Iconic characters in fighting games like Street Fighter‘s Ryu and Ken or Scorpion and Mortal Kombat’s Sub-Zero are often as famous as the games that made them.
As the industry has evolved, numerous other iconic characters have entered the fighting game pantheon and made a lasting impact. Some franchise’s more iconic characters even live on outside their individual games, like Soulcalibur’s Ivy and Tekken’s King.
In honor of Street Fighter recently celebrating its 35th anniversary and Mortal Kombat its 30th: Which fighting game franchise has the most iconic characters?
What makes a character iconic for you? Do any of the other franchises come close to matching Street Fighter’s Ryu is or Mortal Kombat’s Scorpion? Do you like to main these characters when playing their respective games? Do you think iconic characters get special treatment since they often represent their franchise? What franchise not featured in the poll has iconic characters that rival those we listed?
Let us know in the comments!
Jada Griffin is IGN’s Community Lead. If she’s not engaging with users here, chances are she’s developing her own games, maxing the Luck stat in her favorite games, or challenging her D&D players with Intense combat or masterful puzzles. You can follow her on Twitter@Jada_Rina.
With its 1.07 update (opens in new tab) to Elden Ring, FromSoftware has taken steps to ensure the game’s long-term health and multiplayer balance. The biggest change is the decoupling of PvP and PvE weapon balancing, though From has also buffed a huge variety of weapons and spells.
That first change is a long time coming for FromSoft—to my knowledge they’ve never attempted anything like this for the Souls series or Bloodborne. The capacity to separately adjust weapons for PvP and PvE content is crucial for live service games like Destiny, allowing devs to adjust pain points in one mode without overcorrecting in another. I don’t think Elden Ring is in any danger of becoming a live service game, but this is still a welcome change. I like Elden Ring’s PvP, but I don’t go seeking it out. It wouldn’t feel good to have a preferred singleplayer strategy hamstrung because hardcore PvPers found and exploited an annoying trick in a mode I hardly ever touch.
For this first round of PvP-only adjustments, FromSoft has made it more costly to block attacks, increased poise (stagger) damage across the board, nerfed most Ashes of War, and also nerfed a selection of AoE spells.
Other than that, FromSoft has buffed a large number of weapons and spells for both PvP and PvE. I’m a big fan of the Souls series’ katanas, but Elden Ring has really been dominated by its signature unique swords, Rivers of Blood (opens in new tab) and Moonveil (opens in new tab). It’s a salient critique of Elden Ring that though it has a broad arsenal, players gravitate to a small number of weapons, so this is definitely a move in the right direction. The full list of changes is as follows:
PvP Exclusive balance adjustments
Increased stamina attack power in PvP for all attacks against guarded foes, except for long-ranged weapons.
Improved poise damage in PvP for every weapon’s normal attack, except for Skills and long-ranged weapons.
With a few exceptions, the power of Ashes of War in PvP has been lowered across the board.
The power of the following incantations in PvP has been decreased:
Sword Dance / Vow of the Indomitable / Eochaid’s Dancing Blade
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Sacred Order / Shared Order / Soul Stifler / Knowledge Above All / Barricade Shield
Taker’s Flames / Miquella’s Ring of Light
Added damage detection to the weapon part.
Prayerful Strike / Great-Serpent Hunt
Increased power and poise damage
Wild Strikes / Spinning Strikes
Shortened the time between various actions and the activation of skills
Slightly increased attack power.
Ground Slam / Golden Slam / Erdtree Slam
Reduced the time between using the skill and being able to roll.
Increased attack power.
Stamp (Upward Cut) / Stamp (Sweep)
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Increased attack power.
Reduced the timing between the end of the skill and performing actions other than the strong attack.
Impaling Thrust
Increased motion speed and attack power.
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill
Reduced the timing between the end of the skill and being able to attack and to roll.
Piercing Fang
Increased motion speed, attack power and poise damage.
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Reduced the timing between the end of the skill and being able to attack and to roll.
Spinning Slash
Increased poise damage against enemies when used with the following weapons: Greatsword, Curved Greatsword, Twinblade, Greataxe, Spear, Great Spear, Halberd, and Reaper.
Charge Forth
Increased directional control and motion speed.
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Blood Tax
Increased motion speed and attack power.
Increased HP deprivation effect.
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Repeating Thrust
Increased motion speed. Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Giant Hunt
Increased poise damage.
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Loretta’s Slash
Increased poise damage for the first attack.
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Poison Moth Flight
Increased poison status buildup and its power against poisoned enemies.
Increased the duration and damage of poison.
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Stormcaller
Increased motion speed, attack power and poise damage.
Increased skill size and poise damage.
Sacred Blade
Increased motion speed and range of the blade.
Added damage detection to the weapon part.
Increased effect duration and attack power that gives the weapon holy power.
Bloody Slash
Increased status buildup and attack power.
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Lifesteal Fist
Increased motion speed and attack power.
Increased attack range against other players.
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Eruption
Increased the range and duration of lava.
Added a hitbox to the part of the attack where the weapon is slammed.
Fixed the timing of the poise increase during activation.
Gravitas
Increased poise during casting.
Storm Blade
Increased motion speed and range of the blade.
Added damage detection to the weapon part.
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Flaming Strike
Increased attack power.
Increased duration and attack power that grants the weapon a fire attribute.
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Lightning Slash
Increased duration and attack power that grants the weapon a lightning attribute.
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Reduced the delay between using the skill and being able to attack.
Vacuum Slice
Increased motion speed and range of the blade.
Reduced FP consumption
Added damage detection to the weapon part.
Sacred Ring of Light
Increased range and speed of the projectile halo have been increased.
Added damage detection to the weapon part.
Blood Blade
Increased power.
Added damage detection to the weapon part.
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Phantom Slash
Improved directional control.
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Spectral Lance
Increased attack power.
Reduced long range damage falloff.
Chilling Mist
Increased motion speed.
Increased the duration of the weapon’s frostbite effect.
Poisonous Mist
Increased motion speed.
Increased the duration of the weapon’s poison effect.
Shield Bash
Increased stamina attack power against guarded enemies.
Enchanted Shot
Kick
Increased poise damage and stamina attack power against guarding enemies.
Cragblade
Extended effect duration.
Increased attack power, poise damage and stamina attack power against guarding enemies.
War Cry
Extended effect duration.
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
The power of strong attacks during the duration of the effect has been increased when using the following weapons: Straight Sword / Curved Sword / Katana / Axe / Hammer / Flail / Spear / Great Spear / Halberd / Reaper / Fist (one-handed) / Claw (one-handed)
Troll’s Roar
Increased attack power.
Fixed the timing of the poise increase during activation.
Braggart’s Roar
Extended the duration of the effect.
Increased attack power, defense, and stamina recovery speed.
Endure
Extended effect duration.
Added an effect that prevents staggers caused by blood loss and frostbite status effects.
Extended effect duration.
Reduced the time between skill activation and being able to perform actions other than attacking.
Holy Ground
Increased HP recovery amount.
Raptor of the Mists
Flame Spit
Improved projectile range.
Tongues of Fire
Reduced stamina consumption.
Great Oracular Bubble
Extended the amount of time that the large bubble stays in place.
Tracking performance and range of the large bubble have been improved.
Viper Bite
Increased attack power and poison status buildup.
Extended poison effect duration and increased damage caused by poison.
Moonlight Greatsword
Reduced stamina consumption for strong and charged attacks.
Added damage detection to the weapon part.
Siluria’s Woe
Increased motion speed, attack power and poise during activation.
Added damage detection to the weapon part.
The projectile now penetrates enemies and some objects when charged.
Reduvia Blood Blade
Increased attack power.
Added damage detection to the weapon part.
Glintstone Dart
Increased range, speed and attack power of magic attacks.
Magic attacks now penetrate enemies when not charged.
Night-and-Flame Stance
Increased attack power.
The attack direction may now be adjusted up and down when using a normal attack.
Added damage detection to the weapon part.
Ruinous Ghostflame
Increased the duration, attack power and poise damage of the effect that gives the weapon a magic attribute.
Shortened the time between various actions and the activation of the skill.
Reduced time between the skill activation and being able to perform actions.
Spearcall Ritual
Increased attack power.
Reduced damage detection time.
Wolf’s Assault
Increased poise during casting.
Thundercloud Form
Increased directional control.
Regal Roar
Extended effect duration.
Reduced the time between strong attacks while under the effect.
Reduced time between the skill activation and being able to perform actions.
Blade of Death
Increased effect duration that reduces maximum HP.
Destined Death
Increased motion speed
Extended the duration of the effect that reduces maximum HP.
Alabaster Lords’ Pull
Increased attack power.
Increased poise during casting.
Onyx Lords’ Repulsion
Increased repelling effect power.
Increased poise during casting.
Oath of Vengeance
Extended effect
Added an effect that prevents staggers caused by blood loss and frostbite status effects.
Ice Lightning Sword
Increased weapon attack power.
Increased the duration and attack power of the effect that grants the weapon a lightning attribute.
Reduced time between the skill activation and being able to perform actions.
Claw Flick
Increased attack power.
Increased poise damage of the finger expansion.
Golden Tempering
Added a timing for interrupting the attack during a series of strong attacks while under the effect.
Increased strong attack motion speed, poise damage, and stamina attack power against guarding enemies during the effect.
Increased the duration and attack power of the effect that grants the weapon a holy attribute.
Reduced time between the skill activation and being able to perform actions.
Last Rites
Increased effect duration.
Increased attack power.
Effect against Those Who Live in Death has been revised upward.
Unblockable Blade
Reduced FP consumption.
Increased motion speed.
