General Games Discussion

RealGunner wrote:Mate said Anthem is a lot more like warframe than Destiny.

Day never in either case.

He's right.

Apex Legends might just be my favorite MP game of this gen. Best BR game out there, players don't turn into an 8 story building when you shoot at them, just fast paced shooting like Titanfall. Respawn are on another level when it comes to shooters. The best part is interest in Titanfall has been renewed thanks to Apex.

I want Respawn to make a non sci-fi, FPS game. The devs who went over from Infinity Ward might feel like they're done with all of that and want to try new things, but I think they took the best parts of Call of Duty with them, and I really prefer the relatively more realistic shooters. I don't know if I'll ever enjoy Call of Duty again, my interest has plummeted as I've gotten older and my sense of competitivenes has been gradually fading away, but I genuinely want to see a Titanfall in a modern day setting, without the sci-fi elements. Playing Titanfall 2 really reminded me of how much I missed their smooth controls and maps with a more narrow, focused and simplistic design. I have yet to play Apex Legends. Never was a huge fan of Battle Royale, but I might check it out.

They are making a lightsaber focused single player Star Wars game

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:They are making a lightsaber focused single player Star Wars game

Great. EA have a super fantastic track record with Star Wars themed games  

Hopefully, they'll make an attempt to re-gain some faith from fans with this one.

Know what you mean, it will probably be cancelled one day before release.

Is the star wars game confirmed?

RealGunner wrote:Is the star wars game confirmed?

Aye end of this year apparently, but as always with EA it's wise to remain skeptical.

RealGunner wrote:Is the star wars game confirmed?

Star Wars is dead, there's only Disney Wars now.

#59

Game: Magic Knight Rayearth.
Year: 1995 in Japan, 1998 in NA.
Genre: Action Adventure.
Publisher: Sega, Working Designs.
Developer: Sega.



First things first, I am changing my rating system to a simpler 10 point system. Games that get above a 7 I fully recommend, and those that get below that are mostly a waste of time. That leaves the score of 7 to depend on your taste

Although one of the first games unveiled for the Saturn, Magic Knight Rayearth was actually the last official game released in North America. That was due to the extensive localization needed for a game that pushed the narrative boundaries of the time.

Based on a well-known magical girl anime, this is actually an adaptation that successfully tells a story while being a good game in its own right. The rare anime adaptation that works.

"This land, this place. The dark tide must be quelled. I must call them"

Heavily based on the anime of the same name, the plot of the game will be very familiar to fans of the show, even if there are some notable changes to the plot. Namely the fact that it skips the second part of the anime and combines the entire story in one arc.

For the non-fans, the story is a familiar Magical Girl Anime trope. Three Tokyo teenaged girls are summoned to the endangered world of Cephiro, where they need to fulfill their destiny of becoming Magical Knights and rescuing the princess Emerald. Emerald's disappearance is throwing the world of Cephiro into chaos, and the many locales of the place are in danger because of that.

The three girls, Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu, all represent well-worn anime archetypes. From the feisty red leader, Hikaru, to the geeky eye-glass wearing Fuu. Their development into the Magic Knights, which requires them to grow with the plot, is the major theme of the game.

Trying to stop them is the evil wizard Zagat and his band of hapless minions, who, to the story's credit, do get fleshed out more than expected. Even if the exposition is a bit forced sometimes.

The plot unravels through character dialogue, which is voice acted in the important scenes. Also, there is a big number of anime cut scenes that do not gracefully follow the action. In fact, I would say the anime cut scenes are more a distraction than an asset.

Surprisingly, the majority of dialogue and character interactions were really good. In fact, there are many times where NPCs would say something funny in a meta-level, but the important bits of dialogue and exposition are also mostly well-done. Of course, there is the occasional cliched scene or two, where the otherwise decent VA creeks under poorly written lines and unnatural developments.

"Hmph! It appears that the Magic Knights have been summoned from beyond the barrier"

In order to develop their powers, the three girls must grow and find their inner strength, and they do that by helping the various communities of Cephiro. That's basically the driving force behind the Action Adventure gameplay.

Similar to the Legen of Zelda the game is a top-down action adventure. Each of the three characters has their own attack style and spells, and you can freely switch between them. While some may call it an Action RPG, the progression is more like Zelda compared to anything else.

Each location has its own dungeon or two, and these are mostly straightforward affairs with simple puzzles. I imagine a better version of this game would have had character-specific abilities to solve some smart puzzles.

Except, the limited challenge of the game is mostly based on the combat. Yet, with the combined strength of the three girls, especially with Fuu's homing charged arrows, the game is rarely hard even against the exciting bosses.

"Alcione... The time is come for a little child abuse"

You shouldn't look at the game's lack of challenge as a serious negative though. While it is true that the gameplay doesn't reach its full potential because of that, the core game is still enjoyable enough despite its relative simplicity.

That's probably due to an always forward-momentum that help you breeze through the game without feeling bogged down at any one moment. Since the story and characters are nice enough, each new location or dungeon is an exciting new thing to quickly overcome and go forward again.

One activity that requires some backtracking is in collecting some of the 64 Rainbow amulets, which is a side activity that offers some exploration incentive without being necessary.

In the other hand, if you don't like difficult Action Adventure games, then this game is right up your alley, with a gentle difficulty and learning curve all the way through to the end.

