Monday’s don’t always have to suck.
Yesterday, CD Projekt Red released a near 50 min video of Cyberpunk gameplay. Previously only available to see behind closed doors at games conventions, now everyone can see what all the hype is about.
Check out the video below and let us know if this was everything you were hoping it was going to be.
The post Get your first look at Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay appeared first on That VideoGame Blog.
For Honor saw its peak player count momentarily rise to an impressive 210,000+ on August 22nd, 2018. This follows a no-restrictions giveaway of the For Honor – Starter Edition on Steam. The starter edition enables players to enjoy the single player campaign, as well as all multiplayer maps and modes. Players are required to spend more time to unlock heroes included in other versions.
For Honor Starter Edition offers an affordable way to enter the fight.
Ubisoft’s attempt to bring a surge of new players to the game is working. This has allowed it to achieve the rank as the game with the 8th highest concurrent player count of all time on Steam. While the numbers certainly will not remain at such impressive heights, 70,000 gamers are enjoying the game at the time of writing.
For Honor player count reaches 210,000+ for a short time.
Giveaway of the starter edition is certainly reason for such a large influx of players to the game. On top of this, there are other reasons so many have decided to give attention to the game. Ubisoft of late has become well-known for post-launch support of games released under their guiding hands.
Since launch, For Honor has seen a move from peer-to-peer to dedicated servers. This is a change much requested by committed players. More heroes have been added and continue to be. A new faction, Wu Lin, will be added this fall to the current roster of Knights, Vikings, and Samurai. Exciting new game modes such as Breach are being added. Breach adds an element of strategy by requiring heroes to either defend a castle or to launch an offensive attack on this fortress. Tucked away inside lies the Lord Commander who must survive in order for the defenders to claim victory.
Knights defend a castle under seige.
This is reminiscent of Chivalry: Medieval Warfare‘s popular Team Objective game mode in which you are tasked with slaying or protecting a king.
For Honor – Starter Edition remains free for a limited time. Make sure you grab it on Steam, as the Ubisoft store is currently charging for the game.
On a side node, Games with Gold is currently offering the full game to its Xbox Live Gold subscribers.
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In about a week, Seattle will play host to PAX West 2018, and gamer-kind will descend upon the city like a swarm of socially-awkward locusts. SEGA has done us the honor of producing a full timetable, with details on each of the titles we can expect to see at the convention. Yeah, I know, it’s the least you’d expect from a publisher. But with a particularly impressive line-up of fan favorites, Japanese IPs, and panel sessions, SEGA is one to watch this time around.
Let’s get cracking.
Ahh, Sonic. One of gaming’s most recognizable characters, recently confined to the annals of history by average games. Team Sonic Racing could be the headline act this year: it’s the first entry since Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed, and it’s looking quietly confident. The game groups racers into teams, to allow for some co-operative, competitive racing; PAX West attendees will be able to try out the four available teams on the newly-unveiled Ice Mountain track.
Then there’s Total War. Creative Assembly is back to their core franchise after spin-off title Thrones of Britannia; the latest entry, Three Kingdoms, is already causing a bit of a stir. Set during the period of Chinese history from which it gets its name, Three Kingdoms is classic Total War turn-based strategy. It’s already turned heads at Gamescom, and PAX East attendees can play a condensed campaign mission that includes fighting off a night-time raid.
SEGA is promising no less than four new Japanese titles this year. Our first stop is Valkyria Chronicles 4, the latest entry into the tactical RPG series that brings new classes, new ways to play, and tank warfare that puts Battlefield to shame.
Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise is a seriously gory action/fighting game from Ryu ga Gotoku Studio (the guys who brought you Yakuza). The E3 reveal let loose on the blood and guts, showing off some intense fighting moves and even more intense one-liners as the protagonist redefines the phrase ‘fists of steel.’ Fist of the North Star is back at PAX, and visitors will be able to try a demo on the show floor.
Then there’s Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight. Both are rhythm games and spin-offs from the core Persona franchise; using remixed tracks from the original soundtrack, the games revisit familiar Persona locations and characters. You’ll be using a six-button system to keep the pace.
Speaking of the Megami Tensei franchise: the final game on this list is Shin Megami Tensei Liberation Dx2, a post-apocalyptic RPG that has already released to critical acclaim in Japan. It’s AR-augmented, demon summoning, smartphone gaming the likes of which us simple Westerners have never seen, and it’ll also be available to demo on the show floor at PAX.
SEGA are hosting a panel entitled “A SEGA Perspective: Bringing Japanese Games to the West.” Led by director of localisation Sam Mulle, the talk will cover the complexities of translating Japanese titles for Western audiences, in a literal and metaphorical sense. Also speaking will be associate localisation producer Andrew Davis and EU PR Manager Sarah Wellock. Quite the crowd, covering an interesting and often disregarded topic. In my opinion. Which does count.
You can actually watch this panel from home, using the following Twitch page: twitch.tv/pax3
All seven of these games, plus the panel sessions, will be running throughout the show, at booth 2513 (wherever that is). If you’re going to Seattle next week, you lucky bugger, but also: this has been your complete run-down of everything you can expect from SEGA this year. Don’t miss out. Or do. It’s totally your call.
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I have never been much of a fan of the life simulator genre. Games like The Sims, Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing tended to hold my fancy for a little while before I eventually ended up going back to the RPG and shooter staples of my game collection. My biggest problem with games like that was that I was being forced to play them the way they wanted me to. For instance in The Sims, unless you cheat, you will have to work a job in order to not fail out the game outright. That means that a portion of your gameplay is doing something you don’t even want to do in real life in order to get to the part of the game that makes you happy. I never understood why a game that’s whole deal is you doing whatever you want still felt so restrictive.