Loretta’s Slash (Loretta’s War Sickle Ash of War)
Increased attack power.
Increased damage of the first attack
Increased poise damage.
Corpse Wax Cutter
Reduced FP consumption.
Increased motion speed, range and speed of the blade.
Added damage detection to the weapon part.
Zamor Ice Storm
Increased attack power.
Increased attack power to the weapon part.
Dynast’s Finesse
The directional control of the follow up strong attack has been improved.
Death Flare
Increased the duration and attack power of the effect that grants the weapon a holy attribute.
Magma Guillotine
Increased poise damage and stamina attack power against guarding enemies for the first attack.
Corpse Piler
Slightly increased attack power.
Bloodblade Dance
Added damage detection immediately after activating the skill.
Devourer of Worlds
Familial Rancor
Increased range of the vengeful spirits that chase down foes.
Rosus’s Summons
Thunderstorm
Increased motion speed.
Increased the duration and attack power of the effect that grants the weapon a lightning attribute.
Unblockable Blade
Increased attack power.
Reduced time between the skill activation and being able to perform actions.
Ordovis’s Vortex
Increased attack power, motion speed and poise damage.
Increased poise during casting.
Reduced the delay between the end of various actions (such as using items or attack animations) and being able to perform the skill.
Barbaric Roar
Extended effect duration.
Reduced the time between using the skill and performing various actions.
Increased strong attack power when used with Claw or Fist weapons during the effect.
Reduced strong attack power when used with Twinblade weapons during the effect.
Shield Crash
Reduced the amount of status buildup when used with weapons that have status effects.
Seppuku
Increased damage taken upon activation.
Reduced the bleed status buildup effect granted to weapons.
Bloodboon Ritual
Reduced the range of the damage animation trigger on other players. Damage is unchanged.
Bug Fixes
Added a process to remove the Ash of War from weapons that cannot normally be combined with certain Ashes of War.
Fixed a bug that prevented users from obtaining items such as Great Runes, Crystal Tears, Cracked Pots, and Ritual Pots when the number of items in the inventory and the storage had reached the maximum limit.
Fixed a bug that prevented users from obtaining Crystal Tear. If you fail to obtain a Crystal Tear, the item will be added to your inventory when moving within the vicinity of the place where you should have obtained it.
Adjusted player character control when under certain damage animations.
Fixed a bug that prevented charging some Incantations while casting them with a left-handed Sacred Seal in mid-air.
Fixed a bug that prevented performing a normal attack from a dash immediately after landing from a jump when the weapon is two-handed.
Fixed a bug where various action inputs were ignored when changing weapons while moving.
Corrected the description of the Colossal Sword’s physical attack attribute.
Fixed a bug where the timing to change the attack direction was narrower than expected for some attacks with Greataxes.
Fixed a bug where the attack direction could not be changed when performing a charged attack with the Ruins Greatsword weapon.
Fixed a bug where the Highland Axe’s effect was not applied to the skill Shriek of Milos.
Fixed a bug where the effects of the Warrior Jar Shard and the Shard of Alexander were not applied to the skill Sorcery of the Crozier.
Fixed a bug where the effect of the Roar Medallion was not applied to the Regal Roar Ash of War.
Fixed a bug where the skill Viper Bite could inflict poison instead of deadly poison.
Fixed a bug where the range of one of the three rocks was longer than expected when casting the Spell Rock Sling with a left-hand staff.
Fixed a bug where recovery time after casting Beast Claw could not be shortened by magic or incantations.
Fixed a bug where when attacking an enemy who cannot be grabbed by the incantation Inescapable Frenzy, the attack will be repelled if the enemy is holding a shield.
Fixed a bug where HP or FP could be recovered when changing equipment to certain types of armor under certain circumstances.
Fixed a bug that could cause death and result in the player becoming stuck in some locations.
Fixed some terrain bugs that allowed users to reach unexpected locations with certain procedures.
Fixed a bug where the rendering and collision detection of some maps were different from expected.
Fixed a bug where bolts fired with the Hand Ballista weapon missed the lock-on target when the game was running at a frame rate below a certain level.
Fixed a bug that could prevent online multiplayer from working properly on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions.
Several other performance improvements and bug fixes.
The trailer doesn’t give anything away about K’Sante’s gameplay, but it does reveal that he’s from the in-game region of Nazumah, and that he seems to lead the regions people, or at least be tasked with keeping them safe. We also know that Nazumah is intended to be a kingdom apart from the Ascended, but that still doesn’t reveal much about how K’Sante might actually play.
Because this new teaser, called The Hunter’s Pride, doesn’t get into the details of K’Sante’s abilities, it seems we’re likely to get a larger reveal about his kit sometime in the next week or so. The trailer also doesn’t reveal when K’Sante might be released onto live servers, but it seems safe to assume he’s at least a couple of weeks away, based on Riot’s usual schedule.
The EVGA P6 850W is a great high-capacity power supply, and today it’s been discounted by £30 over at Scan, dropping from £120 to £90. That’s a good deal on a PSU that meets the steep requirements of the RTX 4090, as well as Nvidia’s more sanely-specced RTX 40-series cards like the RTX 4080 16GB and the RTX 4070 4080 12GB.
CountryBalls Heroes Free Download PC game in a pre-installed direct link with updates and DLCs for mac os x dmg multiplayer android apk.
Overview CountryBalls Heroes:
CountryBalls Heroes is a game where you get to play as your favorite Countryball. Become a legend by leading massive armies. The fate of the world, vodka, mems, is at stake and only you can stand up against big evil. At all costs, supplies of vodka have to be secured. Dominate your opponents in the intensive turn-based strategy game. Assemble your army, build overwhelming cities,
raise and upgrade your heroes, gather powerful artifacts, and prove that your Countryball is the most powerful among the others. Build up your base, recruit various Countryballs unique for each faction. Train multiple balls, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Plumber, hussar, priest, drunkard, cowboy, Briton… that’s only the beginning. Check what awaits you in the wilderness! Lead your own Countryball army on the battlefield. You won’t be alone there. Recruit the most powerful Heroes to lead your troops according to your strategy. Use as much vodka as necessary to crush your enemies.
CountryBalls Heroes Pre-Installed:
Experience how various mems work on the battlefield. Untamed, crazy, hilarious – once used will never be erased from your memory. Check with the school of mems that will suit you best. At the start of the game, you’re given a lv1 hero (sometimes with a item already). This is fine, except when you recruit heroes from the appropriate building they start at lv0. Now,
having not played the game yourself this might not seem to matter but allow me to explain: The game has a skill tree directly tied to what level you are, each time you level up you get a point to spend. Heroes that start at level 1 DO NOT START WITH A POINT TO SPEND. Meaning your better off picking a level 0 hero and giving it any item/unit from the lv 1 hero and then delete your starting hero. It’s a minor thing but it basically locks your first move to ensuring you can recruit new heroes.
CountryBalls Heroes Free Download:
Over 90 Unique units
Over 30 unique playable Heroes
System for challenging combat
1 :: Operating System :: Windows XP/7/8/8./10. 2 :: Processor: 2 GHz 3 :: Ram :: 2 GB RAM 4 :: DirectX: Version 9.0 5 :: Graphics:: 512 Mb 6 :: Space Storage:: 5 GB space
Turn Off Your Antivirus Before Installing Any Game
1 :: Download Game 2 :: Extract Game 3 :: Launch The Game 4 :: Have Fun 🙂
Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for October 13th, 2022. In today’s article, we’ve got the big list of Thursday releases to go through. The biggest game is probably Atari Mania, but there is a wide variety on offer today. We’ve also got a little bit of news to look at, plus the lists of new and outgoing sales to consider. Let’s get to work!
News
‘Pilotwings 64’ is Now Available for Switch Online Expansion Pack Subscribers
It is the appointed time and day, folks. If you have a subscription to the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack, go on and update your Nintendo 64 app. Once you’ve done that, you’ll find Pilotwings 64 is ready and waiting to be played. This is the first time the game has ever been rereleased, so this is actually a bit of an exciting addition to the service.
New Releases
Atari Mania ($24.99)
Atari has a couple of bullets in the chamber to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, and this is the first of them. It’s a WarioWare-style affair mashed up with some adventure game elements. You play as a custodian at an Atari museum of sorts. Some stuff goes down and you end up playing a bunch of minigames inspired by classic Atari games. Sometimes more than one Atari game at once. It digs pretty deep, so it will certainly help your enjoyment if you are a big Atari fan.
Witchcrafty ($9.99)
Yes, I suppose it is October, isn’t it? This is a cute witch-themed platformer with some light Metroidvania elements in the form of elemental magic you learn along the way. That magic allows you to interact in new ways with the environments and various hazards, but don’t expect the game to go hard on that end of things. It’s mostly about the platforming, and it’s not exactly best in class in that regard. Still, it has charm to spare and that may be enough for some.
Paradise Marsh ($9.99)
This is a game where you chill out in a procedurally-generated world and try to catch bugs, frogs, and so on in order to restore the constellations in the sky. Some of the creatures will only appear in specific conditions, so there’s a bit of a puzzle element to it all. A bit vague and meandering, but that’s definitely a kind of game I find myself in a mood for from time to time.
The Witch’s House MV ($14.99)
More witches, but this is more the scary type than the fluffy, colorful type. A Japanese horror adventure game in the vein of titles like Corpse Party, The Witch’s House MV sees a young girl venture into a mysterious mansion full of puzzles and jump scares. Not how I would spend my weekend, but that’s just me. Anyway, you can probably figure out how this goes. Grab it if you like that kind of thing.
