensive character, but I like to have her in my party and buff the other two characters as it helps a lot. She's soft spoken and kind to those around her. She's among one of the girls that gossip within the group.
= Trey (Bow): Trey isn't exactly arrogant, but he definitely likes to show off his vast knowledge. I find it funny in one of the study events where their Commanding Officer asks them a questions, he's first to answer but answers incorrectly. When Cater starts experiencing cases of déjà vu and gets scared because of it, she turns to Trey for help. He could've said "it's probably nothing" or ask "do you feel ill in any way?" to reassure Cater that she was okay. Instead, he goes on a long winded explanation of what might cause it and the history and research that goes into that topic.
Trey was a really useful character and saved me a lot in missions with the ability to take down flying or unreachable enemies as he has the longest range in the game with lots of damage behind it.
= Cater (Magicite Pistol): She was a good support damage to have in the party as she's able to attack a decent amount of times at a mid-range without putting herself in danger and having to worry about healing her. She's blunt and headstrong so she doesn't hesitate to speak her mind, even if it might upset the people around her. She experiences déjà vu and didn't understand why she feels like so many events have happened before. It is revealed in a secret clip after beating the game that they have all looped the many events of the war over 600 million times.
= Cinque (Mace): I do not like playing Cinque as she's slow with attacks taking forever to bring out and recover from, but she's pretty awesome to have in the party because she's sometimes able to knock an enemy down or stun them. Why did they have a tiny little girl wield such a large and heavy weapon anyways? Cinque's voice makes me laugh. Her English voice (It's Cristina Vee, I can hear some Noel in the voice) makes her always sound out of it, slow and/or ditsy. Her Japanese voice makes her sound playful and child-like. She's the kind of girl who's in her own little world, so that's kind of what they're trying to go for. I didn't really like playing her, but she had a fun personality and liked her interactions with everyone. I also like how she gives endearing nicknames to everyone. Mog=Moglin, Queen=Queenie, Rem=Remski, etc.
= Sice (Scythe): Loud mouthed and vulgar, Sice is very much a tomboy. Her attacks kind of go all over the place as she dives forwards when she swings, but I really like the damage behind it. Her straight-forward, unabashed personality can come off as rude and conceited. But she shows that she expects a lot out of herself and doesn't want to rely on others. This still doesn't stop Trey from lecturing her about all the things he knows
= Seven (Whipblade): Seven looks pretty much like Lightning, but with silver hair rather than pink hair. Seven has a decent range in attack and damage, and she also can get an ability that has three different elements. Seven is the big-sister type character. She's mature and reliable which makes her a popular upperclassmen at the academy. One interesting thing about Seven's outfit is that she wears spats under her skirt because she often twirls upside-down with her whipblade to attack all around her.
= Eight (Knuckles): It might be just me, but I feel like Eight didn't have much of a presence within the group. I did take note of him whenever I used him in fights as he has this one move that lets him continuously punch an enemy as long as he has the energy to keep doing it. Personality wise, I feel like he was the most forgettable.
= Nine (Spear): Nine is brash, hot-headed, and dumb, yet I like him so much. If I were to choose who the most memorable male character was from the original 12, it'd be Nine. With the Japanese voice, he's the stereotypical meathead who wants things simple and would much rather fight things out rather than negotiate. With the English voice, he's an awkward dude who can barely speak correctly saying "hey" and "yo" a lot and it's entertaining to watch any scene he has a speaking role in. I mean, who even talks like that?
He has pretty good burst damage and defense which helps when you're left with ranged units that need protection.
= Jack (Katana): I didn't like Jack at first. With his weapon out, he has the slowest walk in the game. But then I thought of it in Monster Hunter terms and sheathed my Katana whenever I wasn't close enough and then attack to bring it out when I was in range. After doing this and utilizing dodge more often, he quickly became my favorite melee character to play. He has high damage and can quickly counter after dodging out of the way. He has a unique style of play that was a bit more challenging but satisfying. Jack is the class clown of Class Zero and is full of optimism. His easy going attitude is a nice contrast to every else who seems to be a lot more serious other than Cinque.
