Samantha Lienhard's Blog, page 85
July 7, 2020
Not-E3 2020 Part 9: Nacon Connect?
Indie Live Expo 2020
The Escapist Indie Showcase
PlayStation 5 Showcase
Guerrilla Collective
PC Gaming
Future Games Show
EA
New Game+ Expo
MonsterVine Hot Games Summer Showcase
Nacon Connect
Limited Run Games
Devolver Direct
Ubisoft
Microsoft
Nacon Connect 2020
When Nacon Connect 2020 was announced for today, my first thought was, “What is Nacon?” It wasn’t a name I expected to see among our Not-E3 showcases. But with other presentations still to come, our Not-E3 coverage isn’t over yet – so let’s take a look at Nacon Connect.
(Nacon, as it turns out, is a gaming accessory/peripheral company that also publishes games. Earlier this year, they merged with Bigben Interactive.)
The show started off with Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong, an upcoming story-driven RPG set in the Vampire: The Masquerade universe. I still need to play the one I have (Bloodlines), but I like vampires, so I’m intrigued enough by this.
Next, they announced a motorcycle game called RiMS Racing, which doesn’t particularly interest me, and then a roguelike called Rogue Lords (which sounded kinda cool, except that I’m not a big roguelike fan).
They talked about the Nacon brand, peripherals, and a peripheral deal with Microsoft, and then it was time for the next game reveal: the next game from Spiders, the developer of Greedfall and Bound By Flame.
Although I haven’t played one of their games yet, I’m interested enough in them that this reveal was the thing I was most looking forward to from the showcase. They announced Steelrising, an action RPG set during the French Revolution, except King Louis XVI has a robot army. That could be cool, although the teaser trailer shows almost nothing.
After that, they showed a gameplay trailer for another upcoming action RPG, Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood. I like the little glimpses shown here, but I’d like to see more of it.
(I was also pleased to finally see gameplay from that werewolf game teased in previous Not-E3 presentations… until I double-checked and found that that was Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest, so I guess there’s two games in the same franchise coming out.)
That was the last major game in the showcase for me. They went on to show Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown (racing), Roguebook (roguelike deck-builder), Tennis World Tour 2 (self-explanatory), the tiniest announcement of Warhammer: Chaosbane coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X (it was literally a still image with the news written on it), and WRC 9 (racing).
Overall, it wasn’t the most thrilling presentation, but it had a few interesting announcements. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Limited Run Games presentation as our Not-E3 coverage continues! What did you think of Nacon Connect 2020?
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July 3, 2020
Muv-Luv photonmelodies Releases July 30
When the translation of Muv-Luv was successfully crowdfunded, the campaign also met its goals to translate two side story collections.
The first, Muv-Luv photonflowers*, was released last year. Now, the second collection finally has a release date. Muv-Luv photonmelodies will be out on July 30 for $29.99.
This collection contains three stories:
Altered Fable: A Shimmering Shard of Spacetime – an epilogue story set after the events of Muv-Luv Alternative
Adoration – a story set in Europe, following a Japanese cadet who visits England to join a TSF battalion
Resurrection – a story set ahead of Muv-Luv Alternative, following a spy
Although the Steam page isn’t up yet, a short teaser trailer has been released.
Kickstarter backers received photonflowers* ahead of the public release, but I don’t know if the same will happen for photonmelodies. Either way, I’ve heard a lot of praise for this collection, so I’m excited that we don’t have much longer to wait!
That should be the last of the content included in the Kickstarter. There are still some Muv-Luv spin-offs we don’t have available in English (there was a Steam Greenlight page for Schwarzesmarken, but it’s been four years since they said anything about it) and of course the new sequel and spin-offs coming soon. I’ll be looking forward to them as well.
If you’re a Muv-Luv fan, are you looking forward to photonmelodies?
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July 1, 2020
Kingdom Hearts Dark Road Isn’t What I Expected
(But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.)
When I learned we were getting a Kingdom Hearts prequel about Xehanort, I was excited. When I saw it was a mobile game, I was much less excited. Nevertheless, I decided to give Kingdom Hearts Dark Road a try once it came out.
