ZeniMax Online Studios has announced an in-game event celebrating the 2nd anniversary of the release of the Imperial City DLC. Running from now until September 18th champions who venture into the overrun city in the heart of Cyrodil can earn double the amount of rare drops. This is a great opportunity if you own the Imperial City DLC to get some of the unique armor/weapon pieces that the DLC brought to ESO.
Here are the specific items and currencies that have a double drop rate:
Double the amount of Tel Var Stones dropped from all monsters
Double the chance of picking up the Stonefire Scamp pet and Soul-Shriven Skin
Double the amount of Key Fragments
Double the amount of sacks dropped by the Tel Var Scamp and Treasure Scamps
Imperial City adds the following to The Elder Scrolls Online:
A brand new PVE / PVP quest line.
Six major wards that comprise the large open city environment.
One public PVE dungeon – The Imperial Sewers.
Two four person private dungeons available via Activity Finder – The White Tower and Imperial City Prison.
A DLC Unique Crafting Style.
New collectibles.
Imperial City is available as part of an ESO Plus monthly subscription or as a separate purchase for 25 000 Crowns in the Crowns Store.
“Kiwami means extreme!” the tutorial explains, and that’s a good way, to sum up Yakuza Kiwami, the remake of Sega’s first entry in its open-world Yakuza series. It keeps the series’ proud tradition of bombastic martial arts combat, gritty organized crime drama, and ridiculous diversions.
An immediate warning to prospective players is in order – Yakuza Kiwami has depictions of violence and aggressive harassment of women, both implied and on-screen, so keep that in mind before playing if you are affected by such things. As well, there are displays of intense gore and mutilation which can be upsetting.
Our protagonist is Kiryu Kazama, who is fresh out of prison after taking the fall for the murder of the Patriarch of the Dojima family. Paroled after ten years of model inmatehood, he returns to Kamurocho and finds himself pulled into a wildly changed Yakuza. Power struggles have broken out among the remaining Yakuza families, and caught up in the middle of it all is his childhood friend Nishkiyama who is now a family Patriarch himself, having gained a ruthless ambition in the wake of Kiryu taking the rap for his crimes.
With these pieces as a setting, Kiryu is let loose to discover the plots surrounding his loved ones, in the only way he knows how – violence. And Kiryu is extremely gifted at the liberal application of violence. He punches, kicks, stomps, throws, swings blades, and smashes thugs with bicycles and more throughout the city. Encounters crop up through the city as you run around, including the ever-looming specter of Kiryu’s rival, Goro Majima.
Majima Everywhere is one of the most fun parts of the game. He can pop up anywhere in the city with a sing-song “Kiryu-chaaan”, ready to challenge his stoic rival and test to see if Kiryu’s skills have grown to match his reputation as the Dragon of Dojima. These fights unlock Kiryu’s skills in his Dragon style, so in addition to normal leveling up, to truly master being Kiryu Kazama, you must engage with Majima.
The game hits some lulls when the narrative shrinks things down and removes the degree of openness the game has. Yakuza games shine when something ludicrous is happening on-screen, and searching for an item on the pavement isn’t particularly interesting, especially without the prospect of fighting anyone for a while. These segments aren’t difficult but if you have trouble finding what’s needed it really breaks the flow of the game.
When it’s open though you really get to experience the variety that Yakuza games have come to be known for. While traveling from plot to plot, you will find yourself distracted by fights, games, fights, sidequests, fights, bars, restaurants, and fights. Head to a bar and shoot some darts, have a drink, then make your way to karaoke – all of which will net you experience points and thus lead to improving Kiryu’s skills.
There is a very strange minigame I feel I have to discuss. In your travels, you will begin to find trading cards with pictures of ladies in swimsuits and bug hats. These you can then use to have weird rock-paper-scissors matches, complete with 3D modeled and animated wrestling holds between the scantily-clad women in an arena surrounded by bugs. It’s absolutely bizarre.
Combat though – oh the combat is where Yakuza Kiwami excels. Kiryu has an enormous variety of moves and combos to perform, which only gets more involved as you level up his skills. There are four styles to switch between, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and knowing when to use which and when to switch is key to major fights. The Rush style is about fast combos and dodging rapidly, the Brawler style is the balanced option, and the Beast style is tanky and has an emphasis on breaking nearby objects over your opponents. The fourth style is Kiryu’s Dragon Style, which features unique and powerful abilities, but can only be trained by fighting against Majima.
