Samantha Lienhard's Blog, page 93
January 3, 2020
Operation Backlog Completion 2020
A new year means a new round of Operation Backlog Completion, a goal in which in theory will help me conquer my game backlog and in reality only makes me realize that my backlog is an unstoppable force of doom.
But hey, last year I set a 50-game goal for myself, and this year I’m going to do the same.
(I’ve also decided to change the post title to reflect the year rather than the round number. It makes more sense and will be less discouraging as the years go on.)
Operation Backlog Completion 2020
I also listed 16 games I intended to play during the year, of which I played 6. Here’s hoping it goes better this year, as my new list includes the games I skipped from last year’s list, another crowdfunded game I backed, and my most-anticipated games of 2020.
And Color Splash. Just because I have a friend who really wants me to play it.
Batman: Arkham Knight (and maybe Origins, but let’s try for one thing at a time)
The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Dragon Quest XI
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition
Yooka-Laylee
Aviary Attorney
Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan
Dies Irae
The Great Gaias
Bug Fables
RE3make
Tales of Arise
Yakuza 3 (what, you thought I was going to put the entire Remastered Collection on this list?)
Psychonauts 2
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Paper Mario: Color Splash
Special mention goes to Aviary Attorney, which I intend to play not only before the end of 2020, but before the end of January, since Aviary Attorney is coming to the Switch on January 30.
Do you have any video game goals for this year?
Like this post? Tell your friends!
And if you want posts like this delivered straight to your inbox, enter your email in the box below to subscribe!
Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to share it with your social networks! The post Operation Backlog Completion 2020 appeared first on Samantha Lienhard.
January 1, 2020
My Top 5 Most-Anticipated Games of 2020
2020 is here! Yesterday I talked about the best games I played last year, and now I’m ready to look ahead to the new games coming in the year ahead!
Honorable Mention
We don’t often get an honorable mention here, but Kingdom Hearts III’s Re:Mind DLC is due out on January 23, and I can’t wait. DLC doesn’t count as a game release, though, so it doesn’t officially belong on this list.
With that out of the way, then, let’s move on to the five games I’m most looking forward to in 2020!
5. Resident Evil 3 (2020)
I debated for quite a while if I should put the Resident Evil 3 remake on the list or not. I loved RE2make, and it left me with high hopes for RE3make… but I can’t entirely shake my skepticism over Capcom mentioning in interviews that Resident Evil 3 will have more action than Resident Evil 2.
Still, though, they’re right. The original Resident Evil 3 did have more action than the original Resident Evil 2. Jill was able to dodge attacks, for example. So I’m willing to give Capcom the benefit of the doubt here and say the Resident Evil 3 remake will be a good survival horror game like its predecessor.
They didn’t let us down with Resident Evil 2, so I’m cautiously hopeful for Resident Evil 3.
4. Tales of Arise
With how little we’ve seen of Tales of Arise, it’s strange to think it’s coming out this year. There have been a lot of questions surrounding Arise, with fans jumping to conclusions about just how different it might be from previous games in the series.
I’m looking forward to seeing more from Tales of Arise and then playing it when it comes out. I enjoyed Tales of Berseria quite a bit, so here’s hoping this is another great entry.
In the meantime, there are plenty of Tales games I still need to play while I wait (including Tales of Vesperia, which I had on last year’s list).
3. Yakuza Remastered Collection
Does this count? Of course it does! Last year, the remastered versions of Yakuza 3, 4, and 5 were announced for the west as the Yakuza Remastered Collection. It’s already available digitally, with Yakuza 3 and Yakuza 4 already available and Yakuza 5 coming in February.
And when Yakuza 5 becomes available, so will the physical copy of the Yakuza Remastered Collection, which I pre-ordered pretty much the minute it appeared on Amazon.
Right now, I’m playing through Yakuza Kiwami 2, so there’s a good chance I’ll be all ready to dive into Yakzua 3 when my physical Yakuza Remastered Collection arrives.
2. Psychonauts 2
I can hardly believe I can actually put this on the list, but Psychonauts 2 is actually coming out this year!
Psychonauts is one of my favorite games. When Psychonauts 2 was finally announced, I was thrilled. I backed it on Fig right away. After a while, I started to get nervous about whether or not it could really live up to the first game, but the new trailer and gameplay shown at E3 got me excited again.