Trifox ($19.99)
Action-adventure? 3D platformer? I don’t know, Trifox is kind of all of those things. You play as a little fox hero who can make use of three different job classes (that’s the ‘Tri‘ in ‘Trifox‘, I assume) to battle foes and solve puzzles in order to recover his stolen TV remote. There are four different worlds to romp through, and thirty different abilities to unlock. It seems decent, but I haven’t had a chance to play it yet so all I can really comment on is how it looks.
Arcade Archives Toy Pop ($7.99)
This week’s Arcade Archives release is another Namco title, this time 1986’s Toy Pop. Collect all of the gold hearts on each stage while avoiding the deadly toys that are trying to take you out. You aren’t defenseless, however. Pick up the presents and you’ll occasionally find some weapons you can use to turn the tables on your foes. Not my favorite Namco game of the era, but it certainly has a unique aesthetic that elevates the action somewhat.
Tinhead (QUByte Classics) ($3.99)
The latest release in the QUByte Classics series is the first one that only includes one version of the game in question. Tinhead is a platformer that originally released on the SEGA Genesis, and it’s… you know, fine. Nothing special. Not terrible. We had lots of games like this back in the 16-bit era. They just sort of existed, making good fodder for weekend rentals when you were tired of replaying Mario or Sonic. I’m sure this is using QUByte’s usual emulator and front end, so don’t expect anything too fancy.
Bus Simulator City Ride ($34.99)
Must be bus simulator season. This one features properly licensed buses, so that’s part of the price tag there. The fictional city that serves as the setting for this game is inspired by locations in Northern Europe, and it’s up to you to learn its streets and districts like the back of your hand. Drive the people around and expand your transport company with new buses and routes. It comes from Astragon Entertainment, and they’ve certainly been around the block a few times in this category. I’m not experienced enough with bus simulators to say if this is a great one, but it certainly seems to have had some effort put into it.
Temp Zero ($8.99)
Yes, this is pretty cool. It’s a minimalist roguelite action game with a pumping soundtrack and a nice variety of weapons and spells to keep things fresh. It certainly has a sense of style to it, though I think that screen shake might be a little much for my liking. Still, it’s a lot of fun and while its scope isn’t grand it’s well-polished for what it is.
Fallen Knight ($14.99)
I wanted to like this one, but it just doesn’t play very well. It’s a robot-themed side-scrolling action game, but with clunky controls and some badly implemented mechanics, I can’t really see my way to recommending this to anyone at the price it’s going for.
ValiDate: Struggling Singles in your Area ($14.99)
This is a visual novel about thirteen young adults who are looking for love in the slightly-fictional Jercy City, all while struggling with the realities of adulthood. There are more than thirty routes to play through, so there’s definitely a lot to see here. From what I can gather, each character was written by a different person, which is not something you typically see in a game like this. Does it work? Opinions seem to be a little mixed on that, but its computer version has gotten a mostly positive reception since it came out a couple of weeks ago. If nothing else, that bodes well.
Fragment’s Note+ ($14.99)
That said, if you want a more typical visual novel experience, you’re also covered today. Yukiha Tenjo musters up his courage and confesses his love to his crush, and is rejected. Before he even has time to process his feelings, a young girl named Miu appears, claiming that she is his daughter from the future. She’s come back to try to improve his life, and her actions will pull Yukiha into a mess of drama he never saw coming. It’s a good bit darker than that description makes it seem, mind you. This Plus version includes the full series in one handy, reasonably-priced purchase. Worth it if you like visual novels and haven’t played this series before.
BOT.vinnik Chess 2 ($2.99)
Fancy another round of BOT.vinnik Chess? Because that’s what this is. It’s another single-player chess game with a sassy robot opponent. This one uses famous matches from chess history to help teach you more about the game, and loads up more than four hundred and fifty chess puzzles to solve. I can think of worse ways to spend three bucks on a game today.
Winter Games 2023 ($39.99)
Okay, the Winter Olympics are over and done with for another few years, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any Switch owners hankering for a winter sports game this season. Or at least I imagine that is what Wild River Games is banking on with this release. It includes ten different sporting events that can be played by up to four players in local multiplayer. You get biathlon, downhill, Super-G, skeleton, short track, two-man bobsled, ski jumping, ski cross, snowboard cross, and curling. Personally I’m not big on these Track ‘n Field-style games, but if you are then you may want to give this a closer look.
Football Cup 2022 ($14.99)
Football Cup 2021 was not very good. Really, really not very good at all. Yet it somehow must have sold its share of copies, because here we are with Football Cup 2022. To absolutely no one’s surprise, this new version is also not very good. It’s not even “the McDonalds we have at home” of FIFA. It’s more like “the McDonalds we have in the dumpster down that sketchy alley” of FIFA. I’m sure it will sell a lot and we’ll be doing this dance again next year with Football Cup 2023.
Pretty Girls Escape ($5.99)
Another game in the Pretty Girls series from eastasiasoft. This one is a block puzzle game where you need to shift the pieces to make lines and drop the boxes with the girls in them to the bottom of the screen. You know, like those levels in Candy Crush. There are eight different girls in the game, and you get the usual gallery stuff that you can unlock.
Zombies Killer Machine – Car Games,Driving,Dead Mechanic Simulator ($6.99)
More garbage from the garbage merchants at Midnight Works. Drive the car and run over the zombies. Imagine all the much better games you could buy instead of this dross.
Loot Box Simulator – RPG Anime Girls ($2.99)
No. Come on now.
Sales
(North American eShop, US Prices)
A small list as usual for the time I write these articles. There will be a lot more tomorrow, I’m sure. For now, you’ve got another chance to get Onion Games titles at a solid discount, plus some spot sales on Jenny LeClue and Star Ocean.
Select New Games on Sale
P.3 ($1.99 from $4.99 until 10/19) Inukari Chase of Deception ($1.99 from $7.99 until 10/19) Stellar Interface ($2.59 from $12.99 until 10/24) Black Bird ($13.29 from $18.99 until 10/26) Mon Amour ($6.29 from $8.99 until 10/26) moon($13.29 from $18.99 until 10/26) Dandy Dungeon: Brave Yamada ($13.29 from $18.99 until 10/27) Star Ocean: First Departure R ($8.39 from $20.99 until 10/27) MechaNika($2.99 from $5.99 until 10/27) Agatha Knife($5.99 from $11.99 until 10/27) Out of the Box($4.49 from $14.99 until 10/27) The House of the Dead Remake($16.74 from $24.99 until 11/2) Speed Truck Racing ($1.99 from $9.99 until 11/2) Jenny LeClue Detectivu ($1.99 from $24.99 until 11/2) Perception($2.99 from $19.99 until 11/2) Splatter($1.99 from $4.98 until 11/2) Speed Dating For Ghosts ($2.37 from $6.99 until 11/2)
Sales Ending Tomorrow, Friday, October 14th
Battle Chef Brigade Deluxe ($3.99 from $19.99 until 10/14) Indigo 7 Quest for Love($4.49 from $14.99 until 10/14) Liberated: Enhanced Edition ($6.79 from $19.99 until 10/14) Mad Games Tycoon ($11.99 from $39.99 until 10/14) Mad Tower Tycoon($8.99 from $29.99 until 10/14) Monster Energy Supercross 2 ($2.49 from $24.99 until 10/14) MotoGP 19 ($1.99 from $19.99 until 10/14) PigShip & the Giant Wolf ($3.99 from $7.99 until 10/14) Rite($4.89 from $6.99 until 10/14) Seashell($1.99 from $3.99 until 10/14) Timberman: The Big Adventure ($3.34 from $4.99 until 10/14)
That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with the remaining releases of the week, plus whatever sales and big news roll in during the interim. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to grinding souls with a 0.25% drop rate in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. This is how I choose to spend the precious minutes of my life. I hope you all have a thrilling Thursday, and as always, thanks for reading!
Naruto continues to gain momentum, marking the anime’s 20th anniversary in October, and the 4th anniversary of “Naruto to Boruto Shinobi Striker” back in August. There has been lots of excitement around the series, but what can we look forward to in the future?
Read on to see the newest character DLC Konohamaru Sarutobi (Bortuo) in action for Naruto to Boruto Shinobi Striker, plus info on the renovated map Hidden Sand Village Training Field and insight on making the game!
A Look Back…
The project was born out of a desire to create a game that would allow players to experience themselves as “shinobi” through their avatars, even though various Naruto games have been sold to date. In the initial stages of development, the most difficult part was coming up with the rules of the game. The developers wanted to make it easier to win and more interesting for the four players to share roles and work in tandem. After repeated test-plays and revisions, they created the game we all know and love!
Additional Content
Thanks to user support, we’ve been able to celebrate four years of new content from the initial launch. Now, with the latest Konohamaru Sarutobi (Boruto), we mark the release of 31 types of DLC.
In these four years, there’s been a concerted effort to create weapons and costumes that can be obtained through in-game events, with a total of 1,000 types available. There are also original scientific ninja tools that can only be used in Shinobi Striker, so Naruto fans should take note of that.
Weapons and costumes used by the original characters are always popular, but colorful items such as Frog Costume and the Nine Tails tail accessory are also very popular, making it fun just to walk through the online lobby and see the unique avatars.
The lobby was created as a place where people who don’t know each other can interact with each other through emoticons, and we found out that there were so many more. And there were 150 different character emotions in the lobby, too!
Updates and Improvements
On top of cosmetic updates, the developers have been working to improve the playing environment. We have been aware of the problem that some people play unfairly, focusing on it last year and finally implemented a reporting function in the update on September 28, 2022.
The development team is also focusing on the map renovations that users have been requesting. The renovated map Hidden Sand Village Training Field was just recently released!