Yakuza Kiwami is a game that manages to balance its bombastic, ridiculous, and grim elements very well. It can seamlessly carry you from winning dolls out of a crane game for a businessman to give to his… “daughter”, to kicking a road cone and knocking out a group of thugs, to smashing an assassin’s face against a wall with your fist in a span of minutes. It is extremely violent, extremely silly, extremely bizarre, and extremely fun if you can get past the uncomfortable elements. “Kiwami means extreme!” indeed.
Yauza Kiwami’s publisher SEGA USA provided us with a review code for our consideration.
The Australian crime duo of Roadhog and Junkrat star in a hilarious animated short designed to promote the upcoming map, Junkertown. A mix between the stylish post-apocalyptic aesthetic of Mad max and the comedic tomfoolery of a character like Junkrat, these two pieces of media provide our first in-game glimpse of the Australia wasteland that has been teased since the game’s release.
I think my favorite part of the whole trailer has to be Junkrat’s continually revised plan and of course the gold crown on Pachimari – because if any Overwatch character deserves some swag it is Pachimari.
Here is a bit about the founding of Junkertown curotesy of the Overwatch Wikia:
“After the Omnic Crisis, the Australian government hoped to restore peace with the omnics by granting them a large area of land surrounding the Australian omnium. In doing so, many residents of the outback were displaced, and some of them, including Roadhog, formed a group of rebels they called the Australian Liberation Front. The ALF eventually managed to sabotage the omnium’s fusion core, which blew up the omnium, irradiated the area, and scattered scrap metal across the outback.
Survivors would go on to build Junkertown in the ruins of the destroyed omnium. The town’s residents, called Junkers, make a living scavenging parts from the omnium’s skeleton. In the center of town is a gladiatorial arena called the Scrapyard where the Queen of Junkertown oversees mech battles.”
It is unknown if both the upcoming free for all and team death match modes and Junkertown will launch on the live servers simotanously as one update or if they’ll be spread across two updates over the course of September. FFA and TDM are already available on PTR.
What’s the best way to beat the summer heat? Surprisingly we’ve had two major RPG releases this season – Dark Rose Valkyrie and Valkyria Revolution and both games have a whole trove of free downloadable content on the PlayStation Store. When the thermometer breaks one of the best ways to pass the hot days is to immerse oneself in an RPG.
Fans of Idea Factory International’s recent RPG produced by development staff known for the ‘Tales of’ franchise, Dark Rose Valkyrie, can nab extra missions, a couple of costumes for party members and crafting resources.
Available Free DLC (Dark Rose Valkyrie)
Founding Commemoration Set
Special Boot Camp Set (x 3)
Special Provisioning Set (x 3)
Amusement Variety Set
Dark Heart Pounding Set
Dengeki Exciting Set
Perhaps visiting SEGA’s re imagining of the Valkyriaseries is more your style when it comes to summer time RPGs. SEGA has provided Amleth & Co with quite a few resource packs and special missions available through the PlayStation Store to aid them on their quest to free their home from the influence of the Ruzi Empire.
There you have it – two collections of DLC to extend your summer RPG experience and all of it is available for free. Let us know in the comments if you found this reminder post useful and I’ll try to highlight other low cost or free game add-ons in the future.
I have both Valkyria Revolution and Dark Rose Valkyrie loaded onto my PlayStation 4 and I am planning to delve deeper into my opinions on both later this summer, having just finished both an Elder Scrolls Online expansion and Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood – I need a bit of an RPG break before launching into another 50 hour+ quest.
Overwatch’s 25th hero, Doomfist, has finished his testing phase on the PTR and is now live on the PC and console versions of the game. Alongside the release of Doomfist – who has been adjusted considerably since his initial reveal – this latest patch brings a number of changes to player mobility across a number of heroes and voice lines for both D.VA and Genji.
Doomfist
I’ve covered Doomfist in the past two weeks a couple of times. So to get a quick impression of what he is capable of, here is a summary of his abilities that I posted a few weeks back. Primarily his adjustments on the PTR involved how far his rocket punch and uppercut abilities launched opponents and moved. The actual functionality of the moves hasn’t really changed.