I hoped it would be more like a traditional game than KHUX, despite being a standalone game within the same app, preferably without the filler that eventually drove me away. I was prepared for it to be the same sort of gacha experience dragged down by all the mobile trappings.
But Kingdom Hearts Dark Road isn’t quite what I expected at all.
It’s largely an idle game, because although you can manually fight using the card-based combat system (and should, for tougher battles), Dark Road is really designed for you to set it on auto-battle and just leave it run while you do other things. You’ll need to grind a lot to earn enough BP to level up, and you get missions in between story quests that ask you to defeat a large number of Heartless before you can move on.
Everything else is fairly streamlined, as well. There is a gacha system to get more cards, and any duplicate cards you get automatically fuse with your current copy to boost its power. In addition to earning BP to level up, you also get automatic stat boosts from fighting new enemies and getting new cards, and the game rewards you with jewels, gacha tickets, and other prizes for completing certain goals (which usually means defeating a set number of enemies).
Dark Road has an episodic story, and currently only Episode 1 is available. I enjoyed the handful of cutscenes presented here, but the new characters didn’t add much to the story so far (especially since who you add to your party doesn’t seem to affect much).
However, the episode ends with quite a gut punch, so I’m curious to see where the story goes next.
Right now, Kingdom Hearts Dark Road doesn’t have a lot going for it. However, as someone who does not enjoy playing mobile games, I kinda appreciate that this one doesn’t require much playing.
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June 29, 2020
The World Ends With You Anime Announced
Last month, the reveal of Anime Expo 2020’s program cover sparked hope that The World Ends With You news would be coming soon.
I wanted to believe it meant a sequel would finally be announced, since I’ve been waiting for a sequel ever since I finished the original game.
Well, it’s not a sequel, but it did mean something… The World Ends With You is getting an anime adaptation!
A new website for The World Ends With You: The Animation features a countdown to the day of its official reveal, an Anime Expo Lite 2020 broadcast on July 3 at 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET. In true TWEWY fashion, the countdown began exactly 7 days ahead of the broadcast, although you can see from my screenshot that we now have 5 days to go (counting today).
Square Enix also opened up a Twitter account for the show, and it’s been counting down as well.
I don’t know how the anime adaptation will be, but I’m happy to at least see signs of life from the series. And if the TWEWY anime does well, maybe we’ll have a chance at getting a sequel after all…
(Or more likely, the anime will end with a TWEWY sequel tease and then we’ll hear nothing. But I can dream.)
What do you think about the news that The World Ends With You is getting an anime?
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June 26, 2020
Not-E3 2020 Part 8: Monstervine Hot Games Summer Showcase
Indie Live Expo 2020
The Escapist Indie Showcase
PlayStation 5 Showcase
Guerrilla Collective
PC Gaming
Future Games Show
EA
New Game+ Expo
MonsterVine Hot Games Summer Showcase
Limited Run Games
Ubisoft
MonsterVine Hot Games Summer Showcase
Next up in our Not-E3 coverage is MonsterVine’s Hot Games Summer Showcase, which I’m actually involved with since I’m a freelance writer/reviewer for MonsterVine! I couldn’t find new trailers to embed for some of the games I’ll be highlighting here, so be sure to check out the full showcase!
We started out with a look at Ary and the Secret of Seasons, which looks like it could be a pretty good game. I’ll be keeping my eye on that one for sure.
After that came trailers for 30XX and Aeolis Tournament, which we’ve seen in other Not-E3 showcases this year, followed by a rogelite RPG shooter called Bite the Bullet.
A cute adventure game called Button City was next, the first of several cute animal-themed games in the showcase.
Next up were new trailers for Liberated, Freakpocalypse, Cyber Hook, and Danger Scavenger. The next game shown after that was the visual novel Dear Devere, which I reviewed for MonsterVine as part of this showcase.
We got to see another trailer for Paradise Lost, which is looking pretty interesting, as well as a montage from the Dread X Collection, 10 short horror games that were each created in just 7 days. Some of them look pretty cool, so I might need to check that out (maybe around October).
