For me, and perhaps millions of long-time Final Fantasy fans worldwide, the air has seemingly ceased to move as one of the largest, storied franchises is only two weeks away from releasing its newest entry, Final Fantasy XV.
Square Enix has set a challenging goal for sales at an optimistic 10 million copies . Only Final Fantasy VII has been able to achieve that mark for the franchise, but for whatever reason, that title was exceptionally legendary within the gaming community.
But as far as I can tell, there’s very little at play to suggest that number will be achieved. Lightning Returns barely eclipsed 1 million, and even the highly anticipated Final Fantasy XIII, across multiple platforms, came a couple million short of the mark.
On the other hand, this is the Final Fantasy many fans have been waiting for since its days of production as “Final Fantasy Versus XIII”. Perhaps a new, near-sandboxy presentation is what the franchise needs. Perhaps the release of the excellent Brotherhood anime series or the underwhelmingly reviewed “Kingsglaive” CG animated movie helped inspire new hope in its lore. Speculation from each “pro” or “nay” camp continues to fly back and forth, even now with copious amounts of information at our disposal.
Dark, embarrassing gaming secrets you tell absolutely no one… we all have them. And if you aren't embarrassed about anything… well, there's probably a few things you should be embarrassed about!
Whether it's that time you trash talked in Call of Duty only to go 1 kill and 15 deaths in Team Deathmatch or those Hannah Montana trophies you can't delete, we'd love to hear all about it! (SUUUUURE it's because you had to do a review, Ben… We believe you…. Honest! *snicker*)
Even if it's for no other reason other than to make us feel a little better about our own deep, dark gaming secrets, why not take this opportunity behind made up screen names to share your own! No one will ever know. Here are some of mine to help get things started.
Like everyone else you know who says they liked it, I swear up and down it's solely about the gameplay. And that's partly true. The fast-paced, turn-based, job-switching battle system was phenomenal, engaging, and full of tactical opportunity. The gameplay in and of itself made the game worth an approving nod.
But I kinda liked the story, too… And the sphere changes… and the jpop…. please don't tell anyone.
I like sports. Better?
Ok, so I know that's not surprising. It's quite possibly the most popular franchise in the world for a reason. But I've been an enormous critic of its promotion of "twitch culture" and "quick-scoping". And that's still true in regards to quickscoping. But here's the thing… sometimes… when I'm losing… I break out the quick-scope just to catch up a little… Yes, I feel guilty about it. Yes, sometimes I feel like maybe a cold shower is needed after stooping so low. But the raging cries of my enemies calling me various elementary school insults makes it a little better.
And for all my gripes about the never-repaired Call of Duty bugs, I still play it. A ton. Such a hypocrite.
I said I wouldn't. I said I hated the demo (I did). I said they're abandoning all that made Final Fantasy great. I said the emo-kids look ridiculous. (They do.) I even said I hope it flops. And by the way… on that last one… what a nasty thing to say, to actually hope for someone's demise.
But something happened… I watched the Kingsglaive movie and the Brotherhood shorts on YouTube, and I gotta say… I absolutely love the lore. And that, mixed with my nostalgia conditioned need for anything Final Fantasy, forced me to take the plunge and pre-order it.
I really hope to be glad I did.
What a jerk I am, right? This "White Knight" syndrome is borderline pathetic. I get it. And it isn't really fair, either. I genuinely am immune to feeling insulted by some random in a game of Call of Duty. But if I get any indication that someone else might be taking the game a little too seriously, I'll try to key in on whatever it is that they feel strongly about in the game, and pick on that a little, even if it is a worldview that I share.
So, you think we should all vote for the person I also think should win the election? Well, I'm still going to tell you the other person is better, anyways if you start telling people you disagree with that they're morons or something. And I'll be sure to use the arguments, true or untrue, that will drive you nuts to have to hear, and I'll be obstinant about it.
If you call people names with words that should never be used as insults, like "gay", well… I might even pretend to flirt with you. In fact, in Call of Duty, I have a beautiful rainbow emblem with the words "Gay is OK" ready to go at a moment's notice. Because lets face it, your personal worldview, especially one as terribly discriminatory and belittling as that, shouldn't really have a place in an anonymous online community. So if you're going to make youself busy making others feel like they don't belong, I'm going to help make you just a little more uncomfortable.
So, yeah, I understand that isn't exactly the best of character to do this kind of thing. My mom told me to walk away from people like that. She's probably right. But in my defense, I never make fun of anyone for truly sensitive things. For example, if you had a speech impediment or sounded like a kid, I would never bully. I only really pick on the guys who are initially abrasive, and I stick to the material.
