The past year has been something of a lesson for me: a lesson in how little time I have to play videogames these days.
It all started in 2015 when I picked up Tales of Xillia 2 on a sale and started playing it almost on a whim. Tales of Xillia 1 was an experience I remembered enjoying a couple years prior, but its characters and story were largely lost on me. I expected the same of Xillia 2—this was a game I was playing to finish a sub-series I started, not because I was particularly anxious to return to a world I missed.
Little did I know it would not only take me a year to finally reach the credits, but that it would end up being one of the most memorable JRPG experiences I've ever had.
In the year since NieR: New Project, now known as NieR: Automata was announced, developer Platinum Games has been relatively quiet on the game. First we got a small peek during Paris Games Week 2015, and then...well, we never heard much of anything else, really. But development seems to be coming along speedily, if the newly-released character trailer is any indication. Gameplay begins at 0:45, following a brief introduction as part of an event dedicated to the game recently put on by Square Enix in Japan.
It's long been well known that Hollywood isn't always the best of influences, and that it loves sequels. Recently we've seen these two realities come together in movie series that take their source content and divide it up to create multiple volumes where originally there was only one. Twilight, The Hobbit, The Hunger Games--all the cool kids are doing it, so why shouldn't videogames?
At least, that seems to be Square Enix's reasoning behind this latest bit of Final Fantasy VII Remake info.
It's a bit hard to believe that what began as a formerly Japan-exclusive low-budget PSP title has now become an annualized multi-platform series for all regions, but here we are: Sword Art Online is just that popular, whether or not you are of the opinion that it deserves to be. And truth be told, following a painfully mediocre second anime season and two pretty 'meh' ports of the pretty 'meh' game that was Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment, it was something of a mystery as to how Bandai Namco felt it could guarantee indefinitely more titles moving forward. As a result, the recently-released Sword Art Online: Lost Song for the Playstation 4 and PS Vita almost flew under my radar.
Almost.
Instead, now I'm the one doing the flying, and honestly enjoying every minute of it.
In an interview with Chinese gaming site VGTime during the annual Game Developer's Conference in Shanghai, China, director of Final Fantasy XV Hajime Tabata recently delved into some interesting discussion surrounding both pre- and post-release content for the next numbered title in the long-running Final Fantasy series. Once again a second demo for the game was hinted at, which Tabata said would contain different content than the Episode Duscae demo that shipped with copies of Final Fantasy Type-0 back in March. While he neglected to go into detail about what this 'different content' would entail, back before the release of Episode Duscae Tabata commented that perhaps the TGS demo of Final Fantasy XV could be converted into a playable area for gamers who missed out on Type-0's offering. Whether or not this is still on the cards for Square Enix remains to be seen. At any rate, if another demo is to be released Tabata assured players that it will be built for both Playstation 4 and Xbox One.
The Final Fantasy director also spoke briefly on post-release content for Final Fantasy XV,
It's well known that Square Enix has a habit of biting off more games than they can chew, and now following the announcement of Final Fantasy VII G-Bike's cancellation news has broken that another Final Fantasy spinoff is also getting the axe prematurely. Final Fantasy Agito was a mobile tie-in game to Final Fantasy Type-0, confusingly enough bearing Type-0's original name. Despite being a mobile spinoff Agito was actually a full-on RPG and visual novel in its own right, even borrowing many assets from the original PSP version of Type-0 and further fleshing out its bigger brother's convoluted story and myriad characters. It launched in Japan as a free-to-play title in May of 2014, and at E3 a month later it was announced for a western localization alongside the Type-0 HD remaster for PS4 and Xbox One. A premium Playstation Vita port titled Final Fantasy Agito+ was also planned for both regions.
In general, nobody likes being contradicted. But sometimes, every once in a while being proven wrong about someone or something can mean the difference between disliking or liking them. Yes, in that order.
Fabled game developer Bungie has been in a bit of an awkward spot pretty much since their latest endeavor, the MMOFPS Destiny, released. It pretty much immediately fell out of favor with reviewers, and while much of the player base initially disagreed with critical opinion, the longer the world spent with the game, the deeper everyone watched its cracks form. While it has never really lacked players, Destiny has long been short on customer satisfaction, and the addition of two $20 expansions more or less failed to swing the drifting ship back onto its course. In fact, the game remained such a mess of a product that at one point I declared there was no fixing it without fundamentally reworking the game from the ground up—something any company would normally be reluctant to do. The amount of resources such an overhaul would require could only make for good business when invested in a sequel, I said. And for most businesses that would be true. But not, apparently, for Bungie.