After a look at Dreamscaper, they showed Embr, a game about “uber firefighters” currently in Early Access. Next up was a multiplayer game called First Class Trouble and then a montage of games from Physicality Games. One of the games getting a physical release from them is Whispering Willows, which we discussed last year.
The next game was Gamedec, the cyberpunk detective RPG shown in at least one previous showcase, and it looks pretty cool.
Trailers for Hotshot Racing and the new MapleStory update were followed by an interview about The Walking Dead: Onslaught, then a look at the side-scrolling platformer Metal Unit and the visual novel Milky Way Prince – The Vampire Star.
Neversong looks pretty cool, and then after Rift Breaker, there was a short interlude section before the showcase resumed with Rock of Ages III. The next game was a sword-fighting VR game called Until You Fall, which looks kinda cool except that I’m not a VR player.
Skul: The Hero Slayer is a cool-looking roguelite platformer, Spaceline Crew looks like a cute party game, and The Falconeer continues to look pretty interesting. Next was another cute game, a puzzle platformer called Terrorarium.
New trailers for The Way of Wrath and This is the Zodiac Speaking were followed by Thunder Rally and Hypercharge: Unboxed (which I wrote some stuff about for a completely unrelated freelance job), and then it was time for my interview with Bloober Team about The Medium! It was really exciting to do this interview, and The Medium sounds like it’s going to be fantastic.
An action-adventure roguelike called UnderMine was shown, followed by a zombie survival game called Undying. We got another look at Volta-X and When the Past Was Around, and then Wintermoor Tactics Club, which I also reviewed as part of the showcase.
The showcase ended with another tiny teaser for Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest.
We all did a wrap-up for the outro (which includes me and my Master Xehanort plush for my segment). And that was that! What did you think of the MonsterVine Hot Games Summer Showcase?
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June 23, 2020
Not-E3 2020 Part 7: New Game Plus Expo
Indie Live Expo 2020
The Escapist Indie Showcase
PlayStation 5 Showcase
Guerrilla Collective
PC Gaming
Future Games Show
EA
New Game+ Expo
MonsterVine Hot Games Summer Showcase
Ubisoft
New Game Plus Expo
As someone who enjoys a lot of Japanese games, I was really looking forward to the New Game+ Expo, despite it being one of the lesser-known Not-E3 showcases.
It began with a new trailer for Catherine: Full Body on the Switch. I have the original Catherine, but I never played it, so I’m torn on whether I should or if I should just eventually get Full Body instead.
Then we got to see some No More Heroes III… well, sorta. Technically, there was No More Heroes III going on, but Suda51 was standing in front of it to give fans a message. I’m still hopeful they’ll eventually announce No More Heroes I & II ports, but today was not that day.
Next up was a new trailer for Harvest Moon: One World. Although I’m not a farming sim fan, this is your obligatory reminder that this is Fake Harvest Moon, as the original series is now Story of Seasons.
A new 3D puzzle platformer called Tin & Kuna was announced. It looks like it could be fun.
They showed a new competitive mode for Billion Road, gameplay for Fight Crab, and DLC content for Samurai Shodown, none of which particularly interests me.
After that was the first trailer for the recently-announced Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World: Prophecy of the Throne. I’m not too familiar with Re:Zero, but the game could be interesting.
Another surprise reveal was Fallen Legion: Revenants. I played the original two Fallen Legion games and reviewed them for MonsterVine, but I didn’t enjoy them enough to be particularly excited for a sequel… although I have to admit, it looks interesting.
They revealed more SNK games coming to the Switch as part of the NeoGeo Pocket Color Selection, highlighting King of Fighters R-2.
Trails of Cold Steel IV will officially come to the west on October 27 for the PS4, which was exciting news, although I didn’t watch the trailer to avoid spoilers.
On the other hand, I did watch the trailer for Death end re:Quest 2, and that looks pretty cool, so I’m more interested in trying the first one sometime.
They showed Idol Manager, discussed the mobile Danganronpa ports, and then revealed that the otome Cafe Enchante will be released in the west in November. I’ll need to consider that one.
The world’s tiniest trailer for a game called Escape from Asura told me nothing about it, but Gematsu says it might be the Criminal Girls X localization.