So far, it looks like everything I wanted from a Psychonauts sequel, and I have high hopes for it.
Speaking of games where I’ve gone back and forth in terms of excitement before settling on yes, I’m extremely excited for this game…
1. Final Fantasy VII Remake
Everyone probably saw this coming: my most-anticipated game of 2020 is the Final Fantasy VII Remake. Yes, I was initially hoping it would be turn-based, but I like the compromises they made with the pause system and Classic Mode. Yes, Midgar was my least favorite part of the original, but I’m interested to see how they’ll flesh out the city to turn this section into a full game.
(Let’s face it, I’m hoping for Yakuza Midgar , but even if it’s not quite that, it still has the potential to be pretty interesting.)
Everything I’ve seen from the Final Fantasy VII Remake since E3 has only made me want it more, and it’s hard to believe it’s only a little over two months away. Now if they’d just release that leaked demo already…
Conclusion
We already have a lot of great games slated for 2020, and these are the five at the top of my list: the Final Fantasy VII Remake and Psychonauts 2 first and foremost, then the Yakuza Remastered Collection, Tales of Arise, and the Resident Evil 3 remake, plus Kingdom Hearts III’s DLC as an honorable mention.
And with Re:Mind coming out on January 23, Yakuza on February 11, Final Fantasy VII on March 3, and Resident Evil 3 on April 3, the early part of the year is already packed!
What games are you looking forward to the most in 2020?
Like this post? Tell your friends!
And if you want posts like this delivered straight to your inbox, enter your email in the box below to subscribe!
Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to share it with your social networks! The post My Top 5 Most-Anticipated Games of 2020 appeared first on Samantha Lienhard.
December 31, 2019
Top 5 Games I Played in 2019
2019 is coming to a close, and I played a lot of excellent games this year.
Things turned out pretty great for my most-anticipated games of the year, too, without a repeat of last year’s disasters.
So it’s time to talk about the best games I played in 2019.
Honorable Mentions
There are three honorable mentions I want to discuss this year. First, God of War (2018). I know it was an honorable mention last year too, but since I completed it in the first week of January, it doesn’t feel like I really played it this year. But regardless of when I played it, it was great.
Next, Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I got into the Fire Emblem series for the first time this year, and Three Houses is a fantastic game. It’s also a long game, and although I’ve done one route, I don’t consider my playthrough over yet.
Finally, I had high hopes that Control might make this list, since I was really enjoying it… until I glitched my game so completely, I need to start over from the beginning. Oh. Disheartened by the progress I’d have to repeat, I haven’t done that yet.
Now let’s move on to the top 5 games I played this year.
5. A Hat in Time
Is it possible? Did I actually finally play A Hat in Time after blogging about it incessantly and then leaving it to drown in my backlog? Yes I did!
I finished A Hat in Time today, so you can expect a full review coming sometime next week. I was torn about whether or not it deserved the fifth spot on this list – in fact, I had the entire list written up with Golf Story in this spot before I decided A Hat in Time should be here instead.
When I backed A Hat in Time on Kickstarter, I was hoping for a particular style of 3D platformer, and I got it. Several things changed from those early builds, and I wish we could have seen the dual-timeline story they had planned at one point, but overall I really enjoyed A Hat in Time.
4. Nier
You know what else I didn’t expect to like as much as I did? Nier. That’s partly because I didn’t know much of what to expect at all.
As I explained in my review, while I found Nier to be a sad game, I really liked the cast of characters and it had a lot more humor than I thought it would. I even went for all four endings despite not originally planning to.
The banter between Nier and Weiss is one of the things that pushed it high enough to end up on this list, and I want a grumpy snarky book accompanying me on all of my depressing journeys from now on, thank you.
(I have Automata in progress now, so who knows? It could end up on next year’s list.)
3. Resident Evil 2 (2019)
It’s hard to express how happy I was when I realized the Resident Evil 2 remake was a true survival horror remake of the original just like I’d hoped it would be. Playing the Resident Evil 2 remake filled me with nostalgia, some good (seeing the locked doors in the main hall) and some not-so-good (walking down a hallway where I remembered Lickers killing me repeatedly in the original), and it’s an excellent game in its own right.