= Queen (Longsword): Queen is the studious and intelligent one of Class Zero. She emanates a sort of elegance that matches her cool and collected mind. It's strange that her weapon is a Longsword when her stance and style of fighting matches those who wield rapiers. She's fast and can quickly close the distance which makes her a good duelist and for taking out multiple weaker units.
= King (Dual Handguns): He's the strong silent type but is very manly when speaking. He can be pretty useful against close to mid-range enemies that fly or unreachable by melee characters. It's especially satisfying kicking an enemy down and shooting them while they're on the floor.
= Machina Kunagiri (Twin Rapiers): They did a very poor job developing this character. There was quite a focus on this character in how he changes, how he grows, his relationship with the rest of the characters, but they were all so abrupt and scripted that he ended up being one of the most hated characters of the cast. In terms of combat, he was nice to have around to take down enemies with large health pools. But as a character in the story, he didn't quite seem realistic and his motives were confusing. Half way through the game, he disappears and isn't even playable on main missions.
= Rem Tokimiya (Twin Daggers): Much like Machina, she was supposed to have a big role in the story. But she was a rather boring character. Even worse, she didn't feel particularly strong in combat either. Her attacks were somewhat fast, but were so weak that it didn't compensate for it. At the very least, she was the "kind girl" who watched out for everyone with Machina in particular. So she wasn't a character I could really hate.
= Kurasame Susaya: The Commanding Officier of Class Zero. When he was introduced, he demonstrated his experience and abilities when Nine, Cater and Ace attacked him while he had total control over the situation without a bit of hesitation. It shows how powerful he was and that he's really "cool". Other than one other scene where he shows concern over the members of Class Zero, there were no other mentions of his character that would make the player understand who he was, why he's important and powerful, and his impact with the rest of Class Zero. When he was sent out to battle, all he did was sacrifice his power for the l'cie to summon an eidolon (really strong entity) and that was the end of his character. What I found out was that there is a manga that tells the whole story of his time at the academy, his contributions to the nation, the comrades he lost, and the sacrifices he made to led him to become the "Ice Reaper". He was a really cool character that was entirely overlooked in the game.
+ Music: The main theme had a nice melody that was memorable, but it's played in over a dozen different variations throughout the game. Overall, the music was pretty good and it was a pivotal element to the entire experience of the game. It's definitely not as memorable as the music from other Final Fantasy games, but I enjoyed it and it brought out the atmosphere and immersion of the game.
+ The School Theme: The setting of the game being set in a school was done in Final Fantasy 8 and I really liked it in that game as well. It was somewhat nostalgic of FF8 to see the characters be part of a school with other students, instructors, and such. It felt welcoming and familiar to come back to the school grounds after each mission and finding new events around the campus.
+ Combat: In all honesty, combat wasn't that great yet I enjoyed it so much. Setting up my party, choosing specific builds for my characters, and fighting off waves of enemies in real-time was a nice change in pace from the other Final Fantasy games. And since there's 14 characters to play, it never felt too repetitive.
+ Voice Acting: This is probably not a good thing, but I enjoyed how bad the English voice acting was. Having learned what it's like for voice actors who work on localized games, I can't blame them specifically for a lot of the bad voice acting. A lot of lines in the game don't feel like they have the correct contextual situation in mind when they're delivered which is common in a lot of localized games when voice actors are given the script but not the situation. This ends up with the English voice overs having some interesting results such as each character's personality exaggerated through their voices. The Japanese voices are quite stereotypical of each of their respective characters, so it matches up pretty well. So with the Japanese voices, it's not as entertaining, but it's certainly more believable thus more immersive.
+ Cinematics: Although the game was originally released on PSP, all the major cinematics that weren't in-game scripting were pre-rendered clips created in order to have PS3-like quality to them. During these Cinematics, movements were natural, voice acting were (usually) contextually correct, and the moments had impact. This is quite a difference from the in-game dialogues and scripted motions that looked awkward and jarring. The best Cinematics that held a lot of meaning was the very beginning and the very end of the game.
