The latest alchemically magical release in the long-running Atelier series has finally been concocted for Steam thanks to the wizards at Koei Tecmo. Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book is now available on Steam for $32.99 CDN or as a bundle with another recent Koei Tecmo release on windows, Nights of Azure for $52.78 CDN – both games were developed by Japanese devs GUST.
For this 17th entry in the Atelier franchise players are put into the boots of young alchemist Sophie Neuenmuller as she learns that she has come into the possession of a magical book that has its own soul. Players will guide Sophie through her adventure with the mysterious book as her mentor while she hones her craft of crafting and unravels the enigma that is her mysterious mentor.
Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist & The Mysterious Book was originally released in Japan in November 2015 for PlayStation 4 and Vita with a North American release following this past June.
Wanna know if your rig will run Atelier Sophie? Here are the minimum specs from the game’s Steam Page:
RECOMMENDED:
OS: Windows® 7, Windows® 8.1, Windows® 10 Processor: Core i7 3.4GHz Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX960 DirectX: Version 9.0c Storage: 5 GB available space
Here’s a trailer from the PlayStation version of the game:
Seems that Noctis, Gladio, Prompto and Ignis succeeded in one particular mission the first day that Final Fantasy XV was available to the public – breaking even on its development costs. The game’s director Hajime Tabata stated to DualShockers during a recent visit to the company’s Japanese offices for their Business Development Division that the game was profitable right from the start.
Final Fantasy XV was a monumental success in the West with Square announcing that sales of the game had exceeded 5 million units on launch day so it is no surprise that Tabata & Co broke even right out of the gate. FFXV was the first entry in the franchise to have a simultaneous worldwide release, typically prior to this latest title FF games would come out in Japan first followed by localized releases as the translation was completed.
Additional content will be coming to Final Fantasy XV including single player episodes based around Gladio and Prompto as well as a PlayStation VR experience based around FFXV’s world.
The Kombat Cup an annual Mortal Kombat X tournament returns on February 12th offering casual and hardcore fans alike to take on professional players like the MKX EVO champion SonicFox. With $12,000 of cash prizes available to be one there is a lot of cash available for spilling a little bit of blood – or perhaps dismembering an opponent.
Everything kicks off on Feb 12th with a series of weekly events, called the qualifying rounds. The top eight players from the qualifying rounds will make their way into the quarter brackets for a chance to win up to $400 in weekly prizes.
Here is a breakdown of all of the weekly prizes that will be up for grabs until the weekly portions of Kombat Cup close on May 7th:
Weekly Prizes – Kombat Cup
First Place – $200 and 150 league points
Second Place – $100 and 125 league points
Third and Fourth Place – $50 and 75 league points
Fifth through Eighth Place – 50 league points
Ninth through Sixteenth Place – 25 league points
The finals for the Kombat Cup will take place during the week of May 14th and all of the weekly and final matches will be streamed at 60 FPS on streaming platform Stream.ME which also features content from the Kombat Cup in 4K, if your computer supports it.
Here are the prizes that will be available during the May 14th finale:
A leaked trailer for the upcoming Overwatch Lunar Festival event showcases not only quite a few new skins for Tracer, Bastion, Mei, D.VA and others but also a brand new mode Capture The Flag. It looks like a version of the trailer was posted on YouTube a bit early – the event is scheduled to start later today sometime after 9 AM PST. Thanks to the leaked trailer we also know that the event will run until Tuesday Feb 14th and since we won’t be getting a Valentine’s Day event, perhaps the end of the Lunar Festival is designed to break some hearts?
Here is an embed of the leaked trailer (if it hasn’t been taken down):
Here are some interesting screen-grabs from the trailer:
Tracer Being a Goof:
A New Epic Skin For Mercy (??)