Doomfist Abilities:
Hand Cannon – Fires short ranged projectile from the knuckles of his smaller hand. Ammunition is automatically regenerated over time. Seismic Slam – Doomfist leaps forward into the air and smashes down to the ground affecting any foes below him. Rising Uppercut – Launches enemies that are in front of Doomfist into the air. Rocket Punch – A powerful charge forward that completes with a massive blow from Doomfist’s mechanical arm. Meteor Strike (Ultimate) – Leap into the sky and then come crashing down to deal damage and stun opponents. The Best Defense (Passive – Gain a temporary shield when dealing ability damage to opponents.
Movement Changes
Mcree’s flash bang now slows targets considerably faster than before. This means that a swift striking Genji can’t dodge the slowing effect of the Flash Bang’s stung.
Graviton Surge, Zarya’s ultimate ability, now stops all hero movement for those in the affected area. This means that using Genji’s Swift Strike or spending all of Tracer’s blink charges are no longer viable strategies to escape the Gravity well. Ditto for Mercy’s shift ability which allows her to fly towards a friendly target.
Highlight System
Remember that highlight system that Jeff Kaplan talked about during a recent developer update? It is now live on PC! Overwatch will now curate your top 5 daily clips and store them for a full 24 hours. Players are also now able to generate 12-second clips by using a new bindable record button. One thing to remember about these highlights is that they are only valid until the next patch – regardless if it is a major or minor addition to the game. Make sure to export your highlights often!
“The game will continue to automatically generate highlights for you based on your recent gameplay. These auto-generated highlights—now categorized as “Today’s Top 5”—will be surfaced on a daily basis and persist for a full 24 hours (or until the game client is patched, whichever happens first).
Players can now generate their own highlights! The ability to capture 12 seconds of your own gameplay has been added to the game, and can be bound to a single button of your choice (or a button per highlight slot) in the Options menu under “Request Highlight.” These player-generated highlights will be saved under a new section called “Recently Captured” and will persist until the game client is patched. Players can have up to 36 recently-captured highlights stored at one time.
With the above, players can now record any of their “Top 5” or “Recently Captured” highlights, exporting them as a video file to their gaming platform’s designated media library (on console) or directory (on PC). On PC, players will also have the option to select the quality at which these highlights are exported, supporting up to 4K for Windows 8 or higher operating systems, and up to 1080p on Windows 7.”
Get A Video Rundown
Want to know more about the latest Overwatch Patch? Check out the handy video recap in the player below or read the official notes on Blizzard’s site.
The next hero to join Overwatch, the much hyped Doomfist, will be making his way onto the live servers this coming Thursday, July 27th. Ahead of his debut in the live version of the game Blizzard hosted a panel yesterday at the San Diego Comic Con where they talked about the development behind one of Overwatch’s most mysterious heroes.
Filming doesn’t appear to have been allowed at the panel, as every YouTube video discussing the panel is an original work rather than a recording of the panel itself. Luckily for those of us not in California right now GameSpot was able to attend the panel and grabs some cool photographs of early concept art for Doomfist.
Early concepts for Doomfist allowed him to pick up enemy combatants and use them as human shields – blocking damage. Doomfist players could also simply throw their opponents off of clips, which I’m sure made for some hilarious deaths during the opening stages of Route 66. Blizzard also experimented with making him a melee only character and at one point in development, he was even considered for the tank role. Like the Overwatch’s early experiments with a melee only version of Genji, melee only Doomfist simply was too difficult to balance around the other heroes so they added the shotgun knuckles that he posses in his final iteration.
How do you feel about Doomfist’s beginnings? Would you have liked to see him as another Tank rather than the DPS role her currently fills? Excited to play him in competitive? Let us know in the comments section.
The developers responsible for the Guilty Gear and Blazblue series of fighting games has announced their latest project – a colorful crossover between Person 4 Ultimax, Blazblue, Under-Night: In-Birth….. and RWBY! So this tag-team fighting title is not only a “best of” when it comes to characters from some of the more recent non-Capcom Japanese fighters out there, but characters from Rooster Teeth’s popular web series will also jump into the fray as well.
