I’m genuinely worried about how I’ll be able to manage my time going forward, as I have recently begun school once more, and now lack a job where I can easily find the time to work on my stories, reviews, or weekly rundowns like these, as I just left my job for the past two years in favor of a better paying one that doesn’t have me wake up at 6:30 in the morning. Also, I now have a friend to interact with every day. Welcome to this crazy time indeed, hopefully I will learn how to manage the chaos of this dysfunctional system.
I missed a few details last week when I brought up the CyGames and Platinum Games collaborative project, Granblue Fantasy Project Re: Link. Firstly, the game is being made around cooperative multiplayer, but there will be a single player mode. More characters will be added to the game as time goes on, meaning the four shown are only some of the playable characters. Game development is currently only 10% completed, meaning it was probably a bad idea to announce this game so early. Although, a hint was dropped that the game would come to PC, which is a plus for me, being a PC favoring scrub.
It is why I am happy to see things like Disgaea 2 PC, even though I’ve yet to purchase and lose myself to the first Disgaea title. Anyways, the game will, like the one beforehand, contain content from both the PS2 and PSP versions of the game, and is currently scheduled for a January 30th, 2017 release date. After the last game’s release being messy, hopefully NISA will have a better handle on things going forward.
Before that, the next title from the developers of Sleeping Dogs, United Front Games, will launch on Steam via Early Access this September. Entitled Smash+Grab or Smash & Grab, the game will be a three versus three multiplayer game where the player will assume the identity of a gang and battle against other players while vandalizing and robbing storefronts in a stylized urban environment. While the art style is vastly different, this seems like a game built on the remnants of the cancelled Triad Wars, one that may or may not have been created to keep the company afloat after their expected revenue stream dried up.
Any other PC related news I can get out of the way? Well, Playstation Now is coming to PCs. The announcement sounds rather enthralling, as it will allow people to legally play Playstation games on their PC, but it is simply access to a rental based service for Playstation games, where you pay to stream the game to another device. Or at least that’s what it was, and nobody told me that now it is an on-demand access service to a library of games that you have access to for a fee. I still thought it was a service where you paid to rent each individual game. Instead, it is actually a service that gives you access to stream over 400 PS3 and PSN games for $100 a year. Darn, that actually sounds really good. I’m sorry wallet-chan, I may need to sell some of your organs.
Speaking of Playstation, the PS4 has received a revision, dubbed the PS4 Slim, as a replacement for the original Playstation 4 hardware. It is comparable to the Xbox One S, except for one thing. Sony didn’t announce the bloody thing even after it was released into the world and in the hands of the gaming press who confirmed that it is a genuine PS4, just thinner and with a nice matte finish, and better labeled eject and power buttons. However, Sony have not announced its existence, and will continue to remain silent until they announce it their way. Which, as the lovely Laura Kate Dale pointed out, is utterly ridiculous.
Something ridiculous in a different manner is The Legend of Zelda: Art and Artifacts, a 400 page art book from Dark Horse and Nintendo much like the excellent Hyrule Historia. One containing art from the entire series, including the upcoming Breath of the Wild. The tome will cost a very reasonable $40, and is currently scheduled to release on February 21, 2017, which makes me think that very few spoilers will be in this art of the Zelda game people have been anticipating for 5, 10, 14, 18, 25, or 30 years for depending on how much retroactive history you wish to employ.
Speaking of retroactive history, remember how Dragon Quest XI was announced for the NX and Square Enix then backpedalled? Well, Dragon Quest XI is indeed coming to the NX, and will be simultaneously released alongside the 3DS and PS4 versions. Which is unsurprising, but I am curious if it will resemble the PS4 version from a technical level based on the unknown specifications of the NX. Or if it will follow similarly to the 3DS version and offer a vastly different presentation? I don’t know, but then again, aside from rumors and leaks, nobody really knows anything about the NX and the ninth generation of video games.