The Gaming Den

Shenmue III kickstarter announced, becomes fastest to $1 million ever.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ys ... -3/updates

MGSV's final trailer released
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJVxPAiB7as

Final Fantasy VII Remake announced
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kznek1uNVsg

Dark Souls III announced (officially):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5lklWVcl1Y

What a lovely day

OgreBattle wrote:Shenmue III kickstarter announced, becomes fastest to $1 million ever.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ys ... -3/updates

I... I... I...

I love this world. When you wish and hope and pray for something to happen for more than half your life and it actually comes true. I think I'm gonna cry.

Dishonored 2 had a nice trailer, though I am of the opinion that Emily should really be too busy Empressing to be the female player character.

Fallout 4 has me legitimately excited, and the character creator bit was a trolling masterclass*. Not enthused about a voiced protagonist or the dialogue wheel with four options, but the rest looks promising.

Elder Scrolls Online still exists, and they are trying to claim some Hearthstone money.

EA had a terrible press conference and made the mistake of allowing an indie developer to speak in front of a crowd.

We have a release month for Mirror's Edge 2: next February.

Ubisoft has a professional actress to run their press conference and it was by far the most pleasant to watch.

They opened with For Honor, which has nice-looking sword fights, 4v4 multiplayer with swarms of weak bots. Not entirely clear on how it works overall; people have said that the bot swarms seem like a MOBA but I didn't see any towers.

There is a thing called Just Dance and they brought up some dude I'd never heard of for a musical number. No gameplay footage.

Tom Clancy's something-or-other is an MMO with zombies that enshrines griefing and had a demo where the voicechat sounded like they were reading a script from a terrible war movie. Apparently the mechanics allow you to, at the end of a mission, betray the group and murder everyone to steal all the loot. That might be fun to do, but not to have happen to you every goddamn time.

The new Assassin's Creed is set in London circa 1886 (close to Jack The Ripper). Also, in the PS4 conference I learned that after Unity they've decided to have male and female twins as the protagonists.

The Rainbow 6 demo had conversation that felt much more real than the Tom Clancy one. Seemed like interesting coop.

PS4 demo was almost all about exclusives, which I suppose is to be expected.

Horizon has you fighting robot dinosaurs and looks fun. Also, female lead!

FF7 remake! It's a thing!

Shenmue III is a sequel to a game I've never played and know nothing about.

No Man's Sky continues to be wildly ambitious.

There was some bizarre indie thingy called Dreams or something. It will <buzzword buzzword buzzword>.

ATLUS was conspicuous by their absence.

There was an Uncharted demo, and we know it was done live because it spectacularly fucked up and a scripted event early on didn't fire so they had to start over.

*Basically, way back there was a rumor on Reddit that there would be a voiced, male-only protagonist, and while it wasn't particularly credible it fit the initial trailer closely enough people were actually concerned. Then during the show they were showing off the character creator with a male character and there wasn't a visible gender-select option, which had everyone on edge. Then, having finished showing off the options, he added "and of course you can play as a female character"

Microsoft was all "Xbone will have an FPS! And this FPS! And this FPS which we swear will be different from the first two! Here's how we keep shit new despite Satan, in our contract with his Dark Majesty for our financial gain, removing our ability to understand the concept of 'new.' "

And then Sony came out wearing pimp suits, strolling with the canes, and throwing hundred-dollar-bills into the air every other step and went, "THIS IS HAPPENING, BITCHES. IT'S ALL HAPPENING."

FF7 remake! It's a thing!

Because everyone wants to play Nomura's Belt Fetishes: Episode 1. Again. For the the billionth time. I swear, Nomura's character designs are literally cancer. Can we re-do Final Fantasy 4 or 6 and stay true to Amano's designs instead? That would be a much prettier game necessitating the use of, I don't know, FUCKING COLOR AND LIFE. Nomura's character designs all look like lifeless fucking RealDolls.

So far, E³ has only given me half of what i was hoping for . .
No news on a new Dawn of War ;_;
Sega now owns these rights i think.
And they decided to no show E³ <.<

I'd rather a remake of FF5: Hat Collection. Hell they could even do a tie-in with TF2, I hear that game likes hats. That said, I will laugh if the ending to FF7R ends up being the entire Advent Children movie.

Apparently there's going to be a new Doom, and it's fairly true to the original with visceral combat and crazy fast movement. Also it doesn't appear to be shrouded in darkness. Actually I'll just say it: it looks like Brutal Doom with a nice new engine. I'll probably end up buying that when it gets released, pending sudden changes that make it shit.