(It also left me really excited to see what they do with Resident Evil 3’s remake.)
While it might not be a perfect game, and there are some things I prefer in the original, it’s a fantastic return to survival horror and almost everything I hoped for when the Resident Evil 2 remake was announced.
2. Judgment
I wanted Judgment from the moment it was announced. Now I already want a sequel, even though I’m not sure a sequel’s story could top what they did here. Judgment is phenomenal, and it might have my favorite story of any game I’ve played this year. I loved the characters, the plot, and… well, most of the side content…
Deciding whether Judgment deserved the first or second spot on this list wasn’t easy. I loved it so much, I considered the possibility that it was my favorite game of the year.
But every time I started to lean that way, I remembered the Keihin Gang. Not only was that the worst part of Judgment for me, it’s also probably the one thing keeping it from being my game of the year.
So although Judgment has my favorite game story of the year, I ultimately gave the top spot to the game I enjoyed playing all the way through…
1. Kingdom Hearts III
Of course, it’s Kingdom Hearts III.
Some people found Kingdom Hearts III to be a disappointment, but I didn’t at all. I enjoyed every minute I spent playing it. The story did everything I hoped it would – and even went beyond my wildest hopes in regards to one of my favorite characters – and set up exciting hooks for the next saga, the worlds were huge and fun to explore, and I even had fun with the Gummi Ship for the first time in the series.
More than any other game on this list, even my beloved Judgment, I simply had fun playing Kingdom Hearts III pretty much the entire time from start to finish.
Conclusion
That’s it for 2019. While I played a ton of wonderful games this year, Kingdom Hearts III, Judgment, Resident Evil 2, Nier, and A Hat in Time rose above the rest to be the top games I played in 2019.
What about you? What are the best games you played this year?
Like this post? Tell your friends!
And if you want posts like this delivered straight to your inbox, enter your email in the box below to subscribe!
Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to share it with your social networks! The post Top 5 Games I Played in 2019 appeared first on Samantha Lienhard.
Top 5 Games I played in 2019
2019 is coming to a close, and I played a lot of excellent games this year.
Things turned out pretty great for my most-anticipated games of the year, too, without a repeat of last year’s disasters.
So it’s time to talk about the best games I played in 2019.
Honorable Mentions
There are three honorable mentions I want to discuss this year. First, God of War (2018). I know it was an honorable mention last year too, but since I completed it in the first week of January, it doesn’t feel like I really played it this year. But regardless of when I played it, it was great.
Next, Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I got into the Fire Emblem series for the first time this year, and Three Houses is a fantastic game. It’s also a long game, and although I’ve done one route, I don’t consider my playthrough over yet.
Finally, I had high hopes that Control might make this list, since I was really enjoying it… until I glitched my game so completely, I need to start over from the beginning. Oh. Disheartened by the progress I’d have to repeat, I haven’t done that yet.
Now let’s move on to the top 5 games I played this year.
5. A Hat in Time
Is it possible? Did I actually finally play A Hat in Time after blogging about it incessantly and then leaving it to drown in my backlog? Yes I did!
I finished A Hat in Time today, so you can expect a full review coming sometime next week. I was torn about whether or not it deserved the fifth spot on this list – in fact, I had the entire list written up with Golf Story in this spot before I decided A Hat in Time should be here instead.
When I backed A Hat in Time on Kickstarter, I was hoping for a particular style of 3D platformer, and I got it. Several things changed from those early builds, and I wish we could have seen the dual-timeline story they had planned at one point, but overall I really enjoyed A Hat in Time.
4. Nier
You know what else I didn’t expect to like as much as I did? Nier. That’s partly because I didn’t know much of what to expect at all.
As I explained in my review, while I found Nier to be a sad game, I really liked the cast of characters and it had a lot more humor than I thought it would. I even went for all four endings despite not originally planning to.
The banter between Nier and Weiss is one of the things that pushed it high enough to end up on this list, and I want a grumpy snarky book accompanying me on all of my depressing journeys from now on, thank you.
(I have Automata in progress now, so who knows? It could end up on next year’s list.)
