Monthly Archives: June 2016

E3 2016 – Cygames Reveals Shadowverse Soft Launch Updates

By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW)

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Back in March around the time of PAX East, my content team was getting hammered just as a mobile review request came through my PR pipeline. With no one available and our site’s budget already pushed to the limit, I did something I rarely do and blindly accepted preview coverage on the game. To my delight, that random game was Shadowverse a high fantasy anime styled Hero CCG from Cygames, a company rather well known for producing not only mobile games but even dabbling in creating anime based on them – as is the case with Granblue Fantasy. The characters on offer in Shadowverse were not only pretty and unique, but had sass that hinted at much deeper character development. Their decks carried culture that bolstered their persona much further, and within days turned me into a bit of an addict dabbling through the seven playable heroes. If you’re unfamiliar, you can read my full impressions on that beta right here.

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But as good as the game was, it was certainly not without its faults. However in an event that surely confirms the coming apocalypse, Cygames did something few developers have had the sense to do. They read my critiques, shared them with their fans, and then invited me to a private meeting in Little Tokyo during E3 2016 to showcase just what they had done to rectify them. As I spent half an hour chatting back in forth through their translator while my content team JamesBl0nde and Bakerman Brad dabbled with some VS AI battles, one by one I checked off in my head my issues with the beta, and how they had addressed them. You know what? They addressed them all. With style! Still not perfect, mind you… but let me hit the key points that the already dedicated fanbase that experienced the beta should be happy to hear.

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Stop Hiding the Story, Damn It!
While completely unrelated to the mechanics of the card game itself, my biggest gripe with the beta was actually the presentation of the story. Any westerner that watched the following preview trailer likely scratched their head and blew the story off as poorly localized gobbledygook.

Ugh… what?

At best I figured they would post some deeper backstory on their website and call it a day. When I instead logged in to find fully voiced cutscenes tailing the escapades of not only the seven deck masters, but even a few side characters that might become playable at some point in the future, I was blown away. The stories even intertwine with each other to present a cohesive and well translated journey that makes you want to play through as every character to understand the full narrative. Plus it leads into the next positive…

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This Game is Hard! Not Everyone Played Hearthstone (maybe?)

My time in the beta consisted almost entirely of guess and checking my deck against the AI in various degrees of difficulty until finally building up to fighting their decks at full power. I had to. I knew the more savvy card game players were waiting on the interwebs to destroy me if I could barely hold my own against the AI with a beginner deck. Props to Cygames, their AI might be slow at calculating moves at times, but it knew how to play to the strengths of their decks very well.

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Still while fun simply because the core gameplay is so well made, it was a bit of a slog. Slowly winning matches to build up my decks to stand a chance likely wasn’t going to have as much appeal to others as it did to me. The introduction of the story mode kills two birds with one stone here. Essentially if you use story mode as your tutorial, Shadowverse begins to feel like a CCG RPG. Not only does it introduce you to each hero’s strengths in tutorial fashion, it then slowly scales up the challenge as you face off with increasingly more brutal battles. Winning them earns you credits and other rewards to further power up your deck. But in the end if you don’t cash shop or start grinding out online missions, you will likely need to switch to a new deck and start building out and winning their story missions in order to get resources to build up your other decks. This is a fun experience as you begin to edge each character towards their goals, seeing the same events from varying perspectives and gaining a greater understanding of the overall narrative and plot as you do so. Characters that might seem absolutely evil at first are revealed to just be misunderstood when viewed through the perspective of other characters. It honestly beats the pants off every other hero CCG out there in its presentation and concepts, and without needing to bench its success on an already existing IP and fanbase.

Shadowverse E32016 Screens

My one gripe here is small and likely related to their efforts of pacing the game. They removed the ability to read the card lore in-game. This was likely to speed up combat between live players, but I wouldn’t mind having the option back in the PvE modes when you are taking your time so you can get to know your deck better. Either way, this was a minor loss compared to the vastly improved UI upgrades in the new version, including a much more sane emote system compared to the nonsense we saw before.

