Yearly Archives: 2018

505 Games to Publish Award-Winning RPG/Sim RE:Legend

Re:Legend Game Profile Banner

RE:Legend, the JRPG from Kuala Lumpur-based Magnus Games Studio will be coming to Early Access on Steam in 2018, via Independent publisher 505 Games. There are also plans to bring it to Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One at a later date. RE:Legend is an all-encompassing RPG simulator that combines farming and life-simulation, with monster-raising and multiplayer features. Players can build and expand their village through a variety of activities including farming, fishing, and crafting while venturing into a dangerous world filled with challenges. Raising nearly $500,000 USD on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter, Re:Legend is the most successfully backed game campaign in the history of South-east Asia.

Players will begin this adventure on Vokka Island, in the land of Ethia, where they are starting a new life and have to find a way to recover their lost memories. Start a new life, help a village grow, and raise your own magical monsters, the “Magnus”.

Game Features Will Include:

Monster-Raising – Raise mythical creatures known as “Magnus”, monsters who live in the land of Ethia, the world where Vokka Island is located. Every Magnus is tamable, aiding players in many ways such as combat, farming, fishing, traveling and much more! They will also grow differently depending on your care.

Farming and Cultivating –  Players can cultivate the farms of Vokka island to acquire food and materials for the village or themselves. Growing crops is not limited to the land, as the Vokka Island allows players to grow crops and keep exotic fish underwater!

Combat – The World of Ethia is filled with dangerous wildlife and combat skills are essential to survive.
Players can wield weapons of their desire at any given moment, without being restricted by weapon classes. Players can also mount their tamed Magnus and fight through their adventure!

Vokka Village – Vokka Village is where new life begins! Befriend local villagers and join exciting festivals to have a good time. Pay attention to their needs and help them out in their daily lives so they can help retrieve lost memories.

Life Skills – Practice makes perfect! Players will gain life skills as they practice them frequently. They level-up organically as activities are carried out.

Multiplayer – Play with up to four friends and carry out your adventures together!

A Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia Introduces Guthfrid

The Viking Invasion of the 9th Century changed the course of British history forever. The Norsemen flooded land in search of glory and riches, but many chose to stay and establish a foothold in the north of England and East Anglia. In Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia, players can carve out their own kingdom of Danelaw, playing as one of two factions of the Great Viking Army (Northymbre and East Engle). The latest cinematic shows off Guthfrid, King of Viking Northymbre. Though he started life as a slave, his prosperous kingdom is an attractive target for a new wave of invaders.

After achieving any long victory condition, players of Thrones of Britannia must brace for war as powerful armies will arrive to take what is theirs. If they can withstand and overcome this onslaught they will be awarded the highest honor, an Ultimate Victory and, in turn, the ultimate bragging rights will be theirs.

Fighting Fantasy Legends Secures a New Publisher

Yesterday, Asmodee Digital announced that they are going to be adding Nomad Games Fighting Fantasy Legends to their growing catalog of quality games. Taking place in the Fighting Fantasy world of Titan, authored by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, Fighting Fantasy Legend is a card-based RPG that blends digital game mechanics with interactive fiction. Based on three of the classic gamebooks City of Thieves, Citadel of Chaos, and The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Fighting Fantasy Legends has players traveling across the dangerous continent of Allansia facing rogues, monsters, and piecing together clues to solve cryptic quests. It’s a gripping adventure and bringing these books to life in a video game is a terrific experience. Interested parties can take a look at this review by Jason who goes into detail on the game.

“We are huge fans of the Fighting Fantasy series and the folks at Nomad Games have done
an excellent job at making a game that stays true to the lore” says Philippe Dao, Chief
Marketing Officer of Asmodee Digital. “We’re honored to take over publishing responsibilities
for such a storied universe, and we look forward to supporting Fighting Fantasy Legends for
years to come.”

Play as Geralt of Rivia in SOULCALIBUR VI

There are always monsters to do battle with in the tale of Swords and Souls.