But still…
5) I always play as a female character when given the choice.
Always.
And some of my friends do, too. The common justification you hear is that "Well, if I have to stare at the back of a character all game, I'd rather see a girl running around."
However, that's extremely shallow and not really true at all. The real truth is that there's something awesome about a strong, interesting female lead in video games. I think it's because there aren't enough of them. I'm very excited to see more and more developers creating great games with strong female leads, so perhaps it isn't needed anymore. But the real truth is, I was getting tired of the usual muscle bound dude getting all the glory. Let's be honest here… women are often just more interesting! And video game women are just cooler.
When you get into it, it isn't really an embarrassing fact. But it is an awkward conversation to start having all the time at home.
"Yes, (insert family member here), I did choose to be a girl… No, that's not why… *sigh*"
I know I'm not alone… I know there's a lot of Fem-Sheps out there!
Yeah, super late. I know. I apologize. Got hit with a ton of crazy personal life stuff. I could have left it, I suppose, but I promised I would do one. So here it is!
To be honest, I probably wouldnât enjoy Euchre a whole lot outside of playing with that group. In fact, I donât ever play it at all unless the whole fam dam is together. That fly-by gaming session for old time's sake is exactly what Doom turns out to be… Just… far… FAR… less tame than a game of Euchre.
The latest Doom is exactly what you remember Doom to be. Many of us who are old enough remember Doom on SNES. At the time, it was revolutionary first person gaming unlike most any other gaming experience weâve ever had. Itâs known for being bloody, gory, fast paced, frantic, demonic, and just generally insane. There is no covering fire, no cover system, no real tactical approach, and thatâs exactly the point! Doom has always been the game that makes you feel like a total and complete badass, and Doom carries that mantle and identity to perfection. This is pure, unadulterated fan service.
Doom doesnât have much of a story to speak of. Itâs pretty generic and mostly empty, but again, Doom isnât about the story anyways. Itâs about the action. Youâre a crazy, inhuman but kind of human dude whoâs pissed off at other humans for allowing all these insane demons to run rampant and literally invade Mars from Hell. Just like real life! Still, I did appreciate small moments of non-verbal storytelling that add to the immersion, even if only slightly. For example, near the start as the game is establishing its story, you hear a voice come over the radio trying to convince you that their motive was to help humanity. As they speak the line about helping people, you look down to the left at an absolutely wrecked corpse of what I assume to be a scientist. Little details, and in a way, small bits of sarcasm really, add to it all.
The trailer might be the most accurate cinematic trailer I have ever seen to portray what the game is really like.
Much like the trailer itself implies, once you finish with a group of enemies in one section of the game, you immediately move to another section with more bad, ready-to-blow-up-your-living-body baddies. The action keeps on pumping, and I expect for many people, itâs an experience taken in best through small doses. You cannot stop moving once the fighting starts. If you try to take cover behind a wall, youâll just get flanked or rushed by more enemies than you can handle. You need to actively use the entire âarenaâ to move about shooting and executing your prey. And I mean âarenaâ, too. It feels like every section of baddies is itâs own enclosed battleground you canât really move away from until the carnage ends. It regularly happens that you enter an area from another you can no longer return to, and you canât get the key to move forward until you demolish everything around you first.
In order to be successful, you have to run, shoot, punch, and jump like a madman all over the place. Powerups are occasionally available to help give you that boost, as well. You have this crazy battle suit that gives you superhuman powers, that can generate additional abilities like armour bonus, going berserk, etc. from those powerups. These powerups make it easier to achieve glory kills, which while fun, quickly become too much of a necessary and repetitive action.
Visually, aside from the violence, I found the game to be extremely bland in regards to the environment. There are some creative sections with sparks and fire flying from all directions, but the color palettes of each area feel like they exist within the same base hue. I found myself explaining sections of the map to friend as âthe third red areaâ or âthe second blue spotâ or âthe spaceship looking walkwayâ. The fact that this was all I needed to say for him to know exactly what I meant should say enough. But the smooth, fluidity kept up beautifully, and I did like the enemy design. Really, it was exactly what we all wanted: high-def recreations of the original demons we loved shooting so dearly. Enemies reacted to being hit exactly where they were hit. Of course, most weapons are so explosive, itâs not like they typically react like you would getting hit by a single bullet to the foot or something. Heck, with most weapons, youâre blowing shit RIGHT up and enemies justâ¦. FLY.
