We all saw a couple weeks ago when our own Colby, between bouts of spontaneous cowboy yells and possible internet notoriety, told you kids that a Final Fantasy VII remake was now officially in the works from Square-Enix. Clearly, that was tremendous news. Tremendous, life altering, world peace delivering news. But there were some other remakes that came out of E3 and I’ve finally had a chance to play all of them while we wait for the remake of all remakes to descend upon us from Japan.
1. God of War III.
Look. I’m just going to get this out of the way shortly and sweetly. God of War III was, remains, and possibly will always be one of the greatest outlets for mythological platform violence the world has ever known. I was hooked on the first title of the trilogy back in on the PlayStation 2, and even tried to push Kratos/Pandora unsuccessfully as a presidential ticket. Sony basically just said “Hey Tushar all that insane blood you’ve shed over the years? Here it is in 1080p at 60fps with the ability to record and share screenshots and video through the PS4 engine.”
Sold. The gameplay is the same and I’m still sold. It is that much fun.
Oh right one more thing – The Sony reps told me I could tell you kids that “It’s a reminder that God of War was still out there, and I can tell you something new is in the works.”
2. Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition
Knowing how I feel about God of War, it should be a no brainer that I’m a huge fan of other games that involve that kind of gameplay. Devil May Cry was another franchise that had me hooked in the PS2 era, even though we all wish Devil May Cry 2 was just a bad dream. These were the guys that took stylized action and turned it into an art, actually awarding bonus points for how varied your attacks are and how “stylish” your battles are.
Stylish action violence. I’m about that life, kids.
So as opposed to GoW3, DMC4SE delivered some new things – balance and increased speed and fluidity on the gameplay side makes this fun as ever to play. They’ve also included the ability to play as supporting cast members in from the Devil May Cry universe – in addition to the Nero/Dante campaign there’s also Lady/Trish and Vergil campaigns, letting you play through the story as them with completely different play styles than Nero and Dante.
Playing with all these styles does add replay value to the special edition, but since there’s no additional story aside from a beginning and end cutscene for both the Lady/Trish and Vergil campaigns, the missions one is tasked can get somewhat repetitive. See in the original campaign, Nero does roughly the first half of the missions facing 4 bosses then his final boss. Dante takes over and finishes off the same 4 bosses before turning it back over. Nero then has to fight the same bosses again in a gauntlet before endgame. The way it’s spaced out in that campaign it doesn’t seem super repetitive because with each fight you have new weapons and techniques.
But with Vergil that’s where the repetitiveness kicks in. When you play the Vergil campaign you play ALL of the missions with him. So I’m running different versions of the same levels twice each and fighting the same 4 bosses 3 times each which begins to eventually get kind of stale. Now normally I wouldn’t have an issue with this because it’s a special edition game, so just being able to play through the game with another character is enough. But according to the “story,” Vergil’s campaign takes place “a few decades ago” in Fortuna city before the original DMC4 takes place, so the way time flows a lot of this campaign is impossible and he faces enemies that shouldn’t have been born yet.
That aside, the gameplay still makes this a tremendously fun, fast paced and furious action game. The different play styles with each of the characters really grow on you even though it might not seem so when you start. And those really come into play starting on “Dante Must Die” difficulty, where you have to begin to rely on all your skills, not just your favorites, to clear a room.
DMC4SE also includes some different costumes for all of the characters – which includes a smooth badass tan dark haired version of Dante. They say that it’s to mimic the DmC colors, but I think it more reminds me of someone I know…
Oh I know you’re pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down.
At any rate, still a fantastic game and a worthwhile pickup.
Tushar Nene
Staff Writer
@tusharnene
Daku Con 2018 Photo Gallery
Daku Con 2018 Convention Recap!
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Nan Desu Kan 2018 Photo Gallery
Last month, metal band Veil of Maya grabbed a new singer and fictional female inspiration for their recent album, Matriarch.