3. Resident Evil 2 (2019)
It’s hard to express how happy I was when I realized the Resident Evil 2 remake was a true survival horror remake of the original just like I’d hoped it would be. Playing the Resident Evil 2 remake filled me with nostalgia, some good (seeing the locked doors in the main hall) and some not-so-good (walking down a hallway where I remembered Lickers killing me repeatedly in the original), and it’s an excellent game in its own right.
(It also left me really excited to see what they do with Resident Evil 3’s remake.)
While it might not be a perfect game, and there are some things I prefer in the original, it’s a fantastic return to survival horror and almost everything I hoped for when the Resident Evil 2 remake was announced.
2. Judgment
I wanted Judgment from the moment it was announced. Now I already want a sequel, even though I’m not sure a sequel’s story could top what they did here. Judgment is phenomenal, and it might have my favorite story of any game I’ve played this year. I loved the characters, the plot, and… well, most of the side content…
Deciding whether Judgment deserved the first or second spot on this list wasn’t easy. I loved it so much, I considered the possibility that it was my favorite game of the year.
But every time I started to lean that way, I remembered the Keihin Gang. Not only was that the worst part of Judgment for me, it’s also probably the one thing keeping it from being my game of the year.
So although Judgment has my favorite game story of the year, I ultimately gave the top spot to the game I enjoyed playing all the way through…
1. Kingdom Hearts III
Of course, it’s Kingdom Hearts III.
Some people found Kingdom Hearts III to be a disappointment, but I didn’t at all. I enjoyed every minute I spent playing it. The story did everything I hoped it would – and even went beyond my wildest hopes in regards to one of my favorite characters – and set up exciting hooks for the next saga, the worlds were huge and fun to explore, and I even had fun with the Gummi Ship for the first time in the series.
More than any other game on this list, even my beloved Judgment, I simply had fun playing Kingdom Hearts III pretty much the entire time from start to finish.
Conclusion
That’s it for 2019. While I played a ton of wonderful games this year, Kingdom Hearts III, Judgment, Resident Evil 2, Nier, and A Hat in Time rose above the rest to be the top games I played in 2019.
What about you? What are the best games you played this year?
Like this post? Tell your friends!
And if you want posts like this delivered straight to your inbox, enter your email in the box below to subscribe!
Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to share it with your social networks! The post Top 5 Games I played in 2019 appeared first on Samantha Lienhard.
December 30, 2019
2019 Writing Goal Progress
Once again, I set certain writing goals for myself at the start of the year.
Now that 2019 is almost over, it’s time to take a look back at those goals and see how I did.
While I never set specific goals related to publication, since that’s something I don’t have control over outside of self-published stories, 2019 saw the publication of my first pulp fiction story, “The Domino Lady Takes the Case,” as part of Airship 27’s Domino Lady Volume 3 collection.
It was also a notable year for me as a game writer, with the release of Parachronism: Order of Chaos (the first game I was ever hired to work on), Two Till Midnight (a horror game I wrote lore and backstory notes for), and Not It (the result of an exciting Halloween visual novel jam).
Those were some good achievements, but what about my writing goals? Let’s take a look at that list from the start of the year…
Complete my final edits of A Prince’s Price and send it to a beta reader.
Edit The Nightbringer based on feedback I recently received.
Edit A Prince’s Price based on the feedback I receive.
Once they are completely edited, search for an agent for The Nightbringer and A Prince’s Price.
I met these four goals. Both A Prince’s Price and The Nightbringer have been read and revised, and they’re now in the list of manuscripts I’ve been sending out query letters for. No luck yet, but here’s hoping.
Edit The Sunken Sapphire.
This is the first goal I missed. I haven’t touched The Sunken Sapphire since I finished the rough draft last year. I more or less switched it out for a different goal, which we’ll get to next.
Create an outline for the revisions of either The Threshing Night or Mage’s Test.
Not only did I create an outline of revisions for one of these novels, I did it for both of them. Then I revised The Threshing Night according to my new outline of revisions (they’re both disasters, but I decided it was the less disastrous of the two). It still needs work, but it’s in a lot better condition than when I started.
So effectively, revising The Threshing Night replaced revising The Sunken Sapphire. I hadn’t intended to go beyond the outline of revisions, but once I started thinking about how to fix it, I wanted to give it a try instead of setting it aside again.