Though it's not available in the west and Square Enix has not announced any intentions to make it so (though it probably will—just look at Chaos Rings 3), yesterday I had the opportunity to go hands-on with Mobius Final Fantasy, recently released in Japan on iOS and Android. The game was pushed as a full-scale console RPG on smartphones, but in the end it looks and plays more like a tech demo for the new Unity 5 engine than a direct companion to previous entries in the Final Fantasy series. The combat is fun enough—the controls are simple enough to execute with one hand (which is the intention—the entire game is designed in portrait orientation) and yet it doesn't sacrifice depth in being easy to maneuver. Of the Final Fantasy series it's most like Final Fantasy XIII's battle system, except it actually feels quite at home on a smartphone. The problem is...that's about all there is to the game. Despite its pretty visuals, Mobius Final Fantasy is more akin to Record Keeper than a console experience. At times it does try to convince you otherwise with excellent cutscenes, but the illusion is only ever very short-lived. Most of the time you'll just be watching Wol (or whatever you name the protagonist) walk from checkpoint to checkpoint, only to be interrupted by waves of enemies each time.
Then again, this is a free-to-play title; the base mechanics are designed to leave you wishing for more so that you will shell out some cash (yen, in particular) on in-game goodies that range from purely optional to completely essential. To be fair, you can play Mobius without spending a dime (err, yen), but the in-app purchases run deep enough to actually limit your daily time with the game if you don't pay up sooner or later.
The question is: will anyone even hit that limit? Yes, probably—this is Final Fantasy we're talking about—but it's abundantly clear Mobius was designed with a Japanese audience in mind. Despite the Final Fantasy XIII analogy, Mobius is heavily based on card battling and social features as well (which grants the player their actual abilities and equipment sets), and number systems abound, all appealing to that "gotta catch 'em all" style of mindless addictiveness.
That's not to say Mobius isn't engaging at all, though. It does have a story that is delivered at a reasonable pace in episodic form, but from what I grasped in my basic understanding of the Japanese language it's nothing very deep. Final Fantasy XIV's main plot came to mind on more than one occasion—which is good, but not the real reason anyone plays and loves Final Fantasy XIV. Does Mobius have that certain other element somewhere in being a combat simulator? It's hard to say. What I can say for sure is that this is the most wildly divergent game to grace the Final Fantasy series yet. It's surprisingly unfriendly to a western audience, and is the sort of game I only see myself playing on occasion to kill some time, not make a concentrated effort to actually clear. Again, this is an episodic game, so it could certainly get 'better' with time...but does it need to? This isn't exactly a case of a bad game in need of improvement. Rather, Mobius knows exactly what it's trying to be, and it plays the role well. It just isn't the Final Fantasy adventure most gamers probably had in mind. Coming off a strictly first-impressions basis, my recommendation is to anticipate Puzzle and Dragons and you won't be disappointed. Otherwise there's not much reason to give Mobius a go other than as a benchmark for your smartphone.
Every year at E3 a ton of new game announcements and demos hit the stages of downtown LA, and every year a number of great titles go unmentioned during presentations because there's just not enough time in the day to list them all. This year's E3 made a valiant effort as one of the most packed yet, but even with three extra press conferences there are still some games you'll only see this week on the show floor--arguably where the real fun of E3 takes place. It's become something of an E3 tradition for ThinkBoxly to pick three of the best as a special feature, but bear in mind that 'best' is relative, and opinions will vary. Still, in my opinion, here are three games from the E3 show floor that you ought to know about.
While it may not have the mainstream appeal of Xbox or Playstation, following a rather weak gaming generation the PC has come back strong as a highly popular platform that fewer and fewer developers are taking for granted. With digital distribution platforms like Steam and Origin it's become easier than ever for developers to take advantage of the PC while maintaining something of a console mindset, and as PC graphics hardware advances the requirements ultimately become more and more accessible to more and more casual players. That being said, there's never been a better time to be a hardcore player who routinely builds their own monster desktop PCs to eek out every frame possible with today's technology. And if you lean towards the latter camp, PC Gamer's inaugural E3 press conference is for you.
It's been almost a decade since Square Enix last claimed its own stage at E3--interestingly enough, to unveil a certain Final Fantasy game that we still haven't seen release to this day, aside from its demo form, Episode Duscae. That game wasn't at E3 this year, which we knew going in--we'll have to wait for Gamescom for that. So with one of their longest in-development titles a guaranteed no-show, what else could Square Enix have in store for gamers to warrant reserving their own time slot? Quite a bit, actually. The legendary Japan-based publisher and developer has had a few rough years in the recent past, but from the looks of it that's all behind them, now.