Arguably among top ten best metal albums of 2015, no one member in Veil of Maya’s roster is overshadowed in this new direction. This time around, the entire band’s talent is showcased more evenly than in previous albums. Graduating from six string baritones to sevenS and upping the ante with recently acquired vocalist Lukas Magyar, Veil of Maya’s Matriarch delivers a little little less flash while still holding on to the thrashy-ness that fans have grown to love.
Though Magyar’s high screams, low growls, and clear vibrato are brought to the table on a glorious china plate encased in a catchy melody sandwich, the introduction of the first clean vocals since the band’s inception isn’t the most notable change from previous vocalist Brandon Butler, who left the band during Matriarch’s inception due to “creative differences.”
While Veil of Maya has always included little easter eggs in their track titles, such as the Game of Thrones headnod “Winter Is Coming Soon” from their 2012 album Eclipse, Martiarch goes further by being their first album to follow a female inspired theme. Guitarist Marc Okubo fit the album’s concept around strong female characters from different fictional genres.
“All the tracks are named after powerful female characters that I found interesting,” he explains. “I always make code names for whatever songs I’m writing, and this time they all stuck to a theme.”
Fans will recognize some of their favorite characters as title tracks scattered throughout the album, from Final Fantasy VII‘s “Aeris,” to the mother of dragons, “Daenerys” from Game of Thrones, and even a few lesser known fandoms, such as “Lucy”and her split personality “Nyu” from Elfen Lied. As a huge fan of Brian K. Vaughan, Okubo’s “Three-Fifty” pays homage to Y: The Last Man‘s Agent 355, and he is currently reading the immensely popular Saga. Cue me on the edge of my seat waiting to hear Okubo riff some justice to the character Alana.
Although Okubo wrote the album to fit into his theme, new vocalist Lukas Magyar penned the lyrics separately and has only within recent months acquired the Internet to catch up on shows like Attack on Titan, with Matriarch‘s single named after the female protagonist, “Mikasa.” Watch the official video from Sumerian Records below, and be prepared for the tasty chorus to get stuck in your head for weeks. Sorry not sorry.
Matriarch also features less of the band’s old signatures, choosing instead to limit the vocals and blast beats to more appropriate timing. When used more sparingly, this enables the songwriting to effectively place pieces to create a better dynamic, rather than barrage the ears with consistent noodling. Though this is outside of the box for Veil of Maya, the execution is effortless as usual and there’s no doubt the album is a sleeper. There’s a song for every fandom, and obviously “Daenerys” is the best, because I’m 100% biased.
Veil of Maya’s Matriarch can be purchased here and tickets for the Summer Slaughter tour are on sale now at TicketFly. If you attend the Dallas date, don’t be surprised by the small, dark-haired gal bopping around. Just wave.
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Just Cause 3
Everyone’s favorite ridiculous action adventure stunt game is back and better than ever. The series whose staple is over the top stunts set in a giant open world with an iconic grappling hook has taken it to the next level. By having a triggered grappling hook, you can hook multiple things together, then pull the trigger to have them all pulled close, opening up tons of awesome enemy death possibilities. The wing suit also makes escaping situations and dive-bombing enemies look so gorgeous with the updated graphics and better lighting. If you liked Just Cause 2, you’re going to be excited about Just Cause 3
Nier *insert static words*
No, that’s really the title, as far as we could see it. Fans have been asking unhopefully for a new Nier game, and being expectedly disappointed. But now Square Enix has partnered with Platinum Games to continue the saga in an as yet unsubtitled name Nier game. It’s coming out for PS4 and there isn’t any word on Xbox One yet. There aren’t many more details other than the heads of Nier are back and that this is definitely a Nier game. Color us excited, though, as the E3 of unexpected dreams coming true continues.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Lara Croft just can’t catch a break. Not unlike Nathan Drake, she’s in all sorts of trouble lookin’ for dem tombs to raid. The trailer starts out with her ice climbing with a companion. Predictably, things go awry after some death-defying leaps and an avalanche begins to fall. The avalanche looks great and the sense of impending doom and trouble are very present. Rise of the Tomb Raider appears to be running on the same engine as its predecessor, meaning the lighting and graphics are especially good for dark moments with little lighting. Overall the game looks beautiful and seems even more anxiety-inducing than the previous game. Fans of the series, or just fans of action games in general, should keep an eye on this.