+ Humor/Dark Themes: With the way the game started out, I didn't expect much humor. But there are many moments that were so awkward or out of place that it's hard not to laugh (like anything that Nine says in English voice). There were moments in the game where the darker themes felt like it held weight and meaning behind the story, and yet so much of the game's story and character development was such a mess that it didn't do it well enough. The few events where it did have impact left an impression on me.
+ The "What-if" Ending: Even though this is the fake ending, it was cute and fun. I loved it so much. This ending showed what the lives of Class Zero would be like if there weren't a war going on and they got to enjoy their school lives. This makes it that much more harder to accept the true ending.
[Cons of the game/Things I did not like]
- Free Time: I actually liked the "Free Time" the first few times I had to go through it. You get to talk to your fellow schoolmates and see different events that ranged from informative, to funny, to sometimes being a waste of time. As the game goes on, there are less events to trigger and a lot more side quests you can do. These side quests were probably meant to get the player to go out and earn some levels; however, they were long, boring, and tedious without the rewards to compensate for them. Free Time became a waste of time and I ended up going straight to main missions after triggering all the events.
- Side Quests: As I mentioned, side quests just didn't feel worth the time and effort to do. I did all the side quests the first few times and realized how long it took to do them while not really being properly rewarded for them for the time I spent on them. It certainly felt like filler/padding to extend the time spent on the game and it just wasn't that fun.
- Conquering missions: I didn't expect to see a game of tower defense in an Action-RPG, but there it was. You choose one character to move around the overworld and lead your army into the opposing faction's city to weaken its defenses before invading it. It's a tedious process that requires you getting knocked down over and over again. It's clunky, boring and annoying.
- Slow and abrupt pacing: Perhaps it's because it was originally developed for the PSP, but cinematics and events tend to fade in and out a lot of scenes. When it's not doing that, the narration for the story is long winded and boring. It's trying hard to drive home the idea of "war is bad and everyone is affected" and it loses its audience through the droning of narration rather than just showing it through action or gameplay (like the beginning cinematic of Izana dying. That was powerful and had meaning).
- Lazy on story details: I had a similar complaint to Final Fantasy XIII when I read all the notes in-game and thought that the notes did a better job at telling the story than the game itself. That should never be the case for a videogame. At the very least, FF13's story was easy to understand even if it was told poorly. With FF Type-0, the story details are cryptic and sometimes never mentioned in game and can only be known to those who read everything from the notes. And even then, character development is non-existent for some which led to some dumb moments.
- No connection to characters: I did say I liked the characters, but unfortunately the game didn't really do much for them in terms of character development. Very little backstory, motives, and changes are given to characters throughout the game which made it difficult to connect with them. Lots of characters die throughout the game, and yet a lot of times it's hard to really feel sad for them when we barely got to know them at all. At one point in the game, Class Zero's little merchant girl Aria (who is hostage to the enemy) suddenly has a connection to one of the enemies. There is no build up to that moment, it just reveals itself and happens. The player confronts this one enemy multiple times and yet knows little to nothing about him. He tells Aria to go home and that there will be a lot of fighting and she refuses to go home and tells him not to die. Just when things are about to end and he was about to retreat from the fight, he finds a bomb near him set by one of his comrades without permission. He sacrifices himself and prevents the bomb from needlessly killing that much more lives. It sucks, but who was he? This happens quite a few times throughout the game and it just felt like cheap moments to try to make it feel deep.
- Level requirement spike: For about 35%-45% of the first half of the game, there is little need to grind for levels in order to get through the main missions. But at one point of the game, the recommended level spikes up by a large amount. As I've mentioned before, side-quests are boring and not really worth it. So the only other options is to either go into the arena to train, have a character go into secret training (and you can use an exploit to level them extremely quickly), or replay a previous main mission in order to level the characters. But then it presents another problem in the game:
- Leveling characters up: Characters level up individually. Only three characters can be in the party at a time. There are 14 characters in the game. This means you have grind levels for 5 separate groups every time they're under-leveled. With the amount of levels needed at that difficulty spike in needing higher level characters, it feels like an aggressive waste of time to repeatedly fight the same enemies over and over for hour on end before you can progress the story.