I have a saying: there's always something broken about a Ubisoft game. Sometimes I enjoy them enough to live with it anyhow, but in the past several years I've said it, so far I have yet to really be proven wrong. Well, that may just change. Like EA, Ubisoft tried to push 'listening to players' as the big selling point for their latest and greatest, and while at first coming from Ubisoft it just felt like marketing speak, after seeing what they have to offer for the near future, I'm actually inclined to believe them...for the most part.
Electronic Arts is often the subject of harsh gamer criticism--it's the 'love to hate' company of the videogames industry, even though they make plenty of quality titles. But whether their reputation is founded or not, this year at E3, EA did everything in its power to shake that reputation and prove that it is a company that listens to and works with its fans.
For the past couple of years Sony has fairly easily 'won' E3, with little competition from all the other press conferences. E3 2015 hasn't pulled any punches so far, however, and with few first-party titles in the near future for Sony, the Playstation 4 was looking like it might struggle more than usual to keep up the pace following two such stellar years. While in part that was true, in the end Sony managed to secure enough major surprises to keep the ship right. And when I say 'major', I mean that on a galactic scale.
It's officially here: E3 2015 started off last night with a bang as Bethesda Softworks took to the stage with their very first E3 press conference, and while the primary purpose of the show was obvious (Fallout 4: confirmed for a release date of 11/10/15), Bethesda did more for gamers at E3 than just demo a bunch of soon-to-be products. Following a somewhat stale E3 2014, Bethesda showed us how current-gen games are finally coming into their own, and more than that, how gaming in general has turned a new page in entertainment history.
Anyone feel like E3 2015 just couldn't get started early enough this year? From companies announcing their biggest gaming titles just weeks before the event to 'pre-E3' shows stacking up half a week prior to kickoff, this June feels like more E3 than not. But that's certainly not a bad thing, particularly when you've got an entirely new platform chomping at the bit to get some attention—namely, virtual reality. With 2016 set to be the pivotal year for the tech, everyone's gearing up for the first consumer VR products, and despite unanticipated competition from HTC, the Facebook-owned Oculus remains front-and-center as one of the most hotly-anticipated gaming peripherals ever made.
It's been a long wait, but at last the Oculus Rift is coming out in earnest early next year for its full consumer release, and today's pre-E3 Oculus event gave the world its first taste of what to expect when the day finally arrives.
We've known for a while that Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae would be getting an update this week, but as it turns out Square Enix had a second surprise up their sleeve for Final Fantasy fans as well. Along with your Final Fantasy XV demo update today, you may have noticed a second item in your console's download list: an update for Final Fantasy Type-0 totaling right around 13MB. And what does this mysterious update contain? Quite simply, the most-requested tweak for the game ever since its release back in March: a completely overhauled camera.
Happy Monday, gamers! The weekend may be over, but ThinkBoxly is starting the new week off with a bang, live streaming hours of Chaos Rings III gameplay with live commentary on Twitch.tv, starting today at 3:30pm EST and continuing all afternoon!
It was almost a year ago that we got our first look at Chaos Rings III, the latest in Square Enix's most popular series of smartphone games, and a pleasant surprise for everyone circulating rumors that the third numbered entry in the series would be reduced to a social card battling game. Considering every previous Chaos Rings game was localized (with the exception of voiceovers) the expectation was that Chaos Rings III would be as well, however as the months went by it gradually slipped into the background and called into question whether a localization effort existed at all.
It's May 19, Guardians. You know what that means: Destiny's second expansion, 'The House of Wolves', is finally here. You also probably know by now to expect it to stir up a lot of controversy amongst the gaming community, mixed with avowed professions of dropping the game altogether in protest of one thing or another and those who excitedly took off at least one day of work just to blow through all the new content the expansion offers. Meanwhile, a significant portion of Destiny's reported 16 million registered players continue to log in daily and spend an average 3 hours per session regardless of all the debate. Destiny is nothing if not addicting, even if it isn't really a very good game at its core. It gets a few things really right, like the base gunplay mechanics and atmospheric environments, and it's enough to keep players coming back and even shell out $20 for a package of a little bit more of the same every few months. Destiny is Bungie's first go at something like it, and really there isn't any alternative MMO-shooter mashup out there at all, so we're willing to forgive rookie mistakes for the time being. We all know Destiny is broken and DLC is only a bandaid, not a real solution, but if Bungie moves in the right direction for the rest of Destiny 1's lifespan and then rights its wrongs with Destiny 2, the young series could still be redeemed. So while you're out enjoying either playing The House of Wolves or boycotting it, here are three things Bungie absolutely must get right next time around.