Now, the narrower size of the map is divided into upper and lower levels, which can be accessed through holes placed in several locations on the map, allowing you new ways to sneak up on the enemy team.
In addition, routes are narrowed down by fences and lids that appear at different times of the day and under different battle rules for the stages.
As a new gimmick, some of the fences that narrow down the route have movable gates that open when a sign is made, making it possible to take a shortcut, albeit a time-consuming one, to places that would normally require a detour. The player’s judgment is put to the test as they’re left unprotected while they open up these shortcuts.
What’s Next?
As previously announced, there are plans for Naruto (Baryon Mode) DLC and Isshiki Otsutsuki. You can look forward to playing as them in the future!
Now, read more about our newest character DLC!
Konohamaru Sarutobi (Boruto)
Who is Konohamaru Sarutobi (Boruto)? He is the grandson of the third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, and nephew of the former jonin Asuma Sarutobi. When he was a young, he looked up to the seventh Hokage, Naruto Uzumaki, as his master, and received various teachings from him. Now he takes care of the next generation of shinobi, including Boruto Uzumaki, as a jonin in the Hidden Leaf Village. Konohamaru Sarutobi (Boruto) excels at attacking a large number of enemies in the title.
Let’s lead your team to victory with the three Ninjutsu as follows!
“Fire Style: Burning Ash” – Blows hot ash over a wide area and causes an explosion to attack
“Fire Style: Flaming Meteors” – Can simultaneously disrupt the enemy team’s formation by launching a clone and attacking with flame bombs
“Summoning: Enra” – Disable multiple enemies simultaneously by summoning its partner, Enra, and activating a sealing Jutsu.
Ninjutsu 1: “Fire Style: Burning Ash”
User expels hot ash from their mouth. The ash persists as smoke, flinching targets it touches and inhibiting vision. Additional input or flames from a Fire Style attack will cause it to explode, inflicting continuous burn damage on enemies caught in the blast.
Ninjutsu 2 “Fire Style: Flaming Meteors”
A Jutsu that launches a clone into the air, continuously raining down flame bombs. Targets hit by the flame bombs take damage. Also forces enemies locked on to you to lock on to the clone instead.
Secrect Technique: Summoning Jutsu: Enra
Summons Enra to wrap around enemies within range. Inflicts continuous damage, reduces movement speed, and disables Substitutions. Additional input activates “Combined Sealing: Monkey-Sun Suppression”, knocking enemies out and increasing their respawn time.
Thank You
We wouldn’t be able to celebrate the game’s 4th anniversary without everyone’s continued support, so thank you all shinobi! The quest, challenge, and mission of the developers is to make you feel the passion and joy of the game — and they promise to continue live by that attitude.
Though there are still things to work on in the game, the developers will do their best to make this title one that people look forward to and say, “I’m going to play Shinobi Striker today, too.”
We hope that you will continue to enjoy our game for a long time to come.
NTBSS Master Character Training Pack – Konohamaru Sarutobi (BORUTO)
Bandai Namco Entertainment America Inc.
☆☆☆☆☆ 11
★★★★★
$3.99
Once you have downloaded this content, you can set a new master by going to Hidden Leaf Village in the online lobby followed by the Ninjutsu Library.
A special training pack for your avatar!
As you train with Konohamaru Sarutobi (BORUTO), you will acquire Training Points which can be used to unlock a wide variety of Ninjutsu and costumes for your avatar!
Content includes:
• 2 Ninjutsu
– Fire Style: Burning Ash
– Fire Style: Flaming Meteors
• 1 Secret Technique
– Summoning: Enra
• 1 Costume
– Konohamaru Outfit 2
• 1 Avatar Part
– Hair: Konohamaru (Young Ver.)
• 1 Weapon
– Adamantine Staff
• Additional Content
– Honorary Title: Next Generation Jonin Leader
NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI STRIKER Season Pass
BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment America Inc.
☆☆☆☆☆ 153
★★★★★
$29.99
Extend your experience with the NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI STRIKER Season Pass! The Season Pass gives you access to 9 additional character packs.
SEASON PASS INCLUDES:
• Master Character Training Pack #1 – Jiraiya
• Master Character Training Pack #2 – Hiruzen Sarutobi
• Master Character Training Pack #3 – Orochimaru
• Master Character Training Pack #4 – Tobirama Senju
• Master Character Training Pack #5 – Minato Namikaze
• Master Character Training Pack #6 – Hashirama Senju
• Master Character Training Pack #7 – Tsunade
• Master Character Training Pack #8 – Obito Uchiha
• Master Character Training Pack #9 – Madara Uchiha
SEASON PASS BONUS:
Includes Jiraiya Costume with Shima & Fukasaku Replica.
NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI STRIKER
BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment
☆☆☆☆☆ 607
★★★★★
$59.99
The Naruto franchise is back with a brand new experience in NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI STRIKER! This new game lets gamers battle as a team of 4 to compete against other teams online! Graphically, SHINOBI STRIKER is also built from the ground up in a completely new graphic style. Lead your team and fight online to see who the best ninjas are!
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David Alonzo, Brand Manager, Bandai Namco Entertainment America
The Halloween franchise has been going for so long, that there are far more questionable or bad entries than there are good ones. Sure, the original is an all-time masterpiece, and there is plenty to love about some of the sequels, but like many slasher franchises, its track record is marked with half-baked ideas, convoluted plots, and a rotating cast of forgettable characters. The franchise was semi-rebooted in 2018 with a high-quality direct sequel to John Carpenter’s original, and it boded well for future entries in the franchise. Now, with Halloween Ends bringing the current trilogy of films to a close, the the spotty track record for the series has taken yet another hit.
The latest Halloween arrives in theaters and streaming on Peacock on October 14, wrapping up this current film series. And if the current press tour has anything to say about it, Jamie Lee Curtis’ time as Laurie Strode has come to an end (though this isn’t the first time she’s bowed out of the series). However, instead of going out on top, the Halloween franchise once again finds itself with a sloppy chapter that provides little satisfaction in its ending.
Halloween Ends is set four years after the events of Halloween (2018) and Halloween Kills (2021), finding Laurie and her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) living together, attempting to reassemble their lives after the path of destruction Michael Myers carved on Halloween night in 2018, which left a number of Haddonfield residents murdered–including Laurie’s own daughter (Judy Greer). Michael has since disappeared, and we are told through news clips and sound bites that things in Haddonfield are worse than ever as the curse of Michael Myers has led to deaths (via both murder and suicide) that cast a large shadow over the small town.
That’s about all the exposition you’re going to get on the last four years in the lives of these characters, though. Missing from Ends is any substantial coming to terms with the loss of Laurie’s daughter and Allyson’s mother. Instead, you get Laurie writing a book vaguely about her experiences and an edgier Allyson who is now a full-blown adult with a job and a messy love life, which features a new love interest with a tragic past named Corey (Rohan Campbell).
This is where one of the first big faults in Halloween Ends can be found. Although this is, in theory, Laurie’s final curtain call in the franchise, most of the film centers around Allyson and her new outcast boyfriend. After everything she’s been through, you’d assume she’d see the numerous red flags Corey is throwing up at every turn, but that simply isn’t the case. Instead, she’s blinded by her new feelings for this obviously damaged young man, which doesn’t exactly make sense for the character.
At least she has a story, though. Though Curtis is top-billed in the movie, Laurie feels like a secondary character throughout. It doesn’t help that there’s also not a ton of Michael Myers in Halloween Ends, either. She’s clearly trying to move on with her life and put Michael behind her, but that’s before actually facing off with the devil she’s been tormented by most of her life.
When we first see Laurie again in Halloween (2018), we see a woman who’s been preparing for Michael’s escape from a mental institution. She’s ready to fight. In Halloween Ends, though, she’s put that behind her in an attempt at some kind of normalcy, even though it’s made very clear that nobody knows what became of The Shape after Halloween Kills. Given the chaos that Michael’s being on the loose caused for Haddonfield, and Laurie herself, in that film, this change in character makes very little sense.
Then there’s Michael himself. As previously mentioned, this isn’t like the previous two films–which are stuffed to the gills with Michael walking around and hacking up anybody in his way. He has some moments, but the movie also makes it clear how much he’s aged in the previous four years. Although that could be an interesting avenue to explore, Halloween Ends instead introduces some vaguely supernatural elements to sidestep any issues. Though he’s hobbling and seemingly barely able to hold himself up at one point, killing someone gives him power for some reason. He goes from hunched over to standing tall, ready to continue his spree.
This isn’t the first time the Halloween franchise has dabbled in the supernatural, but it feels oddly out of place in this trilogy, which reverted back to a more grounded and realistic approach to the story, showcasing Michael as a deranged and ridiculously strong man hunting and killing those who stand in his way and Laurie as a woman still dealing with the intense trauma that comes with fending him off when she was a teenager. To now introduce elements to the Michael character that can be construed as supernatural–along with some that can’t be mentioned here as they would be massive spoilers–it feels like a major departure from this trilogy of movies. What’s more, none of these elements land well enough to make them worthwhile.
If there is something satisfying about this movie, it’s the wildly gory climax to the film, featuring the showdown between Michael and Laurie that was desperately missing from Halloween Kills. All fans of this series want are these two battling to the death, but they didn’t even share a single frame of film in the last movie. While they certainly share fewer scenes in Halloween Ends than they did in Halloween (2018), their fight in this film is a meaty one, but also rather surprising in how it plays out.
The rest of the cast of characters are fine. Campbell’s Corey vacillates between a wounded puppy dog in search of acceptance and a potential maniac on the brink of total breakdown. Kyle Richards, who reprised her role as Lindsay from the original Halloween film, returned in Halloween Kills and again here in Ends. However, she’s wildly underused. Her role is barely more than a cameo in the film, which is rather disappointing given her longstanding connection to the franchise.