Festival Skinned Lijiang Tower:
Update:
Thanks to NEOGAF here is the complete list of new skins & emotes we see in the trailer: “New Skins and Emotes –
Junkrat Tracer Mei Symmetra Dva Winston Zenyatta Mercy Reinhardt Bastion Roadhog
Edit: Oh my god that Tracer lion emote WANTTTTTTTTTTTTT”
Evaluating an installment of an established franchise offers particular challenges. Do you look at it in a vacuum, or as a part of the bigger picture? Should a title stand on its own, or work necessarily with the rest of the series? There is no simple answer to these questions. Yakuza 0, releasing Tuesday, January 24th, is the prequel to Sega’s long-running Yakuza series, and overall a great game in its own right.
Taking place in Japan during the real estate boom of the 80s, Yakuza 0 tells the story of the series’ main protagonist Kiryu Kazama and his recurring rival Goro Majima. Much younger and less wise to the world than we are accustomed to seeing, these two become involved in the machinations of the Tojo family of Yakuza. Their naiveté leads them deep into conflict with their objectives and personal moralities as they progress in the underworlds of their respective districts.
Kiryu’s chapters take place in the Kamurocho District, a tightly-packed neon paradise of excesses. Here, he attempts to discover who framed him for a murder of a man who Kiryu shook down for loan payment. As he progresses he gets involved with a shady real estate company and runs a collection of businesses in the District, assigning managers and collecting money from them while continuing his search.
Majima, meanwhile, is a nightclub manager in Sotenbori, and he is trying to get back into the Yakuza after being banished for a failure to follow orders. Managing involves tasks such as dealing with unruly patrons (without laying hand on them, in fact), and hiring new hostesses to entertain the clientele. These segments, in all honesty, can be a little uncomfortable and I found myself not really looking forward to them.
Which is unfortunate, as Majima’s chapters contain some of my favourite side activities in the game. The crafting system is odd and feels really forced, but it’s connected to an agent dispatch mechanic similar to Final Fantasy Tactics or Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, and I couldn’t help but get really involved with trying to see what could happen to my agents as I sent them around the world to look for wood, iron, and umbrellas.
The side content is where the game mostly shines, with hundreds of side stories to go through, and oh so many minigames. There are multiple variants of pool alone, and these are satisfying and thorough enough to sink time into without playing the rest of the game. Darts, bowling, Space Harrier – there are dozens of games you can play for hours. These games also lead to side stories of their own (the dancing minigame in particular features several stories and dance battles to take part in) and before long you risk losing sight of the plot in favour of more side content.
That is not to say the main story is not engaging. Indeed, it goes down intriguing paths and is full of interesting characters, along with a heavier focus on the incredibly fun combat the series is known for. Most plot segments are ways to setup long stretches of beating people up, which is by no means a complaint. The combo-based combat system focuses on using multiple fighting styles and environmental weapons to take down waves of enemies in a delightfully over the top martial arts movie fashion. The first time you break a motorcycle over an adversary, you will really appreciate the depth of the combat.
Narratively, however, the game stumbles in a few ways. Pacing can be awkward, as some plot segments involve going from point to point on the map for cutscenes, or visiting several shops to purchase specific items for use in a fetch quest. Since there are at least encounters to be had as you explore, the annoyance is offset by the opportunity to punch people in the face for copious amounts of cash. Worse than that, is how often the game relies on huge exposition dumps. You will find yourself having drinks with an NPC, and there you will get a plethora of character background and motivation handed to you in classic “As you Know” style.
Cutscenes are a genuinely mixed bag, as they are presented in several different ways. Some of them are pre-rendered scenes, some in-engine, and others still are presented in a motion-comic style. These will be mixed together within the same cutscene segment, and it can be rather jarring, but effective when pulled off seamlessly. Most of the time, these are just jarring.
The game is a visual treat, with bright neon signage everywhere, and excellent attention to detail. Kamurocho has enough filth in its alleys and side streets to really drive home how much of a façade the neon glow really is, and the characters are highly expressive in their animations, even if most of their emotions range from anger to violence. The animations are great, which leads to some outright brutal moments in combat – Majima in particular has some really satisfying bat manoeuvres.