So, when the part RPG/part life sim game Stardew Valley came out it shook me to my very core. Here, in one game, was everything I wanted. Sure, there were missions, but I could choose to freely ignore them. There were people, but I could ignore them too. If all I wanted to do was turn on the game and fish, I could do that. I could still make money and buy the things I wanted without someone telling me I had to play a certain way. It was a farm simulator where ignoring the farm was a viable strategy, and I loved it. So, when I heard that My Time At Portia was tapping into the same vein I just had to check it out.
Creating a custom character is the first choice that is presented to you. It’s pretty bare bones when it comes to options, so I chose something pretty basic and moved on to the actual fun. The second thing the game gives you is a note from your father that sets up the game. You are the son/daughter of a character only known as Pa.
Pa has left you, feeling like a failure as a father, and has given you his workshop in Portia in the process. It is your job to build this workshop up into something really special. And with that, we have a plot. Fresh off of the boat, you are thrust into the world of Portia. What they didn’t tell you was that you are now the fifth best workshop in Portia, and all of the workshops fight over what jobs they get to complete for the island town. However, before I learned any of that, I punched a rainbow covered llama. This was the moment that I knew that this game was something special.
The land of Portia is a magical place built on the backs of what looks like an ancient advanced society. Within the world, you have The Church of Light that is trying to keep technology from coming back by destroying anything that calls back to the old world. The Research Center is trying to take the technology of the old world and incorporate it into their new way of life. The Civil Corps protects people from monsters while also mapping out the tunnel and caves for future use.
Then there are the townspeople in the middle that are content with their lives. You have people running shops, restaurants, apartments, and the merchants guild. You have teachers, wanderers, and fisherman. There is even a kid that was adopted and raised by a bear in a bath towel named Abu. My point to all of this is that, until the characters in Stardew, this game feels lived it. Schedules aren’t stagnated and the townspeople can be found doing random things like training with swords in the rain or having dinner in a restaurant. Portia is packed to the brink with people who all have interesting stories.
Talking to the people in Portia will open up several missions for you to do. These missions will range anywhere from making items for people like chest to stopping thieves from swindling your workshop from under you. On top of the random missions are big projects that the city assigns to you for Gols. (the currency in the game.) These assignments start off by building a bridge in order to get to a new island and slowly escalated from there. At first, these tasks seemed daunting with several steps going into each item, however, once you get the hang of the crafting system you will be flying through the creation of everything.
These commissions grant you the Gol to pay for expansions to your workshop as well as upgrades. One of my complaints about My Time At Portia is that it isn’t clearly explained that the upgrades are even possible to the base and the work desk within. I mean it is technically written at the bottom of the creation screen, but when you are flying through menus in order to create objects as fast as possible you tend to ignore the small print. And, since no one directly told me to go upgrade my stations when they gave me a quest that was above my level, I ended up fumbling around while trying to figure out how to create a wheel.
Once you get started working on your new workshop you will start to see the immediate difference between this game and any other like it. In Minecraft, you can easily find the materials in order to build what you want to build. In Portia, you have a few more hoops to jump through in order to achieve the same items. Item creation takes several steps and multiple workstations in order to create the items that you need.
For instance, say you want to make a bridge? You first need to collect copper and tin ore from mining rocks. Then you need a stone furnace in order to turn ore into bars. You also need wood in order to fuel the furnace. Then you need to make a Civil Cutter in order to turn the bronze bars into bronze plates. That means you have gone through three big steps that all take time in order to get half of what the bridge is made out of. Did I mention that you have to do this twice just to make one bridge? At first, this seemed really annoying to keep switching between the stations in order to make one single product but the more I learned the process the more I was able to manipulate the way things were made. I also learned that you don’t have to have the items on you to use them in the workstations as long as they are in the chest in your workshop, so my inventory was cleared up.
Once you get into the grind of doing things in Portia, you will start to notice the stamina bar more and more. At first, you use it sparingly because you think of other games that penalize you for running out, but soon you learn that there is no real downside to using all of your stamina. Sure, you won’t be able to do any more actions that let you gather items but you can still create items for you to sell and finish commissions. This lead to me working in the morning and crafting in the afternoon. The game also runs on a softer version of the Stardew Valley’s time system. Essentially, if you stay out too late you will pass out in the field. However, this doesn’t seem to penalize you in the slightest as I didn’t lose any health, items, or Gol for the several times I passed out in the field.
Going back to the rainbow llama punching, combat is a pure joy in Portia. Unlike the stiff sword swinging in Terraria, Stardew Valley, Minecraft, etc, you are able to mix dodge rolls with a semi-fluid combat system. Weapons like swords, boxing gloves, and hammers string together different combos and allow you to break combos in order to dodge your opponent’s attacks. Using this I was able to take down monsters and villagers that were several levels higher than me. This brings me to the leveling system and how it plays into the world.
Everything you do from chopping down wood to chopping top-hatted bunny rabbits in half will net you experience to raise your level. When you level up you will receive one point to put into three governing skills trees. The skill trees are Battle, Gather, and Social. Battle gives you bonuses to combat, health, and stamina, as well as giving you bonus experience from combat. Gather gives you bonuses to mining and woodcutting. It allows you to get more material to work with as well as finding valuable items. Social gives you perks in dealing with people. The more people like you the more they feel comfortable around you. They might even like you enough to get married.