After that came quite a surprise, since the 8-bit Bloodstained spin-off Curse of the Moon is getting a sequel. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 has no release date yet, and I haven’t played either Bloodstained game, but it’s a pretty cool surprise.
They showed a gameplay trailer for Guilty Gear Strive, and then a trailer for the upcoming Fairy Tail RPG.
More NeoGeo, this time with the Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection, and then came an October western release window for another otome, Piofiore: Fated Memories. This one sounds pretty interesting, so I’ll definitely keep my eye on it.
Neptunia Virtual Stars got its first western trailer, Pretty Princess party is coming west in December, and Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate Plus is being localized this year, although without “Plus” in the title for the western release (which confused me at first).
An obligatory montage of titles showed Shantae, Cold Steel III, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, and other games, and then they closed out the showcase with the announcement that Ys IX: Monstrum Nox will be coming west in 2021. It looks pretty cool.
Okay, I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get a release date for Persona 5 Scramble, and I was not-so-secretly holding out hope for Crossbell localization news, but this still was a pretty solid lineup and one of the better showcases so far! What did you think of the New Game+ Expo?
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June 22, 2020
Paper Mario: Color Splash IS Better Than Sticker Star
As promised, I finally did it. I finally played Paper Mario: Color Splash.
When Color Splash was announced, I was less than enthusiastic. My misgivings even made it into a quick shot in one of Arlo’s videos.
Since most people say Color Splash is better than Sticker Star, I decided I’d eventually give it a try. I promised a friend I’d play Color Splash this year, and in light of Origami King coming out in less than a month, I finally set up my Wii U and dove into the highly paper-themed world of Paper Mario: Color Splash.
And you know what?
It is better than Sticker Star!
That ultimately encapsulates my feelings about this game. Did I like it more than the first three Paper Mario games? No. Did I like it more than Sticker Star? Absolutely. Unlike Sticker Star, which I consider completely un-fun and generally a bad game, Color Splash had moments where I was genuinely enjoying myself.
So let’s dig into the good and bad of Paper Mario: Color Splash.
When I say it’s better than Sticker Star, I mean that even in regards to the parts I dislike about it. In Color Splash, you still use consumable items as your attacks. However, your inventory is capped at 99 slots this time, so it’s not a huge deal. Similarly, you still need to use Thing cards to solve puzzles and defeat bosses, but it’s much more user-friendly because 1) there’s an NPC who will give you a hint about any upcoming Things you need, and 2) the large inventory means you can afford to carry a bunch of Things wherever you go.
Combat starts out incredibly tedious, since each attack requires you to select your card, power it up with paint, and then flick it off the screen before you can start using action commands (and that’s with the “advanced” option that streamlines the process), but once you’re able to play multiple cards in a turn and have access to cards with multiple attacks, it feels better.
You do get an incentive for battling this time, since enemies drop hammer fragments that power up your paint gauge once you get enough, allowing you to carry more paint.
Unfortunately, it’s just not fun. Color Splash’s combat is easily the worst part. I quickly began avoiding combat as much as possible, only fighting required battles and enemies I couldn’t get away from in time. (Despite this, I ended up with 9999 coins early on, which trivialized getting new cards and make combat even less worthwhile.)
Boss battles, on the other hand, are much more interesting. Even though each requires a special Thing card to win, several of the boss battles also include some unique mechanics that make them more fun than the normal combat slog.
Outside of combat, each level is filled with unpainted areas that you need to fill back in by hammering them with your paint hammer. As much as I complain about the obsession with paper and cringe at every line about being folded, crumpled, etc., I actually found this fun. It appealed to my sense of order to fill in all the unpainted spots.
Some of the levels had pretty good music, too.
There’s also a roshambo (rock paper scissors) mini-game. You play three matches in each tournament. For the first two, you’re given hints about what your opponents will use. Then the third match is just luck. If you lose a tournament more than once, all three rounds become luck, to punish you for having bad luck. (Fortunately, you can reload your save to undo that.) Then the final tournament is all luck-based, just to make it as unenjoyable as possible.