CD PROJEKT RED, creators of the hit Witcher series have teamed up with Bandai Namco to bring Geralt of Rivia to life as a playable character in Soulcalibur VI.  Trained at the elite School of the Wolf, Geralt is one of the most notable and powerful monster slayers. Players who choose to fight as Geralt will wield his incredible swordplay skills in conjunction with his ability-enhancing potions and combat magic. Dougl Cockle will also be returning (the English voice of Geralt) to reprise his role, and Witcher fans will also be excited to know that Kaer Morrhen (home of the School of the Wolf) will be a battleground to travel to, complete with “Hunt or be Hunted” from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s soundtrack.

“SOULCALIBUR is well known in the fighting games genre for including iconic guest characters. When we were approached with the idea of doing a crossover, we thought our community would really enjoy playing as the witcher,” said Marcin Momot, Community Lead at CD PROJEKT RED. “We’ve collaborated with BANDAI NAMCO artists to faithfully recreate Geralt, and shared original Witcher 3 assets like Geralt’s model, animations, and weapons. I think BANDAI NAMCO did an outstanding job of capturing all the details and introducing The Witcher to SOULCALIBUR in a way fans of both series will enjoy.”

Past Cure Review

by Jason Parker (Ragachak)

Past Cure - Woman

Who is she? Who is she to Ian? Is she the key? A love interest?

I do enjoy a good mystery, and psychological horror coupled with that is a really interesting concept. Phantom 8’s Past Cure has a lot of very ambitious ideas and I sincerely enjoy the concept of the game. However, there are some hurdles to cross, and they are not always worth leaping over. I had some really serious issues getting this started, but I do not know if everyone will. It’s worth a mention though. The game defaulted the camera rotation to 0, so I could not aim or look around and my first probably 20-30 minutes were spent wondering why every pistol shot made me look higher and higher and I could not aim. This meant I died seven or eight times to the second enemy in the game. I couldn’t melee them either, much to my chagrin. Once they get close to you, an event triggers and they kill you. I spent a lot of time trying to figure this out but I could not. This is mostly for the start of the game mind. You get really cool melee combos and finishers after the initial area.

Past Cure - Shooting Range

Sometimes you just have to go to your hidden shooting range to keep up your skills. A day in the life.

Past Cure has us playing as Ian, a former military badass that now lives on a beach in a truly extravagant house. He has these horrific nightmares and takes blue pills to recover his sanity. It’s kind of a catch-22, because he gains powers from these pills as far as I understand, but now takes them to keep from going insane. This game poses a lot of mysteries though: Who is the woman? What does she mean to Ian? Why did his dad make him play chess for cookies? I really like that the game is mysterious, but the plot is just so disjointed and hard to keep up with. Between unanswered questions and things that simply do not make sense, I like the idea, but it’s just not working. Everything about it felt . . . monotone. The acting seldom draws me in to leave me wanting more. The level design, while not terrible, feels very linear. It’s either linear or a maze of rooms that just look the same, like in the tutorial. I do wish the tutorial was not as long as it was. Third person shooters are not all that uncommon, after all. I was far more interested in learning about Ian’s powers.

Past Cure - Disjointed

Yeah, every home just has creepy dolls in them.

The big stand-out for me is the superpowers that Ian’s medication give him. You can astral project, and use it to press buttons and get a look around you, solve puzzles and get a leg up on your enemies. It doesn’t feel like enough was done with this, and it was shoehorned into the game to make the plot more psychological or supernatural. I found myself popping shots into people more than anything. There are concepts that are introduced and never seen again, which really disappointed me. I wanted more of those horrific mannequins/dolls to show up as my sanity meter waned, but alas, they did not. Past Cure is a game with potential, a game that had some really terrific ideas. There are definitely things I like though. The camera work is solid, and the atmosphere of the game is appropriately mysterious and haunting. The horror/nightmare sections of the game are just wonderful. I also love where your sanity meter starts to drop and the screen gets all shaky and trembles as if he starts to lose his mind in some kind of seizure or is beginning to hallucinate again.

Past Cure - Setting

Despite many flaws, it’s still very creepy and spooky in the right ways.

