Well, the week has passed and E3 2017 has ended, and before I know it, it will be E3 2018 and I will be doing this whole shebang all over again, except then I will be further along in my transition and be far more pretty. Normally not much news comes outside of the press conferences, but there were enough stories to justify a traditional rundown, so I’ll just get started.
Firstly, I neglected to address the announcement that a new Pokemon game is coming to the Switch. Mostly because I find that super obvious, they showed nothing of substance about the game, and said it would not be shown for over a year. I know that Ultra Sun and Moon will come to the system before then, but I am quite curious about how the series will evolve with far more powerful hardware. Though, part of me thinks it will be the same thing, just with prettier effects and no major streamlining of mechanical minutia that makes the series more complicated and is often dismissed under the false assumption that complexity synonymous with depth.
Nintendo have announced that they are discussing the prospect of bringing over more Wii U titles to Switch, mostly due to the success of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. A discussion that I hope concludes with them choosing to basically bring over every major Wii U title to the Switch. Though come to think of it, I would be pretty happy if Nintendo did nothing but release compilations of their prior games in higher resolutions and framerates, with maybe some light remastering done, for about three full years. I would also end up buying most of them.
More gameplay of Sonic Forces was shown, reaffirming that, yes, the game looks really quite good, and that this is easily the most fanfic thing ever. In addition to having a lot of the story focus around a self-insert OC, the game will feature a multitude of Sonic’s friends as supporting cast members, and feature a rogue’s gallery of villains consisting of Chaos, Shadow, Metal Sonic, one of those pillocks from Sonic Lost World, and an edgy new antagonist who wants nothing more than to destroy the world. That could raise concern, but the gameplay for all three modes looks rock solid, and the game will likely impress when it launches later this year for PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC.
Capcom have spoken up about what the recently revealed Monster Hunter: World means for the Switch version of Monster Hunter XX, and as one would expect, they said they do not have any plans to talk about this game for the moment. What they are really saying is “we don’t want to announce anything right now.” Honestly, it seems too impractical for Capcom to not put this game out considering quite a few factors. The bulk of the localization for this game is done. They would have been able to begin localization on this game several months ago. The game is for an incredibly popular system. The series is an excellent fit for a handheld-console hybrid. It would be a good more traditional companion piece to World, which will change things up. The game would attract those who bought Generations as their characters may be imported to this game. Need I say more?
Speaking of PR driven news stories, in a recent interview with a Sega Europe executive, it was revealed that the company is very much aware of how much people would like to see series such as Yakuza and Persona come to PC, and those games are on the list of titles that Sega is pursuing to create PC versions of. As somebody who has bowed out of the console race for half a generation at this point in favor of PC gaming, I very much appreciate news like this, and hope that Sega continues to pursue bringing over niche titles to PC after the success of games like Valkyria Chronicles, Bayonetta, and Vanquish, despite being ports of 5+ year old games upon their release.
The final bit of news for this week is, well, baffling to say the least. Take Two issued a cease and desist letter to the creators of OpenIV, a modding tool for Grand Theft Auto V. An unedited cease and desist letter that had grammatical errors and ultimately caused the developers of this modding tool to cease operations and distribution of their software. What. A load. Of shit.
At this point, I believe it is quite obvious that mods at the very least should not be considered illegal in any form, as they are community creations that enhance games, that fix games, that better games, and ultimately sell games. This is especially true for titles like Grand Theft Auto V, which are given an insane amount of life by a group of equally insane quantity of quality mods that can turn the game into something wildly different. I could go on, but Jim Sterling did a video on this, and said things far better than I will probably ever be able to.