Maxus wrote:And then Sony came out wearing pimp suits, strolling with the canes, and throwing hundred-dollar-bills into the air every other step and went, "THIS IS HAPPENING, BITCHES. IT'S ALL HAPPENING."

Sony has been pimp slapping M$ since the whole used game DRM launch debacle.

RelentlessImp wrote:

FF7 remake! It's a thing!

Because everyone wants to play Nomura's Belt Fetishes: Episode 1. Again. For the the billionth time. I swear, Nomura's character designs are literally cancer. Can we re-do Final Fantasy 4 or 6 and stay true to Amano's designs instead? That would be a much prettier game necessitating the use of, I don't know, FUCKING COLOR AND LIFE. Nomura's character designs all look like lifeless fucking RealDolls.

Fun story: I got every single FF7 fetishist in my real-world circle of friends to replay the game a few years back. The general consensus: "Welp, I don't know what I saw in that game. It's all so very meh."

That said, it's not a terrible game, and if the remake fixes the atrocious dialogue and utterly batshit incoherent story, well, I still wouldn't replay it but at least some kids would be able to play it and see what the fuss is about without the polygons piercing their eyes to death.

...But who are we kidding. It'll obviously be a strict graphical upgrade with a sidequest to resurrect Aeris, a cash-grab for those sweet nostalgia dollars.

MisterDee wrote: Fun story: I got every single FF7 fetishist in my real-world circle of friends to replay the game a few years back. The general consensus: "Welp, I don't know what I saw in that game. It's all so very meh."

I never owned FF7, but I got to play some of it at a friend's house back when it first came out and I remember my impression was all "Wow look at those super 3d graphics with guns blazing and strafing lasers and explosions and shit!"

But tried to play it again in an emulator a few years back and "meh" was pretty much my reaction.

Really good games remain good even after their graphics get old.

Isn't FF7 usually the one that everyone says is the best of the series? I've never played any FF game, so I'm somewhat ignorant on which games are considered good or not (I'm more of a DW/DQ guy.)

Nah, that's an highly debated point, with the main contenders last time I checked being FF VI (great story and gameplay, even basic enemies get developed AI, but limited by the tech at the time), VII and X(excellent graphics as the first PS2 FF and had some interesting new mechanics to back it up, story seems like it was made on drugs however, also has an secret insta-kill attack that actually insta-kills everything except the final boss final's form, but you literally can't lose at that point).

FF VIII is considered the worst by most fans.

FF I and II are pretty basic but they have the excuse of being the start of the series. FF XII was basically a solo MMO in both the good and bad sense.

FF XIII is disgustingly linear, but has some likeable characters and a female lead for a change.

FF XI was an MMO with stuff like bosses that would beat a raid simply by the players starting to collapse after 12+ hours of "this is not even my final form!" dickery. FF XIV is also a MMO that seems to have met some success.

FF XV only got a demo out so far, but getting a lot of critics because it's been officialized it will be a boys party only and girls can't join permanently because they have cooties or something.

Kinda of a spin-off, but Final Fantasy tactics has plenty of loyal fans as well, being turn-based board strategy. The sequel was pretty much a miss.

FF XIII-2 is fairly decent. It fixes many of the problems of XIII - namely the terrible linearity.

FF XIV is remarcable for its launch being so bad that Square had to publicly apologize and offer refunds.

The Expansion to FF XIV, Realm Reborn, got a much more warm welcome.

Personally my favorite games are 6 and 9, if only for the magitech settings and the enjoyable cast. 6 tries to be super grimdark with rays of hope, too. 9's "Like 7, someone is not what they appear to be" subplot was done intensely better than 7's.

RelentlessImp wrote:9's "Like 7, someone is not what they appear to be" subplot was done intensely better than 7's.

Except for Necron and the SUDDEN reveal that Monkey D. Zidan is actually an amnesiac angel of death from another world.

FFVII blew everyone's mind because of the goddamn FMVs. That's why Square decided to focus on those over everything else in every progressive FF. These days the FMVs are trash leaving FFVII as just one of the better JRPGs.

Longes wrote:

RelentlessImp wrote:9's "Like 7, someone is not what they appear to be" subplot was done intensely better than 7's.

Except for Necron and the SUDDEN reveal that Monkey D. Zidan is actually an amnesiac angel of death from another world.

Cloud being a complete and total pansy that's suppressed his entire fucking life and pretended to be someone else isn't worse than that? Because that plot point nearly gave me an aneurysm playing FF7.

I will never understand why anybody gives 13 the time of day. It ranks on down there with 8 and Crystal Chronicles as far as my least favorite FFs go. I'm a big fan of FF Tactics storyline wise, and 9 would come in at second place. X an 12 were 'ok'. I remember playing FF7 long ago and enjoying it as both the first FF that I played and was old enough to even understand along with it having a bunch of just 'stuff' along with the visuals.