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My Backstory is Deeper than my Deck Strategy
Pairing that back with gameplay itself, Shadowverse had a serious issue on the competitive spectrum. There weren’t enough cards. Even with a unified pool of neutral cards featuring mercenaries and angels that any deck could draw from, thanks to the advanced speed of resource gain in the beta I quickly unlocked 95% of the cards and realized there simply wasn’t enough variety to go around. Each deck had roughly one viable max level strategy. It might be altered slightly but not enough to give each hero a real sense of strategic focus options. The answer was the game needed more cards. Far more cards. And then the tweets began… Over the course of three months, Shadowverse continued rolling out new cards at an alarming rate. Some I worried about in terms of balance but I was pleased to say they were at least taking the risk. I’m still a long way in the soft launch from unlocking them all, but new and exciting cards are already popping up that could entirely change the way a deck is built and played.

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Rower the dragon tamer for instance was all about desperately surviving till late game to unleash all powerful dragons. Now he has an option that cuts the summon cost for both heroes in half to force your foe’s tactics into a tailspin as you suddenly spring late game battles on them. Luna, the world’s most terrifying Japanese little girl of horrors trope, was trapped in a pattern of requiring her shadows resource to do anything of value. Now she has enough “last word” summon on death cards that she can build entirely around minion master tactics that are almost entirely independent on requiring shadows to be successful. Arisa the elven fairy guardian can now stack her deck with far more efficient low cost summon cards to empower her large hand cards or multi-summon turn cards for greater effect. With less of your 40 card deck focused on stacking low cost cards, you can build out more diverse mid-game tactics to keep your foe guessing. That’s just a few examples I’ve stumbled on in my brief time testing the new version.

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Final Thoughts
Cygames has proven to me over the past couple months that they’re no joke. With 1300 employees backing their projects including members of the art team behind their globally respected flagship title, Rage of Bahamut, they’ve shown their game can adapt and grow quickly to match player demands. Over 500k players worldwide are signed up for the global launch (minus China) expected sometime between July and August, with cash based tournaments promised to follow. They’re even reaching out to strike up partnerships (I pitched Arcsys with Guilty Gear as I feel their wacky characters would blend into this world amazingly, not to mention they haven’t been opposed to cross-over partnerships in the past) to lure a larger audience of fans into their realm. I’m honestly rooting for Shadowverse’s success and hope it does well enough that we get to see their animated and twisted heroes in some form of anime just like the Granblue Fantasy treatment Cygames offered.

Check your respective appstore and see if you’re able to get into the game. The game is certainly polished enough to give you a good time right now!

E3 2016 – For Honor Campaign Preview

By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW)

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Ubisoft has taunted and teased me with their upcoming arena fighter, For Honor, mixing Skyrim style action combat with tactical real-time strategy elements to make a one of a kind “MOBA.” Show after show I petitioned with them to get an audience and never found an opening. So finally I settled. I left the last 2 hours of my E3 convention wide open, showed up at the booth, asked for access to the press kits, and then got into the massive line. “90 Minutes from this point” it read, like those daunting Disneyland line roadmarks that sent us into a downward spiral of despair as kids. Yet I stood through the madness. The Just Dance 2017 crew joined by Bethesda cosplayers, game programmers, men in suits, and a massive carrot. The Tom Clancy Wildlands presentation that (figuratively and quite literally) shook the very booth we stood in. The random celebrities surrounded by yes men and cameras who were an attraction simply because they had no idea what they hell they were looking at. Let’s just say that, much like those Disneyland lines, the attractions to distract you were plentiful as I edged ever closer to the front.

20 minutes later, I stood before a truly Canadian member of Ubisoft. In disbelief at the time, I asked him about the sign.

“We put those there just to scare people off. The show is closing soon and don’t want to have to turn people away.”

My foolhardiness to ignore logic and reason had paid off. I was now gripping a Playstation 4 control as a member of the dev team connected via wireless headset into my ear to guide me through the brutal… single player campaign?!

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The Campaign Mode Reveal
Ironically after missing my chance to experience the 5v5 head to head battles at so many conventions, I now found myself at the controls and set to miss out on it again. But putting aside my personal wants, as gaming press this was a golden opportunity! For Honor hadn’t mentioned anything about a campaign mode before. With news that it was 2 player co-op no less, I knew even those with lukewarm receptions to it so far would be turning heads. So I jumped in to begin customizing the look of The Warden, a mercenary with legendary potential who just happens to be on the wrong side of history.

