Tag: Xbox

Final Fantasy X Assassin’s Creed and the Future of Final Fantasy XV

Final Fantasy XV: Assassin’s Festival

Announced today, Final Fantasy XV will receive free DLC that fuses its game play with the Assassin’s Creed series. From August 31st to January 31st, 2018 the DLC area will be free. It is actually an alternative reality plot line in Lestallum and entirely different game play mechanics, story, and costumes. From the trailer, Noctis no longer has his Power of Kings and has replaced it with the Power of Assassins…Creed. Stealth, stab, and stuff your enemies in hay piles. You’ll still have the ability to teleport but there is a bigger emphasis on movement with climbing, crossing railways, moving around your enemies, parrying, and chasing after your enemies similar to Assassin’s Creed. The combat will still relatively be the same with you controlling Noctis while fighting with your brothers: Gladious, Ignis, and Prompto. The partnership between Square-Enix and Ubisoft has been planned for 3 years based on Ubisoft’s blog. 

The Future of Final Fantasy XV

Director of Final Fantasy XV, Hajime Tabatha they will not have a sequel of the series. Tabata stated the reason they would not do a sequel:

“The negative of that is there’s a very large open period where you’re not releasing anything. In that period, you get people to move away, and their attachment to the franchise dissipates a little bit.”

The original game took 10 years to finally release with multiple changes of directors, story, game play, art really confused players when a complete version would be released. Taking time to produce a sequel would take serious effort. Instead, Tabata is focusing on filling in the missing plot with the DLC. They still want to maintain a good relationship with fans by continuing to release new content for the game.

“If we had tried to do that as a traditional, full-scale sequel, that would have been very difficult,” the director said, “but it works really well in [keeping] that continued relationship with fans.”

The World of Final Fantasy XV has definitely been expanding since the release in late 2016. Two additional DLC stories for Gladious and Prompto have been released and Ignis‘s story is set to release for Winter 2017. A multiplayer mode was in beta during the month of August and was well received by fans. A new mobile game was release called Final Fantasy XV New Empire was released in July. It’s a generic tower defense mobile game that horribly disappointed fans of the series. Also the advertisements are all over YouTube and are actually quite annoying. Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition is scheduled to release in Fall. It is a mobile militarizes version of FFXV with Chibi Character models and simplified combat. While frame rate looks slow during intense fighting scenes, it looks like a decent game for people who only play mobile games.

Opinion:

I personally liked Final Fantasy XV. It had major plot holes, average gameplay, and a weak third act but I still had a lot of fun. While I’m not interested in the playing the DLC at the moment, but I do love all the main characters. I don’t think Square-Enix should release a sequel because reception for the game is mixed overall rather than positive. The side content is fine except for the mobile game.

Questions:

How do you feel about Final Fantasy XV and the update to the series as time goes on? It is a different experience than the Final Fantasy of the past.

Sources:

Polygon

Chibi Final Fantasy

Yoko Taro saves Platinum Games

1Yoko Taro, director of NieR, has been announced as the saviour of Platinum games (Bayonetta, Vanquish, Metal Gear: Rising). NieR Automata released early 2017 and received mass praise. It sold extremely well despite the competition against Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Persona 5. It sold 1 million units and sold 7x the amount of its predecessor’s (NieR) first 7 months in Japan. It may not seem like a huge deal but it was for Platinum.

Scalebound cover art.jpgLast year, Microsoft announced their cancellation of Scalebound. Scalebound was a huge project collaborated with Platinum games. It was meant to be an exclusive for the Xbox One and also be Platinum‘s first entry into making a huge game project. Most Platinum games are licensed or contract work such as the Legend of Korra, Transformers: Devastation, and Metal Gear: Rising. Unfortunately, there was a lack of progress or announcements from Microsoft or Platinum regarding Scalebound. Eventually, the plan was cut and Platinum loss a huge amount of funding.

 

According to Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101 director and professional Twitter master Hideki Kamiya, Nier Automata and Yoko Taro single handily saved Platinum.

“Nier’s success has to this point given Platinum a new fanbase, a growing staff, a brilliant success story, an increase in qualified job applicants, and a great benefit,” Kamiya said on Twitter

“Normally, I can’t help but do everything by myself… it’s a pitiful story, but to say that Yoko-san saved Platinum would not be an exaggeration. I cannot thank him enough.”(translation via NeoGAF user BRSxIgnition).