Write at least 3 more short stories.
I met and exceeded this goal! I wrote two more pulp fiction stories, to follow this year’s publication of “The Domino Lady Takes the Case,” and two new horror stories. I also pulled out an old rough draft of a science fiction story, revised it, and submitted it to an anthology.
Here’s hoping for good news in regards to all of these stories in 2020!
Continue to manage my two side websites and get them to a level where they do bring in income.
My side websites did bring in a fraction of what could be considered “income,” but I would consider this goal to be a failure – not just because of the tiny amount of income, but because I stopped consistently managing them. This is something I definitely want to work on next year.
Add an additional “event” of some sort to the three book signings I currently participate in.
While I didn’t attend an additional book signing event this year, I did find two more that I could possibly add to my list. I’ll consider this goal partly-completed.
All in all, it was a pretty good year. I didn’t meet every goal, but I did accomplish the major ones. What about you? If you set goals for yourself at the start of the year, how did you do?
Like this post? Tell your friends!
And if you want posts like this delivered straight to your inbox, enter your email in the box below to subscribe!
Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to share it with your social networks! The post 2019 Writing Goal Progress appeared first on Samantha Lienhard.
December 27, 2019
Xenosaga HD Plans Failed a Market Analysis
I hate to follow Christmas with bad news, but since we’ve talked about Xenosaga remaster hopes in the past, I wanted to blog about the latest development.
As you might remember, a few years back Bandai Namco producer Katsuhiro Harada asked for fans to show support for a potential Xenosaga HD collection.
A petition was started, and although it didn’t get as much support as it needed, Harada said it was still possible and that he would look for another way.
Unfortunately, his latest update about this was less optimistic. According to Harada, they made progress on plans for potential Xenosaga remasters, but it “failed in a profitable market analysis.” He went on to say it will be difficult for this to resurface.
It seems like we won’t be seeing Xenosaga HD anytime soon…
Do you think a Xenosaga remaster would be unprofitable for Bandai Namco? Will we ever see Xenosaga resurface in the future? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Like this post? Tell your friends!
And if you want posts like this delivered straight to your inbox, enter your email in the box below to subscribe!
Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to share it with your social networks! The post Xenosaga HD Plans Failed a Market Analysis appeared first on Samantha Lienhard.
December 23, 2019
Luigi’s Mansion 3 is a Middle Ground Between Its Predecessors
After playing Nier, I also went on to finish Luigi’s Mansion 3
When Luigi’s Mansion 3 was announced, I had one major hope: that it would be more like the original than like Dark Moon.
After that, I saw a lot of things that convinced me it would be, and so Luigi’s Mansion 3 became a game I was truly looking forward to. Now that I’ve completed it, I can say I definitely enjoyed it… but it still didn’t quite reach the heights of the first game for me.
Luigi’s Mansion 3 begins with Luigi, Mario, Peach, and a few Toads traveling to a luxury hotel for a vacation. Once there, they’re trapped by ghosts, and it’s up to Luigi to stop the ghosts and free them all.
First of all, the mission system is gone! The mission-based structure was one of my least favorite parts of Dark Moon, and it thankfully was removed for the next game. You’re free to go back and forth in the hotel as you please, and there’s an auto-save feature instead of only saving at the end of each level.
It is still somewhat segmented, since each floor effectively acts as a distinct level, and I was disappointed that there are not puzzles that make use of multiple floors like an interview had said.
(In fact, since only the first few floors really feel like a standard hotel, being a hotel doesn’t really have much to do with the layout or puzzle structure.)
Nevertheless, it was enough of a compromise that I enjoyed it much more. The hotel felt like an important location I got to know as I progressed through the game, and I enjoyed my time with it.
Luigi’s Mansion 3 also has boss ghosts with personalities again, helping them to stand out more from the generic ghosts you fight around the hotel. Some of them were great, with one ghost in particular being my favorite both for his personality and for having one of the best floors.
The atmosphere leans more toward comedy than spookiness again, but while it isn’t as atmospheric as the original, it’s a lot of fun to play.
So many things in the hotel can be vacuumed up, and there are secrets to discover and puzzles to solve all over the place. The cutscenes are also great, and there is a decent amount of optional stuff you can do if you want, with Boos to catch and hidden gems to collect.