- The last area: Despite over-leveling my characters to avoid any further difficulty in confrontation, the game still decides to throw enemies that take forever to kill with some of them possessing the ability to kill you in two hits should the 2nd hit land shortly after the first one. I was well over 10 levels above the enemies and still took quite a bit of time to take down each enemy across the two dozen rooms laid out at the last area.
- The last boss: As if the game didn't waste enough of your time already, the last boss goes on with his soliloquy as your characters stumble around with the little bit of strength they have left to fight and overpowered gargantuan of a monster as it takes a swing at them every once in a while to take them out of their misery. After everyone falls in battle, another cinematic takes place and then each member is revived and controlled by the player. Each of those characters can't be killed and can continue to attack the monster until they take a set amount of health away before getting knocked out and switched out with another character. This process takes a LONG time as the boss is level 99. Even with invincibility, the characters can still be knocked around. It wasn't fun, it didn't have the dramatic effect that I'm sure they were going for when they designed this, and I did not feel satisfied after beating it.
- The True Ending: I don't think there was ever a more painful ending to watch from a Final Fantasy game than this one (except Crisis Core, everyone keeps mentioning, but I haven't played it yet). Much like the opening cinematic of the game, the graphics are pre-rendered and it looked really nice. The motions were more natural and the quality of the voice acting was much better (although it was still not very good in English). Also like the opening cinematic, it felt very real and meaningful as the twelves characters that I got to know and love are now facing the reality that they're dying from the damage done to their phantoma (kind of like their soul). They all begin to cry and share each other's sorrow. As that happens, Ace sings a song that calms everyone down. They didn't want to be sad and start imaging what life after the war would be like now that it's over. They laugh and smile as they wonder what kinds of places they can visit and things they can learn making for a hopeful future. As the credits roll, Machina and Rem burst through the classroom doors and find their former comrades and friends had already passed as they lay next to each other next to their weapons erected with their capes attached flailing to the wind like a flag. It was such a painful moment and the biggest slap in the face was the Machina survived. I can't say that the ending was bad, but it made me feel bad. It was a sad conclusion as it did off one of the main things I liked about the game: the 12 main members of Class Zero.
Despite it all, I'm glad I played through the game. It's definitely not one I could recommend and not a game I want to play again any time soon. But still, I'm glad they localized it and I got to play through it.
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Game Announcements at EVO 2017
I totally forgot to mention the game announcements they made on the last day of EVO in yesterday's post. So after the end of every tournament, publishers of each of those respective games came out with an announcement for their new games or new content for their existing games (except for Nintendo because it's Nintendo). Sure, you can say that publishers are just taking advantage of an already hyped up audience to get them excited for more new stuff from them, but what better way to advertise it than to show it to the exact audience it was meant for?
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite's roster was unfortunately leaked and the list of characters were rather disappointing. It seems that the leaked info has been accurate so far as Gamora and Jedah was revealed after the Grand Finals of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was over. I'm pretty familiar with Jedah since I've played the Vampire Savior/Darkstalkers games, but Gamora is new to me as I know nothing about Guardians of the Galaxy. I have to say that both characters look really good. They look so good, in fact, that it kind of points out how awkward or poorly designed some of the other characters look. I have a problem with a lot of the game's presentation: character faces, some of the user-interface, the in-game announcers voice, the contrast in quality between the background environment with some of the characters, etc. Moreso, I'm worried about the netcode. It's been a year and a half since Street Fighter V has been released and after an entire year did they fix the major problems I had that prevented me from playing the game and now it works but with poor online play. Is Capcom really ready to release MvC:I? I'm cautiously excited. The gameplay certainly seems solid and there are a select few characters I'm really excited for (X and the leaked info on Monster Hunter character, whatever that means).