At least roshambo is optional. Color Splash has two other terrible gameplay mechanics we need to discuss. The first is the Shy Bandit.
Remember I mentioned filling in unpainted spots? Sometimes the Shy Bandit will appear on the world map and target a location. You need to reach that spot before he drains it of color. It’s possible for him to spawn in such a way that it’s impossible for you to reach him in time. Have fun redoing the level to paint it again.
Then there’s Kamek. Randomly, Kamek will appear in battle and take away your ability to flee or get more cards, then do something to your deck, like changing them all to a specific type of card or removing all but a few. At first, I actually liked this. At least it made the battles more interesting. But you know what? It’s possible for Kamek to trap you in a battle with cards that literally can’t defeat the enemy. Your only choice is to lose all your cards or reload your save.
But that’s enough about gameplay. Let’s talk about the “story.”
People are right when they say Color Splash has funny writing. There’s plenty of humor, and some lines really made me laugh. It almost felt over-done, though, like every NPC had a joke, which made them feel less like actual characters. The generic designs don’t help. Toads of the same color are pretty much interchangeable, even when they have a unique role.
Come on, you couldn’t give the scientist Toad a lab coat or glasses?
At least the ship captain had a hat.
Color Splash is strangely self-aware when it comes to this, too. I’m not sure if the writers/localizers were forced to use generic designs and making the best of it by playing it for laughs or if they genuinely thought a world of identical paper people was hilarious, but there are multiple jokes about the Toads being generic, unnamed, and interchangeable.
Toads are portrayed as pretty much 100% incompetent, although the Rescue Squad Toads are so incompetent it’s pretty funny to watch them utterly fail at helping.
Now, for a while, I felt like this was all I was going to get: a world full of characters making jokes instead of having an actual story. The early levels felt more like set pieces rather than actual places with actual characters. However, this got much better as the game went on, with areas that actually did have their own small, self-contained stories.
In particular, helping the ghosts in the haunted hotel and traveling in search of Fortune Island were the highlights of Color Splash for me, because those areas really felt like I’d entered an actual story with actual characters.
Color Splash also has a couple side quests that feature the most heartwarming moments in the game, certainly better than anything in the main story.
And I use the term “main story” pretty loosely. Color Splash sets up its premise and sends you out to fix it, with barely any plot progression along the way aside from each Big Paint Star you rescue showing you a short flashback of what led up to the paint being drained. At least Huey is a better character than Kersti was in Sticker Star, because most interactions in the game are Huey talking to Mario or Huey talking to a character for Mario.
I didn’t think you could take a silent protagonist and make him more silent, but Mario’s inability to communicate disturbed me. In past Paper Mario games, he was still silent, but he’d nod or hold out his hands and the other character would respond as though he’d spoken.
This game has almost none of that. Huey speaks for Mario. Seeing one of the Koopalings and having Huey wonder out loud who that might be while Mario stares soullessly ahead just felt bizarre.
The story has huge missed opportunities, too, because it could have been really cool.
Click for Color Splash spoilersWhen I first encountered the black paint, I was actually excited. It felt like a new threat, possibly a new gameplay mechanic, something that would raise the stakes – and then Huey got rid of it off-screen and it never came up again until the finale.
The black paint is just a missed opportunity all around, since the revelation that Bowser is possessed by it goes nowhere. They could have done so much interesting stuff with that.
Speaking of which, remember how the original Paper Mario games had short sections where you played as Peach? It would have been so cool if instead of just getting Peach’s holograms, you got to play as her for short segments and witness for yourself that there was something seriously wrong with Bowser.
(On that note, I felt like the ending was way too hard on Bowser, especially in contrast to something like Bowser’s Inside Story where he gets a cake in the end. All he wanted was a pretty shell. He had no way of knowing mixing paint was a bad thing!)
So, is Paper Mario: Color Splash a bad game? No, I wouldn’t say it is. Is Paper Mario: Color Splash a good game? It’s… a game with some enjoyable moments. As I said at the start, the strongest statement I can make about Color Splash is that it’s better than Sticker Star in every way.
What did you think of Paper Mario: Color Splash?