A list of confirmed character so far is scant at best – Hyde Kido from Under-Night (which was developed by Melty Blood devs Ecole Software), Yu Naraukami from SEGA / Atlus’ Person 4, Ragna the Bloodedge from Blazblue and of course Ruby Rose from RWBY.
No word on if the game will be a simultaneous international release or if it will hit Japanese arcades first followed by home consoles later. Arc has been silent on any sort of date or even confirming platforms for their latest brawler.
At the D23 Expo Square Enix dropped a brand new 5-minute trailer for the conclusion of Sora’s adventures, Kingdom Hearts III. For the first time in franchise history players will guide Sora & friends through a world based off of a Pixar property – fittingly enough it is based upon the first film to put Pixar on the map, 1995’s Toy Story.
Watching Buzz and Woody interact with Sora, Donald and Goofy is a treat in itself but this new footage has so much more to offer us. Sora using a hand drill to launch spikes out of the ground? Check! Sora piloting two different kinds of toy mecha in a toy store? Double check! Release window?… wait for it!
Yup at the end of the D23 trailer Square drops the bomb KH fans have been waiting for – a “release window” – note, I didn’t say the exact date. We now know that Kingdom Hearts III is intended to be released sometime next year.
With such a huge event happening, this wasn’t the only Kingdom Hearts related news to drop at D23. IGN.com had a chance to ask long time series developer and KH3 co-director Tetsuya Nomura a couple of KH related questions. The most pressing question asked of him – I feel – is the possibility of Kingdom Hearts III coming to Nintendo’s widely popular Switch platform.
Here is what Nomura had to say:
“The Nintendo Switch is definitely a very interesting piece of hardware, but if we lightly say, ‘Oh yeah, we’ll be on the Nintendo Switch,’ I’m sure people will come back and say, ‘But what about the PS4 and Xbox One? We want them out first. Don’t focus on other platforms,’” Nomura told IGN. “So for now, we want to focus on what platforms we’ve already announced we’re going to be releasing Kingdom Hearts 3 on. And so after, perhaps, maybe we can start thinking about other possibilities.”
IGN also asked Nomura about the possibility of the previously released Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 collection coming to Microsoft’s Xbox One / Xbox One X platforms, so if that is of interested definitely check out their article.
What else is there really to say? I’m super stoked to see Kingdom Hearts III finally be released. As a latecomer to the franchise, I’ve still got quite a few games to beat before I’m caught up – specifically Dream Drop Distance, Birth By Sleep and 2.8: A Fragmented Passage. Despite the fact that it feels like I’ve beenwriting about this gamefor years – and I have since its’ 2013 reveal – we might finally get to play the fabled KH3!
Zenimax Online Studios will launch a log-in campaign for The Elder Scrolls Online that includes bonuses for both existing subscribers and users who chose to play without a recurring monthly free. Starting tomorrow at 7 AM PST non-subscribers can gain access to a 5-day trial that will give them all of the benefits of the ESO + subscription. Current ESO+ subscribers will be given 1 free Dwarven loot box (valued at approximately $5 USD per) for each of the five days of the promotion, provided that they sign into the game. ESO’s log-in campaign will come to a close on July 10th at 7 AM PST.
Here is a rundown of the benefits of ESO+, which is available for a number of different price points depending on the # of months purchased in advance:
Full access to all DLC game packs, including Imperial City, Orsinium, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, and Shadows of the Hist – that’s a bunch of new zones, hours and hours of new quests, additional dungeons, and more!
1,500 Crowns per month to spend on the in-game store (paid members only – the Free Trial will not reward 1,500 Crowns)
Unlimited storage for crafting materials
Double bank space for your account
A 10% increase to Experience and Gold acquisition, Crafting Inspiration, and Trait Research
Double Furnishings and Collectibles space in player housing
Exclusive ability to dye costumes
Dwarven Crown Crates contain a number of exclusive items such as themed costumes, bonus experience scrolls, riding training scrolls, crafting boost and of course the ever coveted epically rare mounts. ESO’s Crates are much more expensive than other buy to play (B2P) games – CS GO’s crates are given out as rare round rewards for free put require keys that sell for as little as $2.50 USD on the community market. Overwatch also charges for additional loot boxes starting at $0.99 USD per or earned for free by playing the game and earning levels.