[Arc System Works - BBCF Jubei reveal, BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, Arika's New Game]
At the end of the Grand Finals for BlazBlue Central Fiction, the announcer asked the crowd "Do you love BlazBlue?" *YEAAAAAAH* "Do you want more?" WHOA, HOLD ON A SECOND, WHAT'S GOING ON? I was thinking "Is it a new BlazBlue game? I didn't think there'd be more." Then I saw the yellow coat and realized it was Jubei, which I was still really excited for because I thought the idea of him being in the game was dropped and I really like his character. So here I am, already cheering and screaming with excitement and then this trailer starts playing without any introduction:
I was so confused. "They just showed Jubei coming to BlazBlue: Central Fiction and now they're showing an upcoming project?" It seemed like another BlazBlue game. But then all of a sudden Yu Narukami from Persona 4 and Hyde from Under Night In-Birth showed up on both sides of the screen and I'm just freaking out and screaming even more! And then I've been waiting for that RWBY fighting game announcement that was hinted and leaked a week earlier. Hearing Ruby's voice immediately made me realize that they were going to be part of the crossover, which I was absolutely ecstatic for because I know that they'll handle the characters with even more care. This one trailer alone won my heart and nothing else that day compared. I never realized how much I wanted a cross over between these IPs until now.
You know, I don't even remember if this was shown after BlazBlue or Tekken 7. But Arika did show off more of their newest project that was first believed to be an April Fools joke earlier this year. It looked waaay too good to be a joke, and yet the sound effects and music kind of made me wonder. I can't say I'm a huge fan of Street Fighter EX and I only played EX3 on the PS2. But from the actual gameplay footages I've seen of this project, it seems like a wonderful addition to the fighting game scene. I'm sure a lot of fans are excited to see Skullomania. I'm just happy to see Hokuto as she was my favorite other than Nanase.
[NamcoBandai - Tekken 7 - Geese Howard Guest Character Reveal]
So I didn't know about the "Guest Character DLC" thing and everyone that kept up with the news was expecting someone but didn't know who. I wouldn't have guessed Geese Howard, but it was surprising and exciting.....and a little sad because he looks so much better here than he did in The King of Fighters XIV. Honestly, my initial reaction to this was the same exact reaction I had when he was revealed in KoF14 with "oh god, he's back" running through my mind. So Geese Howard is from Fatal Fury and has been in multiple SNK games since then. His theme song causes as much PTSD in me as much as M. Bison's theme song from Street Fighter II does as Geese Howard was one of the most frustrating boss battles in fighting games from my younger days. He looks great and fits well with the rest of the Tekken cast.
NamcoBandai also revealed Trunks in Dragon Ball Fighters Z, but it doesn't seem worth mentioning. Just knowing that he's in the roster and that we'll be getting the game next year is good enough news.
[Capcom - Street Fighter V - Abigail Reveal]
So I didn't know exactly who the new character was going to be, but I kind of had a feeling that it wouldn't be a character I'd be interested in from the silhouette they teased for Season 2 DLCs. The silhouette filled up the entire panel, but even then I wouldn't have guessed that he'd be this big. He's so large that his head reaches the life bars in the game. Abigail is apparently one of the enemies from Final Fight, much like Hugo and Poison. I generally don't like large and slow characters unless the damage output compensates for it. He definitely puts out a lot of damage, but he's so large and slow that it's really hard to engage the faster and more obnoxious characters in the cast (I watched Daigo play him against a Guile) He's certainly full of personality. But even then, this is probably not going to be a character I'll be picking up with my Fight Money.
Man, this was Nintendo's chance for free advertisement and they passed up on it. I can only hope that there's some sort of news for Super Smash Bros. in the near future.
[Capcom - Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite - Gamora & Jedah reveal]
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite's roster was unfortunately leaked and the list of characters were rather disappointing. It seems that the leaked info has been accurate so far as Gamora and Jedah was revealed after the Grand Finals of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was over. I'm pretty familiar with Jedah since I've played the Vampire Savior/Darkstalkers games, but Gamora is new to me as I know nothing about Guardians of the Galaxy. I have to say that both characters look really good. They look so good, in fact, that it kind of points out how awkward or poorly designed some of the other characters look. I have a problem with a lot of the game's presentation: character faces, some of the user-interface, the in-game announcers voice, the contrast in quality between the background environment with some of the characters, etc. Moreso, I'm worried about the netcode. It's been a year and a half since Street Fighter V has been released and after an entire year did they fix the major problems I had that prevented me from playing the game and now it works but with poor online play. Is Capcom really ready to release MvC:I? I'm cautiously excited. The gameplay certainly seems solid and there are a select few characters I'm really excited for (X and the leaked info on Monster Hunter character, whatever that means).