In all, Halloween Ends ends up being another very lackluster chapter in a franchise filled with lackluster chapters. It’s not as bad as, say, Halloween: Resurrection starring Busta Rhymes, but it’s not that much better. When Danny McBride and David Gordon Green announced they were bringing back Halloween, it was an exciting idea. Then, with Halloween (2018), the hope that Laurie would get a fitting end to her decades-long story with Michael peaked. Now, though, four years later, Curtis is left with another disappointing ending for the character that made her a star. And maybe that’s the true Halloween legacy: An incredible start with the 1978 original film has led to a massive franchise of movies that have never reached those same creative heights.
Regardless, chances are this won’t be the last Halloween movie, which is almost comforting. Where to go from here is tricky, though. Surely, they could find a way to continue the story that wraps up with Halloween Ends, but it might be better if they didn’t. Instead, take a cue from the aftermath of Resurrection and have somebody start fresh. After 42 years, it might finally be time to put this original version of Myers and Halloween to rest.
Our Bayonetta 3 cover story blowout continues with an extended look at Bayonetta 3’s Shibuya section. Join hosts Wesley LeBlanc and myself, Marcus Stewart, as we commentate on unedited portions of our Bayonetta 3 gameplay video.
The footage shows off the complete time traveling Cereza puzzle we showed in our previous video detailing the game’s new features. We also present a combat challenge room in its entirety, plus as a few stylish skirmishes with the Homunguli in Tokyo’s ravaged city streets.
Bayonetta 3 is Game Informer‘s cover story this month, as you can read our digital issue now or catch up on exclusive features and gameplay videos by clicking the banner below.
A new video for Sonic Frontiers is available, and it provides a look at combat.
The video also covers the skill tree and upgrades.
Sonic Frontiers – Combat & Upgrades Trailer
The game features an all-new battle system and skill tree upgrades, allowing you to fight strategically. You can combine moves such as dodges, parries, counters, combos, and the new Cyloop ability to take down foes and titans.
Sonic Frontiers will mark the first time a Skill Tree has been included in a Sonic game. It allows for powerful new abilities that can be unlocked by collecting enough Skill Pieces from fallen enemies, as well as breakable items around the islands (thanks, Gematsu).
Sonic’s standard move set such as the Homing Attack, Drop Dash, and Stomp are available at the beginning of the game. While effective against normal enemies, you will need to level up and earn new skills to take on stronger enemies. To prepare for the latter, be sure to collect as many Red Seeds of Power and Blue Seeds of Defense as you can in order to boost your stats.
As you progress and level up in the game, so do your enemies. Combos are perfect for gaining the upper hand during battle, and even better when combined with the new skill Phantom Rush.
The combo meter will fill up after attacking enemies consecutively, and once maxed out, Phantom Rush is activated. This boosts your attack power until the meter reaches zero. If you want to dole out even more damage, you can use Sonic Boom, which is a long-range, high-speed kick that in short bursts produces shockwaves.
Another move, Wild Rush, produces a zigzagging attack that sends Sonic crashing into a target with great force.
You can also parry enemy moves, and visual cues will let you know when one is going to attack. Reacting quickly enough will allow you to parry and follow up with a counterattack.
Sonic Frontiers releases on November 8 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
It began in 1998, with the release of Xenogears. It began in 2002, with the release of Xenosaga Episode I. It began in 2010, with the release of Xenoblade Chronicles. It ended in 2022, with the release of Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
In all likelihood, it will begin again. Takahashi, like so many artists, compulsively retreads the same ground in nearly everything he creates, and there’s no reason to suspect Xenoblade 3 will be his last project. But the game nevertheless represents a major milestone in the director’s decades-long career—the first time one of his outsized, idiosyncratic, multi-game sci-fi RPG projects was fully realized and brought to its natural, intended conclusion. That’s not just speculation: in a statement made shortly after the game’s release, Takahashi personally described Xenoblade 3 as the end of the overarching narrative that began with the original Xenoblade Chronicles. The series may very well continue, he says, but this particular arc will not.
Crucially, in this same statement, he refers to Xenoblade 3 as a “culmination.” In context, this can be taken to mean a culmination of the ideas and mechanics conceived in Xenoblade and Xenoblade 2, but I see Xenoblade 3 as something much grander. I suspect he does, too.
Every game Takahashi directs for the remainder of his career will inevitably be compared to Xenogears. Chalk this up to a few factors. The first, and most obvious, is that he can’t stop remaking it. Thoughthe 1998 PlayStation game never received any direct sequels or spin-offs, Takahashi has borrowed heavily from it in every game he’s helmed since. The second is that Xenogears is one of the greatest and most ambitious games ever made, far beyond the scope of most JRPGs before or since, with a knotty, complex plot that openly incorporates elements of, among other things, Gnosticism, Jewish mysticism, and 20th-century psychoanalysis.
But most compelling of all—the foremost reason Xenogears has always functioned and will continue functioning as the skeleton key to Takahashi’s work—is the fact that it’s unfinished. The game’s precarious development cycle is, by this point, a legend unto itself, an inextricable meta-framework that clarifies and enriches the unevenness of the text.
In brief: Xenogears was huge. Its team was comparatively small, and lacked experience with 3D modeling and level design (unlike most JRPGs of its era, Xenogears boasted fully three-dimensional environments and a dynamic camera system). Ideas got bigger as deadlines got closer, and the developers faced a choice: release the game on one disc and end on a cliffhanger, or finish the story across two discs, with the second somehow shortened. Takahashi, preferring an imperfectly-told story to a half-told one, chose the latter. As a result, the final ~15 hours of the game are presented in a visual novel-adjacent format. Revelatory plot developments and large-scale conflicts are compressed into a patchwork of text crawls, displayed against sparse backdrops that, at times, resemble a stage. Prior to any of its spiritual successors, prior even to its own conclusion, Xenogears begins adapting itself.
This is all to say that Xenoblade 3, and indeed the entirety of Takahashi’s corpus, cannot exist in a vacuum. His debut project is one that practically begs to be relitigated and reinterpreted. All of his preoccupations are present here, in some form, at ground zero. To really get a handle on what he’s been building toward for the past twenty-odd years—on why Xenoblade 3 is, in its own way, a triumph—we need to perform our due diligence. We need to start with Xenogears.
(This piece contains spoilers for Xenosaga and Xenoblade Chronicles 3.)
The First: Xenogears
From the opening of Xenogears (and Revelation 22:13).Screenshot: Square Enix
Luckily, Xenogears isn’t actually that complicated. It’s just about love.
All of Tetsuya Takahashi’s games are about love. Even at their most convoluted, their most esoteric, and, yes, their most cringeworthy (hello, Xenoblade 2), they’re love stories. The man can’t help himself.
I’m being a bit facetious. Of course Xenogears is complicated, sometimes exhaustingly so—while replaying it in preparation for this piece, I frequently found myself tabbing between a Carl Jung study guide and several different passages from the Nag Hammadi codices—but its density is a means to a relatively clear-cut end. It poses a question, philosophically broad but emotionally precise: what does it mean to love something? To love another person, to love humanity, to love God? After about 60 hours, it arrives at something resembling an answer.
The circuitous path to that answer begins in the remote pastoral town of Lahan, in the country of Aveh, which has been at war with neighboring country Kislev for 500 years. The scales have tipped in Aveh’s favor due to its widespread usage of “Gears”: giant fighting robots excavated from the ruins beneath the country’s desert. After an Aveh-led black op gone awry embroils unwitting Lahan resident Fei Fong Wong—an amnesiac painter—in this conflict, he eventually stumbles into the discovery that both sides are being puppeteered by a third, far more powerful political entity called Solaris. Elhaym Van Houten (Elly for short), a high-ranking Solarian soldier, repeatedly crosses paths with Fei, and together they learn of a covert plot to resurrect an ancient biological WMD called “Deus” by supplying it with mutated human flesh. More importantly, though, they fall in love.
These ideas were not Takahashi’s alone. In the early ‘90s, while working at Squaresoft as a graphics artist, he became acquainted with fellow employee Kaori Tanaka (who now works under the pseudonym Soraya Saga). He and Saga shared a number of interests: science fiction, history, literature, religion, philosophy, psychology. Together, they began drafting a story. That story became Xenogears, and their friendship became a marriage.
A photo of the Final Fantasy VI staff. Takahashi is fifth from the left, and Saga is next to him.Photo: Square Enix / Final Fantasy Wiki
Saga’s contribution to Xenogears cannot be overstated. By all accounts, she was responsible for the two ideas that would eventually form the narrative bedrock of the game proper, those being Fei’s struggles with multiple personality disorder and antagonist Miang Hawwa’s role as a feminine AI. Saga and Takahashi collaborated closely on both outlining and scriptwriting, and though she doesn’t share her husband’s director credit, it would not be an exaggeration to say that, conceptually and ideologically, half of Xenogears belongs to her.
Once again, it becomes impossible to decouple the circumstances of the game’s production from how it operates as a work of fiction. A story about love, written by two people in love, packed end to end with their mutual obsessions. Its philosophizing takes on an almost conversational quality: the more Xenogears breathlessly divulges its ideas, the easier it is to imagine it as a match of intellectual ping-pong between its creators, the result of years of discussion and debate and scrutiny and affection. The game’s unrelenting determination to see itself through to the end despite its concessions illuminates the compulsion behind it. Takahashi and Saga needed Xenogears to exist; it was their love made manifest. If it resonated with even a single person, that would be more than enough.