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June 19, 2020
Persona 4 Golden is an Incredible Experience
Just a few days ahead of the exciting reveal of Persona 4 Golden on Steam, I finished my own playthrough of the original Vita version.
I’d intended to play Persona 4 for quite a while, but I wanted a physical copy, and… well…
So when one of February’s Celebrating All Things Romantic contest winners picked me playing P4G as his prize, I finally relented and picked up a digital copy the next time it went on sale.
I’m happy I did, because Persona 4 Golden is incredible.
I loved Persona 5, which was my first Persona game, and it has some definite gameplay improvements I preferred to the systems in Persona 4 Golden – P4G’s dungeons have randomized layouts (although each still has a central theme and aesthetic), and most social links aside from the party members don’t provide any gameplay benefit.
However, overall I like Persona 4 Golden better, and considering how much praise I heaped on 5, that says a lot.
Persona 4 Golden begins with the protagonist temporarily moving to the small town of Inaba, just as the normally-peaceful area is shaken by a mysterious murder. He and his friends learn they have the power to enter a strange world and summon Personas to fight, and they begin investigating the murders together.
I love a good murder mystery, so the story had me hooked from the start, and it never let me go. Even though I unfortunately had part spoiled for me ahead of time (and I would have loved to experience it without knowing that particular detail), I was excited to see everything unfold.
At times it was dark, at times it was funny, and at times it felt like the most 2020-iest game I could have possibly picked to play. I enjoyed every minute of it.
The cast of characters is fantastic, too. I liked the characters in Persona 5, but I really loved this group (except Teddie, but even he grew on me after a while) and they all had their own personal struggles to overcome. Even the social links I disliked at the start turned out to have more depth than was initially apparent.
And of course, Persona 4 Golden has that ridiculously addictive gameplay loop of social activities and dungeon exploration. Every time I played one of the daily life segments, I enjoyed spending time with social links, working on improving my stats, and trying to manage my time wisely to get as much done as possible. It was way too easy to say “just one more in-game day” and not stop playing for hours. Then I’d get to a dungeon and want to complete it in a single run to avoid wasting time, and if I wasn’t in a daily life segment or a dungeon, that meant the plot was progressing and I had to see what happened next. So in short, there was pretty much no part of Persona 4 Golden where I wanted to take a break instead of pressing on.
Don’t get me wrong about my gameplay comments earlier, either. While it doesn’t have those improvements, the gameplay is great! Aside from one annoying dungeon near the end, I found the combat fun, and I particularly liked “Shuffle Time,” a mechanic where you select rewards – or penalties, in exchange for being able to choose more – after battles and get a bonus if you clear them all.
By the time my staggering 120-hour playthrough finally came to an end, I’d managed to max all the social links and felt sad saying goodbye to these characters I’d gotten to know and love. Far from feeling burned out, I just wanted to play even more Persona!
But for now, that will wait until another day.
The timing of the P4G Steam version worked out well for me, because now I can encourage people to play this fantastic game without checking to see if they have a Vita first.
Have you played Persona 4 Golden? What did you think of it? And if you haven’t, what are you waiting for? Let me know in the comments!
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June 18, 2020
Not-E3 2020 Part 6: EA Play Live
Indie Live Expo 2020
The Escapist Indie Showcase
PlayStation 5 Showcase
Guerrilla Collective
PC Gaming
Future Games Show
EA
Summer Game Fest 2020 Developer Showcase
New Game+ Expo
MonsterVine Hot Games Summer Showcase
Ubisoft
EA Play Live June 2020
After a few days off from Not-E3, the next show was tonight’s EA Play Live June 2020. I didn’t have huge hopes for it, but I do like some EA games, and I was hoping to see at least a small update on the new Dragon Age game that was announced in 2018.
Anyway, this year’s EA show began with a speech, then an announcement of new content coming to Apex Legends. Then there was a montage of players talking about diversity in The Sims and how they use The Sims to express themselves, all of which led up to the announcement that The Sims 4 is coming to Steam.
This was a big deal, as they next highlighted other games they recently brought to Steam, including Command & Conquer Remastered.