Social actions include talking, sparring, or playing a game. Certain characters like certain things, like a favorite board game, so they choose that as one of their social actions. Every character in the game, except for one, can be sparred with. Sparring is a weird system that allows you to fight people for Gols. If you win you get an increase in friendship level, but I did notice that if you lose you still get the increases you just don’t get the Gol. This system seemed the most out of place in the game as you could go from having a lovely conversation with a girl you liked, to beating her down in the middle of town. Even characters that seem nice have no problem punching you in the face. (one fight with a level twenty-six lasted all of thirty seconds as he kicked me one time.) My only real problem with this system is that they don’t explain why it is an option. Being able to bring the hurt down on the nice woman selling flowers just seems wrong.
Within the town of Portia lies several ruins. The ruins are categorized into Abandoned and Hazardous. In the Abandoned Ruins, you use a scanner to search for valuable items that you can dig out of the ground. You then use your pickaxe to tear through the earth, collecting stone and copper on your way to your prize. The Hazardous Ruins, on the other hand, are full of monsters. You have to clear several floors before being able to clear the ruin outright. The Hazardous Ruins is a great place to get high-level items and recipes for your character. Both types of ruins offer a look at the world that the game of Portia takes place in. Unlike Stardew Valley, where the Dungeon area is just a weird place that happens to have monsters in it, the dungeons in Portia offer you a glimpse at the world before it became the way it is now. It is a graveyard for the life that came before.
Like all RPGs in this vein, town events take up a portion of your gameplay. Every couple of days you will be greeted by a letter detailing an event that will happen either that day or a couple of days from now. It is up to you to participate or not. For the first several weeks I ignored all of the events while I tried to get the hang of the crafting, but when I got a letter about a free present event I just had to join in. This was the perfect event to show off the scope of the game. Most of the characters in the game gather in the town square and wait for an airship, that is floating above, to drop presents from the sky. This wasn’t an easy event either as the townspeople ran to open the gifts soon after they touched the ground. If you missed a click than someone else scooped up the item. Of the thirty or so items that dropped out the ship I only managed to collect five. Events like this will keep me coming back for more, as I want to see how crazy they get.
These are all the things that made up my stay in Portia. And that isn’t even getting into the small details like how people take off their umbrella hats when they come in from the rain, or how the shops have inflation that depends on the day. The world of My Time at Portia is filled with mystery, wonder, and excitement. It just so happens to also be an amazing crafting RPG. While it doesn’t have the simplicity the puts me to ease about Stardew Valley, what it does have going for it is that it takes a bunch of good systems and improves upon them. The gameplay loop that it has created is both entertaining as well as rewarding. I wanted to learn more about the world, the characters, and the way they fit into the area around them. I know that I will be returning to Portia in the future, and I hope it comes to the Nintendo Switch so that I can take it with me on the go.
This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.
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It’s really easy to overlook Steam’s free-to-play section. There are some fairly atrocious mobile ports, clones, and other dross in the FTP category. The thing is, there are also some really interesting little diamonds in the rough scattered among the rubbish that definitely warrant a second look. With this in mind, I often foray into this area of our beloved gaming directory in search of the best of the bunch. In one of my recent hunts, I came across a new game that I’m really enjoying and couldn’t resist telling you lot about, Wagers of War.
As we all know, I have a real soft spot for the CCG genre of gaming, as it combines three of my favorite things to do into one easy to manage format. I love collecting things, cards and strategy. With this being said, who could dislike a genre that caters to all three in spades? What I don’t like is the assumption that they are all the same and just clone three or four very well known games. If this were actually the case nobody would ever bother making anything new for the genre unless they were just trying to cash in on something else. I can honestly say that Wagers of War isn’t quite like anything else that I’ve played and this is the main reason I want to mention it.
So this game certainly has the collecting and upgrading of cards that we’ve seen in other games. What makes this title unique for me, however, is that this is only a very minor part of the game. Wagers of War is actually less a game of strategy in its truest sense and more a game of bluffs and manipulation of your opponent. It also takes the CCG trope of having a collectible deck and mixes this with a standard deck of playing cards. These cards are your attack and defense. Black cards give your armor and the red cards are the ones you will be attacking with. The card’s value equates how hard you will strike or indeed how much punishment you will be able to absorb. The court cards on the other hand have their own list of abilities that you can use to your advantage. Queens, for instance will allow you to poison your opponent, Jacks make you immune to certain cards, Aces possess cards and so on. This is massively important to the overall game.
So take what I’ve just mentioned and give yourself a pool of mana. The amount of this you get doesn’t just increase every round that you play. You have a phase where you draw playing cards against your opponent. The player with the highest card on each draw wins a certain amount of mana. If you’re really unlucky this could leave you in a pretty sticky position come the next round as you won’t be able to play anything near as much as your opponent will be able to.
Following this betting round comes a war round. Each player is dealt three playing cards which are open on the field and can be viewed by both sides. You also have your hand of war cards, (the ones you collect.) and these can only be seen by you. These cards may hinder your opponent by effecting their playing cards, help you by granting more armor, damage them directly and so on.
The interesting thing is that the very small pool of mana that you have can’t be used on everything. If you’re using the cards on the table you’re spending mana, same applies to those in your hand and on top of this your hero, (I’ll come to this in a minute,) has abilities which they can also cast. This is where the bluffing comes in. Are you going to use the really handy to have King sat in front of you or are you going to leave him there and play something directly from your own hand? This is something your opponent will have to discern as you both play the round at the same time. This means your aren’t combating your opponent’s strategies as they drop cards, rather trying to predict what those strategies are going to be and this is a really fun way to play. This also means that when you screw up it’s down to you misreading your opponent rather than playing the wrong thing at the wrong time.