Thankfully, it resonated with plenty of people, because it’s a compelling, provocative game. Xenogears’ cult status is unsurprising: even on the most superficial level, it’s catnip for proper noun recognizers, pulling unabashedly and without hesitation from every imaginable creative stratum and allowing high, low, and pop culture to collide violently in the shifting currents of its ocean-vast design. This is a work as inspired by Jung as it is by Super Dimension Fortress Macross, as evocative of Arthur C. Clarke’s poignant novel Childhood’s End as it is of the Apocryphon of John. Government-operated facilities that turn people into food are called “Soylent Systems,” the quantum supercomputer overseeing all life on the planet is called “Zohar,” one of Fei’s former incarnations is literally named “Lacan.”
Most of Xenogears’ original English localization team abandoned the project early on because of its esoteric script, leaving translator Richard Honeywood to do much of the work himself.Screenshot: Square Enix
The weight of all these allusions threatens, at times, to break the bank. In isolation, they mean little. A story serving up a mile-high layer cake of intertextuality does not automatically render it intelligent or insightful. Xenogears certainly isn’t lacking in ham-handedness, but its influences are, by and large, only scaffolding, and invoked with utmost sincerity. They’re deftly channeled into our understanding of the world and characters, existing primarily to generate drama. The game is not smart because it references psychoanalytic theory and Gnostic doctrine. It’s smart because it understands how these concepts could meaningfully inform the identities and beliefs of human beings.
Fei’s splintered personalities and incarnations are an oft-referenced example, and for good reason: they’re patterned after a widely-known psychoanalytic schema (that being Freud’s theory of the id, ego, and superego), and lend themselves well to straightforward interpretation (Fei’s most antagonistic alternate personality is named “Id,” and much of the rest can be inferred). By the game’s end, this configuration has transcended metaphor and become a catalyst for an exceptional character study, realistically curdling Fei’s relationships with others and himself while drawing the curtain back on his most deeply held personal apprehensions. It’s telling that he doesn’t map precisely onto any particular model–these models are not, ultimately, the point.
This ethos is just as apparent in the game’s broader strokes. There’s a moment relatively early on in Xenogears when one of its major characters, Margie, gives the rest of the party a guided tour through a cathedral in her hometown. Margie is a spiritual leader by blood, and acts as something of a foil to her more literal-minded companions. She draws their attention to two enormous statues near the cathedral’s altar, each depicting an angel with only one wing. This blemish, she says, is by design. “God could have created humans perfectly, but then, humans would not have helped each other,” she explains. “So that is what these great single-winged angels symbolize… in order to fly, they are dependent on one another.”
Here the game generously offers us its thesis, and the thesis of more or less every Xeno game, on a silver platter. It suggests that divinity and weakness coexist symbiotically in human beings, and bridges that gap with a call to mutual aid. It asserts that people can find God in their own mortal lives, that helping and loving one another is the strongest possible application of faith.
The visual motif of two one-winged angels recurs throughout Xenogears.Screenshot: Square Enix
That Xenogears has such a defined thesis at all is indicative of its thoughtfulness. The game is in active conversation with its influences; its conclusions are its own. Its primary antagonist, Krelian, is a pure Gnostic, regarding humans as deficient and taking drastic action in service of transcending the Demiurge (the aforementioned Deus, which functions as a conduit to a higher plane of existence). Fei rejects this. He knows he doesn’t need God to feel whole. He just needs Elly.
Fei and Elly are the beginning and the end. Their love is the grounding force behind every arcane reference, every serpentine plot thread. An artist and a soldier, adrift on opposite sides of a centuries-long war, find one another, and in doing so, find providence. The majority of Xenogears’ grandest thematic gestures—most of which would become Takahashi staples—orbit this relationship in some form. Spirituality, class warfare, familial trauma, systems of control, cycles of rebirth, lives as a resource, desire for community—all are addressed, explored, and embodied on an intimate, human level. It feels honest. Occasionally, it even feels adult.
It’s equally exciting and frustrating that most of these ideas only really hit full tilt in the game’s truncated final third. Disc 2 of Xenogears is one of the most texturally bewildering stretches of any video game I’ve ever played, lofty in its aims and deeply moving in its dedication but so clearly a mere trace of all it was originally conceived to be. As incredible as it often is, it aches to be more. Fans and detractors alike have opined that the game would be a paradigm-shattering masterpiece had it been fully realized, lamenting all the quests they’d never get to see and dungeons they’d never get to explore. Personally, I’m not so sure. Xenogears left me wanting, yes, but would filling in its gaps dilute the white-hot nitro burst of creative energy fueling its final hours? Would a “complete” Xenogears feel as raw, as authentic? Would Takahashi still be remaking it?
A scene from the beginning of Xenogears’ second disc. From this point forward, much of the game’s story is presented in this format, save for a few boss battles and dungeons.Screenshot: Square Enix
On one hand, maybe Xenogears needs its abridged disc 2. Its flaws dovetail rather poetically with what the game is trying to say about the virtues of human imperfection. On the other hand, it mostly stops being a video game, which is a shame because Xenogears is a video game for very specific reasons. The aforementioned 3D maps are crucial: this is a world built for tactility, for depth in the most literal sense. World immersion, it would eventually become clear, is one of Takahashi’s guiding principles as a game designer:
In terms of my own personal goal – my vision of an ideal game – I’d honestly have to say that [Xenoblade Chronicles] is barely 5% of the way there. My goal is to recreate the world itself. I think it’s valuable to develop projects with such lofty goals in mind. […] I know this is a pretty radical idea, but I think the future of [the RPG genre] is world creation that is good enough to be the equivalent of reality.
We can see this mentality germinating all the way back in 1998. Xenogears, for all its loquaciousness, wants us to play it. Its environments are beautiful, meticulously constructed dollhouse dioramas that encourage viewing from every angle, and its dungeons, for better or worse, haveplatforming. This floors me. In an era when even 3D platformers were still figuring out 3D platforming, Takahashi and co. plunked it right in the middle of their madcap anime role-playing game, taking extra care to consider how the areas interlocked in 3D space and what that could communicate about the world to the player. The quality of the platforming (not great) is beside the point. It’s the gesture that counts, and it counts for a lot. It brings us closer to that world. It brings us closer to the characters. We are participants in Xenogears, not observers. Welcome to interactive storytelling.
Babel Tower, one of Xenogears’ more infamous platforming segments. Note the compass in the corner, which denotes the player’s orientation in 3D space.Screenshot: Square Enix
So we play the video game. We explore the world. We kill the monsters. We pilot the robot. We get the girl. We watch the cutscenes. We fight God (sort of). We win; roll credits. Finished at last, we breathe a deep sigh and begin mulling it all over. Then one final morsel of text fades onto the screen. “XENOGEARS EPISODE V: THE END.”
What the fuck. V as in 5?
Xenogears, as it turns out, is even bigger. During the initial planning phase, Takahashi and Saga conceptualized a 6-part timeline stretching from the beginning of the game’s continuity to its end. Part 5 constitutes Xenogears’“present day”–in other words, the game itself. Parts 2-4, though not playable, are discussed in great detail. Parts 1 and 6 are practically untouched. At no point are any of these demarcations established in-game. It wouldn’t be clear what “Episode V” meant until the official Xenogears art book, titled Perfect Works, laid it all out two years later.
From Xenogears: Perfect Works. A visualization of the game’s full timeline.Photo: Square Enix / Internet Archive
Perfect Works—which, even in name, suggests a mythic, tantalizing vision, a towering opus that has yet to be realized—quickly became shorthand for Takahashi’s creative aims. When people realized just how much story he and Saga had wanted to tell, they began applying Perfect Works as a blueprint, wondering aloud if any of his new projects would finally convey it in full. As recently as Xenoblade 3, the speculation persisted: “Is this it? Is he finally doing Perfect Works?”
The answer is complicated.
Interlude: Xenosaga and Xenoblade Chronicles
Official art of Xenosaga’s two primary characters, Shion Uzuki and KOS-MOS, by lead character designer Kunihiko Tanaka. Tanaka also designed the characters for Xenogears.Illustration: Monolith Soft / Namco / Xenosaga Wiki
In 1999, Takahashi and several members of the Xenogears development staff split from Square and formed their own studio, Monolith Software, Inc. Their first project, published by Namco and released in 2002, was Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht.
If the brazen Nietzsche reference in the subtitle wasn’t an obvious enough tip-off, Xenosaga Episode I is every bit as philosophically dense as its predecessor. Another collaboration between Takahashi and Saga, it lifted numerous concepts very directly from Xenogears—most notably the Zohar, and its connection to the “upper domain” of the universe—and recalibrated them for an epic space opera. As a story, it’s intricate, absurd, emotional, and only occasionally dull. As a game, it’s dull slightly more often. I played it some years ago, and was fascinated by it. I have not played its two sequels, Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse (2004) and Xenosaga Episode III: Also sprach Zarathustra (2006). Someday I will, and I’ll be fascinated by them, too.
Xenosaga’s fate was much the same as Xenogears’, this time stretched out over several installments. It was first envisioned as a six-game arc—as good an indication as any that, yes, this was Perfect Works 2.0—but complications stemming from Episode I’s rushed development resulted in that number being halved. Takahashi and Saga wrote the script for Episode I. For Episode II, they wrote a draft, which was then drastically altered by the rest of the team to accommodate a tighter scope. By Episode III, Takahashi was only working on the series in a supervisory capacity, while Saga had stepped down altogether. To date, Episode II remains her last scriptwriting contribution to a mainline Xeno game. (She would, however, help write the 2004 mobile spinoff Xenosaga: Pied Piper and the unrelated 2008 Monolith Soft game Soma Bringer. She also contributed to Xenoblade 2 as a guest artist, designing the character Yuuou (which, for some reason, was translated into English as “Gorg”).) Though Episode III was critically well-received, its lackluster sales left Monolith Soft’s future uncertain.
