Samantha Lienhard's Blog, page 103

Pokémon Press Conference Set for May 29, Pokémon Direct for June 5

I thought we’d have to wait until E3 to learn more about Pokémon Sword and Shield, but I was wrong.

First, the Pokémon 2019 Press Conference has been announced for May 28 at 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET. This press conference is supposed to cover “topics of interest for all Pokémon fans,” so it might not cover Sword and Shield specifically.

Then on June 5 at 6 AM PT / 9 AM ET, there will be a special Pokémon Direct. It will last 15 minutes and feature new information on Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield.

Since the page for the press conference specifically mentions watching the Pokémon Direct for Sword/Shield news, I wonder if it will focus on other parts of the Pokémon series instead. Maybe news about the anime or movies, the trading card game… or maybe another game announcement unrelated to Sword and Shield.

Pokémon does get a lot of spin-off games, after all.

Despite my disappointment with the last two Pokémon generations, I’ve been interested in learning more about Sword and Shield ever since they were announced. Here’s hoping the Pokémon Direct has good news to share about Sword and Shield!

Are you looking forward to the Pokémon Sword and Shield Direct? What about the press conference? Let me know your thoughts and hopes in the comments.

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Clive ‘N’ Wrench Demo Available Now

It’s been a long time since we talked about Clive ‘N’ Wrench.

This indie 3D platformer had a Kickstarter campaign back in 2015 that didn’t succeed, but unlike the other 3D platformer we were talking about at the time, the game’s development remained active, with frequent updates on Twitter and Patreon.

Now the first public alpha demo of Clive ‘N’ Wrench is available.

This demo includes part of the hub world, two of the game’s levels (“The Chimp, the Bag and the Bunny” and “Bunny, I Shrunk the Chimp”), and one boss battle. Right now it only has controller support, with mouse & keyboard support to follow.

I tried out the demo and found it to have a lot of promise, even though being in alpha means it’s still a little rough.

First off, it just looks beautiful. The character models are great for this style of game, and everything feels like an homage to classic 3D platformers like Banjo-Kazooie, which is exactly what I signed up for.

It was fun to dive into, and I really liked the world design. The music also sounded like it came straight out of those older games.

On the other side of things, the camera gave me the most issues. That’s partly because I couldn’t find an option to invert the camera, but it also seemed to have a mind of its own, zooming in way too close or pulling far back at certain points despite my attempts to control it. While the controls were generally good, jumping got a little strange and floaty whenever I’d try to pull myself up onto a platform.

But this is just an alpha demo, so the game still has a long way to go. From what I played here, I think Clive ‘N’ Wrench will be a fantastic throwback to classic 3D platformers once it’s been polished.

Are you going to try the Clive ‘N’ Wrench demo?

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Psychonauts 2 Gameplay Will Be Shown at E3

E3 is coming soon, and one thing already confirmed is an exclusive gameplay demonstration of Psychonauts 2.

We last talked about Psychonauts 2 when the first full trailer was revealed at last year’s Game Awards show in December. I’d been worried about it, but the trailer renewed by enthusiasm.

Now an official E3 announcement has revealed that E3 2019 will include a panel with Tim Schafer and Jack Black, and they’ll show Psychonauts 2 gameplay.

It’s not clear why Jack Black will be there, but the actor previously worked with Double Fine for the game Brütal Legend. He also voiced a character in Broken Age. Some fans are hoping it means their panel will include Brütal Legend news, but it seems more likely that Jack Black is involved with Psychonauts 2, especially since Tim Schafer recently told Variety that Double Fine’s next game would probably not be a sequel to anything.

(Unless their non-sequel game is Rad, which was already announced.)

Update: This has been confirmed, as the latest Fig update for Psychonauts 2 says Jack Black will be there “to chat about his involvement in the game.”

Anyway, I’m excited for Psychonauts 2, so I can’t wait to see this panel. Here’s hoping the gameplay looks good and the writing is as funny as in the first game.

Are you looking forward to the Psychonauts 2 panel at E3?

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Muv-Luv photonflowers* is an Enjoyable Collection

The Kickstarter campaign for the localization of Muv-Luv and Muv-Luv Alternative also included a couple collections of side stories.

The first of these is Muv-Luv photonflowers*, which became available for Kickstarter backers in March.

Just like the main Muv-Luv series is split across two universes, the short stories here are also divided, with some stories from the Extra universe and others from the Alternative universe.

The Extra stories feature an extended epilogue following the Sumika ending, as well as six short stories (roughly 15 minutes each) set before Extra, from the points of view of each of the five main heroines. There are six stories because Meiya’s story is told in two parts.

Alternative’s stories are two prequels featuring characters from Alternative, along with three short stories giving additional perspectives on the war.

As you might expect if you’ve read the Muv-Luv visual novels, the Extra stories are cute and funny, while the Alternative stories are bleaker but also more interesting.

It took me about 9 hours to go through all of Muv-Luv photonflowers*, and it was definitely worth it. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Muv-Luv and Muv-Luv Alternative and wants more from their universes. (If you haven’t read them, though, you shouldn’t start with this. You can find my review of Muv-Luv Extra and Unlimited here and my review of Alternative here.)

I especially enjoyed the Sumika epilogue from the Extra half and the Alternative prequel about Marimo. It disappointed me a little bit that there wasn’t an epilogue following Meiya’s ending, but the two-part story about Meiya was probably the best of the other Extra stories.

I don’t know when Muv-Luv photonflowers* will be released to the public, but it shouldn’t be much longer. If you’re a Muv-Luv fan, keep an eye out for it.

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My Harrowing, Thrilling Journey Into Dark Souls

Dark Souls has been sitting in my backlog for a while, so when the group I played Skies of Arcadia alongside picked Dark Souls as their next game, I replaced my PS3 copy with Dark Souls Remastered and prepared to die a lot.

I picked the Switch version, and I’m glad I did, because I ended up absolutely addicted to it.

Because of its reputation, I was a bit nervous going into Dark Souls. I usually play games on Normal or even Easy, and I don’t consider myself to be good at hard games. I wanted to like Dark Souls, but I knew there was a chance I might just have to put it down and say it isn’t for me.

But while Dark Souls is hard, it’s the sort of difficulty I could work with. I didn’t have to worry about having lighting-fast reflexes or great precision. As long as I was patient and kept trying, I could proceed.

Death became part of the experience. In most games, dying feels like a failure, something that isn’t supposed to happen. In Dark Souls, I just came to expect it as part of the process. This all meant that even when I was dying over and over, I never wanted to quit. I spent three days fighting the same boss, but I always felt like I was so close surely the next battle would be a success.

That’s a big part of what made it so addicting. I kept wanting to go back to the game to see if I could get a little bit further or overcome the next obstacle or finally beat that boss.

Many times, I decided to take a break to play something else, only to pick Dark Souls back up a few minutes later.

Let’s move on from talking about death and get into a few specifics. I favor heavily story-driven games, with a few genre exceptions such as survival horror and 3D platformers. Dark Souls… is not really story-driven, but it has a ton of lore you can learn about through item descriptions and from talking to NPCs.

The world is pretty interesting, and the scattered NPC conversations were enough for me to become attached to some of the characters. Everyone seems a little bit off, with most characters creepily laughing at the end of conversations, but that fit right in with the bleak state of the world. It has a great sense of atmosphere, and some parts struck me pretty emotionally despite the lack of long cutscenes and overt storytelling.

(It also has a mad scientist dragon, so the story gets bonus points for him alone.)

Another thing that worried me going into Dark Souls was that people describe it as open world. I’m not the biggest fan of opens worlds. But Dark Souls isn’t open world in the traditional sense. It has a clear sense of progression, just with multiple paths you can follow. I approached it a lot like when I played the original Dragon Quest: if I was dying a bit too much in one area, I knew I should try a different path instead.

Dark Souls also stands out as possibly the only game with breakable weapons where it didn’t annoy me. A broken weapon can always be repaired, and it was a simple matter to check my weapon’s status and spend a few souls to repair it if necessary.

By the time I finished, I had put almost 99 hours into my playthrough, and it didn’t feel like it had been that long at all. I loved the world and its design, the strange and sad characters I met along the way, and pretty much everything except a few frustrating areas. I know I missed a lot of secrets, but that’s fine. I like it when a game has secrets to discover.

(Except for the unnecessarily obscure way of starting the DLC content. That was just a bit too out of the way for what was originally DLC, especially since I had to reload an area to do it instead of exploring it naturally.)

So despite being wary of Dark Souls Remastered at the start, I ended up falling in love with its addicting game design. I’ve taken a break for other games so I don’t burn myself out on the formula, but I’m looking forward to starting my next FromSoftware game.

How do you feel about Dark Souls? What do you think makes its gameplay so addicting? Let me know in the comments.

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Project Prelude Rune Might Be Cancelled

After Hideo Baba left Square Enix, we wondered what would happen to Project Prelude Rune – and it doesn’t look good.

The short teaser trailer shown amidst a flurry of other exciting news last September has been removed from Youtube. The website for Studio Istolia simply redirects to Square Enix’s main site, and its social media accounts are gone.

While it’s possible they’re rebranding Project Prelude Rune, it seems unfortunately likely that both it and the studio making it are no more.

Baba said his departure was part of “the change in Studio Istolia’s management policies,” which could mean plans to disband the studio were already in effect back then. On the other hand, they might have scrapped the game since he was no longer there to make it.

We hadn’t seen much from Project Prelude Rune, just some concept art and a few seconds of gameplay, but I was interested in it. Now we’ll never know what it could have been.

(Here’s hoping things go better for the other two mysterious JRPG projects we’ve seen little from, Atlus’s Project Re Fantasy and Monolith Soft’s unknown fantasy game.)

Now, today I was going to write up a review of a certain notoriously difficult RPG, but after seeing an article from Twisted Voxel on the fate of Project Prelude Rune, I decided to follow up on that first since we’d discussed the game in the past. Stay tuned on Wednesday for the intended review!

How do you feel about the cancellation of Project Prelude Rune? Do you think there is any chance of this game being revived in the future?

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Let’s Discuss the New Final Fantasy VII Remake Trailer and Details

I was prepared for the apparent Final Fantasy news teases to be disappointed, but yesterday’s State of Play broadcast really did include the Final Fantasy VII Remake!

It also appears as though “Final Fantasy VII Remake” might be its official title, since it’s in the logo now.

The State of Play itself was pretty short, so we didn’t get much more than a 1-minute trailer of new Final Fantasy VII Remake footage. However, they promised that more information is coming in June, with Nomura stating:

Most of the plans are already in place in the run up to launch, so please bear with us a little longer until we can release more information next month.”

That sounds like E3 news to me, and… maybe even a release date?

Now, let’s take a look at the newest trailer.

It focuses on early-game content, with most of the action taking place during the opening Mako Reactor mission. We also get a short conversation between Cloud and Aeris (whose name appears to be localized as Aerith this time around), in which she offers him a flower.

There are a few interesting things to take note of.

First, the brief combat scenes show something many fans wanted: you can control multiple characters in combat! (Although the original trailer also showed this, there were still some doubts.)

How this will be handled is unclear, but the scene at 0:20 clearly shows Barret as the playable character. His name in the menu is highlighted, the camera is focused on him, and he has a “Backblast” command not present for Cloud.

(Compare this to the part at 0:21, where the player is playing as Cloud.)

Second, while we still haven’t seen Tifa in the remake, we’ve seen battles where she will be present. While the combat scenes in the trailer only ever show Cloud and Barret or Cloud and Aerith on-screen, Tifa’s name is listed alongside theirs.

Third, materia is confirmed! There was some concern that they might scrap the materia system for the remake, but fans on Reddit noticed two brief moments in which materia equipped on Cloud’s sword is visible.

FF7 Materia

Finally, the trailer ends with a scene seemingly in the Mako Reactor, in which Sephiroth asks Cloud, “Can you bear to see the Planet suffer, Cloud?”

This line is not from the original game, and while the placement suggests it’s Cloud having a vision of Sephiroth rather than Sephiroth actually being there in person, I’m really not sure what we should take from this scene. Why is he talking to Cloud about the Planet’s suffering? It could be a cause for concern, but on the other hand, if it’s a hallucination, then it makes much more sense.

Overall, I’m still disappointed that Final Fantasy VII Remake won’t use a turn-based/ATB combat system, but aside from that, this trailer is good. It looks like they’re keeping a lot of things from the original (I was even happy to see the countdown timer), which is what we want.

What concerns me the most is still the release timeline – and not because it’s taking so long.

Some fans had been hoping the multi-part release idea was scrapped, but Square Enix confirmed that “production is underway as multiple parts.”

(Since this is Square Enix, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if these things are named Final Fantasy VII Remake, Final Fantasy VII Remake-2, and so on.)

I don’t like Final Fantasy VII being split into multiple parts, especially since I felt the original game didn’t hit its stride until after leaving Midgar. It’s also made me wonder about modern JRPGs. If a game like Final Fantasy VII is too big to be remade as a single game, is that why modern JRPGs often feel like they lack the heart and soul of older JRPGs? Are they smaller in some ways even though they’re bigger in others?