As I mentioned, your heroes also have their own abilities. There are four characters you can play as currently and each one lends itself to a different gameplay style. You have the knight. His ability grants you armor. Then there is the vampire. He’s a life sucker who deals damage but takes it as well. And lastly, there’s the gambler. I think I like this character’s ability the best as it’s really in keeping with the game. When you activate him you spin a roulette wheel and do an amount of damage depending on where the ball lands. This is the only thing in the game I can genuinely say reminds me particularly of anything else. Similar mechanics have been used in games like Hearthstone, but it’s not a big enough part of the playing experience for me that it really needs calling out as being copied.
Something I’m not really noticing is a paywall. Although you can spend money on gems to buy packs of cards you get six free ones every 3 hours. Six free cards, not packs, that’s a bit generous by anyone’s standards. You will be given packs by winning matches and of course you have the daily quests that we see in many games that grant you cards as well. Once you have a certain card in your collection you’re concentrating on leveling it up by getting more copies of it from packs. This isn’t a fast process, so unless you drop a ton of cash on the game you won’t be leagues ahead of everyone else in the first five minutes. Your heroes level as well. This allows you to have more uncommon and epic cards in your deck and grants a small bonus to life. Again, this isn’t something that will break the game as you should be leveling at a similar speed to everyone else. Lastly you can buy burn cards. These can be used once in a match and are really there to get you out of a sticky situation if needed. Some of these use charges and you need to purchase burn packs with game gold to replenish them. All in all everything seems very fair and well balanced so the devs deserve a nod of approval for that.
Down to the nuts and bolts then. This is a game that’s easy to learn but hard to master. One thing I will say is pay close attention to the tutorial, it’s there for a reason. Once you get the hang of the rules the interface is really easy to get to grips with and the controls pretty much speak for themselves. The audio doesn’t change in that it’s the same looping tune. This isn’t a complaint as it’s not enough to become annoying just don’t expect an aria in the background. Lastly this is a mobile port. Yes, we know…we hate mobile ports; they don’t belong on Steam, right? This is a very good mobile port and the fact that you’re only concentrating on the center of the screen doesn’t ruin play. Other than this graphics are colorful and well drawn and do what they need to do. In all honesty if you get hooked the way I have you won’t be thinking about how the games looks and just want to get on with playing it.
All in all I’m thoroughly enjoying Wagers of War. It’s fun, it’s different and even better it’s only a time leech if you want it to be. The average match only takes about fifteen minutes. This makes this the ideal thing to play while having a brew and waking up in the morning. Let’s call this a coffee-break game. It’s a brilliant little time waster and I really recommend giving Wagers of War a decent try before condemning it back to the darkest recesses of Steam. It doesn’t belong there. Honestly.
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Battlefield V is looming large on the horizon, for those of us not put off by that crazy reveal trailer. In fact, EA and DICE have just announced that the open beta will begin for early access players on September 4th; the rest of you can jump in 2 days later on PS4, Xbox One, and Origin for PC.
The announcement comes in the wake of EA/DICE’s Gamescom presentation, which also included a brand new Battlefield V gameplay trailer focused on the Battle of Rotterdam. The trailer seems to be a compilation of things blowing up and people doing stunts; it does however also show off the Frostbite engine, all-new animations, destructible environments, and the fabled Battle Royale mode.
EA and DICE have revealed that the open beta will feature the Rotterdam map, as well as an Arctic Fjord map that we’ve yet to see. Both maps will play host to the classic game mode Conquest; the Arctic Fjord map will also run Grand Operations, the newest addition to the Battlefield V mode roster. You can find out more about that here.
The open beta is currently available for attendees at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany (lucky them). The EA/DICE presentation has also taken a close look at the DICE-NVIDIA partnership, and what that means for Battlefield V; notably, NVIDIA’s Ansel and Highlights technology will be available for use in-game, allowing players to capture single player moments in ridiculously high-definition and record gameplay in multiplayer matches instantaneously.
The Battlefield V presentation also made use of NVIDIA’s recently-announced RTX line of graphics cards; promising to bring ‘real-time, cinematic-quality rendering’ to gaming, other demos throughout Gamescom were also using the 20 series GPUs. Here’s the RTX trailer, also revealed at Gamescom:
If you’ve pre-ordered Battlefield V, you’ll have access to a few sweet bonuses; the open beta will be available on September 4th, and the full game, 3 days early on October 16th. If you’re an Origin Premium Member, you’ll be able to play the full game on October 11th, a full 8 days early; for everyone else, the open beta begins on September 6th, and the full game launches on October 19th. Got all that?
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Telltale’s The Walking Dead just took its first step in the final chapter of a groundbreaking choose-your-own-adventure series inspired by the comics of the same name. Series faithful have followed the trials and tribulations of young Clementine for the past 6 years as she came of age in a world filled to the brim with flesh-eating monsters. Now you can relive those innocent early days, or experience them for the first time, mobile or on your TV on the Nintendo Switch.
On August 28th Telltale will be porting the multiple game of the year award-winning first season of The Walking Dead to the handheld console for just $24.99. This release of the game will carry over the vast technical improvements that were seen in the 2017 release of The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series Collection. This Switch edition will include all 5 episodes of the first season as well as the DLC episode 400 Days. Telltale has also stated that The Walking Dead: Season Two and The Walking Dead: A New Frontier will both be coming to the Switch before the end of the year.
The debut season of Telltale’s zombie epic still stands as the most emotionally gripping, heart-wrenching entry in the series. Season one has you stepping into the shoes of protagonist Lee Everett as he sits in a police cruiser for reasons unknown. As Lee is heading to jail the zombie outbreak hits the fan and in turn, gives him the chance at a new start in life. Following his escape from the first zombie he ever encounters, Lee meets a young girl named Clementine and naturally forms an adoptive father/daughter relationship with her. From then on you need to make difficult choices in order to ensure Lee and Clementine’s safety in a world of chaos.