Final Fantasy VII
Yes, we already wrote about this announcement. Yes, this is a repeat. Yes, it’s that important. Final Fantasy VII may be one of the most over-hyped games in the series. The protagonists may be a little bland, the story kind of convoluted, and the fanbase an absolute nightmare, but the announcement of this remake is important for reasons beyond just one of the best Final Fantasy game being remade. It’s even more important than the implication that other Final Fantasies could get remade. It’s a symbol of Square Enix finally using its ears to listen to the fans in addition to their money. This started with Bravely Default when fans demanded a traditional, huge JRPG and Bravely Default was barely made. Barely any expectations, but then it started to sell and sell and Square may have realized “maybe the fans should be listened to?” And despite all the previous denials, all the times they’ve said “it would require a massive amount of resources and people,” or “we would love to, but remaking an old classic is daunting,” they’ve sucked it up and committed. That’s a powerful symbol. And now we’re here, in a year where Nier 2 and a Final Fantasy VII remake are actually being worked on. Maybe, just maybe, the Square we grew up with is starting to phoenix down.
Kingdom Hearts Unchained X (pronounced like key)
As usual with Square Enix Kingdom Hearts games, before we get any more info on the next console version, a mobile game has to be released to lead in to the story. Kingdom Hearts III is no exception and its prequel is Kingdom Hearts Unchained X. The graphic style go a completely different direction than Chain of Memories, Coded, or Birth By sleep. Instead, the new game is done in a 2D almost half Paper Mario half Theatryhythm style. The gameplay is ambiguous, but seems similar to Final Fantasy All the Bravest. No word on how this fits in to the Kingdom Hearts lore or where it is on the chronology, but current plans are to release it worldwide.
Kingdom Hearts III
Now this is more like it! Every time we see this game, it seems it gets twice as exciting. They started off the KH3 portion of the show by talking about how it will feature the world of Tangled, something surprising as Kingdom Hearts isn’t really known for doing newer Disney IPs. Then the gameplay start and everything looks absolutely gorgeous. The colors in Kingdom Hearts III are more vibrant and exciting than any of the previous titles, making a really visually interesting landscape to enjoy. And there’s a lot of landscape to enjoy, with the scale of worlds seeming to go way way up. Olympus in particular seems far bigger than it ever has. The next upgraded aspect of the game seems to be in the combat, with something that looks akin to forms in KH2, but with a lot more variety. Guns, chain keyblades, and something like War Machine’s Repulsor Cannon all make this game look fresh. Add in the theme park inspired summons/specials of the electric parade, tea cups, and boat swing and Disney fans are sure to find something new to enjoy with this game. On the story side, two new unknown characters were introduced playing a version of chess with one another. They appear to be younger versions of Eraqus and Xehanort, but that’s nowhere near confirmed. The game continues to wow us with its previews, and we can’t get it fast enough. No word on a release date, but you can bet as soon as there is one, our calendars will be marked, days taken off, supplies bought, and tissues prepared for what looks to be the best Kingdom Hearts game to date.
World of Final Fantasy
The entry barrier to a series like Final Fantasy seems kind of high to someone who’s never played the games before. In order to try and alleviate this, World of Final Fantasy was created. There’s not many details on the game other than it seems to be a turn based combat game in which you control monsters who fight one another, not unlike Pokemon. The graphics seem to alternate between 3D Theatrhythm-style graphics and less cartoony models. Not many details on this yet, but this seems like Square Enix’s answer to not have many casual-friendly games, so at the very least, it should be an interesting experiment.
Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness
Star Ocean has been needing some love for sometime and fans of the series are finally getting sweet relief. Integrity and Faithlessness is definitely built for the current generation, featuring wide landscapes, HD textures, and what looks to be no load screens for fights. Couple that with the wide variety of landscapes featured in the trailer and Star Ocean fans have a reason to be squirming in their seats. The six person party system and open combat look like a lot of fun too. The game is coming out in Japan later this year with a worldwide release planned for 2016.
Project Setsuna
A completely new IP was announced that doesn’t even have a title yet. The development company handling this title was just created by Square Enix with the name Tokyo RPG Factory. Though no real details are known about the game, its storyline or even the goals of Tokyo RPG Factory, the trailer for their game, codenamed Project Setsuna, looks visually stunning already. We can’t wait to hear more about this title.
Daku Con 2018 Photo Gallery
Daku Con 2018 Convention Recap!
PAX South 2019: Splitgate Arena Warfare, World of Horror, JackQuest, and Disjunction
PAX South 2019: Jump Force, Skellboy, A Fold Apart
PAX South 2019: Devil May Cry 5, Young Souls, Magequit
Nan Desu Kan 2018 Photo Gallery
The Last Guardian
Could you start a press conference any bigger than by showing off a demo of a game people assumed was dead? The Last Guardian has been one of the most highly anticipated, hotly debated, oft mourned games of the past five years. Now, we finally get to see what they’ve been working on, and it looks beautiful. The mechanics are of a symbiotic relationship between a boy and his creature friend that resembles something like a mix of a cat and a bird. The two friends have to progress through ruins together, helping each other through areas, and often out of danger. In this short video, you can really feel the growing bond between these two and it strikes a chord due in no small part to the very familiar mannerisms of the creature. At times acting like a dog, at times acting like a cat, but always acting like an animal and never acting out of place. It’s beautifully executed and this game is at the top of my list for anticipated titles in 2016.
Horizon: Zero Dawn
A new action adventure IP made its debut in a really impressive way. Horizon takes place after the apocalypse when the remnants of mankind are living in a world controlled by nature and animal-like robots. We take control of Aloy, one of the few huntresses of the robots to gain resources. Using a boy with different types of arrows and cunning, Aloy sneaks through tall plants, surprises robots, and kills them to take their resources. Clearly a bigger robot has a problem with that and is keen to fight. Aloy’s more than willing to oblige. The combat system is smooth, arrow switching is quick, and the ability to slow down time seems well placed. You can shoot parts off the robots to use against them. In this case, a blade shooter is procured to slice off protective parts of the robot’s armor to expose it’s core, then get taken down by explosive arrows. This looks to be a really interesting, beautiful game and something new to the post-apocalyptic game setting. Keep an eye on Horizon: Zero Dawn, it’s one of the most promising new IPs this year.
No Man’s Sky
This demo was probably my favorite, if only because the dev was so candid. He was upfront about how much time he had and what he wanted to show, so he briefly touched on space combat, then dove right in to exploration. He showed the scope of the universe and it’s definitely hard to grasp. Almost infinite, like our own universe. A countable, but difficult to imagine number of planets all with their own unique stuff. The dev even went to a random planet live on stage. That shows a lot of confidence. He showed off categorizing flora and fauna as well as the destructible environments that exist on all planets. No solid release date, but he says there will be one soon. Color us excited!
Dreams
Media Molecule, the studio behind Little Big Planet and Tearaway, are back with a new concept, and an ambitious one at that. Dreams has you interacting with and creating dreams with players. From adding elements and characters to the environment to animating your creations, they give you the tools create and bring dreams to life. It’s an incredibly ambitious project and there aren’t many details, but we trust you, Media Molecule. Can’t wait to see the tools and what the community does with them!
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Even writing the title to this section made me well up inside. And the sly devils revealed it so slyly. A quick showing of some machinery. Some soldiers. A girl sliding down a slide. Wait, don’t I know that slide?… Some more machinery. Cut to yellow flowers on the ground. Wait, that’s not… Cut to the slums, pan down to a group walking. Large man with a gun for his right arm. OH NO. ARE YOU SERIOUS. Blonde man with buster sword. THEY’RE DOING IT? Final Fantasy VII meteor logo. THEY’RE DOING IT!!!