There’s a great deal to be said and written about Xenosaga’s own status as a compromised work, and how it applies its uniquely heady, off-the-wall ideas (Jesus Christ—as in Of Nazareth—is an actual character in these games, chunky PS2 graphics and all). For now, these considerations fall outside my purview. Just know that it’s big, messy, beautiful, and at least 60% Xenogears.
Concept art for Xenoblade Chronicles, featuring the titans Bionis and Mechonis, the bodies of which comprise the game’s overworld.Illustration: Monolith Soft / Nintendo
Monolith Soft was bought by Nintendo in 2007. Xenoblade Chronicles, Takahashi’s next major project, released in 2010. At that time, it was by far the most “complete” game he’d ever directed: a sprawling JRPG with a self-contained story, polished to a high sheen from start to finish, featuring colorful, well-rounded characters and an energetic real-time battle system. Everything about its design and presentation straddled the line between old and new. Originally, it was localized only in Europe, in 2011. Thousands of people, me included, wrote letters to Nintendo urging them to release it in North America. In April of 2012, they did. It’s my favorite game of all time.
Over the following five years Xenoblade spawned two sequels, the first one spiritual. Xenoblade Chronicles X, released in 2014, is perhaps the best example yet of Takahashi’s interest in world design, purposefully eliding much of its story in favor of giving players nearly unrestricted access to a gargantuan map. It’s the only Xenoblade game thus far to feature controllable mechs, and for that alone, it gets the gold star.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (2017) would be one of the worst games in history if it wasn’t one of the best. Its design is a queasy fractal of systems within systems; its aesthetics simultaneously evoke the imaginative whimsy of SNES JRPGs and the screaming-loud numerical bacchanalia of contemporary mobile gachas. At times, it’s agonizing. At others, it’s delightful. Eventually, it trips headfirst into saying something really interesting. I like it, because I like weird stuff. Your mileage may vary.
It also marked the series’ transition to something unexpectedly complex. Prior toits release, Takahashi said that the game, as with X, would be a separate continuity, à lanew mainline Final Fantasy entries. This was a bald-faced and hilarious lie. The final act of Xenoblade 2 established a cosmic, millennia-spanning throughline between itself and the original Xenoblade, jettisoning lore fragments in a thousand different directions and leaving the series wide open to further exploration.
Xenoblade was never meant to be a multi-game project. It wasn’t meant to be Perfect Works. And then, suddenly, it seemingly was. One can only assume that Takahashi used the first game’s success as an excuse to dig his heels in. This was to be his new outlet. Maybe, this time, he could finally bring it home.
On February 9th, 2022, Nintendo announced Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
The Last: Xenoblade Chronicles 3
The cast of Xenoblade 3, illustrated by lead character designer Masatsugu Saito to commemorate the game’s launch.Illustration: Monolith Soft / Nintendo / Masatsugu Saito
Immediately, the game looked familiar.
There were the designs, for one. Xenoblade 3’s ponytailed protagonist Noah bore a not-not-striking resemblance to Fei, and one of the first revealed villains, Consul D, was nearly the spitting image of Xenogears’ Grahf.
But these similarities were only skin deep. The game’s story, even with the scant information provided in the reveal trailer, was far more enticing. It supposedly concerned two nations, Agnus and Keves, locked in an eons-long war for reasons long forgotten. (Pop quiz: what other Takahashi game features two warring countries whose names begin with the letters A and K? You have five minutes.) Its central party was to be composed of two groups of three characters each—three from Agnus and three from Keves. Noah would lead the Kevesi group. The Agnian group would be led by a girl named Mio. It didn’t take an accredited Takahashi scholar to predict that Noah and Mio were probably going to fall in love.
They did, of course. I just wasn’t prepared for how much.
Not unlike Xenogears, Xenoblade 3 features an early scene that defines its goals more succinctly than I ever could. In the aftermath of an intense battle, the two groups of characters—still enemies at this point in the story—sit down and, understanding that they’re bound by circumstance and have no choice but to cooperate, introduce themselves to one another. They go around in a circle, say their names, and talk about their interests. It’s so sweet and so remarkably simple, and the simplicity feels like the point. Here are six people whose lives have been defined, in every imaginable way, by conflict. When the stakes suddenly change, words are all that are left. Aggression yields almost immediately to emotional honesty.
The newly minted friend group makes camp for the first time.Screenshot: Monolith Soft / Nintendo
Emotional honesty is vital in Xenoblade 3, which takes place in a deeply dishonest world. Every facet of it is designed to disallow growth and discourage connection. People aren’t born, they’re made. They live ten years at most, fighting the entire time. If they don’t fight, they die. After they die, their physical forms are reconstituted and their memories are wiped, and then they do it all over again. All in service of a war that, it’s soon revealed, is a farce orchestrated by an organization called Moebius, members of which draw sustenance from the bodies of dead soldiers and preside over human encampments like petty tyrants. They do this so they can live forever, because to be mortal is to invite change, and nothing is more frightening than change.
As always, love is the antidote. The operatic, time-transcending romance between Noah and Mio, echoing that of Fei and Elly, functions as a microcosmic distillation of the plot’s overarching conflicts. As “off-seers”—soldiers tasked with mourning the lives of their fallen comrades—they’re acutely attuned to cultural memory, or lack thereof. Together, they realize that uncertainty is preferable to stagnation, and that imperfection begets improvement. They see a hideous, mangled variation of their relationship in the characters N and M, who relinquished their humanity in favor of eternity, and decide to do better. Indifference becomes their greatest enemy. If the world prevents their union, then so be it: they’ll remake the world. Why wouldn’t they? Their love is stronger. Any system obfuscating it has no reason to exist.
The game’s definition of “love” extends far beyond just this central couple. Xenoblade 3 distributes dialogue fairly evenly among its main cast, and exhibits on average the highest quality of character writing in the series—a considerable improvement over the already wonderfully grounded Xenoblade. (Xenoblade 2 is Xenoblade 2.) A great deal of thought is put into particular frictions of even minor conversations, and before long, a friend group organically takes shape. Having painted a vivid picture of its unjust, overbearing world, Xenoblade 3 contends that nothing is more restorative than companionship. X-ray its story and you’ll find the skeleton of a road movie.
Noah and Mio, power couple.Screenshot: Monolith Soft / Nintendo
Companionship is, in fact, what much of the game’s design is predicated on. Its quest structure is boldly, confidently ridiculous: instead of simply talking to NPCs to get sidequests, players instead need to “overhear” NPCs voicing concerns, and then convene at a “rest spot” (usually either a campsite or a restaurant) so that the party can talk these concerns over at length, each member offering a distinct perspective. Only upon completion of this entire process, which often takes several minutes, is the quest made available. From a utilitarian standpoint, this is cumbersome. It adds several unnecessary steps to what should be a rudimentary and straightforward action. From a chilling-with-your-homies standpoint, it’s perfect. It speaks to Xenoblade 3’s desire to cram as much characterization as possible into every square inch of both playable and non-playable space. The game desperately wants us to understand these people, given what limited time they have.
Zoom out a bit and you’ll see this philosophy applied everywhere. The battle system functions as its own sort of interaction, with each character having the option to use any other character’s class at any time–a mechanic introduced following a scene where the entire party trades compliments. The brilliant “affinity chart,” which tracks every named character in the game and their relationships with one another, returns from the first Xenoblade. And many of these characters are folded into the main cast via “hero quests,” extended side stories focusing on notable NPCs with uniquely fraught connections to the war. Free them from Moebius’ control and they’ll join your party as optional seventh members, opening the floodgates to yet more conversation and further deepening the player characters’ involvement in the communities—and world—they inhabit.
That world (called “Aionios,” derived from Greek “aionioß,” meaning “without beginning or end”) is especially noteworthy, because worlds are Takahashi’s bread and butter, and ever since the original Xenoblade he’s taken a particular interest in their decline. Even sans impending doomsday scenarios, the settings of all three games in the series exist in varying states of sustained putrefaction. Xenoblade and Xenoblade 2 both take place on the bodies of massive living creatures that, due either to inadequate sustenance or resource mismanagement, are dying. 3, which merges the settings of its two predecessors, is a colossal graveyard, its landscapes littered with these creatures’ ancient, petrified remains. Strange explosions dubbed “annihilation events’’ frequently atomize large swaths of terrain without warning, gradually eating away at what little is left. Aionios’s denizens all intuitively understand that it’s dying, if not already dead. They’ve just been conditioned to accept it.
Maktha Wildwood, one of the more discernibly corroded regions of Aionios.Screenshot: Monolith Soft / Nintendo
It seems only natural that climate anxiety would eventually take root in Takahashi’s fiction, preoccupied as he is with notions of environmental hostility. His worlds are in active contention with their populations, usually as a result of humanity’s severe technological overreach. In Xenogears, this comes as a shock. In the Xenoblade series, it’s a given. Even when characters know little about their respective world histories, they know these worlds are impermanent and that their decay is accelerating. The challenge, then, is one of overcoming apathy.
Apathy as moral failure, and the subsequent effects of failure on the human psyche, were embodied in Grahf, one of Xenogears’ recurring villains (and yet another incarnation of Fei). Grahf’s inability to protect his loved ones resulted in a despair so overwhelming that he elected to be its agent rather than its victim. Xenoblade 3 iterates on this with the character N, a former incarnation of Noah, whose cruel disposition stems from his reluctance to acknowledge the impermanence of life–his own, and that of his partner. He fought back against Moebius, failed, and then sided with them, because in his cowardice he couldn’t bear failing again. For N, love is a corrupting force, not a healing one; it can be weaponized like anything else. He’s the most emotionally resonant antagonist the Xenoblade series has yet seen, and the dialectic between him and Noah—who tells him, to his face, that he’s full of shit—is a tidy summation of ideas Takahashi has toyed with for decades.