The choices made in the first season of The Walking Dead will transfer over to season two and beyond. So if this is your first time delving into the series, the Switch is the way to go. Telltale is offering a steady stream of season ports over the next 4 months that will ultimately culminate with all of the seasons being available in time for the final episode of the final season. For more information on The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season, or any other game in the series, check out the official website here.
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The lineup of celebrigamers (yes I made that up) include FaZe Clan’s Fortnite pro players Cloakzy and Cizzorz, Overwatch League stars iddqd and Babybay, and many more. We’ve included the list down below. You can also have opportunities for photos and autographs, as well as access to Q&A panels, clinics, and workshops.
Wizard World is also going to feature “unrestricted play with current gen console and PC games” along with VR experiences.
A look at Wizard World Chicago 2016 streaming stage
Jerry Milani, Wizard World PR guru, gives the rundown on the gaming area –
The gaming area is also open all four days with a variety of console games for all ages, with LAN Parties and free open play available to all attendees. Additionally, the Wizard World Gaming Gold VIP Package includes gaming-themed gift bag, early entry to the show floor, access to the VIP lounge, priority lines for autographs and photo ops and more.
The full list of gamers attending includes:
For tickets and more info, head over to wizardworld.com/comiccon. See you there this weekend!
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Resident Evil 2 is being rebuilt from the ground up, with breathtaking visuals, modernized controls, and a deeper narrative experience. Part of that experience was showcased at GamesCom for the first time today where players joined college student Claire Redfield on her search for her missing brother, Chris.
When Claire arrives in Raccoon City, she finds herself in the middle of a zombie outbreak. Dodging danger left and right, she finds safety in the Raccoon City Police Station…or so she thinks. Here she finds a young, abandoned girl, Sherry Birkin, in the underground area beneath the police station.
Together, Sherry and Claire face the iconic series boss and mutating enemy ‘G’. Claire will have to battle for her life and Sherry’s as she takes on this living, breathing nightmare creature.
The nightmares return, reimagined for PS4, Xbox One, and Windows PC, on January 25, 2019.
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Japanese Role Playing Games have been a staple in my gaming collection for a long time simply because of the sheer amount of total gameplay that is offered for the price of admission. See, back in the day, my gaming budget wasn’t what it is today so I would try to find games that would allow me to take a long time to get through all of the content. JRPGs seemed to fit the bill immediately as they provided all the gameplay I could stand while allowing me the time to save for my next adventure. Still to this day, a good JRPG will catch my eye and I will be instantaneously drawn into what will hopefully be a great story with even better game mechanics. Such is the case with the latest release from SEGA in the Shining game series, Shining Resonance Refrain.
The Shining series has been around since 1991 and has spawned close to forty entries that offer a handful of different playing styles like dungeon crawlers with rogue-like elements, traditional turn-based interaction and other Japanese role-playing game styles. Shining Resonance Refrain falls into the action-oriented RPG battle system category which allows for fast and fierce combat action against a plethora of curious and fantastical creatures all bent on taking you down. This entry in the series is new to western markets as it is the first Shining game to be released here in over ten years. It was originally released on the PlayStation 3 back in 2014 in Japan and SEGA has “souped it up,” so to speak, by improving the visuals to 1080p and has included all of the DLC into one package. Oh, and don’t let me forget to mention that the Refrain part of the title refers to the option to play with two new playable characters, characters that are critical to the story-line, that were not playable in the original game.
The game has you taking on the role of teenager and possessor of the soul of the Shining Dragon, Yuma Ilvern. In this reality where elves and dragons live alongside humans and other creatures on an island called Alfheim, two factions are formed between the high elves with one side aligning itself with the dragons and the other side becoming followers of a divine force known as Deus. As wars go in video games, almost everything was destroyed and the event became known as Ragnarok where most of the dragons were destroyed and those elves who had managed to survive the battle would flee to safety away from the place they knew as home. As the centuries passed and the blood-soaked ground would be reclaimed by the vegetation, Alfheim would be re-birthed by humans looking to claim it’s now fertile lands and to create a new kingdom called Astoria. Old threats soon raise their heads and Yuma will need to use the powers of the Shining Dragon to keep the realm safe from those that wish to conquer it again.
The one thing that I love about JRPGs is that you know what you are getting even before you slide the disc into the console, however, what you get is not going to be for everyone. If you can’t tell from the short synopsis I give about the story-line, this game is dialogue heavy and I think that you need to know this going in. That part of the game doesn’t bother me because it is what I am used to, but if you want to get in and just hack-and-slash your way into the game right from the jump, it’s not going to happen. When you first start the game, you get a short overview of the basic mechanics for the battle system and get to try it out briefly, however that is short-lived and you will find yourself being introduced to the characters that are pertinent to the story at this point. Of the first six hours of my play-through, almost half of that was spent reading dialogue and getting information on the characters, places and events that drive the story forward.
While that fact that Shining Resonance Refrain is so story heavy, if you can get through that part of the game, you will experience a game that is really accessible, fun and very smartly crafted in its battle system and the overall mechanics of the game. This game ultimately is an almost eleven year old adventure but the controls don’t seem like that once you get used to how to use your available arsenal to the best of its abilities. Your journey begins with you teaming up with The Lightening Princess, Sonia Blanche, and The Diva of Nature, Kirika Towa Alma, who fill the slots of warrior and mage, respectively, to repel the oncoming threat of The Dragon Princess of the Holy Dirge, Excella Noa Aura, who is seeking to capture the Shining Dragon and make him do her bidding. As you travel, you will meet up with new individuals who will round out your available team members and you will need to balance their levels so that they will be able to conquer any challenge that you end up facing.
