Resident Evil 2

Sora and Friends are Back! — Kingdom Hearts III Special

ISSUE 9 — 3 February 2019

by Shahan Ahmed and Dale Hurst

Special Feature — KINGDOM HEARTS III

by Shahan Ahmed

KH3 1

Kingdom Hearts III has finally launched this week (or last week if you’re in Japan)! We’ve been kept in the dark for so many years we may as well be one of the Heartless ourselves! The developers went through great difficulty due to a number of issues, such as changing to Unreal Engine 4 a year into development, but they have managed to pull it off! KH3 has garnered generally positive reviews and promises to provide long-awaited answers that we’ve been waiting for.

WARNING: POTENTIAL MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

FRIENDS

Sora sets out to regain his strength after losing it all at the end of Dream Drop Distance. As you join him on his journey, he will be meeting many friends – both old and new. Sora’s childhood friends (Riku and Kairi) and best buds (Donald and Goofy) are here. You’ll fight alongside Hercules and Captain Jack Sparrow once more. Examples of new friendships being made are Buzz and Woody in the Toy Box, Hiro and Baymax at San Fransokyo and Mike and Sully at Monstropolis.

FOES

Many enemies appear to test Sora’s mettle. The series’ staples Maleficent and Pete are back. They’re on the search for a mysterious black box. Hades reverts to his original age-old plan to rule the cosmos by enlisting the aid of the Titans and attack Olympus. Xehanort and the Organization are back of course! Some past members have actually become allies. Seemingly similar to KH2, a specific member is associated with or assigned to each Disney world.

FORM CHANGES

Let’s delve into the combat for a moment. Remember the cool drive forms in KH2? Well, they are back in a new fashion! Form changes can be activated during battles and most are dependent on what keyblade you are using (three can be equipped and switched between). Each have their own special abilities and they change Sora’s clothing. ‘Second Form’ is the first one available to you and it gives access to classic KH techniques like Sonic Blade and Ars Arcanum. Remember Anti-Sora? He’s back in ‘Rage Form’! Powerful but risky, it is accessible to Sora when low on health and out of magic points.

MINI-GAMES

Kingdom Hearts III brings a wealth of mini-games. You can find one near the beginning of the game after leaving Olympus. Backtrack to the Overlook in Thebes and there’ll be the Cherry Flan; one of the Flantastic Seven! Interacting with the flan lets you ride around Thebes on the Trinity Sled knocking out flans for points. The combat itself allows you to use links and attractions that are basically minigames themselves! From Blaster Blaze to the Magic Carousel. Each one makes every battle a big spectacular show!

Shahan’s Opinion: I literally got goosebumps watching the intro. I just can’t believe it’s actually here! I doubt I’ll feel like this again until the Final Fantasy VII remake. I’ll wait and see if it will surpass my personal fave: Birth by Sleep. But it is so beautiful! Near Pixar-quality visuals in the cutscenes and the environments. It’s even more awesome to know that Hayley Joel Osment (yeah The Sixth Sense kid) would be happy to voice-act Sora forever!

Negative Vibes: ANGER AND THREATS OVER METRO EXODUS EXCLUSIVITY

Metro Exodus is all set to launch this month on 15th February. It has been available to pre-order on Steam and other stores for many months now. However, it was announced that the game will be exclusive to the Epic Store for a year.  Steam pre-orders will be honoured. Unfortunately, the last-minute change that was made for profit has angered PC gamers to the point they review-bombed the other Metro games on Steam.

To further worsen customer relations, one of the developer’s employees has threatened that if PC players announce a boycott on their game, the next Metro game will not be coming to PC.

As much as Steam needs a competitor to combat its monopoly on the PC gaming platform, many would say Epic Games are going about it the wrong way. Check out this informative article over on Rock Paper Shotgun if you want to know more.

Shahan’s Opinion: The gaming industry is not doing well when it comes to PR. Maybe it would’ve been best to stay silent and wait out the storm in this situation. This same situation also supports the argument against pre-ordering.

New Character Spotlight: SNOW VILLIERS (Dissidia Final Fantasy NT)

The villains of Dissidia Final Fantasy will have Snow Villiers from the FFXIII trilogy join their ranks. His default appearance here lends itself from how he appears in the third game – Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. Snow is already available for Dissidia Final Fantasy in arcades in Japan. He will be available for Dissidia Final Fantasy NT this month.

Shahan’s Opinion: I should point out I am a fan of the FFXIII trilogy, since I know how much it has split the fanbase. That being said, I have mixed feelings regarding Snow’s portrayal here.

I prefer the more upbeat, optimistic brawler in XIII and XIII-2 rather than the grim Lightning Return’s boss battle Snow. I also like his character design in XIII-2 the most. Sadly it is unlikely that will return, knowing each Dissidia character has two outfits each.