While Luigi’s Mansion 3 didn’t surpass the original for me, it’s still a fun game I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend. And maybe I ought to pick up the 3DS remake of the original to see if it really is as excellent as I remember…
Like this post? Tell your friends!
And if you want posts like this delivered straight to your inbox, enter your email in the box below to subscribe!
Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to share it with your social networks! The post Luigi’s Mansion 3 is a Middle Ground Between Its Predecessors appeared first on Samantha Lienhard.
December 20, 2019
Nier is a Sad, Beautiful Game
Now that we’ve gotten this week’s exciting news out of the way, it’s time to discuss the game I finished over the weekend: Nier.
Yes, I finally played the original Nier, which I’d always intended to play ahead of Automata.
I barely knew anything about Nier going into it except that it was an action JRPG and everyone said it was depressing, so I didn’t quite know what to expect. I was rather surprised to find myself accepting little side quests from villages and planting seeds in my garden; somehow I expected Nier to be structured differently.
Nier has four endings. Originally I intended to get ending A, play the New Game+ for ending B, and then watch C and D online, but in the end I decided to get all four endings myself anyway.
As you might guess from that, I enjoyed Nier quite a bit.
Now, a lot of the side quests were fetch quests, and some got annoyingly grindy due to the items they required, and I gave up on one side quest completely, but the rest of the game made up for it. The story was interesting, especially in how it came together across the different playthroughs (particularly A and B), but the characters were what I liked the best about Nier.
I loved the cast of characters, their banter, and the way they grew closer over time. I did a lot of those grindy side quests solely to hear more banter between Nier and Weiss.
And as a result… I didn’t find Nier as depressing as I expected to from what I’d heard about it.
Don’t get me wrong. Nier is not a happy game. Some points on subsequent playthroughs are upsetting to the point where I felt like the game was deliberately trying to hurt me.
Click for major Nier spoilersI know how this is going to end, so stop showing me how cute Kalil and “Beepy” are together! Stop it! T_T
But when someone describes a story as “depressing,” I think about some of the things we had to read in school where the major point seemed to be that nothing good ever happens to anyone. I think about someone I once talked to who thought characters were only realistic if their motivations were completely selfish. There’s a soul-crushing sense of hopelessness I associate with these types of stories, and I never got that from Nier no matter how distressing its story became.
I’ve thought about this a lot since I finished, and I think it’s really because of the characters.
The characters in Nier generally have sympathetic motivations. They’re likable. I wanted things to work out for them, and they had a lot of nice interactions with one another.
Click for major Nier spoilersThey don’t know they’re killing innocent people when they fight Shades, and that makes a world of difference when it comes to my feelings about them.
Even Kaine, whom I expected to be too dark and edgy for me, ended up being pretty cool.
Ending D was also so wild I was almost too excited to be sad.
Nier definitely is a sad game, but it’s also a beautiful one with a lot of good moments, and I definitely recommend giving it a chance if you haven’t played it.
Like this post? Tell your friends!
And if you want posts like this delivered straight to your inbox, enter your email in the box below to subscribe!
Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to share it with your social networks! The post Nier is a Sad, Beautiful Game appeared first on Samantha Lienhard.
December 18, 2019
Exciting Trails Announcements and Potential Resident Evil News
Remember earlier this year when Falcom president Toshihiro Kondo said he was confident NIS America would localize the Crossbell arc if they were brought to newer consoles?
Well, buckle up, because Falcom has now revealed Zero no Kiseki Kai and Ao no Kiseki Kai, upgraded remasters of Zero and Ao for the PlayStation 4.
They will be out in Japan in spring 2020.
No localization news has been announced at this point, but this feels like our best chance to finally get official translations of these two unlocalized Trails games. NISA will be at PAX South on January 17 with new announcements, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet.
Falcom also announced Hajimari no Kiseki, or Trails of the Beginning for summer 2020 in Japan. Although I haven’t read too much about it since I’m avoiding spoilers for the series, it sounds like this will be a bridge to the next Trails arc.
(Maybe this is the spark I need to finally get back to Trails in the Sky SC!)