In addition to looking good, it sounds great. This is of course most evident in the dancing and karaoke minigames, which are made fun through the catchy pop tunes. The soundtrack features a variety of musical styles, befitting the 80s setting, including some phenomenal generic rock for the intro cinematic. The sound design also enhances the combat, with both satisfying crunches and cracks as you administer liberal applications of violence to your foes, and over the top sound effects as you power up and switch styles.
It is important to know that Yakuza 0 does deal with some difficult and uncomfortable content. The way hostesses are treated in the nightclubs could definitely be off-putting or upsetting, going from verbal abuse to inappropriate touching. In addition, there are discussions and depictions of torture, including the before and after of an eye removal. The actual removal is offscreen, as is the removal of a finger from a major NPC early on. Also worth noting, some of the side stories discuss and threaten the exploitation of sex workers and minors (sometimes both).
Yakuza 0 is an excellent game that treads uncomfortable water. It carries itself well overall, though the bombastic presentation can be at odds with some of the upsetting aspects. If you are able and willing to see these depictions and allusions in a game then there’s a lot of entertainment to be had. When the game focuses on over the top martial arts and lets its goofy side shine is when it’s at its best. Just be prepared for some serious tonal shifts.
John Bridgman is a Canadian games journalist who has freelanced for various publications, and a host of the Downloadable Concept podcast – http://dlc.invincible.ink is our URL. He can be found on Twitter @JEBWrenc. SEGA of America provided BrokenJoysticks a digital copy of Yakuza 0 for review ahead of the game’s release.
The streets of the desolated New York City in Tom Clancy’s The Division seemed barren for months until this falls 1.4 patch which saw thousands of agents descend into the chaos filled streets once more thanks to a number of positive changes to the game by Ubisoft & Massive Entertainment. Now the devs hope to not only retain players but provide lapsed agents with even more of a reason to come back to the game as they drop the next paid expansion – Last Stand.
Manhattan’s Dark Zone was supposed to be a bit of a WildWest with the possibility of rogue agents killing you and enhanced NPCs that safeguard some of the games’ most coveted loot. Unfortunately the experience never quite lived up to this promise – thanks in part of a number of folks using auto-aim and other hacks on PC and players trepidation in fighting each other, many simply felt that grouping up together would provide a better experience than facing off versus one another.
With 1.6 Dark Zone areas 7 through 9 will finally be available for agents who are the appropriate level / gear level. These brand new modes will function like the existing Dark Zones 1 –6 with new groups of roaming enemies, new landmarks and a challenging progression that increases in difficulty the further north your agent wanders in DZ 7 thru 9. Massive Entertainment will also finally allow us to fast travel between Dark Zone entry locations – rather than traveling to the closest safe house.
Here’s an interesting little quote from the official dev blog about how extraction has changed in the new Dark Zone areas:
“The new Landmarks can have multiple waves of enemies spawning after you’ve killed the initial NPC enemies.Clearing Landmarks will now award you with additional loot placed directly into your inventory, bypassing the need to extract it.“
Alongside these new Dark Zone areas are brand new contaminated areas where your built-in filter will not be able to completely protect you. Players will have to manage their health as well as their ammunition stocks if they’re going to be able to take out the unique Elite Cleaner NPCs that will spawn in the new contained zones before their health runs out. Elite Cleaners will be a world spawn that will occur in the new Dark Zones approximately every hour or so.
A new difficulty is also coming for those players who feel that they might have mastered all of the challenges and activities that the base game has to offer. The legendary difficulty is designed to be the hardest challenge on offer within Tom Clancy’s The Division and will challenge even those who have completed the Heroic Incursions. Legendary difficulty will be available on three specific missions initially: WarrenGate Power Plant, Napalm Production Site and Times Square.