As an avid player of The Elder Scrolls Online I think the ESO+ log-in campaign is an excellent idea. ESO’s base game contains access to 10 provinces, multiple guilds and almost 1,500 fully voiced quests that could keep players entertained for hundreds of hours – there is a lot of content to be had. That being said ESO+ provides access to the add-on DLC that adds Elder Scrolls staples like the thieves guild, the Imperial City and a fully PVE focused questing zone. ESO is perhaps one of the best deals around in terms of dollars per hour of content – check out my full review if you’d like to hear more of my thoughts on the base game.
SEGA’s Valkria franchise hasn’t seen an original release in North America in 7 and a half years but the beloved cell-shaded franchise returns with the PlayStation 4 release of Valkyria Revolution on PS4, Vita and Xbox One today.
Eschewing the unique turn based / action focused combat system from the original titles in favor of full-on action RPG combat puts players right into the heart of the action without sacrificing the strategic elopements that helped make the Valkyria franchise a cult classic. Story-wise players will once again recruit a ragtag team of soldiers, this time helmed by Princess Ophellia and Captain Amleth Gronjaer as they defend the continent of Europa from the oncoming forces of the Ruzi Empire.
To celebrate the launch of Valkryia Revolution SEGA has several planned pieces of free DLC to expand the game. Including:
Special Issue Gear: Veteran’s Pouch – Grants a 10% EXP bonus
Spinning Squall – Special Ragnite used in battle
Burn Field + – Special Ragnite used in battle
30 Ragnite Shards
Smash Blaze + – Special Ragnite used in battle.
All five pieces of DLC listed above are available now with three additional Scenario and Item Packs arriving in North America for free on July 5th, July 11th and July 18th. These additional packs include new quests, in the form of “tales”, more free ragnite shards and additional battle actions to expand your armies repertoire. Sounds like Valkyria Revolution fans will have a lot of content to keep them busy during one of the hottest summer months.
Upcoming DLC for Valkyria Revolution includes:
Scenario Pack: The Vanguard (Available now)
Scenario Pack: The Circle of Five (July 5th)
Scenario Pack: The Princess and the Valkyria (July 11th)
Scenario Pack: Maxim and Remembrance (July 18th)
Reviews on the game have so far been mixed but I’m looking forward to checking it out. I’ve been a fan of the Valkria franchise since the 2009 North American release of the original game, I bought the digital version of Valkyria Chronicles 2 on Vita as soon as it was available and I’m still sad that VC3 never made it to the west. My limited edition arrived today and I was surprised to see that the first print-runs of Valkyria Chronicles included a bonus collector’s pin and a soundtrack sampler. Perhaps if Revolution is successful we will see future entries in the Valkria franchise and won’t have to wait another painful seven years.
A free Valkyria Revolution theme is also available via the PlayStation Network for PS4.
Gunplay and the overall feel of the variety of weapons in the original Destiny was one of the highlights of an addictive if otherwise flawed title. Perhaps then it is a little perplexing that Destiny 2 PC Project Lead, Mark Noseworthy, spoke with Finder.com.au about the joint decision between Bungie and Vicarious Vision to remove recoil from the upcoming PC port of Destiny 2. His reasoning included that aiming a weapon with recoil just wouldn’t feel right if the player’s mouse was moving without physical input.
Here’s the full quote from Noseworthy:
“Yeah, we’ve thought about that quite a bit. Ultimately, we have one design for the game. And so, if you’re playing the Raid on PC or you’re playing it on PlayStation [4], it’s the same Raid. It’s the same experience. And we’re going to try and keep them as similar as possible because hopefully, we want this to be the best experience. We may look in a few places where weapons need to be handled differently, and we’ll treat them slightly differently.
For instance, there’s no recoil on guns on PC because recoil on the controller feels really good. ‘I’m firing, I’m firing, I’m firing, oh, I’m losing control of my gun a little bit.’ That feels great, especially with magnetism and all the magic in the controller that makes you feel it. With a mouse and keyboard, you don’t want the mouse moving without you moving it, so recoil doesn’t feel good, so there is no recoil on PC.
