So, it just occurred to me that today, December 16th, 2018, is the one year anniversary of my Facial Feminization Surgery. An intensive, and pricy, procedure that took me quite a while to recover from, but thanks to it I can present myself as female without getting weird looks from people, and hate looking at my face in the mirror significantly less. Mind you, my transition is still not really done yet, as I have to take care of unwanted hair removal and the genital conversion, but those things will come in due time, and I kind of needed to save up money this year. Anyways, enough trans talk, on with the gaming news!
I could probably go on for a full page off the top of my head detailing the history of the Saturn, how Sega’s American and Japanese divisions simply could not cooperate, how the disks were of low quality and prone to rot, and how most of the library is destined for eternal obscurity due to how Sega has only ever bothered to remaster Guardian Heroes and NiGHTS into Dreams. Though the bottom line is that there are a lot of classic Sega games that people love, want to see again, and Sega has been more than willing to lend their rich intellectual properties to other developers over the years. As seen with Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap, Sonic Mania, and the upcoming Streets of Rage 4. So, what is the next IP to receive this treatment? Why, it is none other than Panzer Dragoon!
Yes, the beloved fantasy-themed rail shooter RPG series will be seeing a return with Panzer Dragon: Remake and Panzer Dragoon II Zwei: Remake, a pair of directly named, um, remakes that seek to rebuild and refresh the much praised originals. No additional details were provided beyond a 2019 release window and the game’s publisher, Forever Entertainment, a small polish Company who also recently snagged the rights to remake and sequelize the Fear Effect series. This is overall a very odd way to announce a remake, lacking even an official image to go along with a minimal announcement page, but as per usual, I hope for the best with the creators’ endeavours. I mean, best case scenario is that these two remakes do well, Panzer Dragoon Saga gets a remake as well, and with the backwards compatible Xbox entry, Panzer Dragoon Orta, the entire series will be playable on modern systems, and that’d be pretty dope.
Monster Hunter: World was one of this year’s greatest successes, as it not only brought a beloved series of handheld games to consoles, but did so in a manner that caused the series to an international juggernaut that has sold about 10 million units within its first year. As such, some sort of follow-up was deemed necessary, and as per series tradition, an expansion was announced in the form of Iceborne. From what was announced, this seems to largely be akin to the G-rank or Ultimate content introduced after each major installment of the series, but in the form of DLC rather than an entirely new release. Oh, and they are also adding in more monsters in the meantime, and will be doing a crossover with The Witcher protagonist Geralt, because he is an appropriate and popular enough character to facilitate a crossover.
Honestly, I probably will not get into Monster Hunter: World for quite a while, if only because it is a massive time sink, but its success does make me happy. Though, it could have had more success if it was allowed to be sold in China. It was for about a day, but then it was removed from sale, and the Chinese game industry froze while China went on to review their games, not allowing any new ones to be released. A freeze that, four months later, is still ongoing. With current rumors ascertaining that China may start demanding corrective actions be made in response to some of the most popular online games out there, as modern China is kind of a nightmare fire of a country where media must adhere to a Government mandated series of values.
GranBlue Fantasy Project Re:Link is one of those games I feel that I have been talking about forever, despite having only been announced 2 years ago. Yet in spite of all that time the game still lacks any release window, and has just now been given its final title, GranBlue Fantasy Relink. Regardless though, this Platinum Games developed action RPG continues to look rather impressive, but it is not the only upcoming console title based on the popular mobile RPG, as Arc System Works is developing a title based on the series, creatively entitled GranBlue Fantasy Versus. As to be expected, the game is made using the same technology and style as seen in Guilty Gear Xrd and Dragon Ball FighterZ, and looks like a visually impressive anime fighter as such, albeit with a bit less polish, presumably due to how the game is still quite a ways away from its final release. I would say something else to end this segment, but I know very little about fighters, and even less about GranBlue Fantasy as a series.
That about covers the hot news I found, but I should probably address the burning elephant that is Fallout 76. A game that has been marred by disasters since it launched last month. With the finished product being a buggy tedious mess with gross technical deficiencies and a complete absence of the core competencies of the Bethesda-era Fallout tiles. With a middling critical consensus and a vicious backlash against the game, it’s kind of surprising that the game even got the go-ahead to be released in its current state.
Oh, but that’s not even getting into the canvas bag fiasco. Basically, the collector’s edition promoted a canvas bag as an exclusive item, but the actual collector’s edition instead came with a nylon bag, and a pretty crappy one at that. A Bethesda representative said that the canvas bags were too expensive, nad that they were not going to do anything about it, before a pittance was decided upon, and people who bought the collector’s edition were given $5 worth of fake currency to use at Fallout 76’s microtransaction emporium. But that was not enough, and not wanting to draw in more ire, Bethesda ultimately decided to offer people replacement canvas bags. But as these orders were being processed, some customers were granted access to other customer’s personal information, including their email and address. Honestly, the level of incompetence at display here is kind of amazing, and it is upsetting that what was once a top name for open world gaming has fallen so far and so spectacularly.
Header image is from the manga Pretty Face by Yasuhiro Kano. It was not a very good manga, but I’d be damned if there is a more widespread manga about FFS.