This is pretty exciting for Trails fans, but before I wrap up this blog post, I want to shift gears entirely and talk about Resident Evil for a minute. RE3make has been announced, Resistance is part of it as its multiplayer component, and… Capcom might have another Resident Evil game in development?
Resident Evil Ambassadors got a new email today, mainly detailing a new ranking feature coming to the program. However, the email also included an unexpected detail:
Also, as limited offers to Ambassadors, we have invitations to a play test session of our unannounced title*, and priority seats at our game show booth**.”
Either that’s poor wording and it’s meant to indicate that Ambassadors will be invited to play tests of unannounced titles in the future, or it’s quiet confirmation that they have an as-yet-unannounced game in development. The footnote only clarifies that you need to actually sign up for the play test to be eligible for selection.
Some people think it might not be a Resident Evil title at all, but this time my bet’s on Resident Evil 8.
So, when do you think we’ll hear more about Trails localizations? What do you think the Resident Evil email is referencing? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Like this post? Tell your friends!
And if you want posts like this delivered straight to your inbox, enter your email in the box below to subscribe!
Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to share it with your social networks! The post Exciting Trails Announcements and Potential Resident Evil News appeared first on Samantha Lienhard.
December 16, 2019
New Final Fantasy VII Screenshots Show Sephiroth, Train Graveyard, and More
Today, Square Enix revealed a new batch of art and screenshots from the Final Fantasy VII Remake.
They shared two new pieces of art, one of Tifa looking up at the night sky and one of Sephiroth walking through the flames.
This scene is then shown a second time, as their new screenshots of Sephiroth include him inside a building, possibly the Shinra Building, and then a screenshot of him with the fire behind him. There have been a lot of questions about how this game is going to handle Sephiroth since it focuses on Midgar, so these two screenshots raise a lot of possibilities.
First, does this mean we’ll actually see Sephiroth during the Shinra Building section of the game?
I like the creepy buildup in the original of following the blood trail and only seeing the results of Sephiroth’s passage, but I can see why for the remake, they might want to show him here instead.
Second, since the scene with Sephiroth in the flames keeps being shown, does that mean we’re going to see that flashback sequence?
I can imagine them handling this in three possible ways. Either we’ll get brief flashback snippets throughout the full game without seeing the entire thing, they’ve changed when that section of the game occurs in order to show the flashback sequence before the party leaves Midgar, or this first game will actually include Kalm.
Either way, I hope the full flashback is still playable in the remake, instead of being just a cutscene, whether we get to it in this game or the next.
The next screenshots show President Shinra, whom we previously saw as a hologram projection in one of the trailers, and Heidegger. (I thought this was the first time they showed Heidegger in the remake, but he actually appeared in a trailer back in June and I somehow forgot. Sorry, Heidegger.)
We’ve also gotten our first details on the new Soldier character shown previously. His name is Roche, he loves bikes, and apparently his allies find him annoying. He’s also described as being a “3-C SOLDIER turned rebel,” so maybe he’s actually an ally instead of an enemy.
Roche is probably the part of the remake I’m the least enthused about right now. Adding a new character could work out fine, but I’m just not sold on him yet.
There are new screenshots of Aerith in combat, along with the introduction of her MP-draining “Soul Drain” ability and defensive “Lustrous Shield” ability. There are new screenshots of Shiva, as well.
Then it’s time for the Train Graveyard. The Train Graveyard is one of the areas that’s been expanded for the remake, with new dialogue and story content added for this area. That sounds interesting to me. In contrast to my doubts about Roche, I’m all in favor of expanding Midgar with new dialogue and stories to make the city feel more alive, and I can’t wait to see the sorts of things they do.
Finally, the post concludes with some screenshots from the Shinra Building.
Final Fantasy VII Remake looks absolutely beautiful, and I’m really excited to play it when it comes out in March. I had some concerns when it was first announced, but now I’m on board.
What do you think about the latest screenshots? How do you think the Sephiroth flashback will be handled? Do you see Roche as a welcome addition or a potential weak link? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Like this post? Tell your friends!
And if you want posts like this delivered straight to your inbox, enter your email in the box below to subscribe!
Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to share it with your social networks! The post New Final Fantasy VII Screenshots Show Sephiroth, Train Graveyard, and More appeared first on Samantha Lienhard.