The game is set up in adjoining areas that are anchored by the Seaside Capital of Alfheim called Marga. These areas are usually only so large with a set number of NPCs, in the case of cities and towns, and creatures and enemies when you are roaming the paths between them. When on these paths, you will be able to see the enemies that are present and can choose to engage them in battle or run past them to the particular exit that you need to go to. Every time you go through that area, those same enemy encounters will be there giving you the option to grind or not, but you need to keep in mind that the later chapters in the game will present some very difficult enemy encounters so you need to keep your team strong or you wont succeed. In addition, there will be glow-y spots on the ground that are items that you can use to assist you on your journey and just like the enemy encounters, these items are repopulated by the game every time you enter that particular area.
Gameplay in Shining Resonance Refrain was very easy for me to pick up and understand as the game walks you through how to use the combat system very thoroughly. You control your characters movement with the left joystick and you control the camera with the right joystick. The X button is used to pick up items or to initiate conversations with NPCs or your party members. The action-oriented battle system is where this game really shines and shows just how good an RPG can be without the painstakingly slow pace of many turn-based RPGs. Once in a battle situation, you can move around the battlefield freely while your party members do the same and choose their own targets to attack/defend. The square, triangle, circle and X buttons are used to unleash attacks that can be preset to specific attacks that you earn in the game.
Your regular attacks will do you good when you need them, but there will be times when you will need a little extra something to get your point across. Forces are special, more powerful attacks that are accessed by pressing the L1 shoulder button and then pressing the corresponding square, triangle, circle and X button for the force that you want to use. The Forces draw from your available MP gauge so the more powerful the Force is, the more MP is will need to go off. You will acquire Forces through normal gameplay and you can buy them as well from a shopkeeper. These Forces can be swapped out at your whim so that you are always using your favorite or most powerful Forces. This method removes the need to scroll through menus as in a traditional turn-based RPG and makes it faster to access your abilities on the fly.
Weapons are a big focal point in this game, of course, but you don’t just wield any old rusty sword. You and you companions wield what are called Armonics; weapon instruments forged by the Shining Dragon himself in order to channel the power of dragons and nature. These weapons can be upgraded by Tuning them in order to power them up in various ways, of which you can find in the world while playing. They come in a variety of types such as strengthening physical strikes or to power up your magic attacks and can be switched as needed. While increasing basic stats, some Tunings will also have additional effects, such as giving your character elemental attributes or increasing your maximum MP. You can also upgrade your Armonics even further by placing Aspect Pieces in the slots of your Tuning. By doing this, you can change the effects of the Aspects, which range from simple stat boosts to high-risk, high-return trade-offs.
As if all of that wasn’t enough to make your character look and feel like an absolute badass, there are a couple of other features in Shining Resonance Refrain that will definitely turn an encounter in your favor if the situation calls for it. The first is called Dragonshift, which is just what it sounds like; Yuma can change into the Shining Dragon at his command and wipe the floor with the enemies. While you are extremely powerful while in dragon form, there are some rules that you must follow in order not to have the Shining Dragon lose control and to focus on the wrong target. There is also what is called the B.A.N.D. Sessions, which will grant your team a special buff that you can use during battle to give your team a little something extra to win the fight. Depending on which character you have selected as the team leader will determine the effect that the session has so choosing the leader that has the best effect for your fighting style will be important.
The visuals in Shining Resonance Refrain look pretty good considering that this is a ten-year old game from a previous console generation. Colors are bright and fun and the character design are very detailed and help to set the theme of the game as well as to build a world that is believable and interesting to spend time in. The music is nothing short of fantastic and while I did get a little bored hearing the same music play while traveling around Marga, I was traveling so often to destinations outside of the capital that I didn’t bother me too much. You will get tired of hearing the victory fanfare but that’s just par for the course when it comes to JRPGs. The sound effects are just as awesome and made every battle feel like it was an epic struggle of good versus bad and that is what I expect from a game in this genre.
You might think that some of the features in this game would only appeal to seasoned JRPG afficionados, but I think that this game would be a perfect first JRPG for someone looking to try it out. In addition, old dogs like myself who have been playing JRPGs for some time will also be able to appreciate the exaggerated story-line and the cool battle mechanics. However, if grinding isn’t something that you enjoy, then this game will definitely not appeal to you. While there are more modern JRPGs on the market, I think that SEGA made a good choice by updating Shining Resonance and bringing it to the West. While it’s not the feature laden triple-A title that we have become used to, it is a fun experience in a series that is liked by many and was simply long overdue.
This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.
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Team Sonic Racing updates the tried and true kart-racing formula with mechanics encouraging team-play.
Sonic leaves behind a trail for his team-mates to take advantage of.
The Sonic franchise’s history is riddled with games that were poorly received to ones that give modern blockbusters a run for their money. Fortunately, the Sonic racing offshoot is of the later category, and rivals that of recent Mario Kart games. The last Sonic racing game, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, currently enjoys an Overwhelmingly Positive review on Steam, and an 82% for the Xbox 360 version on Metacritic.
Team Sonic Racing is looking to distinguish itself from the ordinary kart-racer by incorporating engaging team mechanics.
Furthermore, Team Sonic Racing separates itself from prior entries by featuring only characters from the Sonic franchise. These characters include series veterans like Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, but also lesser known ones like Vector the crocodile, and Big the Cat. Like its predecessors, online multiplayer and local co-op will be available.