On the other hand, we already have Tifa to bring the punches for the good guys so Cie’th Snow on the villains’ side is still a cool way to represent the games he is from.

PIRANHA PLANT NOW AVAILABLE IN SMASH BROS.

It would be rude not to mention the update Super Smash Bros. Ultimate launched this week, which meant, among other things, first DLC character Piranha Plant is now available for play.

For the most part, its addition has not caused too many problems. That is to say, it isn’t quite perfect. You can’t use it for All-Star Smash without the game crashing, for example. Hopefully that will get fixed in the next patch, which should also bring Joker with it.

Dale’s Opinion: You may remember I did a little special feature on Ultimate when it first came out. Piranha Plant was on my list of five for a potential Squad Strike, and I’m happy to say it’ll stay there. It has great recovery and battering moves, plus spitting poison and summoning Petey Piranha is its Final Smash. Surprising for something I thought was a hoax, but a pleasant surprise all the same.

DRAGON BALL PROJECT Z ANNOUNCED

It’s time to relive the story of the mysterious Dragon Balls once again! Bandai Namco have released an announcement trailer, as well as a few details for Project Z. It is being developed by CyberConnect 2, who are known for the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm and .Hack series. It is aimed to be released this year on PS4, Xbox One and PC. It will include both Japanese and English voiceovers.

Shahan’s Opinion: Massive Dragon Ball fan here. After watching Dragon Ball Super: Broly in the cinema, I hugely welcome this announcement. It’s exciting to see this is an action RPG and open-world too. It reminds me of fond memories I had playing Buu’s Fury on my Game Boy Advance SP.

POKÉMON PAIR UP IN THE TCG – TEAM UP NOW AVAILABLE!

Double battles are nothing new in the Pokémon video games but they’re here to be in the limelight in the latest trading card game expansion. Sun & Moon – Team Up features unique pairings of Pokémon to form the six new Tag Team Pokémon-GX cards. Check them out in the short video above. These cards are high-risk high reward. They have a lot of power and HP but if knocked out your opponent takes three Prize cards (six Prize cards equals a victory).

The expansion has 196 cards (including the secret rare ones) and it includes four Prism Star cards. There are also dozens of Trainer cards such as Erika’s Hospitality; the Full Art print of this card is glorious. The two theme decks for this expansion are called Relentless Flame (Charizard) and Torrential Cannon (Blastoise).

Shahan’s Opinion: It’s great that the focus is on the original 151 Pokémon. The pairings are great! I’m partial to the Latios and Latias pairing personally. If any were to be Dale’s favourite, it’s got to be the Gengar and Mimikyu duo.

Dale’s Opinion: Been a while since I even thought about Pokémon cards! But Shahan isn’t wrong – I do love my Ghost-types and Gengar (as well as Gastly and Haunter) is a personal fave.

GLOSSING OVER…

Resident Evil 2 Remake a Success

The remake of Resident Evil 2 has made it to the Top 5 Most-Played Games on Steam, a first for the franchise. Fans will also be happy to hear about three DLC stories coming soon.

Latest Fallout 76 Patch Reintroduces Old Bugs

The headline speaks for itself. Do you ever think they should just recall Fallout 76 and start again? Hasn’t been great for them so far, has it? One wonders if Bethesda are deliberately trying to alienate their players.

Sony Japan Patents New Backwards-Compatibility System

A system patented by Sony Japan is to be applied to a new console (at this time, hopefully the PS5). This system will enable that console’s CPU to interpret the central unit of previous PlayStation generations, from PS4 all the way back to the PS1.

Resident Evil 2 Demo Hits Record Player Count

ISSUE 7 — 20 January 2019

by Shahan Ahmed and Dale Hurst

Top Story — RESIDENT EVIL 2 DEMO PLAYER COUNT HITS A RECORD 11K

Capcom has been on the right track in recent years. Monster Hunter World is their best-selling game ever. Positive reception of Mega Man 11. Devil May Cry is looking to be a return to form for Dante and friends. And they’ve also managed to turn the Resident Evil series around. Turning away from the action game direction, they’ve headed back towards their horror roots with Resident Evil 7.

The remake of Resident Evil 2 releases next week on the 25th. Beforehand, Capcom has made available a demo that lets you play the game once for 30 minutes (of course, players have found a way around this). The demo lets you control Leon S. Kennedy as he explores the Raccoon Police Department and what has occurred there. The full game will also have you play as Claire Redfield, so the two will be available to play just like in the original. Where the remake differs is in the use of the RE Engine, which was also used for Resident Evil 7. So the gameplay is modernised and there are no fixed camera angles like there were back then. This has caused Capcom to think of other ways to bring the horror, for example through the lighting, sound design, etc.

