Sora

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.

HEROES OF THE STORM NOW ON THE BACK BURNER?

ISSUE 5 — 16 December 2018

by Shahan Ahmed and Dale Hurst

Top Story — HEROES OF THE STORM IS LEAVING THE NEXUS?

Blizzard has announced that they are taking some of the developers behind their “love letter to Blizzard’s worlds and characters” Heroes of the Storm, and moving them to other teams who are making both live games and unannounced projects. They have said that the game will continue to be worked on and new content will come. Nevertheless, it is clear that Heroes of the Storm will no longer be high priority from this moment onwards.

In addition to this, Blizzard has cancelled the Heroes Global Championship and Heroes of the Dorm events in 2019. This stifles any hope of Heroes of the Storm ever being a viable e-sport. This announcement comes as a shock to anyone who made a living off of the game. Heroes of the Storm streamers are already moving on to other MOBAs, such as League of Legends or Dota 2. Many in the pro scene feel blindsighted and left in the dark, including players, coaches and captains.

Examples include Liam O’Malley, an aspiring HotS e-sport player who was about to join the Endemic team, dropped out of college for Heroes of the Storm. He spent three years to pursue his dream of playing in the Heroes Global Championship.

Then there’s Justing, who is captain of Simplicity’s HotS team, who said: “good thing i [sic] *was* a team owner and asked repeatedly for information, even signed on for an apartment and I was given *zero* information regarding my job in 2019 LOL what a joke”.

Finally, Darrie, general manager of the professional gaming organisation known as Method, made a statement. It included the disbanding of Method HotS and termination agreements being sent to team members.

Shahan’s Opinion: I tend to lose interest in Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas, but I remember spending a fair amount of time with Heroes of the Storm. Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, was my go-to character.

Negative Vibes — SMASH BROS. ULTIMATE ONLINE TURNS E-SPORT PLAYERS OFF…

It has been regarded as one of the top crossover games in history so far, and a fast-selling (forgive the pun) smash-hit with Nintendo Switch players. It broke records in Japan and the UK.

However, like with so many great games, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate‘s online multiplayer mode has left a fair bit to be desired. A lot of users have called their subscriptions to the Nintendo Switch Online service a waste of money for a number of reasons. Lag, for one thing. In the early days of online multiplayer gameplay, lag was to be expected. But years have passed since then, so you would expect developers to have ironed out such issues – especially for such a popular fighting franchise as Smash Bros.!

Another thing aggravating gamers is the online mode’s seeming inability to honour the rules preferences for multiplayer matches. That is to say, you could want a 1 vs. 1 match with no items, and end up with four fighters and Pokéballs flying all over the shop.

All these issues have now reportedly put off e-sport players. That’s a huge blow for Nintendo, who have been quick to implement as many tweaks and fixes to their online modes to win back this large chunk of their customer base.

Dale’s Opinion: I am not big on the online gameplay, personally, so this doesn’t bother me too much. Having just bought the game with the console, I am just glad to hear the game has received rave reviews for its offline modes. I’ll just stick to those I guess.

New Character Spotlight — 2B (Soul Calibur VI)

The main heroine of the popular NieR: Automata is coming to Soul Calibur VI on Tuesday. We’re posting this ahead of time before we take a break for Christmas.

2B is a man-made battle android tasked with fighting a machine army sent by invaders from another world. Her game is set in the year 11945 AD on a post-apocalyptic Earth. Androids lack emotions and true names but they have particular attitudes to set them apart; 2B’s attitudes being calm and composed.

NieR: Automata has passed 3 million sales worldwide and is getting a ‘Game of the YoRHa Edition’ next year on February 21st. It will include the base game and all DLC.

Shahan’s Opinion: I might just have to ditch Taki and check her out! Hmm… Do you think she compares well to Ivy? I’m sure Dale doesn’t think so!

Dale’s Opinion: Yeahhhh, I’m a bit too loyal to Ivy to trade her in for a newer model. I’ll still give 2B a go, mind you…

KINGDOM HEARTS III TRAILER ARRIVES!

Square Enix has shown a new trailer for Kingdom Hearts III this week. The trailer is a sneak peek as to how Sora’s adventure will begin. It features the trio of trios (Hmm… The three trinities? Triple Triads! Ha! Sorry; Final Fantasy joke…) of friends and the villains they’ve faced in past games as well as Mickey, Donald and Goofy. It also includes a young Xehanort with the glorious-looking chess set from previous trailers that symbolises his plans being in action. Square better make a real-life chess set like that!

The trailer is accompanied by the song ‘Face My Fears’, another song by Utada Hikaru but this time featuring Skrillex! Who knew he was a big fan of the KH series? He approached Square Enix to do a remix of ‘Don’t Think Twice’, the main theme of the latest game. Instead, this ‘banger’ or ‘bop’ came to fruition.

Shahan’s Opinion: This collab between Hikaru Utada and Skrillex has divided fans but the song is right up my alley! Loving it. If I had to group the songs, Don’t Think Twice leans more towards the melodic Sanctuary while Face My Fears is more on Simple and Clean’s energetic side. But as always, Utada manages to give each song a unique feel to it.

KINGDOM HEARTS III FULL GAME LEAKED!?!

Staying with the same topic, it turns out the full Kingdom Hearts III game has been leaked over a month early! Fans are warning each other to beware and steer clear of any spoilers.

Mods on the r/Kingdom Hearts sub-Reddit are ready to ban anyone who posts any leaks. There are rumours going around on Twitter as to the origins of this leak. It all points to copies being stolen during the shipping of the game. The director of Kingdom Hearts III has responded to the situation, as below:

KH3 Leak Response

Shahan’s Opinion: To be fair, even if you DO see any spoilers, good luck trying to understand how it all fits in with the rest of the crazy plot!

OFFICIAL UNION FOR UK GAME DEVELOPERS

GWUU logo

Unionising efforts in the United Kingdom have led to the formation of an official legal trade union called the Game Workers Unite UK. It is the first union of the video game industry in the country. Its goals include fighting racism and sexism, ending unpaid overtime and securing a liveable wage for all.

This is welcome news after hearing about the woeful conditions that come with the industry’s infamous crunch times. If you haven’t heard, various famous game companies have a culture where overtime is standard and just part of the job. Not long ago, stories broke out over Rockstar being guilty of this after one of the co-founders proudly claimed he did 100-hour weeks working on Red Dead Redemption 2.

Shahan’s Opinion: After hearing the many horror stories of gaming industry’s crunch times, it is good news that workers are getting the support they need for their rights.

GLOSSING OVER…

The Game Awards’ Viewership Doubles

It was announced this week that 2018’s TGAs reached a record viewership of 26 million people. That’s over twice the figure from last year’s ceremony.

Real Money for Virtual Gold Bars

Microtransactions are now available on Red Dead Online, allowing you to purchase gold bars for real money as opposed to earning them in-game.

Stardew Valley Multiplayer Update Now Available

The update for the Multiplayer mode of the Nintendo Switch’s Stardew Valley was released on Wednesday 12th. You can click here for the full details of the update.

THANK YOU FOR READING!

Once again, we hope you have enjoyed the content. As mentioned earlier, we will be taking a couple of weeks off now for Christmas and New Year. In which case, we can wish you season’s greetings and all the best for 2019! See you then!