The blue hedgehog’s new racer is set to release Q4 2018.
Given that the game is being developed by Sumo Digital, the same studio behind the well-reviewed Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed, Team Sonic Racing looks to be set up for success.
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There seem to be a lot of story-driven adventure games popping up at the moment. It’s odd how we don’t see a huge amount of a certain genre for a period of time then it suddenly seems like everyone is doing it. Please don’t take this as any kind of criticism on my part, far from it actually. I love a game with a good bit of story, as long as it’s well written. I’m just musing on how things seem to come about. There is also obviously a point to this. The first installment of a new adventure has just arrived on Steam and actually, it looks pretty interesting. The game is Pendula Swing and it’s taking a different slant on … well … quite a few things really.
Pendula Swing invites us to travel back to America’s roaring 20s and join a world where elves, goblins, dwarves, and orcs co-mingle with humans. This kind of diversity allows the game to approach complex issues such as racism, prejudice and the disparity between wealth and poverty. To help us better fall into the world in which this tale is set, this fantasy take on a storied era of history is also rendered in a beautiful 1920s Art Deco style.
As I mentioned briefly earlier Pendula Swing is an episodic story. Each of these episodes will take the player between 40 and 60 minutes to play through. This gives the overall game the feel of a TV series, where we are playing through each installment only to have to wait excitedly for the next one. This initial release features the first two installments with the remaining five in the series set to roll out at intervals over the next year.
Named “Tired and Retired” and “The Old Hero’s New Journey,” these two opening episodes introduce us to the game’s protagonist Brialynne Donu Tenum, a once famous dwarven hero who served the world 400 years ago and is forced to interrupt her indefinite retirement when she discovers that an important artifact has been stolen. In “The Old Hero’s New Journey,” the heroine returns to the town of Duberdon for the first time in 400 years to find it utterly changed from the way she remembers it. Having been allowed through customs you will travel into Duberon’s Business District. From here players will have to solve problems and unlock other areas of the town in an attempt to help Brialynne make sense of the fast-moving world in which she finds herself and find her ax, something that is going to prove more difficult than it may at first seem.
“What has already been quite a journey for us begins today for players, and we are so excited to unveil Pendula Swing for Steam,” said Anna Janelius, CEO and creative director of Valiant Game Studio at launch. “We set out to make a game that discusses some of the sensitive social issues that face society, in such a way that players are faced with sometimes difficult choices to progress through the game’s deep storyline.”
If you want to decide whether or not you’d like to commit to this unfolding story you will be able to get the first installment of Pendula Swing for PC (also available on Mac) over on Steam for free. You really can’t be fairer than that. If it all floats your boat, the second installment is coming in at $4.99. Should you just want to go the whole hog and purchase the entire serial from day one you’ll be able to grab the season pass for $17.50 until August 31st. This is giving you a 30% launch discount on the game. The same season pass will be going up to its regular price of $24.99 after this date. If you want in, now would appear to be a very good time to go for it.
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Everyone excited to get back to the most famous purple dragon’s glory days is going to have to wait a couple months longer. The Spyro Reignited Trilogy has been delayed until November 13, 2018.
In the blog post announcing the delay, Toys for Bob Studio Co-Head Paul Yan said,
“I really hoped that you would be rescuing dragons and scorching Rhynocs sooner, but the Trilogy needs more love and care. In November when you’re exploring the Dragon Realm, Avalar, and the Forgotten Worlds, we know you’ll agree the extra time was worth the wait.”
I am always for delaying a game to make sure that it is completely done before release, but that does not mean I am not curious about exactly why the game is being delayed. Are there glitches galore and it just was not going to be fixed in time? Does it have to do with the fact that Ripto’s Rage and Year of the Dragon are not on the physical disc? This means that anyone without an internet connection, or at least a good one, will only have access to the first game unless they are addressing that issue here. (For more on that, read Polygon’s article HERE).
Regardless of the reason, I am always going to be much happier getting a game with more polish on it than a broken, unfinished mess of a game. I’m looking at you, Sega. Giving me multiple unfinished Sonic games….
November is pretty busy as usual, but I just cannot wait to get a sweet sip of that Spyro the Dragon drink that will take me into nostalgia town.
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I think we can say with a fair bit of certainty that many of us have played our share of dungeon crawlers. I’m here to tell you a new one is going to be arriving on PlayStation 4 and Switch come August 30th. I can hear the yawns already. You love them but you want something a bit different, right? If this is the case, I have just the game for you. Haunted Dungeons: Hyakki Castle is the game in question and unusually it has a Japanese flair. We aren’t just knights in shining armour battling goblins and orcs in this one.
Set during Japan’s Edo period, Haunted Dungeons: Hyakki Castle is a real-time RPG that sends you, the player, to the distinctively haunted Hyakki Island. This is a sort of penal colony where the prisoners are sent into exile. To make a really bad situation even worse for them, a mysterious castle suddenly appears on the island bringing a horde of unpleasant monsters with it. Amongst this rather unpleasant mess, a rebel mastermind is also inhabiting the island who is plotting to overthrow the Shogun order and assassinate its leader. This is where you come in. You take the role of one of four special agents who is trained in the exorcism of evil spirits and slaying of monsters. Sent by the Shogun, you are to investigate the castle and deal with the threat within. Sound interesting? Not your average hack n’ slash, eh?
What makes this title interesting is that it actively encourages you to split your party with its exclusive 2-party system. This feature is designed to make strategic fights easier for the player. As they move up through the dangerous floors of Hyakki Castle, players will find themselves executing flanking maneuvers and pincer-style attacks while using a variety of moves to beat monsters who will exhibit their own unique combat styles and behaviours.