After that, animated versions of developers talked about how they come up with ideas and make games.
Finally, then, we got into some new games. The developers of A Way Out announced a co-op platformer called It Takes Two, saying it’s like a roller coaster that ends by throwing you into space. I’m not entirely sure what to take away from that.
The next new game was Lost in Random, an action-adventure game with a pretty neat visual style. It looks like it might be interesting.
After that was a multiplayer rocket-themed shooter called Rocket Arena.
Now, earlier this week, they announced Star Wars: Squadrons. They talked about it here and showed more of it, but unlike last year’s Jedi: Fallen Order (which I still need to play), Squadrons doesn’t really look like my sort of game. I’m sure a lot of people are excited, though.
Then it was time for sports… with a very strange EA Sports trailer that had many surreal, psychedelic, and occasionally even creepy moments. I’m not sure what was up with that.
By this point, I was starting to lose hope for Dragon Age, but then they started talking about future games – which meant a discussion of next-gen technology and similar things they’ll be using, but in there was a tiny glimpse of what I assume are Dragon Age 4 environments
Then they teased one last exciting thing they wanted to share, which turned out to be that a new Skate title was in development.
It was a fairly underwhelming show for me, and I was hoping for more Dragon Age than a few seconds of art, but what did you think of EA’s show?
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June 17, 2020
Big Kingdom Hearts and Pokémon News
Since we have a break from Not-E3 coverage, I was all set to finish up my Persona 4 Golden review for today’s blog post, but the last two days had too much exciting news for that!
So instead we’re going to talk about yesterday’s Kingdom Hearts announcements and today’s Pokémon announcements.
A few days ago, a mysterious logo for Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory was found in the website for Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road. This led to a lot of debate about what it would be. Were we finally getting a Kingdom Hearts rhythm game? Would it be about the Master of Masters? Was it the long-awaited Kairi game?
How about potentially all three?
Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory is a rhythm game due out for the PS4, Xbox One, and Switch later this year, but it also appears to feature a story focused on Kairi, including a confrontation with a man in a black coat. A lot of people think it might be the Master of Masters, especially since the acronym for the game is MoM.
I’m not entirely convinced it’s him, but I’m incredibly excited for Melody of Memory.
And if you’re annoyed the rhythm game has what appears to be critical story content… this is Kingdom Hearts. Even an actual concert contained story details; of course the rhythm game will.
Next, Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road, the upcoming mobile game about Xehanort, will be out on June 22. I saw one report that it’s a global release date, but I’m not sure if that’s been confirmed. Either way, I’m ready to give this game a chance, mobile or not.
A new Dark Road trailer accompanied the news.
But something even more intriguing that came out of the Kingdom Hearts news is the possibility that there are two more unknown Kingdom Hearts projects to be announced.
See, Square Enix also released a “Kingdom Hearts 2020” trailer, highlighting the year’s Kingdom Hearts projects, and a screen just a few seconds in shows “Kingdom Hearts series 2nd phase.” Underneath this heading are the logos for the Re:Mind DLC, Dark Road, and Melody of Memory… with two blank slots alongside them.
This suggests there are currently two more Kingdom Hearts projects in the works in addition to Dark Road and Melody of Memory. Whatever they are, I can’t wait to find out more.
Now let’s move on to Pokémon. There was a “Pokémon Presents” digital event this morning, which I skipped because I’d gotten the impression it would be all about the DLC for Sword and Shield (which I still haven’t played or even bought). Much to my surprise, when I got online, I learned they’d announced a new Pokémon Snap for the Switch!
And… that’s literally what it’s called. “New Pokémon Snap.”
I never played the original Pokémon Snap, although I watched a playthrough of it. It was a missed opportunity not making Pokémon Snap for Wii U, but I’m interested in playing this nevertheless.
They also announced a puzzle cafe management game for mobile devices and Switch called Pokémon Café Mix, and a mobile game called Pokémon Smile that will encourage kids to brush their teeth.
More news is coming on June 24, with a “big project” teased.
So there you have it, lots of big announcements for Kingdom Hearts and Pokémon this week, with even more news coming for both! Are you excited for any of these games?
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