E3 has come and gone for the year, returning next time for event number 21 during June 15th to 18th, but that is too far away to remember. Instead, it is enough to remember everything that happened, and what happened outside of the press conferences. That is what this post is for, but it also covers unrelated events that occurred at the same time, because that’s just efficient. I am sure to be missing a lot as I fixate on the things I care about, but here are my Krimskrams of information as always.
The Vita, while ignored by many of its peers, actually did have a pretty strong line-up of games to show, many of which I found through a trailer Sony should have shown at their conference, with several other small titles for both it and PS4 being The Road Not Taken, a puzzle game that is cute in the same way that Journey was cute, Gravity Crash Ultra, a particle and voxel filled ship shooter with that appears to be an exploration focus, and, well, this list is a pretty good representation of what the system has, even if it is not a ton of exclusive titles. But hey, Freedom Wars is still going to happen! Speaking of rad handheld games that will also be playable on a console few people own, Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse was shown off once again. Now with the Wii U on its radar by exclusivity locking it to their low resolution or being tied to a system I do not own for what is oddly dubbed the conclusion of her story… so what is the far more ambitious looking Half-Genie Hero? Just a pretty metroidvania that I already bought due to how I backed and plugged the hell out of the Kickstarter as I wanted the game to be better by throwing money at it?
Speaking of throwing money, Square Enix probably hopes to get some of the green by releasing Final Fantasy Explorers, a four player co-op action RPG for the 3DS that honestly can go either way if their prior attempts are any indicator. Yet they do certainly have good handheld FF games, like Final Fantasy Type-0, which is skipping the Vita after a false confirmation and heading to the PS4 and XBO in a statement that both makes me very happy while being concerned as to how long the conversion will take for all those expensive assets to be made. Especially if a PC version later down the line, which I would believe to be and also if it will be coming onto the PC, as I believe Square Enix has sold a lot of Final Fantasy games on Steam and the like. Yes, I like games being for the PC, much like the confirmed to be a metroidvania and lovely looking tileset free Ori and the Blind Forest, a game that will launch on PC at the same time as the XBO. A fact I expect to be the same for No Man’s Sky, which just got a nifty interview that emphasizes the level of freedom in the game, while bringing up several questions that practically leave me salivating for more information, and the game of course when it launches in 201X. Until then, it is staying at the top of the Electric NIgma’s hotlist. A fate that will not be shared by the recently confirmed live action and CG Sonic The Hedgehog film, which I expect to be the best kind of putrid and vile piece of crap that I ever express delight in seeing somehow come out as decent, much like the anime film from the nineties.
Instead shove something cute and likely fun, such as a PC port of Hyperdimension Neptunia’s PS Vita remake, a keen thing that, while planned, is not fully confirmed as PC ports take work and Idea Factory International is a new tiny company that is still getting enough staff to handle their Japanese owner’s output. Oh, except they already brought over the Argeist War games on Steam, so I guess it is likely they can figure out the code. Not that I get code, as I nearly failed that class in High School and made out with a C thanks to a miracle, but I do know that 21,000 pages of text is normally enough for a game to never be released in more than one language. Well, unless you are Fantasy Life, because they did… I would have been perfectly content with it never arriving outside of Japan if I knew that. I know that Trails In The Sky’s trilogy has a lot of text to translate, but that is only about a tenth of the size as this… monster. Honestly, how did somebody even write half that much? Well, I could say the same about working on animating and creating a character for a fighting game in order to create Pac-Man in Super Smash Brothers 4… Yeah, I didn’t believe it until I saw the trailer. Yet, that’s just one of Nintendo’s post-conference secrets.
The biggest one is Intelligent Systems’ new IP, Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. …with those periods likely being optional. Much like buying this game would be, except for how it is a Valkyria Chronicles-esc TBS about president Lincoln commanding troops of Steampunk warriors to fight an army of aliens who are invading London… I wish I could shove my dollars into my computer to make the game appear on it, but I’ll have to settle with it on 3DS. At least the game looks nice in motion, but that title just kinda stinks. Kinda like video game naming conventions, even in games I plan on eating so I can absorb their quality (I just read volume 1 of The Manhattan Projects), like Xenoblade Chronicles X. Hell, the Chronicles subtitle was dumb from day one, and I would have likely preferred Monado: Beginning of the World despite how I dislike writing out colons when mentioning a game. Oh, and its plot and gameplay make me super excited. Good job Nintendo, in 2015 I’ll get a Wii U. Hell, it will be when that new Star Fox game is due, as Miyamoto said the game’s got about a year of development left. Why? Because it has been in the back burner for quite some time and spent a while in full development.
Much Zelda Wii U, a game whose trailer’s protagonist I was told was not necessarily Link, despite that it was all a bad joke… And here I was hoping for a tomboy-ish Zelda forging her own path and her own kingdom. Oh, but according to one of Ubisoft’s technical directors for Assassin’s Creed Unity, adding playable female characters would double the work. Something I understand to a certain point, but people have spoken, namely animators and the like, who said they really do not need to redo any of the animations, and if they do for a new frame, it would take a day or two for one animator. Yes, costume adjustment would take time, but not by much once a female model is created and properly detailed, which really is not that hard for a company like Ubisoft, who has employees to burn. The voice acting costs would probably be the highest of them all, but you could also claim historical accuracy as one of the most well known Assassin’s of that time and period was, indeed, a woman. Oh, and also Far Cry 4 was close to having a female co-op character, but will not. …This is the company who greenlit Child of Light and made Beyond Good and Evil. But hey, Ubisoft are all about sticking to what works with their games, and also do not plan on making new AAA IPs, which I am not opposed to, as their AAA stuff is the same anyways.
But there are AA new IPs, such as one the now two teamed Yager, the company behind Spec Ops: The Line, as in addition to being the Dead Island 2 makers, they are working on the PC and 2015 bound Dreadnought. A game I’d care about if I knew it wasn’t a keyboard and mouse title, as I don’t know the keyboard well enough. I certainly do not care about he bizarrely uninteresting looking Let It Die will not only be a free to play title, but it also is the reason why we haven’t heard about and will no longer hear about Lily Bergamo, as it died for this game to live. It is akin to letting the old lady in a walker live so a young man can die in my mind, an utter and complete waste that should result in the survivor being eaten for my own enjoyment. I will certainly let handhelds go suck one when it comes to my enjoyment as I prefer controllers far more in every way, making the announcement that Dragon Quest XI is confirmed and for consoles. No info, just that a 2016 release in Japan is likely. Much like the also confirmed Street Fighter V, although I doubt it will see a release for three years in the best case scenario. Also Majora’s Mask’s remake is totally happening, but is going to be a bit, while the Metroid game everybody’s wanted to the point where they just made their own, and a Prime successor, are both possibly happening. Nintendo works in mysterious ways and wears mystery like a cape.
I also made a Kirby because Dtoid wanted everybody to. I made mine in 3 minutes: