Samantha Lienhard's Blog, page 47

Game Awards Set for December 8, Nominees Announced

The Game Awards 2022 is set for December 8 at 4:30 PM PT / 7:30 PM ET, and the nominees have been revealed.

The most exciting thing to me is that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was nominated for Game of the Year!

I didn’t expect it to get such recognition.

(This means I need to hurry up and make progress by then, since I’ve been on Chapter 4 for ages now.)

Xenoblade was also nominated for best music and best RPG.

God of War Ragnarok is another GOTY contender, and I plan to start that soon. Elden Ring is also on the list, which reminds me that I put my playthrough on hold far too long ago and need to get back to that, too. They were both nominated in several other categories, as well.

Final Fantasy XIV has nominations for Best Ongoing Game and Best Community Support, Bayonetta 3 was nominated for Best Action Game (for my Bayonetta 3 thoughts, I have a review coming soon at MonsterVine), Pokémon Legends: Arceus is one of the other Best RPG contenders, and this all makes me feel like I’ve played unusually few Game Awards nominees this year.

Meanwhile, Final Fantasy XVI is one of the nominees for Most Anticipated, which makes me hopeful that we might get a release date. Recent interviews said we’d have a release date by the end of the year, and the Game Awards seems like a good time to announce it.

That’s what always interests me the most about the Game Awards. While it’s nice to root for games I like to win, the potential for news and announcements is always the most exciting part.

(Here’s hoping for some nice surprises this year.)

What are you hoping for from The Game Awards 2022? Have you played many of the nominees?

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Control 2 Officially Announced

A sequel to Control has officially been announced.

Plans to make another Control game were mentioned last year, but now it’s official.

Control 2 is still in its concept stages, so we don’t really know anything about it at this point, except that it will be released for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

One piece of concept art (pictured above) was also shared on the official website, along with a message from the director.

Since it seems like it will be quite a while before Control 2 is ready, that should give me plenty of time to return to the first Control (which I put on hold after a bug forced me to restart from the beginning). Of course, I also hope to play that before Alan Wake II, Remedy’s other big sequel that was announced last year.

What I played of Control before the bug (which has since been patched, but it was too late for me), I enjoyed quite a bit, so I’m happy to see there’s more from this series on the horizon. Are you interested in Control 2?

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Sports Story Release Date Set for December!

My wish came true!

The Indie World Showcase featured many interesting games, and it closed with the one I was hoping to see more than anything else – Sports Story.

Sports Story still exists, it looks better than ever, and it’s coming out in December!

According to the new trailer, Sports Story features, golf, tennis, soccer, and other several other activities, as well as dungeons to explore. The trailer also mentions that you can become a detective or spy, so considering how things went in Golf Story, I expect the plot to take some interesting turns.

The long silence before this update still has some fans worried, but everything from the trailer looks fantastic to me.

I’m so excited to have a Sports Story release window. I hope it has the same wacky sense of humor that Golf Story had, and I can’t wait to check it out in December.

Are you looking forward to Sports Story? What were your favorite games shown in the Indie World Showcase?

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Indie World Showcase Announced for Wednesday

Nintendo has announced an Indie World Showcase for this Wednesday, November 9.

It will start at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET and last roughly 25 minutes.

While I tend to find Nintendo Directs more exciting, there can be great announcements at an indie showcase.

Hollow Knight: Silksong fans are once again hoping for a release date, although since Silksong was confirmed to be out by next June during Xbox’s E3 show, it feels like there’s less of a desperate fervor around the hope for Silksong news this time.

(I still think there’s a chance I might play Hollow Knight before Silksong comes out.)

Meanwhile, another indie game people are hoping to see is one I’ve been waiting for news on as well: Sports Story.

It was all the way back in 2019 that Sports Story was announced, but it was delayed after that. The most recent update from the developers came last Christmas, and the silence since then has some fans worried.

Golf Story was a fantastic, funny game, so I’ve been excited for Sports Story ever since it was announced. I really hope we hear something about it soon.

Aside from that, there’s nothing in particular that I’m hoping for. What do you hope (or expect) to see at Wedneday’s Indie World Showcase?

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Could a Ghost Trick Remaster Be on the Horizon?

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective for the DS is one of my favorite games, even earning a spot on my “twenty must-play games” list back in 2016 (which I really should update someday, to add games like the Yakuza series).

Ghost Trick is an adventure game where you play as a ghost named Sissel who can possess objects in the environment and use them to get around or solve puzzles.

It’s written by Shu Takumi, creator of the Ace Attorney series, and it’s absolutely fantastic.

Good luck finding it now, though. The DS version has long since become scarce. There is an iOS port, so you’re not entirely out of luck if you want to play it, but the fact remains that Ghost Trick isn’t the most accessible game nowadays.

That’s why I’m so excited by the glimmer of hope that Ghost Trick might be about to return.

As reported by Gematsu, Ghost Trick has been rated in Korea using the code “GC-CC-NP,” which is for PC releases. The publisher is listed as Gamepia, who distributes Capcom games in Korea.

Unlike trademarks, which pop up all the time without news necessarily following, ratings have been a much better indicator that an announcement is on the way. So this looks like a good sign for an impending Ghost Trick port or remaster, which would be great! The more people that can play this excellent game, the better.

Do you think we’ll get Ghost Trick news soon?

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NaNoWriMo 2022 is Here!

Official National Novel Writing Month logo.

With the arrival of November, Celebrating All Things Spooky is at an end until next year… and NaNoWriMo has begun.

If you’re unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo, it stands for National Novel Writing Month, a challenge to write a 50,000-word novel in November.

As is my habit, I stayed up to get started at midnight. Right now, I have just over 5,000 words written of my new novel, so I’m off to a good start.

This year, I’m writing a comedy detective story about a man who decides to become a private detective in the belief that he’ll get simple cases, like finding a lost pet, only to get mixed up in a case far beyond what he ever prepared for.

The idea has been in my head for a while now, so I’m excited to finally start writing and see where it leads.

My writing also has faltered a bit this year, because I’ve been trying to edit a horror novel that just won’t cooperate., so it feels good to be working on a brand new novel again.

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo this year? Let’s all give it our best and get some novels written!

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Celebrating All Things Spooky: Yakuza Dead Souls

Happy Halloween!

Our final Celebrating All Things Spooky review this year is an entry in a series that has become near and dear to my heart, Yakuza.

That’s right, Yakuza has a “spooky” entry.

I’d been playing Yakuza 5 and hope to finish that before the end of the year, but when October came around, I decided to put that on hold to try the zombie shooter spin-off, Dead Souls.

Yakuza: Dead Souls is a non-canon spin-off set after Yakuza 4. A zombie outbreak sends Kamurocho into chaos, and our characters find themselves at the center of it all as they try to survive, help the people of the city, and learn the truth behind the outbreak.

The thing that struck me the most about Dead Souls is how sincere it feels. I didn’t expect much from the story of a zombie Yakuza game, but it doesn’t feel like an excuse plot or something quickly thrown together. It feels like a genuine Yakuza story exploring what would happen if zombies overtook Kamurocho. To some degree, it comes across as Yakuza Resident Evil, but it uses these elements in a way that makes sense for the series.

It also has great character interactions and some surprisingly emotional moments.

Click for Yakuza: Dead Souls spoilersRyuji’s third chapter, when they turn his boss from the takoyaki stand into a monster and you have to fight him, and then Ryuji deals the final blow while flashing back to his boss showing him how to kill an octopus cleanly to avoid causing it to suffer… that was a heavy scene.

And then the start of Kiryu’s chapter, when he refuses to shoot zombies until he’s finally forced to accept that there’s no other choice, that hit hard. It makes perfect sense for his character, so I’m glad they actually did that instead of having Kiryu just go in guns blazing.

Then there are the substories. In true Yakuza fashion, Dead Souls is filled with optional substories that are often hilarious and occasionally heartwarming. Some are ridiculous even by Yakuza standards, and then there are others that involve minor characters from past games, part of the attention to detail that makes it feel so sincere.

If you’re wondering if Dead Souls is worth it, I’d personally recommend it for the substories alone.

We do have to consider the gameplay, however.

Unlike the rest of the series, Dead Souls is a third-person shooter. You get a variety of guns, with each character having a main type. Handguns have infinite ammo, while the rest require you to have ammo in your inventory. Heat is replaced by the snipe gauge, which lets you use things in the environment to wreak devastation upon the zombies.

The shooting does not feel great, especially when you aim. You can aim by going into first-person, but you can’t move while aiming. That would be fine, except it also decided that means the left stick should control your aim instead of the right stick (which controls the camera in third-person). Going into first-person also sometimes swung me around so that I was facing a different direction; I never figured out what caused it or how to avoid it. Aside from fights with bosses and certain types of special zombies, I found it easier to shoot without aiming, since there’s some sort of auto-aim in place.

I’m not the biggest shooter fan, so I can’t really speak to whether it’s fun or not. Combat was the game’s weakest link for me, but not enough to stop me from playing it.

(Chases were also rough and felt clunkier to me than Yakuza 3’s chases despite this game coming out after Yakuza 4, but fortunately they don’t occur often.)

Now, all of this zombie shooting occurs in the quarantine zone, which gets larger and larger as the game goes on. Outside of the quarantined area, life in Kamurocho goes on like usual. Between that and the ability to liberate businesses within the quarantine zone (at which point they act like things are totally normal despite zombies swarming outside), all of the usual Yakuza side activities are here. While it might feel surreal to eat with a hostess, enjoy some karaoke, and then blast your way through a legion of zombies, I appreciate how Dead Souls is a complete Yakuza experience.

Click for minor Yakuza: Dead Souls spoilersAnd since Ryuji’s return itself isn’t part of the plot, just a retcon, I choose to believe Ryuji survived in canon as well and is just happily making takoyaki without drawing any attention to himself.

…Maybe without the gun-arm.

(It would be ironic if Ryuji is alive and just successfully managed to do what Kiryu’s been trying to do for half the series now – drop out of sight and live a quiet life away from the Yakuza.)