That’s what happened. There’s no more information on it, but there doesn’t have to be. Square Enix is making dreams come true today. Suddenly, everything is possible, even the most far fetched things…like.
Shenmue 3
Exactly like Shenmue 3. Fans have been begging for this game for over ten years now and hope had all but died out. However, Sony already showed this is not a press conference to take lightly. It’s one to make dreams happen.
The creator has been wanting to make Shenmue 3 for years, but didn’t want to without the proper budget. Now, thanks to crowd funding, Shenmue 3 is in the hands of its fans. Shenmue 2 left fans wanting more, and 14 years later, they’re now given the opportunity to grab victory. As of writing this, Shenmue 3 has nearly $2.9 million on Kickstarter. that’s almost a million dollars over the asking budget and only in 24 hours. Simply incredible. Fans have wanted this game, the creator has wanted this game, and now thanks to Kickstarter, it’s happening. It’s all happening.
Daku Con 2018 Photo Gallery
Daku Con 2018 Convention Recap!
PAX South 2019: Splitgate Arena Warfare, World of Horror, JackQuest, and Disjunction
PAX South 2019: Jump Force, Skellboy, A Fold Apart
PAX South 2019: Devil May Cry 5, Young Souls, Magequit
Nan Desu Kan 2018 Photo Gallery
The growing energy demands of the world and our dependence on non-renewable sources is quickly becoming our planet’s greatest problem. With dwindling reserves of oil and coal, science has been doing all it can to harness renewable energy sources to keep up our growing power appetite. We’ve all heard about wind and solar power, but there’s a new contender in town.
Just like solar and wind, we’re harnessing energy that’s already there – the magma sitting below our feet – to turn water to steam and steam to turn turbines that then generate electricity. It’s so simple and yet so effective that to date 70% of Iceland’s power consumption is sourced from geothermal sources. So with all this renewable energy, our planet is looking like it’s in great shape, right?
WRONG.
You’re telling me that a power company is pulling energy out of the earth all so we can watch TV? And nobody sees a problem with this?
So you people just WANT a Sephiroth to rise, don’t you? Well I have news for you. We don’t have time for a spooky motherfucker waving a too-long sword and preaching about his mommy issues wrecking our good time. Taking energy from space or the air or by burning dinosaur bones and plastic bags or whatever coal is made out of was too safe? Just have to go tempting fate by dicking about with the planet, huh?
Meet the man who’s going to kill us all – Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, President of Iceland
Now I’m not saying geothermal energy causes Sephiroths, but I damn well AM saying that it causes an environment in which Sephiroths can flourish! You don’t store your chicken at room temperature on the counter, and you don’t go fucking around with mother earth when we have so many unstable people with access to extrabigassswords.com.
“That would never happen! And even if it did, it’s not like Sephiroth won!”
Yeah, a ragtag band of god damn heroes stopped Sephiroth. Real warriors with names like Cloud, Barrett, and Tifa. But it’s 2015 and if I may say so myself, we’re all looking a bit doughy. Do you know anyone with names that slick sounding? No. We can’t depend on Caleb, Bradley, and Taylor to save the day.
Oh and by the way, did anyone even bother to see Advent Children? Did you see what happened when we hurt the planet too much? IT CREATED AN ENTIRE FUCKING DISEASE FOR THE HUMAN RACE BECAUSE FUCK YOU, I’M THE PLANET AND THIS IS MY LIFESTREAM NOT YOURS.
Basically, we’re all super-fucked and it’s Iceland’s fault.
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By now I’m going to guess that you’ve heard about the monkeyshines and shenanigans that occurred at the recent PlayStation Experience event. But if not allow me to set the scene for you:
Our boy Shinji Hashimoto from Square-Enix comes out on stage to tell the audience something that many Final Fantasy fans have been clamoring for for almost 20 years –Final Fantasy VII, hailed by many RPG fans as one of the greatest games of all time, would be coming to the PlayStation 4.