The ability to split your party won’t only help you master combat. The castle also contains an array of puzzles and traps that you’ll have to find a way to negotiate if you are to survive. In fact, the use of this system is actually mandatory in some circumstances as some of these puzzles can only be mastered by using the split approach. The fact that the game also lets you choose from four unique character classes including human and Tengu will allow for the mix and match of various skill sets and play styles.
The game actually looks great and you’ll be able to see this from the trailer I’m about to leave you with. It’s definitely nice to see a bit of change in style and the fact that Haunted Dungeons: Hyakki Castle is bringing something new to the console RPG genre is certainly refreshing. If you think you may be interested in entering the castle and doing your thing, you’ll find the digital releases of this title on your PlayStation Store or Nintendo eShop from August 30th at the rather reasonable price of $13.99 or £10.99 for those of us this side of the pond.
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One of the most comforting and nostalgic feelings for me is reading a good book on a cold night by firelight. The crackling comfort and heat of the burning wood combined with the flickering firelight provides a perfect environment to focus solely on getting lost in a fictional world. That’s exactly the kind of experience developer Wadjet Eye Games has created with Unavowed, except instead of reading a new book you’re pouring through an old classic, finding nuanced details you never noticed the first time.
Unavowed is a point-and-click adventure game set in modern day New York City. You control a nameable player character that, through various spooky circumstances, is recruited to the Unavowed, a secret society of supernatural problem solvers. Along your journey you will recruit other talented individuals to join your ranks and help clean up a series of wild mishaps across the city.
If that sounds rather cliche, it’s because I’m being as intentionally vague as possible. The main draw for this game is the fantastically written and well-paced story which starts with a gripping premise right from the beginning. Watching the trailer for the game will reveal more details, but I found I enjoyed the experience more going in as blind as possible.
This supernatural vision of New York City where the magical is mixed with the mundane is filled with rich world-building, which is revealed through each mission and talking with members of your crew during downtime. It’s so easy for games to cram all their lore into sloppy exposition or collectible info dumps, but Wadjet Eye Games brilliantly balances those details between visuals cues in the environments you explore and dialogue. It’s clear a lot of work was done in the editing room to keep the pacing so tight.
The reliability and depth of the characters and villains in the game was also surprising. It’s hard to find a story-focused game where you don’t hate at least one member of the core cast, but I found all of my fellow supernatural sleuths to be relatable and endearing in one way or another. The only character who fell a bit short for me was Vicki, but her stereotypical “tough cop” routine wasn’t a complete turn-off and even elicits a few laughs.
It’s a good thing the characters are all so likeable, because they really put you through some moral quandaries when it comes to making major story decisions throughout the missions. Make sure to save regularly and often–who you bring with you on missions (you can only bring 2 other members) and the decisions you make can cause drastically different outcomes for both that mission and the game’s ending. Based on the achievements there are several different ending available to unlock.
This forced party limit also helps keeps the point-and-click puzzle solving fresh on repeated sessions, which can last anywhere from 8-10 hours a piece if you always start from scratch. Unavowed is not the adventure game for people who enjoy solving complex puzzles. I was able to solve (or brute force if I was stuck) all of the game’s challenges without a guide or assistance.
Despite the fantastic setting and story, I did encounter some minor issues with the game. Many times during a mission, your party will engage in interesting idle chatter. Because you navigate between static scenes, there were several times where I accidentally cut a great conversation off mid-sentence.
The game also has a ton of backtracking. This is a pitfall of the genre in general, but is still quite tedious when you get stuck. Thankfully your companions will reliably point you in the right direction to hunt for clues without giving away the correct solution.
Unavowed doesn’t break any new ground in video game story telling. And yet, the story it tells is so enjoyable, its characters so memorable and its world so rich in detail that you can’t help wanting to play it again and again like reading your favorite book. Wadjet Eye Games has made a point and click adventure you should not miss.
This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.
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Sleuthing out the abnormal and the ghostly sounds like it’s all fun and games; walk through a spooky house, yell at the empty air, feel your heart race when a slight noise occurs. But what happens when things get more intense? RYM Games sets out to show this side of the paranormal investigation with their new game The Conjuring House.
In The Conjuring House, you’ll take the first person view of the last remaining member of an investigative crew checking out the strange happenings at the Atkinson House. The previous tenant died a grisly death and the culprit makes their presence known in a terrifying fashion. Needless to say, the boom-boom hits the fan fast and you need to escape.
The concept of The Conjuring House isn’t exactly treading new ground; a first person jaunt through a creepy setting has been seen in Outlast and Resident Evil 7, just to name a few. However, what The Conjuring House is doing with this concept is truly something to get excited about. The enemies have no patterns in their placement or variety, the house can be explored in any order the player chooses, and objectives have multiple ways to complete. This is the type of true emergent horror gameplay that alludes many survival horror games.
There are no safe harbors in the Atkinson House. Just because you cleared an area does not guarantee that a creature doesn’t wander in there if you retrace your steps. Each playthrough will be fresh and no player can rely on the comfort of having an online walkthrough or guide by their side. The Conjuring House wants you to feel alone and paranoid.
RYM Games is crafting a wonderfully creepy, emergent atmosphere in The Conjuring House. The high level of detail that RYM has been showing off is unprecedented for an indie horror game; so much so that I could see it easily becoming a YouTube darling with the Let’s Play crowd.
The Conjuring House is available on PC via Steam this September. You can also keep up to date with the game via Facebook, Twitter, and the RYM Games official website.
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