[Arc System Works - BBCF Jubei reveal, BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, Arika's New Game]
At the end of the Grand Finals for BlazBlue Central Fiction, the announcer asked the crowd "Do you love BlazBlue?" *YEAAAAAAH* "Do you want more?" WHOA, HOLD ON A SECOND, WHAT'S GOING ON? I was thinking "Is it a new BlazBlue game? I didn't think there'd be more." Then I saw the yellow coat and realized it was Jubei, which I was still really excited for because I thought the idea of him being in the game was dropped and I really like his character. So here I am, already cheering and screaming with excitement and then this trailer starts playing without any introduction:
I was so confused. "They just showed Jubei coming to BlazBlue: Central Fiction and now they're showing an upcoming project?" It seemed like another BlazBlue game. But then all of a sudden Yu Narukami from Persona 4 and Hyde from Under Night In-Birth showed up on both sides of the screen and I'm just freaking out and screaming even more! And then I've been waiting for that RWBY fighting game announcement that was hinted and leaked a week earlier. Hearing Ruby's voice immediately made me realize that they were going to be part of the crossover, which I was absolutely ecstatic for because I know that they'll handle the characters with even more care. This one trailer alone won my heart and nothing else that day compared. I never realized how much I wanted a cross over between these IPs until now.
You know, I don't even remember if this was shown after BlazBlue or Tekken 7. But Arika did show off more of their newest project that was first believed to be an April Fools joke earlier this year. It looked waaay too good to be a joke, and yet the sound effects and music kind of made me wonder. I can't say I'm a huge fan of Street Fighter EX and I only played EX3 on the PS2. But from the actual gameplay footages I've seen of this project, it seems like a wonderful addition to the fighting game scene. I'm sure a lot of fans are excited to see Skullomania. I'm just happy to see Hokuto as she was my favorite other than Nanase.
[NamcoBandai - Tekken 7 - Geese Howard Guest Character Reveal]
So I didn't know about the "Guest Character DLC" thing and everyone that kept up with the news was expecting someone but didn't know who. I wouldn't have guessed Geese Howard, but it was surprising and exciting.....and a little sad because he looks so much better here than he did in The King of Fighters XIV. Honestly, my initial reaction to this was the same exact reaction I had when he was revealed in KoF14 with "oh god, he's back" running through my mind. So Geese Howard is from Fatal Fury and has been in multiple SNK games since then. His theme song causes as much PTSD in me as much as M. Bison's theme song from Street Fighter II does as Geese Howard was one of the most frustrating boss battles in fighting games from my younger days. He looks great and fits well with the rest of the Tekken cast.
NamcoBandai also revealed Trunks in Dragon Ball Fighters Z, but it doesn't seem worth mentioning. Just knowing that he's in the roster and that we'll be getting the game next year is good enough news.
[Capcom - Street Fighter V - Abigail Reveal]
So I didn't know exactly who the new character was going to be, but I kind of had a feeling that it wouldn't be a character I'd be interested in from the silhouette they teased for Season 2 DLCs. The silhouette filled up the entire panel, but even then I wouldn't have guessed that he'd be this big. He's so large that his head reaches the life bars in the game. Abigail is apparently one of the enemies from Final Fight, much like Hugo and Poison. I generally don't like large and slow characters unless the damage output compensates for it. He definitely puts out a lot of damage, but he's so large and slow that it's really hard to engage the faster and more obnoxious characters in the cast (I watched Daigo play him against a Guile) He's certainly full of personality. But even then, this is probably not going to be a character I'll be picking up with my Fight Money.
Man, this was Nintendo's chance for free advertisement and they passed up on it. I can only hope that there's some sort of news for Super Smash Bros. in the near future.
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