Before getting into Nintendo, there are something things I missed yesterday where I spent roughly 9 hours on a thirteen page Rundown, where I tried my darndest to recap the presence of about thirty games and write my impressions on all of them. Things slip through the cracks, and I didn’t even had time to shower yesterday I was so busy.
For whatever reason, a spiffy Gravity Rush 2 trailer was omitted from Sony’s E3 conference, featuring its two leading women venturing through a vibrant and distinctive cityscape, practicing their gravity manipulation powers while fighting of a giant robot wrecking havoc on the populus. It’s just a quick supercut of things that exist in this game, things that look far better than what little I played of the first Gravity Rush, and considering this is a PS4 game, there really was no reason not to snub it out of the way. Instead, it got the same treatment as the Vita, which went unmentioned through the entirety of the press conference.
Despite being so regularly shunned, Urbi Softich is insisting that the much anticipated Beyond Good and Evil 2 is still in development, which is has been for at least eight years at this point. Truth be told, I gave up on this title a long time ago, where I genuinely don’t have any faith it will ever amount to anything, but if it does, then that’s fantastic. It is pretty much the only Ubisoft IP that I hold much interest in other than Rayman, but after delivering on two excellent platformers, I’m pretty much good for the next several years. If not, I can always replay them.
It’s been announced that Unity, the lovely and versatile engine that is rapidly becoming the mainstay for a large collection of developers, is now getting support for another engine, the visual novel engine by the name of Ren’py, which was used in games such as World End Economica, Love At First Sight, Press-Switch, and Student Transfer. As for what exactly this means, I’m guessing that this will make it easier for small time developers to make games that have visual novel elements, or visual novels with more complicated gameplay elements. That, or it could lead to more games begin ported to consoles… actually, that’s exactly what’s happening to World End Economica.
Do you remember Phantom Dust, that niche Original Xbox action RPG that was being remade back for Xbox One? Well, that was effectively cancelled a while ago, but the hopes of bringing this game back are still alive and well, as the Original Xbox title is being remastered. No details have been offered other than a mention that the game will come out for Windows 10 and Xbox One sometime in 2017. It’s been an odd journey, but it’s nice to see that it ended with something, instead of nothing.
Also being potentially remastered thanks to some press kit assets is Bulletstorm Remastered, which would be unsurprising, and actually a little interesting. The game attempted to bring back the same speed and versatility that first person shooters had in the 90s, which has been on a resurgence as of late, and from what I can tell, just about all of them are faster than Bulletstorm was. I’m just saying, after things like Shadow Warrior 2013 and Doom 2016, I can see this game being viewed as something of a relic.
After her father passed away last year, Nina Tensen has been going through some bad things in her life. She’s been reassessing herself, and when it came to do her presentation at the Electronic Edutainment Exposition she opted to do a very small presentation about a pet project of hers while also opting to go after all of her peers.
Well, that was the plan, but they did provide some gameplay footage of Pokemon Sun and Moon. The footage reaffirmed several things, such as how character proportions remaining consistent in and out of battle, every opposing trainer now has a 3D model and animations to call their own, battle environments are given more details, and your character has 360 degree movement by default. The battle screen itself was also heavily revised, with the fight command now located on the right side of the screen and information about whether or not a move is super effective against an opposing Pokemon is readily made available to you. You can also easily check a Pokemon’s type, stats, ability in the middle of gameplay
Three new Pokemon were also revealed, with Yungoos being an angry and hungry normal-type mongoose that was brought to the Alola region to exterminate an Ekans infestation, along with the resident bird Pokemon, Pikipek, a quick little normal-flying woodpecker, and Grubbin, a weird little larva thing that may evolve into something neat. There is also a Battle Royal mode that have four players fight against each other, trying to faint as many Pokemon as possible before yours faint. Which is a modest attempt at keeping things interesting for a game series where the core has remained unchanged in 20 years. Nevertheless, I am still excited to get my hands on this game come November 18th, 2016.
It is an understatement to say that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a departure for the series. The world is a massive unkempt series of fields, mountains, and forests, brimming with mysteries, animals, food, various resources, and monsters all the like, and it is all seamless. Your interactions with it are far greater than they have been in any Zelda game prior, with the ability to set fields on fire, cut down trees, cook foodstuffs, roll boulders onto enemies, and climbing on everything. It is an open world adventure, there are 100 small subterranean trials, four main and massive dungeons, and is more spiritually reminiscent of the original Legend of Zelda than any other game in the series.
The Breath of the Wild’s roots are actually close to many more modern RPGs than Zelda, with an inventory for disposable items, equipable pieces or armors with their own designs and stats, and even a series of weapons. The fact that they break after extended use is a little concerning, but you can pick up every weapon dropped by an opposing enemy, and even throw them if you so wish to. So it’s all good. There is also a more dynamic element to combat with the ability to dodge blows and enter a flurry attack to deal massive damage. Enemies also have their own reaction cycles and behave differently depending on the day to further show how far the series has evolved past the like of Skyward Sword. I mean, your bombs regenerate and have unique variations. What wonderful spore of madness is this?
The setting is also worth taking note of, being an unkempt series of fields, mountains, and forests, devoid of many people. One where the only remaining structures are ruins, and something bad clearly happened a very long time ago. Yet it still manages to retain enough Zelda-isms like a Shiekan stone, the Koroks from Wind Waker, and Death Mountain, viewable from almost anywhere. It looks to be a free flowing adventure, with adventure bolded and underlined to greater emphasize its importance. Heck, the only gripe I had about this whole thing was how the old man shown didn’t have any voice acting himself, when Link is being guided by a voice in the back of their mind. Needless to say, I’m quite excited to check out The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild when it comes out in 2017 of Wii U and NX
That said, I was actually looking forward to play this game as a female Link, and was briefly convinced that Link’s very androgynous design would make that a possibility. However, Eiji Aonuma announced that the development team ultimately rejected that idea, as they wanted to take the harder route and have Zelda be a playable character instead of a female Link… which I think is pretty stupid, and I really, really hope that the development team changes their stance on this, as the game is not due out for nine months, and a feature like this could be added in… right?
I’ll keep telling myself that, and that Nintendo will make Amiibo functionality available to people who don’t want to buy dozens of $13 figurines. But this latest one really does irk me, as Wolf Link from Twilight Princess can be brought into Breath of Wind as a companion character using their Amiibo… Do I even need to explain how amazing such a feature like this is, and how much value it adds to one specific amiibo but removes from an entire game? A character like this must have taken tons of work to get right, but now it’s content locked based on a piece of plastic with a small chip inside of it?
Nintendo also revealed that Paper Mario: Color Splash will be out on October 7th for everyone to not buy in order to send a message. I’m going to offer this game a fierce level of apathy, as I genuinely don’t want it to succeed, to kick of a trend, and continue Paper Mario’s baffling transformation into such a bore. I’ll always have the two games I love, but I’d rather get more… Oh, and Mario Party: Star Rush was announced for 3DS with a release date of November 4th… because people really want a portable multiplayer game for a dying handheld, I guess.
Anyhow, the day is at an end, and no more sprinkles of news have come my way. I’ll be back with the final E3 2016 Rundown this Sunday, where I talk about any other miscellaneous tidbits that either rise from what remains or I’ve simply neglected. It’s been a lot of fun trying to make this much content so quickly, but after thee days of this, I’m about spent.
Until then, see ya later.