While the entire first mission acts as a tutorial, don’t get the wrong idea. This battle is an actual trial by combat, as you are thrown into an impossible confrontation with the King’s elite knights. They aren’t there to siege your lord’s castle. They are there to arrest him, and repeatedly call out for him to quite his foolish last stand that carries no hope of even slowing them down. The only element they failed to factor in their plans is you.

In what can only be described as the most beautifully narrated playable cutscene in the genre, the enemy commander recalls the details of the day as you live through them. It’s hard to describe the emotions that get mixed up as he speaks in awe as you stand alone, holding off a segment of wall against a baker’s dozen of trained knights equipped with the same powerful gear as you. They climb up ladders, ambushing you from behind, surrounding you, and just making sure you feel the pressure and threat even if it is a tutorial. With my gaming training mostly circulating around keyboard + mouse and Xbox controllers, I was a true fish out of water on a PS4 controller, and anti-climatically met my end defending said wall. And that’s the easy part!

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Controlling The Warden
After a quick pep-talk with my demo overseer, I gave the wall a second try. The action controls are truly fluid once you know your way around the controller. Taking a defensive stance puts you into a locked on match-up with the nearest enemy of bad ass quality or higher akin to a Zelda game or any other sword combat titles in the last decade. Here you face off in a game of real-time rock, paper, scissors as you use your right joypad to prep yourself for left, top, or right stances. Pressing the guard button at this time will block from the direction of your stance, while attacking with quick or power attacks will launch your strike from the same direction. Understanding that the defensive and offensive stances were one was the missing jigsaw in my brain that immediately turned me from a greenhorn in an armored coffin into a berserker. The key is about misdirection, counters, and combining the two at a faster pace than your foe can keep up.

There’s three real ways to keep the pressure on your foe to maintain control of combat. The first is the aggressive route. If you’re constantly changing your stance and focusing on light hits, the early AI of the tutorial mission falters under pressure pretty fast. Even the Warden’s light attacks are rather medium in nature, doing massive damage with every hit. So long as the enemy doesn’t get a lucky block in and force you back, you can end duels in seconds. The second is the more cautious approach that was required against some of the mini-boss characters. Size up your opponent. Wait for them to strike. Block and power attack while they are staggered. Doesn’t always work but when it does, you won’t need to do much more to finish things up. Sometimes you’ll run into a super defensive foe that is ready to counter just about anything you throw at them though. In this situations, particularly when fighting in tight corridors, you should try to stay defensive to push them towards a corner. Then when you’ve got them backed up, you can go in for a short range guard break grab that makes enemies do serious staggering. If you plan the environment out, this allows for an easy power attack – light attack one two death strike.

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The demo brought me everything in the siege from holding the ramparts, to cutting down hordes of lesser enemies rushing through the front gates, to battling back archers standing their ground in the rafters of the city walls. I won’t spoil the end, but it all culminates in a battle against a bad ass that will force you to mix up your attacks, dodge and block power attacks, and use a little bit of everything that got you through the mission in order to survive. The whole demo was bug free, beautifully rendered with no hick-ups in frames, or slow downs despite closer to 60 units being moving on screen at some points. Voice acting feels authentic and adrenaline charged, and I can certainly see myself being drawn into the immersion of the story as I binge the campaign next year like a good Netflix series.

While it sounds simple in nature, the environment around you seems to keep you on your toes. Barrages of arrows from the sky, secondary lords joining the fray, and sometimes limited area to maneuver can force you to think on your feet and experiment with new offensive and defensive combinations to come out on top. To experience these elements in the most basic stage gives me hope for a truly challenging campaign as you advance. With promise of playing through the story from three perspectives including a Viking Raider and Samurai Kensei to build towards a united common enemy, this campaign alone feels worthy of being a game by itself. But knowing this all sets the stage to prepare you for online combat has me sparking with excitement.

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The wait continues with For Honor currently pushing for a release in February 2017. I’m sure there’s plenty more surprises in store for us between now and then.

Planetside 1: Farewell to Arms

Planetside

I learned a few absolutely fascinating things today.  The first being that Planetside 1, a PC First Person Shooter, was a lot older than I had thought. 2003? Really? And it’s just now going away? Now that’s longevity. It became free to play in 2014, and in 2012 Planetside 2 started up, having the games run side-by-side for quite a long while. I’ve done a few write ups on Planetside 2, and an interview with one of their people I do believe, sometime last year. One of the mainstays for SOE before they became Daybreak, Planetside as a series is pretty damn ambitious. And to see a shooter that has held its guns, if you’ll pardon the expression, for over a decade? That’s unheard of in this day and age, I think.