A major perk to the fast speed of the game is the responsive controls. Itâs easy to pick up and play through the single player mode, and I didnât experience any latency issues with my input. I also did not experience any problems with how I interacted with the environment. The control is tight, and for this kind of experience, it better be. Fortunately, Doom rises to the occasion.
Overall, Doom manages to maintain its identity while delivering a high-adrenaline, space cowboy experience that hits hard and shreds flesh harder. While itâs great to have that kind of experience you can return home to and have an absolute blast with for those short, nostalgic pieces of time, itâs not the kind of activity youâll likely return to outside of those rare visits. The outdated control scheme doesnât do much new, and it feels wholly artificial through your movements. But what the game lacks in multiplayer, story, and forward-thinking gameplay mechanics, it more than makes up for through its transparency, bold and confident self-identity, and nostalgia.
For those of us returning home for that rare visit, itâs a fun game thatâll bring you back to the good olâ days. For everyone else, itâs just another game of Euchre.
Yes, thatâs right. Mighty No 9 basically -IS- Mega Man. Iâve been reading all sorts of comments, questions, and tweets about Mighty No 9 for a while now, and I donât think this can be said enough.
Mighty No 9 is SUPPOSED to be a ârip-offâ of Mega Man. The man responsible for Mega Man headed up the project, so no worries folks. Iâm no law expert, but Iâm pretty sure Inafune isnât going to sue himself for plagiarism or whatever the digital version of that is. And by the way, itâs a pretty good rip-off, barring a few inferior aspects and control issues.
First off, they did a great job of delivering a smooth, visually seamless production. Iâve read a few reports of frame rate inferiority to the PC version of the game, and I certainly cannot refute that. But I do not agree that this has somehow caused issues with the PS4 version. I have been playing a number of hours now and have yet to notice anything like screen-tearing, slow down, or anything else of note, really. When you consider how often a vast number of explosions whizzing cars are flying all around you, I have no problem saying the PS4 version is still a worthwhile purchase!
I like the design as a whole, but it is quite cartoonish even for a Mega Man spiritual successor to the point that environments can feel a little too plastic-y. Thereâs a lot of environmental things happening in the background, and you may notice a few three dimensional effects, as well. For example, a pillar in the background may suddenly fall onto your 2D plane to crush you, or enemies in the background may fire on you in certain levels. But for the most part, youâre looking at a 2D platformer, although the environment does help it seem more encompassing. During one particular boss fight, there are a couple video cameras on the battle arena and you can see the fight take place on screens in the background from the various angles of those cameras. Pretty neat, I thought!
Or rather, it should be a compliment.
The dashing is done with the R1 button, and although I got used it it, it just felt awkward after all those years of dashing with either Circle (or âAâ on SNES) or a double tap forward with the D-Pad. It also makes switching weapon types (which in some cases are more like ability types than just a different kind of bullet) more awkward. While fighting, you have to cycle through the weapons with L1 and L2, then press Triangle when you have the one you wish to switch to. These extra steps pry your eyes to the top corner of the screen to figure out what you want while also trying to play frantically in tense situations. In Mega Man games, cycling through with the triggers/bumpers happened instantly and you could tell if you had the right weapon selected just by observing your colour. Itâs not a bad control scheme, per-se, but compared to the mastery of Mega Man, itâs a far more cumbersome system.
Oh yeah… there's no charge shots, either, unless it's an ability I never found. Even the early Mega Man games eventually included a charge shot after the first few entries. You'll definitely miss the lack of a charge shot.
Once you have dashing down to comfort, you have to be careful not to over-sensitively dash off platforms or into enemies. The amount of time spent in a dash can change ever so marginally making it difficult to time and measure the amount of distance youâd like to cover. Iâm also sad at the absence of wall climbing that we got in the X series. I get that the original Mega Man didnât really have that either, but you can grab onto ledges. This isnât so bad except for the fact that âhit detectionâ with the ledges is not consistent, causing you to fall to your death when other times you grab the ledge no problem.
Aside from these complaints, however, the control system is pretty solid and responsive. It just isnât as tight as youâd like.
And for those who get frustrated easily, after you die, allies will come to give you little power up goodies to help you on your way. You just wonât get the coveted high letter ranking the hard core players can achieve from a fast, errorless runthrough. I believe this helps make the game rewarding for players of all skill levels.
The sound effects in the game are engaging and eclectic, however the voice acting, or more accurately, the voice recordings, really grate on my nerves. It sounds like much of the voice acting was recorded with cheap equipment in not entirely sound-proof rooms. To make it worse, the low quality in the sound of their voices really helps to accent any poor voice acting. It is unfortunately immediately noticeable.