It’s the shortest game I’ve played in the series, with my playtime coming in at a little over 30 hours. However, while I did all the substories, I skipped a chunk of side content – like the procedurally generated underground dungeons, which I did one floor of and then left – that could make a playthrough much longer.

So, is Yakuza: Dead Souls worth playing? If story, substories, and side content are the main draw for you, I’d say it is, although finding it is another matter. Dead Souls is only available on the PS3. You can buy a digital copy for $19.99, or hunt down a physical copy like I did. Since PS3 games are region-free, I imported a PAL copy since they’re easier to find.

Will they ever remaster Dead Souls? I don’t know, but I think it deserves it.

Yakuza: Dead Souls is a strange spin-off that has a lot more good in it than you might expect. It turned out to be the perfect way to end this year’s Celebrating All Things Spooky celebration. Happy Halloween, and don’t forget you have until midnight tonight to participate in the contest!

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Celebrating All Things Spooky: Higurashi When They Cry Chapter 2

Last year, one of the games we looked at was the first chapter of Higurashi When They Cry.

I enjoyed it quite a bit and mentioned at the end that I might not wait long before starting the second chapter.

…Well, I got distracted by other games and didn’t get around to it.

But then, with the idea already floating around in my mind that I should play Chapter 2 this October, the Silent Hill news came out. The exciting surprise that Ryukishi07 is writing Silent Hill f spurred me into action, and I began Higurashi When They Cry – Ch. 2 Watanagashi.

This chapter doesn’t pick up where the previous chapter ended, but instead starts at an earlier point. Once again, it begins with a lengthy few hours of lighthearted slice-of-life antics. It felt to me like that section actually lasted longer here, but that might just be because my knowledge of the first chapter already had me on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Sure enough, things in Chapter 2 eventually take a dark turn. Both chapters of Higurashi do an excellent job of building up a pleasant atmosphere and then twisting it with unsettling events. Both also involve the same core elements – murders and disappearances rumored to be part of a legendary curse. However, they take these aspects in a different direction.

While the first chapter built up a terrifying sense of paranoia, Chapter 2 almost feels more like a mystery, with piece after piece of the unsettling incidents coming to light.

It’s still very creepy, and the later parts had me invested in what would happen next. The more I think about it, the more interested I am to see what Ryukishi07 will do with Silent Hill. His writing has that blend of occult and psychological horror that Silent Hill did so well with.

Higurashi When They Cry – Ch. 2 Watanagashi is another interesting read, and I don’t think I’ll wait quite as long this time before starting the next chapter. In the meantime, don’t forget that you have up until Monday to join in the conversation and participate in this year’s Celebrating All Things Spooky contest!

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Celebrating All Things Spooky: Bonbon

For today’s review, I decided to turn to another short horror game that’s been in my backlog for a while: Bonbon.

Bonbon is a short adventure game from the perspective of a child. The gameplay mainly consists of simple tasks, like carefully carrying your toys to a box and putting them inside.

And dealing with the giant rat called Bonbon.

It’s a short game that lasts roughly half an hour or so, and while it’s pretty simple, it has an unsettling atmosphere and a few scary moments.

However, I found the story to be a little too ambiguous.

Click for Bonbon spoilersThe store page says the subtext is about child abuse, except it doesn’t really give many clues about what’s really going on aside from a creepy fairy tale – and the fact that if you’re playing a horror game about a child and there’s a giant ambiguous monster causing trouble, being a metaphor for abuse is a reasonable guess. My problem is that those sorts of stories usually have a context where you can take the implied meaning and say, “Oh, so that scene was actually…” but I can’t figure out how to do that here.

If I were left to my own interpretation, I’d probably say it’s about mundane things coming across as scary through a child’s eyes, but it feels like it’s missing something.

Nevertheless, while I might not be entirely sold on Bonbon’s story, I can’t deny that it was a creepy game to play, with good audio designs and a lot of little moments that kept me on edge.

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Celebrating All Things Spooky: The Lost Night

We cover all sorts of games during October that vaguely fall under the umbrella of “spooky,” but some games are perfectly suited for Halloween.

The Lost Night is an example, a short RPG that made me think I should have saved it for Halloween itself.

The basic idea is that you’re trying to find your way out of a spooky, Halloween-themed town filled with ghosts.

When a ghost attacks you, you fight in shoot ’em up style combat, dodging their projectiles while you shoot down miniature copies of the ghost to deal damage. Each type of ghost has its own movement pattern, which you’ll want to learn.

Combat rewards you with candy, which you can spend at vending machines scattered across the map to heal yourself and buy permanent stat upgrades. The ghosts get stronger as the game progresses, so those upgrades are definitely worthwhile.

Many obstacles block your path, and you’ll need to complete small tasks to proceed. For example, one NPC has lost a book, and will stand in your way until you find the book and it return it. In this way, it has you running back and forth across the map to unlock new areas.

Unfortunately, it starts to feel tedious after a while. Between the maze-like design of the town and the increasing difficulty of battles, I was tired by the time I reached the end even though it only takes a couple of hours to beat.

The Lost Night is cute, and I love its ideas. It also has a wonderful Halloween atmosphere that’s perfect for this time of year. It’s just a little too tedious for me to give it a wholehearted recommendation.

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