Planetside 1-2

Most of the time people just want their new fix, their new graphics and fancy new bullshit. But I am willing to bet there weren’t as many people playing PS1 as PS2 in the last couple years, kudos to Daybreak for keeping it up as long as they did. July 1st is the last day, and 4pm PT is the final hour. They have decided that it’s not technically or financially sound to keep it running, and who can blame them? I can’t imagine people paying to play it now, when they can just play Planetside 2, but man. It’s always hard to watch an online game meet its maker. I’m still a bit misty-eyed when I think of Final Fantasy XI’s last days. I hopped on for it, and said goodbye to my character, my friends, and my millions of gil that they could’ve given my Final Fantasy XIV character. No, I’m not bitter. While Planetside 1 is going the way of the Dodo, Planetside 2 is growing still! So if this is your first time looking at either game, maybe you should take a peek, yeah?

. . . As long as we don’t see in a few years, “Planetside 1: HD Remake: Deluxe Edition”, I won’t start going gray prematurely.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Double the Rehash

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Okay guys, E3 is officially over! There’s lots of footage to go through and potential games to think about. Ubisoft had a pretty decent showing, but one thing kind of bothers me. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands. Is it beautiful? Oh my lord that game is pretty. It’s a terrific picturesque game built in South America [specifically Bolivia]. It’s vibrant, it’s alive. Through it all sneak our heroes: Ghosts; unseen, unheard, as they move through the Narcos and obliterate them with bullets. Do I think that sounds fun? Duh. As a child of the 80s, I still very much remember D.A.R.E., and how many of my classmates broke their D.A.R.E. promise, and made McGruff the Crime Dog sad. This game is basically Reagan’s “War on Drugs: The Video Game”. But it’s  “Us vs. Them”, only in a different locale, and a different reason.  Sure, you are parachuting down into the jungle a’la Contra, pumping shells into unsuspecting criminals, that makes me feel like a badass.

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But at the end of the day, it’s basically every Tom Clancy game ever, only this time it’s the War on Drugs. I know I’m a little bit of a hypocrite here; I play every new Dynasty Warriors/Samurai Warriors game, mostly to see the parts of the story they add/take away. And they’re fun. But I hope desperately Ubisoft makes an effort to make it different from the various Tom Clancy stories they’ve already released. They’ve done a similar game already in the Ghost Recon series, with “Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm”.  Except that one was set Colombia, though that one is more about terrorists plus drugs. There is one thing they’re doing I love: It’s going to be open world, except it’s not an MMO. While I do think it’s a lot of the same fucking thing over again, it’s a Tom Clancy game, so it’s going to sell like hotcakes. Eventually, people are going to get wise; so far, from what I’ve seen, this one is at least a bit of a departure, because it’s not “Terrorism, Global Conflict, Treachery, Overthrowing governments”.  Looks like, so far it’s just “Drugs are bad, let’s kill those assholes”!  It could be interesting, but it could also wind up being the same old shit every other Tom Clancy game has. Could we be on the precipice of something new and exciting for the shooter genre?

KINETIK

KINETIK is a tactical shooter title created by Hero Machine Studios. Headlined by veteran game developers Mat Broome and Kevin McPherson, this intense shooter features tactical RPG elements, hardcore shooting mechanics and a ton of challenge.

Features:

Gameplay balance: KINETIK offers replay value with heavily tactical gameplay rooted in “rock paper scissors” dynamics.

Game modes: Enjoy deep Co-op and Multiplayer raids missions, with future expansions including dual squad/Co-op raids and missions.

Matchmaking: Utilize smart matchmaking that takes into consideration player levels and filter settings for optimal Co-op and Multiplayer gameplay.

Cross-platform support: Enjoy Kinetik on PC, Xbox One and PS4.

OnRPG’s Kicktracker Report #17 – June 2016

OnRPG’s Kicktracker Report returns for June 2016. Get the latest overview on our favorite picks on Kickstarter and keep up to date on major news from previously crowdsourced games with your host, Mikedot.