Here is how Ubisoft described the new Heroic content which has been re-worked from the ground up to provide a challenging experience:
“You won’t be fighting the same enemies you usually fight in those missions, though. All the previous content has been taken out and replaced with new, powerful and much smarter LMB enemies that use more advanced tactics against you and your team.“
Head on to the Ubisoft Blog over for exhaustive details about Tom Clancy’s The Division V1.6 including more details about the Dark Zone enhancements, difficulty levels and Gear Set changes that will affect all characters regardless of level or expansion pass. The devs also went through a lot of detail surrounding the upcoming changes to skill power and how that will affect the healing meta currently used by the community, if you are a serious player it is certainly worth the read.
Killing Floor 2 gets a huge content infusion with the release of the Tropical Bash Content Pack on Windows PC and PlayStation 4 today. Bringing a brand new map set on a tropical island, a new mace & shield for the Berserker class, a new type of energy and the ability to cross-class certain weapon types – this update looks to kick off 2017 with a bang.
New Map
Set on the tropical island of Zed Landing (isn’t that name appropriate for an area infested with the undead), this brand new maps sees players explore a downed helicopter while an imposing volcano bellows smoke off in the distance. Alongside this brand new map is a whole set of new achievements for Zed slayers to collect.
New Enemy
A brand new horrifying monstrosity is awaiting to be unleashed on Zed Landing, the Gore Fiend. Featuring a grotesque long tongue and two rusty blades for hands this new undead nightmare is nothing to laugh at, perhaps it is really a cut above the rest of the Zeds?
New Weapons For Berserker
Berserkers get a brand new tier 4 weapon with the addition of the Bone Crusher. Comprised of a spiked circular shield and a make-shift mace made out of a baseball bat and some long nails this new kit should enable the Berserker to crush in the skulls of the hordes of Zed. The hubcap shield can also be used to parry enemies causing them to stagger backwards.
Cross-Classing Weapons
Do you find yourself picking a class like Command only to find yourself adopting a single weapon from another class because it suits your playstyle more? With the new cross-class system many different weapons can be combined during play which should open up new options for those who like to stick to a single class. While Tripwire didn’t publish a complete list of cross-class weapon combinations they did provide a few examples:
Use the HMTech Medical Assault Rifle, the Incendary Trench Gun or M16 M293 as the Commando.
Use the VLAD-1000 Nail Gun as Support.
Use the HMTech-201 Sub Machinegun as SWAT.
Killing Floor 2 is currently also on sale on Steam for $19.99 USD. Check out Tripwire’s official blog post for more information on the latest update.
Vancouver based game developers Archiact VR Games are remastering their successful PC hacking simulator DarkNet for the PlayStation VR. This updated immersive hacking sim features a neon aesthetic and grid based user interface is due out this spring.
Archiact VR Games also released a small launch trailer to promote the game’s impending release on PlayStation VR. It gives the viewer a good sense of what the moment to moment gameplay of selecting nodes on a virtual grid in-front of the player but does little to explain the mechanics behind these selections. The devs obviously designed the game from the ground up for virtual reality – with the aforementioned grid requiring the user to turn their head in order to take all of it in. Underneath this grid user interface is a series of challenging logic puzzles which promise to test players ability to problem solve under pressure.
A brief interactive experience based upon the full game – not necessarily a traditional demo but more of an original experience designed after the principals of DarkNet – is available on the game’s official website if you happen to have an Oculus compatible headset. The game passed the Steam Greenlight process in the summer of 2014 but appears to be currently only available through the Oculus Home store right now, the full version is priced at $11.00 CDN on PC and will be priced at $14.99 USD upon launch.
Warner Bros Interactive is assigning their veteran LEGO cop Chase McCain to another adventure through LEGO City with the current generation re-release of 2013’s previously Wii U exclusive LEGO City Undercover.