"Ya know, in my day we didn't have bloomin' video games to rot our minds! We played with rocks and sticks and mud all day, and we LIKED it! We LOVED it!"

One of the many sticking points against the game, when it was originally released, is that it didn't go far from the graphics and presentation of the 16bit era. When games like Bug! and Blazing Heroes were released with polygonal models, Magic Knight Rayearth was simply an upscaled 16bit game.

That is exactly why this game looks great when most early games (And even later) of the Saturn have aged terribly.

The sprites look really good against a crisp and detailed environment. Character portraits are nice-looking an expressive, and their emotions are conveyed in cute little touches in the animations, touches you see in many an anime.

While this level of care doesn't always include the enemy monster models (except the bosses), the game's graphics are consistently good and are a reminder of why 2D game style never went out of fashion.

Complementing the graphics is an impressive array of anime cut-scenes and cinematics that do not always work. Somehow, the voice acting in the in-game scenes is miles better than the anime cut-scenes. That brings us to the VS, which is surprisingly decent, except when it is ill-served by some unnatural lines in the script.

The same cannot be said about the music, which is really the only thing that should have been made up to the increased standards of the Saturn. As it is, few tracks are memorable, and it just reminds me of how little I liked the Genesis soundtracks compared to the SNES.

In Conclusion:

As the last game released on the Saturn in North America, the game symbolizes a lot of what went wrong with the console. Released late because Sega worried about marketing a 2D sprites game in the midst of a technology race, Sega instead bet on the Saturn's weaknesses instead of its strengths.

Looking much better than the games that were developed after it, and perfectly adapting the heart of its anime source, Magic Knight Rayearth somehow became the rare good adaptation. Although limited in its gameplay, and you can feel areas where it could have been better, I had a good time finishing the game.

Final: 8/10

Pros:

• Good story with funny dialogue sometimes
  
• Tries its best at endearing you to the game's world and characters
  
• Good graphics that aged very well
  
• Gameplay is fun most of the time with good bosses
  

Cons:

• Rarely challenging and doesn't reach the full potential of the combat
  
• The story does suffer from the cliched moment or two
  
• The music is mostly forgettable
  

"Tips"
1- Depend on Fuu's Heal magic instead of potions.
2- Fuu's charge attack is your go-to in times of difficulty.
3- Make sure not to let any character die, because they cannot be healed for the rest of the dungeon.
4- There always is a health fountain before a boss.

"Next Game"

I don't think I would have enjoyed a magical girl game back when I was a kid, not as much as I liked the game now.

Next on the list would be a report review of the games from 60 to 51, since the rest after Magic Knight Rayearth are games from genres I don't usually cover. Still, I will try and give each game a try.

Stay Tuned

An hour in and im having fun in Anthem

y i k e s

shock

The game went through development hell of FFXV proportions. Whaddya expect?

Thimmy wrote:The game went through development hell of FFXV proportions. Whaddya expect?

Did it? Doesn't really seem like that tbh. Seems a pretty normal dev cycle as far as i can tell.

FFXV was in development for like 10 years, I'd never heard of Anthem until 2016

It looks like a shit Warframe, emphasis on SHIT, bet it was costly AF too, if we didn't see that Dragon Age teaser I'd think Bioware were done.

Bioware has been done tbh, haven't made a legit great game since Mass Effect 2.

Maybe I’m getting it mixed up with a different game. Isn’t Anthem the game that had one of it’s most important staff members die mid-development? I read a few articles on a game that had a shit ton of issues during development. I’m pretty sure it was Anthem.

Anthem's development took 6-7 years. It didn't have anywhere near what the Andromeda team seemed to have suffered.

Firenze wrote:FFXV was in development for like 10 years, I'd never heard of Anthem until 2016

It looks like a shit Warframe, emphasis on SHIT, bet it was costly AF too, if we didn't see that Dragon Age teaser I'd think Bioware were done.

Speaking of rocky developments, that one seems to be putting its name forward.

Head writer left Bioware recently, its being rewritten, apparently EA demanded "live elements" in the game, later backtracked and said they will be emphasizing the story. I have low expectations for this one.

A shame, the events of the game have been hinted at since the very start of the series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwa-mKETJW0

danyjr wrote:Anthem's development took 6-7 years. It didn't have anywhere near what the Andromeda team seemed to have suffered.

I’m on my phone right now, so I’m not going to research it, but I’m pretty sure Anthem had more development issues than Andromeda did. Again, I might’ve gotten it mixed up with a different game, but a can of worms were leaked from some of EA’s developers after it was revealed that a certain big shot among their developers had suddenly died. EA had to pull staff members from other projects, in order to compensate for the loss, but there were still tons of issues according to developers who wished to remain anonymous (not confirmed to be legit afaik). I could’ve sworn that guy was an integral part of Anthem’s development team.

Honestly even if what you say is true, from what I have gather it still doesn't top Andromeda's difficulties. Of course a lot of things stay behind the curtains but these reports are what we can judge the developments based on.

Regardless I don't think Andromeda was actually the awful game everyone had you believe. For a AAA title it was undeniably underwhelming but it wasn't a disaster of a game by any standards. In fact I liked it far more than I like Anthem.

I'm not personally interested in it but I have a feeling The Division 2 is going to be massive and reading some stuff, a fantastic improvement on the first game, which already had a lot of good mechanics. Can see it being an elite co-op experience.

Division 2

OUT.