The fortunate thing is that this game is very easy to continually revisit from time to time. You can take on enemies in different orders to change the challenge or you can replay levels to aim for a higher ranked score.
In the end, youâre looking at a fairly successful successor to the Mega Man franchise. Donât listen too closely to the purists. Theyâre nutty and they might cause you to miss out on something youâd really enjoy. The reports about it being broken or unbalanced are simply untrue. The biggest detractors of this game are the insane hype and unrealistic expecations placed upon it by fans and Inafune himself and whatever it was the backers' leapt to assumptions caused them to believe would be created. Still, I do have a hard time recommending it to players unfamiliar with Mega Man, mainly because it just doesn't feel quite right for this to be your first Mega Man experience.
However, this must be said. Although it truly is not quite as good, with Capcom letting Mega Man collect dust in his cryogenic pod until the year 21XX, this is definitely a serviceable replacement, especially at its affordable price-tag. It certainly has a few minor control issues youâll eventually overcome, and it isn't mind blowing nor exceptionally special in its own right. But the spirit of Mega Man continues on, and Mighty No. 9 is definite fun for all you 2D platforming action lovers.
We have already heard that Final Fantasy VII: Remake would likely be a multi-part series. But until now, fans and writers alike have only been able to speculate about what that would mean. The added side comments from Square-Enix stating that there would be some changes to accommodate the near 20 year gap between now and the release of the original has also caused a varied response.
Well now, thanks to a recent article in Game Informer focusing primarily on Final Fantasy XV , we now have a little bit of extra news, thanks to the piliaging efforts of NeoGAF user, Philippo , which perhaps won't come as a complete surprise.
Using the model of Final Fantasy XIII' s full-length trilogy, the team is planning on preparing 3 separate full length titles to contribute to the retelling. More specifically, they are aiming at each story to be a full scale 30+ hour RPG.
Whether those hours refer to story length from simply running straight through main missions or if that includes all side missions is still a mystery. Come to think of it, whether or not this game even includes side missions is still a mystery!
The other piece we've learned is that Kitase, Nomura, and Nojima have heard concerns about the supposed "changes" that they've propsed. They elected to clarify that they aren't changing everything, but that since they all worked on the original title, they feel they have the right to change whatever they want "while still making fans happy".
Lastly, although they weren't willing to give an estimate on a release date, they stated that they fully plan on each iteration of the remakes to have MUCH shorter development cycles than XV.
Well… that last part is certainly good news… although if you want to nitpick, that could still mean something close to 8 years.
What do you think? Is that basically more or less what you expected in regards to the 3 full-length games? I suppose it could work well like the .hack games of old. And perhaps it will make it more likely to leave less story on the cutting room floor.
On the other hand, are you nervous about the "changes"? Or do you have full faith in the three all-star developers who brought us the original in the first place?
Related Game(s): Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Remake
This past Christmas, my family and I flew out to visit my parents for a week. While we were there, I stole a few moments to go through some old boxes and reminisce about days gone by as I gazed over old photographs in old photo books. Eventually, I came across my old table hockey set tucked away in some forsaken corner. You remember, right? The games with sticks connected to players on the surface? You’d have to spin the knobs to spin the players to shoot the little plastic puck.
Instead of reasonably wondering why my parents never got rid of the old thing, my first thought was strangely similar to the first time I got it for Christmas so many years ago: “ Woh…. Awesome! ”
Whenever I had a friend come over to play or if my dad got home from work, I would regularly pull out the table hockey set. In my mind, I recalled playing it a ton. If I think about it further and let the nostalgia subside, we probably only played for 15 minutes or more. There’s nothing to dislike about the thing. It is fun, albeit simple and straightforward. But after a generally small amount of time on any given day, we’d be ready to move on to the next activity. And with all the other options available these days, it’s pretty underwhelming by comparison.
In a nutshell, that is “Wondershot”.
“Wondershot” is a 1-4 player local or online multiplayer top-down party game with powerups and a small arsenal of potential weapons. The objective is quite simple, really. Run around and kill your opposition. This can be done in teams or mono-a-mono.
Each battle takes place in a relatively tiny, square battle arena. Some maps can transform at various times to create unpassable trenches, walls or shrubbery, or boxes and debris. Some maps have transporters, kind of like Portal, you can run through to transport to another area of the map or fire a weapon through it to take an opponent by surprise. But for the most part, you spend your time running around trying to get into an advantageous position to take a shot at knocking out your opponent.