LEGO City Undercover is an open world city exploration titles that allows players to guide McCain through 20 unique districts filled with both minor crimes, collectables and story missions to keep the detective busy. Over 100 different vehicles roam the streets of LEGO City with a number of different categories including motorcycles, helicopters, sports cars, trucks and some truly exotic rides. LEGO City Undercover wouldn’t do the franchise justice without dozens of movie references and allusions to pop culture that allow the LEGO games to be enjoyed by gamers of all ages.
“It’s hard to find faults with this game. I loved it! For long time gamers or youth, there is content to be enjoyed here. From movie parodies, to just the comedy in general, the writing is fun, clever, and keeps you interested throughout the game. “
Make sure to check out the embedded trailer below for the cross platform version:
The Yakuza games have always been a peculiar mix of gritty crime drama, bombastic martial arts, goofy side stories, and lots of minigames. Yakuza 0 is no exception, blending its cinematic storytelling with an almost overwhelming amount of side content to distract you from the game’s harsher elements.
As the title suggests, the game is a prequel to the long-running franchise, set back in the 80s and showing off the early days of series protagonist Kiryu Kazama and his recurring rival Goro Majima. The two characters operate in different cities, and their gameplay while similar, are stylistically different enough to keep the variety going.
Kiryu, when not partaking of the various diversions offered in Kamurocho, does a lot of muscle work – many of the problems he faces are solved through liberal applications of violence. He does this work both for the Yakuza and later as part of a real estate business. Fortunately, Kiryu is essentially the god of war with devastating combos to chain together into brutal finishers.
Combat is a spectacle with exciting martial arts manoeuvres and styles shown off, and each weighty punch and kick knocking piles of cash out of the recipient. Being able to change styles mid-battle makes for some fun strategizing, enhancing the martial arts movie feel the combat thrives on.
Majima has his own set of styles, which are in general a bit more stylish than Kiryu’s, though no less brutal – indeed, one of his styles, “Slugger”, is focused entirely around baseball bat fighting. To contrast, the similar style that Kiryu learns is “Beast”, which involves improvised weapons ranging from from boxes, furniture, or motorcycles, depending what is handy. A common refrain from defeated foes is “What are you?” which, given the ridiculous violence that can be pulled off, is a reasonable question.
Majima’s chapters take place in Sotenbori, where he manages a popular night club. When he’s not dealing with some very shady dealings and seedy characters that come with his job, the town offers more distractions, though it feels a little less overwhelming than Kamurocho. Oddly, it is here that the crafting system exists. Why there is crafting system I’m not sure, but it includes a system of dispatching agents around the world to find materials and recipes. This is something I’ve always had a soft spot for, so I welcome the opportunity.
Presentation is a strength of the game. It looks great, and features some great sound design. There’s a lot going on that screams 80s, including some familiar sound-alike music, parody characters, and, of course, brick-sized mobile phones. In a curious decision there are multiple styles for cutscenes, with some being simple cinematics, while others are sort of motion-comic styled vignettes.
Yakuza 0 is no exception game that attempts to blend over the top action with some gritty, and often uncomfortable, drama. Inferences and threats made to characters can and do approach some difficult territory – torture, mutilation and sexual violence are brought up, and some people may be understandably turned off from the game because of these, as well as some of the ways women are portrayed.
John Bridgman is a Canadian games journalist who has freelanced for various publications, and a host of the Downloadable Concept podcast (http://dlc.invincible.ink is our URL). He can be found on Twitter @JEBWrench. Yakuza 0’s publisher, SEGA, provided Broken Joysticks with a single download code for Yakuza 0 for our consideration.
So, here it is, the finale to Telltales adaptation of Batman. This first attempt by Telltale at telling Batman’s story has come to an end and the question now becomes “did it end with a bang or was it a dud?”. While this may not have been Telltale’s strongest project, there was a lot of enjoyable moments that Telltale brought and interesting ideas that gave a unique look at the characters we all know and love. The final episode, while it may have its flaws, does tie up many loose ends and leaves great anticipation for a second season.