Signs point to the launch of this series’ latest instalment being the biggest in the franchise – if the demo’s player count is anything to go by. The RE2 Remake demo has had almost triple the amount of concurrent players on Steam than RE7’s demo had. RE2R hit a peak of 11,000 players while RE7’s ‘Beginning Hour’ demo reached 4,000. Will Capcom hit the ball out of the park once again? We won’t have to wait too long to see…

Shahan’s Opinion: Hopefully this will influence other big game developers to make triple-A horror titles. There’s nowhere near enough high quality scary games to play.

New Character Spotlight — GERAS (Mortal Kombat 11)

April 23rd — get over here! That’s Mortal Kombat 11’s release date, after all. And as it rapidly approaches, NetherRealm Studios are showcasing more of what is to come. They made the controversial decision to make Shao Kahn available to anyone who pre-orders the game. And Ronda Rousey of UFC and WWE fame will now be the voice actor for the classic MK character Sonya Blade.

This week they have released a gameplay trailer. Not only that, they have revealed one of the new characters to be introduced to the series; Geras. He has the ability to control time, use stone and sand as well as teleport in order to rip off bones, break limbs and vice versa. However, in terms of the story, not much is known about him, except that he serves Kronika, who deems herself ‘The Keeper of Time’. She is also completely new to the franchise but is said to be “running the show since the first Mortal Kombat” according to Ed Boon; the series’ co-creator. After the main staple character Raiden kills Shinnok in MKX and affects the timeline, Kronika intervenes to bring balance to the universe. She will be the first female main antagonist for Mortal Kombat.

Shahan’s Opinion: The animation looks to have been much improved from the previous game. Geras’ whole ‘Sands of Time’ aesthetic reminds me of Prince of Persia. So it’s a thumbs up from me!

Dale’s Opinion: You know my opinion on huge-roster games and Mortal Kombat is no exception. Geras’ moves and skills look right up my street. May have found a replacement for Shinnok…

EA CANCELS OPEN-WORLD STAR WARS GAME

Recovered from all of the Star Wars that Disney is forcing upon us? (Geddit? Forcing?) Either way, there’s one addition to the series that has been pulled from your reach. Electronic Arts has cancelled a SW project and it’s not the first time.

Their Vancouver office was reportedly working on an open-world Star Wars game since the shutdown of Visceral Games back in 2017. Before their closure, Visceral (developers of the Dead Space series) were working on a linear SW game codenamed ‘Ragtag’ with Amy Hennig of Uncharted fame as director. Art assets were taken from Ragtag by EA Vancouver and implemented in an open-world game nicknamed ‘Orca’. This is the latest Star Wars game that was cancelled. Why was it cancelled? Because it was deemed that it would take too long to develop and launch. So, it was scrapped, and resources were put towards a smaller Star Wars project without laying anyone off.

EA sent a statement to Kotaku a day after their publication saying,

“There’s been speculation overnight about one of our Star Wars projects. As a natural part of the creative process, the great work by our team in Vancouver continues and will evolve into future Star Wars content and games. We’re fully committed to making more Star Wars games, we’re very excited about Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order from Respawn, and we’ll share more about our new projects when the time is right.”

Shahan’s Opinion: For me, being reminded of Ragtag’s cancellation is sad. Especially being a fan of Amy Hennig’s work, particularly on the Legacy of Kain series.

VALVE’S ARTIFACT HITS LOWEST PLAYER COUNT

For anyone unaware, Valve surprisingly has developed and launched a video game recently. Named Artifact, it is a digital card game (à la Hearthstone) that is based on Valve’s Dota 2 universe. Artifact was also designed by Richard Garfield, the creator of the original trading card game Magic: The Gathering.

It received a mixed reception due to its high learning curve and how it has been monetised. After all, it is not free-to-play like many of its competitors. It is a digital card game you pay for and then you have to pay for the cards you want to play with as well!

Within weeks of launching, the player base dropped and carried on dropping. By the beginning of December it had lost 60% of its players. Now, after two months of the game’s release, Artifact has lost 97% of its players!

Shahan’s Opinion: I’ve played a few card games here and there. Both digital and the real cardboard stuff! I still have my shiny Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards in a binder! But I’ve never played Dota and Artifact’s art style does not appeal to me personally.

GLOSSING OVER…

AGDQ Funds Counted…

In light of last week’s top story, we felt it was necessary to inform readers that AGDQ 2019 raised a fantastic $2.4 million. This comes as the result of over 40,000 donations.

Steam Has 30,000 Games on Platform

While this is a whopping figure, these 30,000 games do not include any associated DLC or software. With the increase in games released on the platform over the past couple of years, it is expected/hoped that Steam will release up to 10,000 games in 2019.

From Bad to Worse for Atlas

Pirates-themed MMO Atlas has gone offline a couple of times due to hacker and cheater activity. Things such as spawning tanks, whales and planes, as well as hackers regaining admin permissions and spawning dragons.

Thank you for reading — we apologise it’s a little short this week, but both of us are sick and it’s been a bit of a quiet week in the gaming world. Hope to see you next issue!