Opinion:

The original NieR was a cult classic but the sequel: NieR Automata has received mass praise. Considered one of the best games of the year, it is extremely impressive for Platinum studio as well as Yoko Taro‘s creative works who are generally producing good games but lack popularity. Hopefully, this leads to more work for Platinum and gives companies bigger trust in Yoko Taro’s directing.

Source: Eurogamer Gamespot

Fallout 4 GOTY Edition with Pip-Boys!

If you’re a fan of the Fallout series, you’ve always wanted to own a Pip-Boy.  It is a wrist attachment that displays your character’s stats, missions, items, skills, etc. It’s a popular accessory and many people wanted one for cosplay purposes. When Fallout 4 was released, special editions came with a Pip-boy for $119. You could connect your smart phone to it and it would give you access to the Pip-Boy app that would interact with Fallout 4. They sold out incredibly fast and Bethesda even stated they couldn’t produce anymore.

Now Fallout 4 is two years old and its Game of the Year edition is finally being released. It’ll include all the DLCS: Nuka-World, Vault-Tec Workshop, Contraptions Workshop, Far Harbor, Wasteland Workshop, and Automatron. It will also include mod support and Survival Mode which was added to the game before. The GOTY edition will be $60 and will release on September 26th. The game will release for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

 

If you are willing to pay extra, you can buy the Pip-Boy edition if you missed it last time. It’ll be $99 with a different casing box than the previous edition. It’ll be the same design and if you have purchased a larger phone since then, it won’t fit into the Pip-Boy. It’ll only be sold in “selected retailers” and will have a limited release.

Opinion:

Personally, I don’t mind special editions. I think having a Pip-Boy is cool and if I was gonna cosplay as a character from the series, I would definitely pick one up. The game is pretty good but its definitely not as good as Fallout: New Vegas or Fallout 3 in my opinion. If you really missed out on the game and wanted to add it to your collection, this is your chance.

Sources: Polygon

Gamespot

 

E3 Wrap Up

E3 2017 is officially over. With so many trailers and gameplay videos out there already, I am only going to write about games that I am looking forward to. I will post an article soon about all the games coming out in 2017 so come back soon!

Assassin’s Creed Origins: After taking a year off to create a full game, Origins is the new title in the Assassin’s Creed series. It will take place in Egypt and you can see through the skies with a hawk! There is a big emphasis on the new weapon: a bow. Melee combat looks more interesting than the previous series. It will be released October 27, 2017. If you pre-order it, you get a bonus DLC.

Anthem: A new Space RPG from Bioware. It looks amazing and it is a 3rd person shooter with customization mech suits. There seems to be an emphasis on Co-Op and is meant to be a rival to Destiny. There’s plenty of space animals and exploration. Visual impressive and something to look forward to.

Dragon Ball Z Fighter: Capcom take notes! This is how a fighting game should look! Dragon Ball Z Fighter is made by Arc System Games who makes the Guilty Gear and Blazblue fighting game series. They are specialist in anime fighters and using 2D – 3D animation look amazing. A 3v3 fighter. So far, the only characters are Goku, Vegeta, Teen Gohan, Buu, Cell, and Frieza. Environments are destructive based on certain moves and deflections similar to the anime itself.

The Evil Within 2: Another game with an American environment. Not much was shown about the game but the Main Character will need to go back into his insane mind to find his daughter.

Kirby: The new Kirby will have a bigger focus on multiplayer. You can create allies by absorbing your enemies and using them to combine your absorbed abilities. You can also play with 4 Kirbys at once!

Metro Exodus: The 3rd entry in the Post-Apocolpytic first person shooter. This will be an open world game. There are a ton of rats and dark environments. Resources are rare and survival is 1st priority.

A Way Out: A Co-Op focused game regarding two guys trying to break out of prison. This game has cut scenes where the players have to agree on certain choices. The story revolves around them breaking out of prison and accepting their past.

Mario Odyssey: Mario’s hat possesses people? It does and the environment looks beautiful. Plenty of 3D platforming and fun based on what I see in trailers. Some of the environments are realistic which is a strange twist. There are still fun worlds that are very Mario-y if that’s a word.