This episode starts with you having to either fight Harvey Dent or Cobblepot’s drones depending on the choices you made in the previous episode. I find it interesting, that based on your choices from previous episodes, Harvey will remain unscathed physically and not have the literal two face we have all become accustomed to or he will indeed, be the two face we all think of when we think of the character. I enjoy the fact that they focus on Harvey’s mental health and treat him as more of a three dimensional, almost tragic character than a simple “bad guy” who simply went over the edge from being disfigured by a mob boss. Harvey is sick and has been for a while, resisting treatment and has been hurt by someone he thought was a friend and his mental health is affecting his ability to deal with his hurt. Telltale took an interesting turn with Dent that I am glad was constant through the episodes..
Lady Arkham was also a drastically different character than we thought she would turn out to be and turned out to be much tougher than previously assumed. She also continues to be more fleshed out in City of Light as we learn a lot more of how she grew into the revenge seeking, tough woman leading the Children of Arkham and her motives for attacking the Wayne empire. The writers certainly were creative with their decisions for this character”. Her and Harvey certainly have their reasons for their behavior and are handled wonderfully throughout the series, although Cobblepot and The Joker seem much more insignificant.
The problem with City of Light from a story perspective is the sheer amount of characters shoved into the story. While Harvey and Lady Arkham get fleshed out and even sympathetic at times, Cobblepot and “John Doe”/The Joker seem in comparison. Yes, we learn about Cobblepot’s motivations, but not much else but some simple exposition. I felt no connection to him and he seemed to be more of a nuisance than a character. The Joker also seemed very rushed into the story as his purpose to was to possibly help Bruce in one section of episode 4 and then make another appearance in City of Light that just seemed unnecessary. I feel Telltale could have held off introducing his character until a theoretical season two so he didn’t seem so obligatory. I feel if Telltale only included the two villains, it could have led to a stronger ending. The result feels muddy and at times rushed, and yet, still entertaining.
For what flaws this final episode brings, how they concluded Lady Arkham and Harvey/s stories left me satisfied with the episode and wanting more from their rendition of Batman. They were overall creative with Bruce’s story and how he fought for his family’s name and honor and the story ended a lot of arcs in a satisfying way. If you have played the other episodes, there is no reason not to finish the story and if you have not played Batman at all yet, it is definitely worth a look.
New gameplay footage from Bioware’s next space RPG adventure Mass Effect Andromeda will be shown at Nvidia’s Consumer Electronics Show keynote event on January 4th. The confirmation of a brand new gameplay trailer, which will reportedly focus on in-game environments, comes via the official Mass Effect Twitter account.
Here is the tweet that confirmed the brand new gameplay segment to be shown during CES:
Here is Nvidia’s official description of their upcoming keynote which will also be live-streamed:
“This January, NVIDIA will kick off CES and usher in a new year of technology innovation when co-founder and CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, takes the stage to give the preshow keynote address on January 4, 2017, 6:30 p.m. PST, of the industry’s most exciting tech unveilings in artificial intelligence (AI), self-driving cars, and gaming.”
We’ve known about the existence of Mass Effect: Andromeda for quite a while – with first word of the project coming over four years ago on “N7 Day” back in 2012. Since then EA & Bioware have been quite open about the development of the game, showcasing early engine technology and animation reels at E3 2014 before officially unveiling the game’s title at last year’s E3. More recently they released the first gameplay trailer from Andromeda, which you can watch below.
Mass Effect Andromeda is expected to be on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Pro, Xbox One and Windows PC Via Origin.
At long last, The Last Guardian has arrived at us after a long, patient wait. This game – brought to us by genDESIGN and SCI Japan Studio has faced many challenges in getting to the public, but thanks to the consultation of members of Team Ico, even after leaving Sony, the game that was assumed to never be reaching store shelves has become a reality. As a fan of Team Ico’s work, I was highly excited for this game and even counted down the days until I could play it. I braced myself for the artistic beauty, heart-wrenching story and atmosphere to spare and a style that only Team Ico could create. Now that I have thoroughly played through the game, the question is, was it worth the ten-year wait?