If this is new to you then I know what you’re thinking kids – because I’m sure I was one of the many that did the same thing. you’re replaying a next-gen version of the Bahamut ZERO summon in your head, trying to picture what the Gold Saucer would even look like, creating mental images of Midgar and that awkward Wall Market scene with Beautiful Bro.
But then reality sets back in. Yes, Final Fantasy VII will be available for the PS4. No, it is not going to be awesome. It will be the same as the one released in 1997 – a port of the PC version of the game to be available in the spring of 2015.
We all got trolled. Again. And this time they did it to our faces in front of a huge hall full of people, getting them super excited then taking out their knees. Here’s some video from Kotaku’s Fahey showing the presentation.
Now those of you that know me know how I feel about remakes in general – a lot of times to me they’re a cheap cash-grab with no discernible advantage to the older version outside of convenience to pick up some additional revenue to a market they haven’t sold to yet. And in the process, while throwing away creativity and the opportunity to do something new for the fans, they repackage our childhoods and try to sell it back to us. It happens all the time.
So you may be curious then – why this article about this recent event is getting my attention given this opinion of mine I’ve just shared.
Here’s the thing. I’m not mad the remake isn’t happening.
I’m mad at how things have played out over the last decade or so in general, especially with this game company on remakes. It was easy to remake the titles from the NES and SNES era – there’s something like 5 versions of Final Fantasy IV running wild over a number of consoles among a few others. They’re decades old games remade with PSX graphics. VIII’s on Steam and I’m not sure who really cares about a IX remake – and these are two additional Final Fantasy titles also originally released on the first PlayStation.
(S-E remakes for Android devices also have an always-on requirement, which already irk my ire, so this on top of that really sticks in my craw. But that’s another story for another day.)
But for VII, they give fans hope. In addition to the original game, Square-Enix developed an entire universe around Midgar, with spinoff games and video titles like Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core, Last Order, and topping them all off with the feature length Advent Children in 2005. But it didn’t stop there. In 2006 to show off graphical capabilities they released a technical demo for the PS3 engine (watch it here, it’s wonderful). This demo featured the intro to Final Fantasy VII redone using the PS3 engine. It was glorious. Midgar looked great, the train details down to the sparks on the tracks were sharp, what we saw of Aeris was lovely, and Cloud’s eventual entrance on the train platform was done with style.
AND THAT’S THE DIFFERENCE.
Square Enix showed us what one of the most revered games in modern history could look like, while having no intention of ever delivering. We saw what could be, and the fact that they used that property for the demo sparked many rumors that a remake was in the works. Since then, the game has been released in its original form on PSX, a 4-disc PC edition, a download on Steam, and playable on the PS3 through the PlayStation store. Someone could have paid for 4 copies of the same game, with not much more than the addition of trophies and achievements added to their total gameplay experience.
Well I guess there is some sort of charm about huge pixels on TV’s sized like they are these days.
Still though. Colossal who cares.
But we’ll never get delivery on the vision of the future Square-Enix had shown us with that demo. They’ll continue to make money on every copy of this that was sold on multiple platforms from 1997 to today. The game has still been wildly supported by its fanbase, some of who will buy every version of it out of loyalty and let’s be honest, to some extent mania. Fans will keep assuming it’ll happen because Square-Enix keeps supporting the product and dropping hints unofficially while officially denying it. For the same reason, Square-Enix will keep selling it. And this dance will go on for a good long time. And to think, this all would have never happened if only the PS3 was back-compatible.
Bottom line – if you’re waiting for a next-gen Final Fantasy VII remake, I wouldn’t hold my breath longer than a Knights of the Round summon.
Tushar Nene
Staff Writer
@tusharnene
REVIEW | Salt and Sanctuary
PAX South 2019: Splitgate Arena Warfare, World of Horror, JackQuest, and Disjunction
PAX South 2019: Jump Force, Skellboy, A Fold Apart
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