My opinion of FF7 has soured over the years (mostly because of the fans) and now that they are remaking FF7 I just don't care.

Final Fantasy VII was exceptionally poorly translated; even when the game bothers to explain itself (which it should do more of; it leaves the viewer to fill in some very substantial gaps), the explanations themselves tend to be misleading in key ways.

There's this megacorp called Shinra that extracts magical juice called mako from the ground and turns it into electricity. Mako extraction is slowly killing the planet and also eventually they're going to run out. It's fucking oil. Also, there are these ancient people called the cetra, who have the natural ability to sense magical not-oil in the ground. Legend has it they used this natural ability to travel the planet in search of the promised land; the promised land is a place with a fuckton of magical not-oil. Hearing this story gives Shinra an erection.

One day some scientist dude named Gast digs up Jenova's remains and mistakenly thinks she is one of the cetra (she is actually a malevolent space demon). Shinra, aforementioned erection barely concealed, sends Hojo to investigate. In this case, that means spending thirty years injecting people - including his own unborn child - with Jenova cells and then exposing them to huge doses of mako. This experiment has four possible outcomes (from most likely to least likely):
1) You die.
2) Jenova's cells turn your brain into scrambled eggs and puppet you around in an attempt to reunite themselves with their true owner.
3) You pass your fortitude saving throw and nothing happens.
4) You become superhuman.

Sephiroth is Hojo's aforementioned unborn child, and is (outside of shitty spinoffs no one cares about) the only person to luck out and become superhuman. Skip a bunch of years and bullshit no one cares about, and now Sephiroth, Zack, and Cloud are all members of the Shinra armed forces; Sephiroth a war hero, Zack a member of the SOLDIER elite forces, and Cloud an infantry grunt. They're headed to Nibelheim, Cloud's hometown, to secure a malfunctioning mako reactor.

Everything about sending Sephiroth to Nibelheim is a massive plot-advancing idiot ball. First, Hojo is keeping both Jenova and a bunch of his Jenova-related experiments at the reactor. Second, the basement of the manor at which they are staying contains a bunch of documentation on how Hojo created Sephiroth. Given that they are trying to hide his origins from him, it's completely fucking stupid to send Sephiroth to this place. Sephiroth is the worst possible person to send to this reactor, and this is the worst possible reactor to send Sephiroth to. Anyway so obviously Sephiroth figures out what he is and goes fucking crazy. Long story short he burns Nibelheim to the ground then disappears into the depths of the reactor with Jenova's severed head. Meanwhile Zack and Cloud are recovered by Shinra and given to Hojo because hey disposing of witnesses with human experiments is killing two birds with one stone. Zack passes his fortitude saving throw and nothing happens. Cloud has his brain turned into scrambled eggs.

Eventually Zack escapes, dragging a comatose Cloud along with him. The two spend a year on the run, and Zack spends a lot of this time talking to the vegetable formerly known as Cloud. No, seriously. Cloud is comatose during Zack's death scene. If you're wondering how Cloud came to join AVALANCHE on the mission at the beginning of the story, it's because Tifa found him mumbling like a crazy homeless person on the subway train and took him home.

FFVII's big reveal is supposed to be that Cloud Strife had his brain wiped before the events of the story proper and has been piecing together an identity out of his own fragmented memory and the things Zack talked to (at?) him about while they were on the run. Also how much of that mind is his own is up for debate. Jenova is exerting some influence on him; that's how Sephiroth keeps fucking with his head. Then there's a really stupid segment near the end of the game where Cloud "recovers" his true self through the power of the lifestream and the healing power of Tifa's boobs or something I don't fucking care it's terrible.

The reason people like FF7 so much is the same reason people like FF6 so much: it was their first JRPG.

MGuy wrote:My opinion of FF7 has soured over the years (mostly because of the fans) and now that they are remaking FF7 I just don't care.

Same here. In fact, I imagine a great many people agree with that summary.

Re FF9: I wasn't bothered too much about Zidane being revealed as an alien death angel. I'm not sure where Necron came from but I don't see why it's such a huge deal. Most Final Fantasy games seem kind of stupid as I replay them with adult eyes. FF5 is good because it at least embraces that it's kind of stupid and hams it up.

FF8 was a good effort, but fell a little flat in translation.

I liked FFX and X-2 despite the obvious flaws of both.

I don't know if I'll play the ff7 remake unless they did a total mechanical revamp like they did for FF4 DS.

I thought they already did a remake of FF7?

No, they did a re-release for PC.