The Last Guardian transports you into the narrative of a man looking back on his time with the unique beast, Trico and his relationship with him and the bond they shared during their time together. The unnamed young boy wakes to find himself covered in tattoos that were not carved into him before, in any unknown castle type building and on top of that, with a large, injured beast he calls Trico. He gains the beasts trust by helping heal his wounds and feeding him to help him gain strength. As Trico begins to trust the young boy, the two of them join together to escape their captivity and form the most unlikely of friendships. Trico will eventually learn to listen to your commands, help you out with tough enemies and you will even help him get out of a few tight spaces too. It is this bond and this adventure that will make you fall in love with this game, especially if you already loved Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. This bond is very reminiscent of the bond formed with Yorda in Ico or Argo in Shadow of the Colossus and that makes the story all the more emotional and enchanting. This adventure and love between the boy and Trico will keep you invested and entranced despite the game’s shortcomings.
Even when you love a piece of media, it is important to still acknowledge and accept imperfections and flaws. While this game is stunning and emotional and artistic, it definitely shows a ten year age. My problems personally were with the camera and commands for Trico. The camera often would swing wildly and zoom in on the young boy far too often when I was trying to navigate and in general, I found it too tightly focused on him and the camera would often twitch or jerk when I would climb Trico to get on his back. I found it hard to get the boy to go from clinging to something to jumping. He was desperate to hang on, as if scared to make the leap I was trying to make, While that was almost interesting, as I could imagine a young boy being afraid to be told “Hey, jump from Trico’s head to this high ledge that is clearly dangerous”, it was more frustrating because I was trying to make it to the next area. Trico would also cause me frustrating moments, as much like a real animal, it was almost a gamble to give him a command as sometimes he would listen, sometimes he would just sit there and give me a whine. I also found Trico slow to complete commands, making me give an audible sign on more than one occasion. As much as I loved Trico as a character, as an aid in gameplay, I felt he was unpolished and clunky to control.
Overall, if you can overlook some major flaws in this game, it was very much worth the wait. The story and atmosphere more than makeup for the mechanical problems and the characters are completely charming and the story emotional and engrossing. I was hypnotized despite my frustrations and would recommend this to any Team Ico fan or someone who loves emotional stories of friendship and overcoming the odds.
SEGA and Deep Silver are joining forces to spearhead the revolution on Western shores, no the two publishers aren’t overthrowing the capitalist system but rather bringing the latest title in the Valkyria series to both North America, Europe and Australia in the second quarter of 2017. Not only is the news of the game’s western release a surprise but both companies will be bringing out physical versions for Xbox One & PS4 as well as a digital only release for the PlayStation Vita.
Valyria Revolution is a bit of a rebirth for the longtime strategy RPG / action hybrid series. Set in the same alternate timeline as the original Valkyria Chronicles titles, Revolution is set against the background of the much earlier Victorian era technological revolution that brought locomotives and telecommunications into the world. The battle system in Valkyria Revolution does away with the strategy RPG emphasis for a more action orientated affair that mixes in strategy through the management of multiple fronts during the single-player campaign. Players will be able to charge into battle alongside other units and rack-up highly devastating combos using this brand new combat syste.
Story wise Valkyria Revolution focuses on a group of five friends whose lifelong bonds are tested as their thirst for revenge plunges the entire continent into war. Using their limited influence and political connections this “Circle of Five” must build an army and manage multiple fronts to rise up against the oppressive enemy that currently occupies their country. While the narrative certainly draws on the themes of comradery and an underdog military against the oppressor that was present in the original Valkyria Chronicles, it also seems to introduce conflicting shades of grey – are “Circle of Five” true revolutionaries fighting for the freedom of their nation or are they simply using influence to fuel a personal vendetta?