Midair (Successful)
http://www.onrpg.com/games/midair/
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/archetypestudios/midair

Islands of Nyne (Successful)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/569820437/ion

Rokh (Cancelled)
http://www.onrpg.com/games/rokh/
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darewise/rokh-the-survival-sandbox-mmo-on-mars

KINETIK
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/heromachinestudios/kinetik-a-tactical-rpg-shooter

Greedy Guns
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/339204957/greedy-guns-a-metroidvania-inspired-by-metal-slug

Fable Fortune
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flamingfowl/fable-fortune-a-fable-ccg-with-co-op-pvp-and-quest

OnRPG’s team believes strongly that the only true innovation in online gaming is set to come from the wild wildness of indie game developers. Do your part to support a project you truly believe has potential to make that change happen!

Lawbreakers: Closed Alpha Thoughts

I love Lawbreakers, but we’re being critical today! I will be keeping my eyes peeled on further Alpha/Beta updates and keeping you guys appraised, fear not!

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Lawbreakers had a “Closed Alpha” event this weekend, where you can play their first game mode and the starting cast of the game. What do I think about it? Well, I played it at a Press Event earlier this year, and the two versions feel a little different. One complaint I genuinely have, is WHAT HAPPENED TO KICK? I thought it was gone, but perhaps it was not! I have been informed that it was bound to “J”, but I did not see it. Entirely likely that I missed it. As a result, I got wrecked by every assassin that exists. If I had seen it, I would not have been nearly as frustrated. Also not being able to leave a lobby was a little bothersome. I had to alt-f4 to try and find different teammates.

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The game is still beautiful, the gameplay is still really quite tight. I’m not super wild about the Battery Mode, because right now they feel incredibly one sided. It can be very vexing to get the Battery to 100%, have five seconds left, lose the battery and then subsequently lose the game. I am not saying this is bad, it’s just not a game mode I’m as hyped for. I’m waiting on Turf War and the other mode, which should be really intense. I really wanted to play the new map they hyped up [and we did as well!], but have not seen it yet, which made me a little sad. This game is still incredible, I’m hyped for it, and you should be too. For anyone with major complaints about matchmaking, not winning, things like that? Shut up. It’s not even in beta yet. That’s not why you’re playing! You’re playing to learn how the game plays, find things wrong and right with it, and let them know! That’s the worst part about alpha/beta tests. People. Whine. About. Stupid. Shit. There are final thoughts though:

  • No indication of how low the enemy is drives me bonkers.
  • I can’t really comment on how it ran though; the PC that we played on originally is likely a lot stronger than mine.  It did feel a bit sluggish.
  • Still LOVE the low-G/zero-G stuff. That can be a little dizzying for me, but I love it.
  • Characters are badass. Violence, gore, cool guns, rockets, I feel a tug towards these characters. I want to know more about them.
    • Maybe vignettes from their perspective? That’d be pretty awesome. [Please send Royalty Checks to: thebottomtier@gmail.com]
  • All told, it’s an Alpha. It’s gonna have issues. Don’t let that distract you from it being a genuinely great game.

Lawbreakers is a lot of fun, and you’d be foolish to turn a blind eye to it. Cliff’s brainchild is going to be a huge deal the closer it comes to fruition, and I can’t wait to see what comes next! Lawbreakers is hype, and you should be hype FOR it.

Honor of Throne

Honor of Throne is a free to play mobile strategy game developed by NetDragon Websoft Inc for iOS and Android where heroes are drawn into an epic war against dark forces. Your castle will serve as your base of operations where you’ll collect resources and increase your defenses. When you’re ready for battle you can launch attacks against your enemies and destroy their bases all in an effort to gain the most honor for your throne that any one person can acquire. With so much renown and the resources to back up your reputation nobody will be able to stand in your way!

Features:

Castle Maintenance: Build and manage your castle by constructing new buildings, upgrading existing ones, and creating new troops.

Hex-Grid Combat: Battle your enemies on a hex-grid battlefield, taking turns for each action. Unit range and terrain will both play an important role on where and how effectively you can attack.

Adventure: Hop on into your trusty Fire Balloon, explore unknown lands, and discover ancient artifacts to bring even more honor to your throne.

Manual Attacks: If you choose to attack with some of your units like ballistas or catapults you’ll be able to manually aim their shots to cause maximum damage.