There are a couple of key ways we’re going to try and change it, make it so it feels native to that platform because we want people to feel like Destiny 2 is built for PC”
All of this seems a little odd considering PC first person shooters have featured recoil on weapons for decades. Half-Life 2’s shotgun would firmly jutter into the air after taking a shot at the Combine and DoomGuy’s iconic BFG 9000 could recoil back with enough strength to take someone’s arm off after unleashing one of its’ megaton blasts on hell spawn. Even games like the more recent Call of Duty titles have taken recoil in an RPG direction – giving players the ability to reduce and control precise amounts of recoil depending on the modifications equipped to the weapon or perks that they have active.
From Noseworthy’s comment, it seems that the console and PC versions of Destiny 2 – in terms of content – will be as alike as possible, if not downright identical. Using a keyboard & mouse is widely seen as more precise than even the most sensitive controller, so I have to wonder if the removal of recoil in the PC version (if this does indeed stay as it is currently is when the game ships this October) will make Destiny 2 PC feel like a different game when compared to the console versions.
The latest Final Fantasy XIV expansion, Stormblood has been in early access for the past 72 hours and despite constant disconnects, server crashes and long queues I’ve played through the first story arc until level 62. Here is a point by point recount of my experience with the game.
Thoughts of Level 60 – 70 Bard Changes
Bards are now a lot more mobile thanks to the removal of “casting times” during the usage of Wander’s Minuet. The mobility is certainly welcome but I was used to the split second timing of waiting for the cast time and then moving to avoid AOEs. Not having cast time takes away from a damage bonus we had previously while Wander’s was up and active.
Changes to Bard’s active songs are a welcomed addition. I thought it would be difficult to manage the critical strike bonus and additional effects of Wander’s Minuet, Mage’s Ballad and Army’s Paean. Surprisingly I find myself cycling from song to song rather naturally and the new rotation was starting to form muscle memory within the first hour or two.
Pitch Perfect – the flashy new ability linked to Wander’s is probably my absolute favorite of the three changed songs. It is so satisfying to see the bright flash of light that comes with having three Pitch Perfect Charges.
Having a “Job Gauge” makes managing procs and other timed abilities a lot easier to handle – I had feared it would have added additional “visual clutter” to the layout.
Thoughts of New Zones & Story
After seeing three different areas of Gyr Abania, it is very clear that we aren’t in for hours and hours of simple dry desert. Instead, Gyr Abania is full of lush vegetation alongside running oasis and rivers. When your character enters the settlement of Rhelgar’s Reach giant tents, several NPCs and a large statue measuring in the 100s of feet tall greet you.
The resistance settlements feel alive, as do the members of the resistance I’ve met thus far. For sure the stand out for me – without giving spoilers would have to be M’Naago.
I can’t wait for my Bard, Reka Ai’a to help out the resistance and experience the tale that Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood has to offer. I’m intentionally avoiding ANY spoilers since the game is in Early Access and the general release date is tomorrow. My full thoughts will be shared throughout the next week or so.
Server Instability
Stormblood has had a number of high-profile hiccups during Early Access. Throughout the first 24 hours or so the game’s “instance servers” which handle Party Finder, Duty Finder and some customized quests for Main Story crashed under the intense load. This meant that even if you got access to the game, you were stuck behind a bottleneck of players spam clicking to get into one of the two instanced early story sections that were required to continue.
Square Enix has issued multiple statements and conducted emergency maintenance more than once on the North American and European data centers to address these issues. For the most part, the quest related bottlenecks and instance server crashes appear to be a thing of the past.
Login times on the most crowded servers, including my home – Balmung, can take up to two and a half hours to complete. For most people this would probably be a deal killer – but I’ve struggled through the wait times thanks to Netflix and other games. So far Stormblood has delivered a positive story experience that is well worth the wait. At the peak, I’ve seen queues up to 4500 people – with 100 or so entering every 5 minutes. It doesn’t help that some players are abusing a logout glitch that keeps their player active on the server for an infinite amount of time without performing any action. This has lead to characters idling in town, taking up valuable slots, while their owners sleep or do other things.
What’s Next?
Reka Ai’a is on her way to the Far East and the lands of Doma, where she will meet up with the Ninja Yugiri. I’m looking forward to where the story will take her, I also look forward to sharing my specific thoughts on Main Story Quest Events and Dungeons after Stormblood releases on PS4 and PC tomorrow.
Here’s hoping tomorrow’s full release doesn’t make the queue times on Balmung even worse. I wouldn’t want to have to watch the entire LOTR trilogy before continuing my journey.