Anyway, I’m cautiously optimistic about the Final Fantasy VII Remake and looking forward to news about it in June. What are your thoughts on the new trailer?

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Is Square Enix Teasing Final Fantasy News for Tomorrow?

Tomorrow at 3 PM PT / 6 PM ET, Sony is holding a State of Play broadcast.

They’ve announced an extended look at the MediEvil remake (which I’d honestly forgotten about), a new title, and other updates and announcements.

Recent tweets from Square Enix and the official Final Fantasy account have led fans to believe we might get Final Fantasy news as well.

First, Shinji Hashimoto retweeted the State of Play announcement with a comment that translates to “Oh, it has come.” Hashimoto is the Brand Manager for the Final Fantasy series.

Next, the official Final Fantasy Twitter account posted two unusual tweets. The first was a screenshot showing the Chocobo Farm from Final Fantasy VII.

Capcom is Bringing the Original Devil May Cry to the Switch

Today, Capcom announced that the original Devil May Cry is coming to the Nintendo Switch.

This is an unusual announcement, because it looks like it’s just going to be the first game on its own.

After its initial release on the PlayStation 2, Devil May Cry was eventually re-released along with Devil May Cry 2 and 3 as the Devil May Cry HD Collection for the PS3 and Xbox 360, which was then later brought to the PS4, Xbox One, and PC as well.

So it would make sense for the Devil May Cry HD Collection to be ported to the Switch… but instead they’re releasing just the original game, which has the unfortunate implication that they might release each game separately to charge more money. But who knows! Maybe they’ll be priced reasonably despite being separate releases.

(I wouldn’t count on physical copies, though.)

Capcom has been bringing a lot of their games to the Switch, from the recently-released Phoenix Wright Trilogy (at least that was released as one collection) to the upcoming releases of Resident Evil, Resident Evil 0, and Resident Evil 4. This has involved some similarly disappointing decisions, such as how the physical copy of the Resident Evil Origins Collection will only have 0 on the cart while you have to download 1.

They aren’t the only company who has done that, either. Due to the size of the Switch cartridges, releasing a collection where one or more of the games has to be downloaded feels like common news.

But it’s still strange that Capcom isn’t even doing that with Devil May Cry. Either they want to price the games higher by releasing them separately, or they aren’t sure there’s a Devil May Cry audience on the Switch.

Still, at least fans will get to play the original. How do you feel about Devil May Cry coming to the Switch? Why do you think Capcom chose not to release the HD Collection?

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PlatinumGames Teases New Games and Bayonetta 3’s Design Process

We’ve barely heard anything about Bayonetta 3 since it was announced, which is disappointing.

However, PlatinumGames has referenced its development from time to time, and the latest update comes along with teases for other planned games.

In a recent interview with VGC, Platinum’s studio head Atsushi Inaba said they are moving away from the “orthodox development process” used for Bayonetta 1 and 2 and that fans may recognize this while playing Bayonetta 3.

It’s unclear what he means, but it might explain why we’ve gone so long without seeing more from the game.

While describing the development of the first two Bayonetta games, he said, “We did stage one, then stage two, then stage three and built up the drama and the pacing chronologically.” Development of Bayonetta 3 is not following that process. Maybe this non-chronological development means they haven’t had anything early enough to show off.

And if it’s something the player might notice, I can’t help but wonder if we have more time travel coming in the plot.

In the rest of the interview, Inaba spoke about how PlatinumGames is working toward an approach where they’ll be able to own and control their IP, which gives them freedom and also lets them create sequels.

(Remember, Bayonetta 2 almost didn’t happen at all until Nintendo stepped in, despite Platinum having plans for it. They’d like to avoid that sort of situation in the future.)

They still plan to partner with publishers for certain games, but right now they have plans for two new unannounced IPs. Inaba also referenced an unannounced game that “has never been done before.”

In other words, PlatinumGames is busy! We have Astral Chain coming August 30 for the Nintendo Switch, Bayonetta 3 coming to the Switch at an unknown date, Babylon’s Fall announced for this year for the PS4 and PC, and now two unannounced games as well.

I’m excited for Astral Chain, Bayonetta 3, and Babylon’s Fall, so I’m looking forward to hearing about the new games as well… although preferably after we’ve seen more from Bayonetta 3. And will we ever see The Wonderful 101 or a sequel on the Switch?

How do you feel about PlatinumGames using a different design process for Bayonetta 3? What are your hopes for their unannounced titles? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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