The number of weapons are pretty small. 4, to be exact. Each has their own unique traits and use, but they’re pretty 2-dimensional. For example, your bow and arrow can be pulled back for a longer length of time to increase the speed of the shot, or you can tap it lightly for a slow, homing shot. The tutorial that offers itself to you at the beginning is worth your time, as it’s pretty quick to finish, and you’ll know exactly how to use each and every weapon to your advantage.
In addition to weapons, there are a few powerups to pick up on the map to use to your advantage. You can use a super speed powerup that increases your movement speed, a slow down perk that forces your opponents into slow motion, a temporary shield of invincibility, or a ghost ability that allows you to move through walls.
There are four characters to choose from, but aside from aesthetics and the one chirping phrase they use when you press triangle, there’s no difference between them.
As for game modes, there’s basically just three to choose from. To play online or local multiplayer, you can battle one another by yourself or in teams, or you can all work together to battle wave after wave of monsters, all of which have their own unique abilities and deadly tactics to end you. For the versus mode, you can select a couple of different scoring options, what weapon everyone starts with, how many points you want to play for, etc. but that’s really all there is. The amount of customizability here is almost zero.
The third game-mode is a single player mission which can be fun for people who enjoy puzzlers. Here you must “train” by defeating a certain number of enemies under what is often very specific restrictions. Some of these present a difficult and rewarding challenge. Unfortunately, there aren’t a huge number of them, so most people could clear it within a day or so.
All of this works quite well, and the battles can be frantic and keep you on edge. Unfortunately, there just isn’t much to it other than that. Everything I’ve explained so far is quite literally everything there is to know about the game. There isn’t any opportunity for customization, and there isn’t a whole lot of depth. It feels a lot like some older couch games from the Atari, NES or maybe the SNES eras.
When I first started playing, I felt a strong sense of nostalgia and had some friends play with me, since it markets itself as a couch game. All of us had fun.
For about 15 minutes. Once we got to the half hour mark, everyone in the room was ready to go do something else, myself included. It’s a neat little concept, but there just isn’t anything to it other than spin around frantically trying to tag one another. It works great in online multiplayer, but really, this game is best played with people you know.
Visually, it’s a colorful and vibrant scheme. Characters and artwork are fun to look at, and while nothing is exactly “next gen” about it, it’s clear, crisp, and very responsive. The audio works well, but has very limited character phrases. The music works well for the game, but is nothing to write home about. In fact, it wasn’t something that I particularly noticed.
The control is straightforward and easy to learn, but they really messed up the aiming feature, in my opinion. If you’ve played other top-down games like Dead Nation , the aiming in this game will drive you nuts. Most top-down games allow you to move with the left analog while aiming your body around with the right. Seems obvious, but for some reason, the devs completely missed out on this feature.
In this game, you must hold down the R2 button to keep your character facing in a particular direction. But need to move is slightly? You’re going to have to move toward where you want to aim to point that way. And often, that means death. As a result, more than once, I’ve had to just keep running away because there wasn’t enough space to turn around and aim correctly. This is a huge negative for a feature that should be obvious for all top-down games.
The rest of the controls work well, but there isn’t much to them. All you really need to remember is that R2 keeps your sights aimed in a particular direction, L2 lets you tuck and roll, X fires your weapon, and the left analog moves your character around. And that’s it!
The best thing I can say about this game is that it’s very easy to pick up and learn. In a relatively short amount of time, someone visiting you can play a few rounds. It might be fun, but you won’t stick with it for very long. And while there is definite appeal in bringing it out from time to time, with all the other games out there these days, it’s hard to justify giving this party game the nod over some of the others that are out there already. It's a solid game; it's just paper thin.
There’s nothing wrong with it, mind you. It works well and is a generally fun concept to spend time with, but with such a thin number of options available within the game, while fun, it’s hard to imagine most people playing it more than a couple of times. And while it might give you a warm, fuzzy feeling reminiscent of the olden days at first, digging out the old table hockey set will probably lose it’s luster after 20 minutes or so.
The Good: Colorful visuals, and a design that doesn't try to be more than it was meant to be. Fun with a group of friends on the couch. Some fun challenges in single player "training" missions.
The Bad: Gets old, fast. Very few weapons and perks, maps are more or less the same, and characters don't really set themselves apart in any way.
The Ugly: Would have liked to have enjoyed it for more time than it took to download. (It isn't even a big download.)
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