Sure, in the tutorial it’s very clear to see where the horror dolls are coming from (red lights under the doors), but the whole setting is just wonderful. I feel like perhaps they tried to do too much with the character. Did he have to be a rich, badass, smart, Batman-but-former-military character? Kind of took me out of the story, if I’m being honest. I enjoyed the graphics for the most part. Some of the animations feel wonky, but for what they have produced, I have no complaints about how it looks and feels. Phantom 8 has nothing to be ashamed of on that point. The story is intriguing, and if so many things weren’t introduced then forgotten about, I’d probably love it. Combat was very good, as well. You have buttons that work nicely, the animations for the melee combat were pretty awesome, and I will say, once I fixed my aiming issues, they never came back again.

Who’s Cure Is This Anyway? 2.5/5

Past Cure - Chess

It’s not perfect, but I did still enjoy my time trying to unravel this mystery.

Despite the many flaws that Past Cure presents, I sincerely enjoyed the concept. Some of the areas felt very bland and empty, some of the characters did not seem interested in delivering their lines with any kind of emotion, and there are many unanswered questions. I do feel like 30 bucks might be a high asking price for a game that needed some more TLC in the bug-fixing process, and for such a short game. But I don’t want Phantom 8 to be discouraged as an indie stream because they have some very intriguing ideas that I would love to see more of in future games. I like the world they are putting together and I want to see more of it. There are some sincerely frustrating moments, and while I was let down by the presentation, I do still find myself wanting to know more. This is a story that could probably make a terrific psychological horror book too, now that I think about it. I in no way think this is a terrible game, but I do feel it lets the player down in quite a few places. I think perhaps fans of this genre might get more out of it than I did, but I think if it were 20 dollars or so, it might be a bit more palatable in terms of its length and difficulty. What Past Cure needs is some direction. There are simply too many things jumbled together. Too many genres are happening at once. With a bit of guidance and narrowing what the story is trying to do just a little bit, it would be leaps and bounds better.

The Chronicles of Tekken, Part 3 – Tekken 6

By Keith Harris (ShinobiGatana), Guest Writer

Tekken 6. A fighter to end all fighters? Maybe. It was a fierce entry into a genre of already amazing fighters already on the scene including its own predecessor, Tekken 5. But Tekken 6 brought with it things that made this gamer want to squeal like a little girl at a boy band concert. And just like those larger than life idols, Tekken 6 brought the fire!!

Okay, now that I have allowed my much younger 29 year old self out for a minute, let’s put the big boy pants back on and talk about the fighter that is Tekken 6.

Tekken 6 Logo

In 2007 Tekken 6 hit the scene by crashing into the arcades of Japan with the force of a freight train. It took the best parts of Tekken 5, and instead of adding a little spit and polish, but gave it an overhaul like no other. Game developers took each character, first keeping what they thought was great while incorporating new moves. This is nothing revolutionary in fighting games, but the developers also made sure to incorporate the move sets into the game engine to make sure each move was as polished as possible. The end result was that each move flowed into the next, forgoing the lag associated with both moves and the game engine. This meant each move flowed into the next. Skill was still needed of course, and it made the combinations flow far more synchronized, but only after you mastered the new timing system.

Tekken 6’s input initially felt as if it was lagging, in this humble gamer’s opinion. Having played every Tekken game I possibly could (on every Playstation platform) gave me a general idea of what Tekken was supposed to be despite the radical speed increases from Tekken 2 to 3. Specifically Tekken 3, then tag, and so on. When Tekken 6 hit the Playstation 3, I was excited beyond all reason, and ended up playing late into the night, much to my wife’s annoyance for that first week, but that’s a story for another time. What really matters now is how no matter how much I used to be able seamlessly do Ling’s X Marks The Spot, or even counter throws, it just felt off. I loved the visuals and a lot of  the new elements added to the game, but I felt I was losing my edge. I did a little bit of research and some gamers online even recommended playing with a cord connected to the controller for better input control until used to the new input lag without it. This was interesting to me, mainly because I was desperate not to be known as a scrub Tekken player, never that. But truly, would that help? It did.

After many hours of practicing in arcade mode, I finally managed to find my stride. I was finally ready to enter into the foray of what could be known as Mode Of The Living Nightmares… or its more accurately known title: Scenario Campaign.