Square Enix dedicated almost an entire hour of their nearly seven-hour E3 live stream to their upcoming fighting game, Disidia NT, during day one of the conferences. Previously known as Disidia Final Fantasy Arcade, this newest entry in the cross-game franchise pits heroes and notable characters from almost every FF title against each other in teams of 3, using a unique battle system. Up until this E3 Disidia NT was confined to the arcades of Japan but now it will be released in North America on PS4 by the end of 2017.
Disidia NT’s battle system is quite unique when compared to other team-based fighters out there. After choosing your Final Fantasy favorites you’ll be paired against two other teams of three in an all out battle. Heroes are divided into 4 distinct roles – Vanguard, Assassin, Marksman and Guard. Each different character type has a distinct role and play style that also determines their position on the field. For example, Guard type excel at being tanks and are useful at the front of the party’s space, agro-ing enemies. Assassins are fast moving characters who excel at reaching the backline of an enemy team’s position and unleashing quick attacks before getting out. Disidia NT’s battles can take place either up in the air or on the ground, a team is eliminated when they suffer 3 deaths – but not necessarily one of each team member. Combine all of these mechanics with two different attack types (HP and BRAVE) and the fact that Brave Points can be traded between players and the ultimate attacks, Limit Breaks can turn the tide of battle and you have one of the most unique/complicated fighting game systems.
Confirmed Characters
Warrior of Light
Garland
Onion Knight
Cecil
Kain
Bartz
Exdeath
Terra
Brantford
Kefka
Cloud
Sephiroth
Squall
Zidane
Kuja
Tidus
Shantotto
Vaan
Lightening
Noctus
If the battle system sounds a little overwhelming make sure to watch through the entire one hour presentation. Disida looks like a lot of fun, even if I am not really familiar with the franchise up until Final Fantasy VII – yup I came into FF quite late so I’ve missed out on some of the great 16-bit entries.
It has been awfully quiet on the Spider-Man front as of late. Oh sure, there is a huge co-produced Marvel & Sony Pictures film coming out next month but I meant in terms of Insomniac’s web-slinging simulator announced at E3 2016. A year later and Sony closed their press conference last night with an [X] demo, surely they were hoping to wow the crowd by recreating Spider-Man’s signature moves in video game form.
The demo picks up with Spidey taking on a series of henchmen on the inside of an unfinished skyscraper. Spidey dodges, leaps and performs acrobatics exactly like you’d expect someone with superhuman reflexes to react – seamlessly going from launching a henchman up in the air with a high kick, only to web-shoot him out the window mid-jump a split second later. All of this action is broken up by a mid-demo FaceTime conversation between Spider-Man and an imprisoned Kingpin. All of these henchmen that Spidey have been laying waste to are actually trying to take down Kingpin’s assets while he’s imprisoned and if Spidey wants to discover the true identity of this criminal mastermind Spider-Man will have to rescue Kingpin’s men and save the high-rise. Without giving away the climactic action sequence towards the demo’s end or the surprise post-credits reveal, it looks like Insomniac’s Spider-Man is going to be worth the wait until it ships sometime next year.
Studio Wildcard will be bringing the prehistoric survival game ARK: Survival Evolved out of the Early Access age with the release of the retail version on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on August 8th. ARK on personal computers will be available for multiple operating systems including Microsoft Windows, MAC OS and various flavors of Linux.
Three different editions of ARK: Survival Evolved will be available for Xbox One and PS4 and are available for pre-order the company announced. They are:
ARK Survival Evolved Standard Edition – $59.99 USD
Includes the base ARK experience.
Access to all free content and updates that have been released to date.
Survival Evolved soundtrack as performed by the Philarmonica Orchestra.
Studio Wildcard development team poster.
Leather- bound Explorer’s Notebook.
With three different versions it might get a little confusing for new players to know exactly which version of ARK to pick up. Surely only the hardest of hardcore fans will choose to purchase the Limited Collector’s Edition since, as the name implies, it will be manufactured in limited quantities. Early Access backers such as myself seem to be funneled into the Standard Edition, this makes sense – Scorched Earth has always been add-on DLC since day one. Studio Wildcard promises that even the base ARK experience will provide players with 100s of hours of entertainment.