Set to be released as Aoki Kakumei no Varukyuria (lit. Valkyria of the Blue Revolution), SEGA has changed the name for the west since they found the literal translation to be difficult to work with from a translation and graphic design perspective. The game is currently under development at Media Vision and is scheduled for an earlier January 2017 release in Japan for PS4 & PS Vita. A special demo version of Valkyria of the Blue Revolution was released this past October for Japanese PS4 owners and carries special unlocks forward into the full game.
In honor of Final Fantasy XIV announcing their newest expansion Stormblood, slated for release in early summer 2017, I have decided to write on my current feelings on the current state of the FFXIV. Also, I’d like to discuss what I feel have been amazing changes so far, and what could be improved on when Stormblood is released.
Let me start by saying that I absolutely adore the Final Fantasy series, it took all my willpower to put Final Fantasy XV down to write this, and have been playing this MMO since late 2013. I have seen the game evolve into something that I enjoy, but need to walk away from, time-to-time, mainly because of some of Square Enix’s choices; such as unnecessary token & currency grinds. I do however keep going back because of the community and the ease of access to those communities and other players that I regularly collaborate with.
Since its creation, Final Fantasy XIV has never compromised on its story content. I feel that this main story content is one of Square Enix’s strongest assets. If you have never played a Final Fantasy game in your life, the entire genre revolves around the narrative. All of the games do not have the same storyline, or even continuing stories, though the original content that Square Enix brings forth is phenomenal. The storyline within Final Fantasy XIV and Heavensward are extremely strong, I feel they rival any other single-player offerings that Square has produced.
Since Heavensward launched back in June of 2015, Square Enix has made some dramatic changes including gameplay and world settings. Giving PC players the option to use DirectX 11 as well as upping the graphics on the PS4. The game has since become accessible to all types of newcomers, adding in a feature called the Novice Network, which allows new players to talk to each other. This addition also lets seasoned players who enjoy helping others assist in any questions they have or assist with quests.
Square Enix recently implemented Wondrous Tails, which gives unique and expensive items to
Veteran players who redo older content. This incentive helps to give newer players the information and knowledge they need regarding a dungeon or a boss fight. Another feature that is just phenomenal is how they let you communicate; whether you are in a Free Company (Read: Guild) or just want a small place to chat with you and your friends, Square Enix covered that. Besides having your typical guild, party, and whispers, you also have an invention called Linkshells. These Linkshells allow you to make private channels for you and your friends to communicate, even if you are in different free companies.
So what would I like to see more of, or changed in Stormblood? For starters, I would really enjoy seeing a third dungeon added to the content patches. As it stands, Final Fantasy XIV releases two new dungeons every content patch. Within these dungeons are the means of getting new gear via tokens. When it takes weeks on end to gather all of the tokens needed for your new gear, having a third dungeon to run breaks up a lot of that monotony – as you are forced to grind out the two new dungeons if you are currently up-to-date with the highest tier of items available from the previous patch.
A different way to go about grinding for gear tokens would be to add more ways to earn them such as through gathering professions or crafting professions. I would say by gathering specific items, you could choose between the crafter or gatherer specific tokens or the tokens to gear up. Another big change I would like to see is regarding Relic Weapons, or your classes ultimate weapon. I would love to see the quests for the relic be more story based and less of a token grind like aforementioned new dungeon releases since we have to do that with high end content.
In the vanilla game of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, the relic quests were based on heroes of old that lived within the lore. Expanding the storylines or even creating new ones that are specific to the class would be interesting and create an interactive experience for the player. The quest itself I would see as being fairly lengthy, as it is a Final Fantasy game; just a lot less focused on the grind of tokens and more focused on the story.
Is there any changes you would like to see in Final Fantasy XIV when Stormblood goes live? Let us know!