Tekken 6 Screenshot 1

Scenario Campaign is essentially the story mode for this game that follows the illegitimate son of Heihachi Mishima, Lars Alexanderson.  Lars is a captain in the Tekken Force, the security wing of the Mishima Zaibatsu, The company known to be owned on and off through hostile takeovers by Heihachi Mishima throughout the franchise. Lars comes across Alisa Bosconovich, the android daughter of Doctor Bosconovich, a doctor known for his… unorthodox way of making physical alterations to himself and others. They embark on a journey to essentially save the world from a massive, global threat.

Unlike Heihachi, Kazuya, and partially Devil Jin, Lars does not utilize the Mishima family school of martial arts. His style seems to be his own. Numerous kicks, flips, and deceptive strikes makes Lars just as formidable if not more formidable than his more well known family members. Not a lot is focused on family wise in this Tekken as there is a worldwide issue that holds the focus of the story where, for once, Jin seems to be the villain, and a new hero had to be ‘born.’

A close friendship is made between Alisa and Lars during this ordeal, so much so that one might even say that the two fell in love. That’s just this humble gamers opinion. Who am I to say a man and an android girl with detachable limbs can’t fall in love and live happily ever after. I mean, look at Krillin and Android 18 from the Dragaonball Z and Super sagas. But I digress; on this mission, Lars and Alisa find themselves going through 30+ stages of varying foes. From street thugs, armored troops and various aliens, Scenario mode had it all. It is typical of your standard beat’em ups where a group of antagonist surrounds said hero, and said hero lets loose and kicks ass. The game mechanics are similar to a normal one on one battle, but with the added ‘targeting’ of your foes. If you don’t turn fast enough, or duck, block, parry, or flip out of the way, you can still be demolished. You can be attacked from four or five directions at once. What can you do?

Tekken 6 Screenshot 2

Well, here’s something neat about Scenario Mode: You get access to toys! If you happen to defeat a fortuitous enemy, or come across a box filled with ‘loot,’ your problems are cut in half for a bit. I have come across flamethrowers, machine guns, heck, even a chainsaw and a pole or two. Time it right, and you can take out a large contingent of NPCs (Non Playable Characters) faster than you can count them.  Once you finally make it through the dregs, the scum of the Tekken underworld, you make it to the end of stage bosses. Most, if not all stages have a boss, and this boss is generally one of the actual Tekken characters we all know and love. I for one did not want to face off against Nina, the Ninja (or more accurate, assassin) without the J in her name. Why? Because she doesn’t fight fair, nor do any of the other bosses. They bring backup. So not only do you have to face a boss at the end of the stage, but it could end up being ten, twenty, or maybe even 40 extra enemies trying to stop you from defeating the stage boss.

While I can’t quite place why the stage Ninja, oops, I mean Nina causes so much trouble, it’s nothing compared to the hellish experience of my waking video game horror. The thing that made me late to work 4 times because I was determined not to let it beat me. The stage…’Nightmare Train.’

I arrived on that venomously vile and evil stage starry eyed and bushy tailed confident in my abilities, but I knew after less than fifteen seconds of entering the stage and dying a very embarrassing death I’d come back with a determination like no other in me that I had not had since learning to play the Tekken in the first place. Hell or high water, I would make this stage, this Nightmare Train, my bitch.

Tekken 6 Screenshot 3

After many, many hours of painstaking, back breaking, soul crushing moments of agony, I finally beat Nightmare Train, and was even rewarded with Devil Jin as a playable character. Wasn’t worth it. Not to me anyway. To know I went through all of that trouble… and it wasn’t even the final stage. There were maybe two or three more truly difficult stages, but none that would haunt my gaming dreams for years to come as Nightmare Train did.

This is not a perfect game. There are flaws just like any other game, but there are other aspects of Tekken 6 which make it a gem amongst pebbles. It has an engaging story, an arcade mode where you can fight against a giant bloody mech named Nancy-mi847j. A new girl Zafina who’s movements are either reminiscent of a spider, or she’s got the moves like Jagger. Either way, if you haven’t gotten a chance to play Tekken 6, and not only want a challenge, fierce game play, and a beat’em up mode to ignite your gamers’ fighting spirit, this game might be for you.

Stay frosty gamers, and remember to keep the fighting in game.