Xenoblade 3 is chock full of familiar gestures, taken to their logical extremes and amplified to a fever pitch. It’s loud, bright, and relentlessly earnest, and it packs more than a little revolutionary spirit. Closely examine even its gloomiest moments and you’ll find traces of celebration, of both its forebears and of itself. Gameplay is sharpened to a keen edge, level geometry is beautifully constructed, the plot is meaty, and the romance hits like a freight train. Seeing it all unfold with so much verve, knowing about all the curtailed projects that preceded it, is moving. Xenoblade Chronicles came more or less out of nowhere; Monolith Soft’s post-Xenosaga future was anyone’s guess, given Episode III’s underwhelming performance. Twelve years later, Xenoblade is a distinguished franchise, its ambition budding with each installment. Takahashi, with the aid of his peers, finally pulled it off.
And so, as is tradition, that timeworn rallying cry: “Perfect Works?”
Xenoblade 3 is superb. It is not, however, Perfect Works.
At least, it isn’t Xenogears. This seems to be the underlying assumption behind every piece of Perfect Works-related speculation: at the end of the day, people just want Xenogears, or at least something narratively identical but with all the names switched around. I can’t blame them, especially when Xenoblade 3 very intentionally teases out these reactions. Thematically, the two games overlap quite a bit, and Xenoblade 3 is indeed a culmination in a more general—and, I’d argue, more meaningful—sense. But it can’t be Xenogears. It doesn’t have enough ideas, and the ideas it does have aren’t interesting enough.
In all fairness, the same can be said for most games that aren’t Xenogears.
Speaking to Satoru Iwata in 2010 about the first Xenoblade, Takahashi said the following:
When you’re young, you’re brimming with creative energy after all, and it is a path everyone goes through. Among young game creators today, there is no shortage of people with the same approach I had, making games solely for those players who will understand what you are trying to achieve. I think that this sort of game is necessary in the video game industry.
But now, when I ask myself if I still have that drive, which was in a sense rash and reckless, the answer is of course that I don’t. At the same time, I now have a better view of the overall shape of things, and I feel that my creative range has increased. Recently, especially since becoming a father of two, I’ve been thinking more and more about how to make a game that will be enjoyed by a large number of players and that will strike a chord with them.
Admittedly, this gnaws at me. Takahashi’s overt admission that his new work lacks the hyperspecificity and unchecked passion of Xenogears and Xenosaga calls into question the value of Xenoblade as a product of personal expression. It also prompts me to re-evaluate my own relationship with it. Again: Xenoblade Chronicles is my favorite game. My love for it was (and is) owed in no small part to my perception of it as a thoughtful artistic gesture, in addition to its merits as both a video game and a work of fiction. It affected me in a very particular way at a very particular point in my life; maybe, if it were released now, my feelings would differ. In any case, putting it in conversation with its progenitor, I’m confronted with the realization that it may itself be compromised. Not in the literal, conspicuous way that Xenogears is, but in the subtler, more cynical way that so much art beholden to capital is. Mass appeal, tempering of difficult ideas, and diminished creative breadth.
To an extent, I’m sure this is true, because this is how creating in corporatized spaces works. With video games’ maturation into a lucrative global enterprise, risk-taking projects with the ideological heft of Xenogears have become rarer, at least from developers as high-profile as Square. Xenoblade and its sequels are bankrolled by Nintendo, one of the most recognizable corporate media entities in the world. Conclusions vis-à-vis limited artistic freedom are easy to draw.
But Tetsuya Takahashi is also a human being. Human beings change. At the time of the above quote, Xenogears was over a decade old. This year, it turned 24. Takahashi notes that since its release, he’d become a father, and consequently viewed the shift in his priorities as liberating. Retooling his interests for a wider audience was, in his view, a new and refreshing way to approach game development. If I’m being charitable, it sounds like a personal choice. And I want to be charitable, because I love these games, and because I believe this interpretation is supported by the text.
Though the series may lack Xenogears’ rougher edges, Takahashi’s fingerprints are still here, and they’re not particularly hard to find. The weapon wielded by Xenoblade’s protagonist explicitly references Leibniz’s Monadology; Xenoblade 2 is a frenzied riff on Plato’s allegory of the cave; all three organize their heroes and villains around Gnostic concepts. More importantly, though, they are—as with Xenogears—anchored by the thoughts and actions of people, and are concerned chiefly with the importance of community amid systems that discourage it.
Xenoblade 3 is a culmination because it’s Takahashi’s most potent love story yet. Its sincerity is all-encompassing. As I played it, three things became clear: one, that it’s a game written by a real human being with real human interests, not an automaton who has dedicated his career to clinical self-imitation. Takahashi understands better than anyone that truly “remaking” Xenogears means excavating the pathos from its core and refining it even further. (Fittingly, the most formally congruent scenes between Xenogears and Xenoblade 3 are montages in which two lovers repeatedly reconnect throughout thousands of years of history.) Two, that he is thinking very candidly about death, and what it really means to surrender oneself—and one’s family—to the future’s unknowns. And three, that this is, on a purely emotional level, the game he’s always wanted to make. Perfect Works, which largely fails to account for the emotional underpinnings of Takahashi’s work, is not a sufficient blueprint. Xenoblade 3 is similar in the ways that matter most, and different only inasmuch as its creator has changed.
Screenshot: Monolith Soft / Nintendo
In its final moments, the game pulls a crafty narrative trick. Having asserted that overinvestment in the present stymies acceptance of the future, it implicitly incriminates players who don’t want its story to end. The broader connotations of this, intentional or not, are not lost on me. Tetsuya Takahashi will probably never make another Xenogears. If he does, it may not even be on purpose. Instead, he’s making something new, something informed by but not derivative of his past. Xenoblade 3 is a culmination, not a retread. It looks forward, not backward.
It is, as with everything Takahashi has made, a creation myth.
Sony has announced a November 18 release date for Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales on PC.
Along with the release date, the enhancements and customizable settings made by Nixxes Software have been revealed for the game.
Similar to the PC version of Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, the game features many enhancements, and supports a broad range of hardware configurations.
You can enjoy ray-traced reflections with a variety of quality levels and newly added ray-traced shadows for outdoor light cast by the sun and the moon. This means you can expect realistic shadows with natural gradients in softness which enhances visual fidelity.
The game is fully optimized for ultra-wide gaming and supports ultra-wide aspect ratios of 21:9, 32:9 and 48:9 when using triple monitor setups. Similar to Spider-Man Remastered, the cinematics in Miles Morales were been adapted to be “fully viewable” in aspect ratios up to 32:9.
It also supports Nvidia DLSS 3 for GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs, which combines DLSS Super Resolution, DLSS Frame Generation, and Reflex to boost frame rate. Nvidia DLSS 2 and DLAA are also supported.
There are many different customization options as well located in the graphics menu. Here, you will find plenty of presets and quality levels to choose from such as texture quality, filtering, level of detail, crowd and traffic density, FoV, windowed, full-screen, and exclusive full-screen rendering modes.
You can have a look at the recommended specifications for a variety of graphical presets below.
The game also features customizable control options for the mouse and keyboard, and controllers, and with a PlayStation DualSense controller on a wired USB connection, you’ll experience adaptive trigger feedback and haptic response. And with Steam Input support, you can use a variety of peripherals for remapping options.
You can pre-order the game on Steam and the Epic Games Store for $49.99/€49.99, and doing so will unlock a Two-suit pack which includes the T.R.A.C.K. Suit, and Into the Spider-Verse Suit. Pre-orders also unlock early access to the Gravity Well gadget, and three Skill Points from the start of the game.
Undecember is a new hack-and-slash action RPG game developed by South Korea’s Needs Games and serviced by LINE Games. With a huge variety of character customizations, based on intricate item variations and skill systems, Undecember’s combat encourages players to build their characters and experiment to find their unique playstyle.
Pick up new items, evolve your character’s abilities, and delve into challenging PvE dungeons. Looking for a bigger challenge? Try out the multiplayer co-op Party Dungeons, Raids, and competitive PvP movies. No matter how you prefer to play, Undecember is there to immerse you in its interactive content.
New Worlds and Missions
According to history, 12 beings shared their power to create a world called Traum. They lived peacefully amongst their descendants, until an unexpected 13th being, the Evil God Serpens, crept out of the shadows to sow chaos. Your mission is to repel this dark force and their minions and save the world of Traum.
Something Different from the Start
From the start, you’ll notice that Undecember has no set character classes, only a character creator to get you started. Instead, you’ll allocate points for three stats: Strength (STR), Dexterity (DEX), and Intelligence (INT), which will help you carve out the style that best suits your character. After that, you’re ready to dive into the non-traditional gameplay, like conjuring magic while holding a sword, or summoning monsters while wielding a bow and arrow.
Runes Raise Your Skill
Runes are items that allow you to upgrade your character. There are two types: Skill Runes that boost your skills, and Link Runes that amplify your supply of Skill Runes. You can earn these by defeating monsters and completing quests, and you can upgrade them with materials you collect while hunting.
Skill runes have six available slots with particular color codes. When you connect Link Runes of the same color, the Skill rune is boosted by the supplementary effects of the connected Link Runes! The Link runes can have various effects, like increasing damage output, attack range, or boosting the number of projectiles you can fire. You can even find Link Runes that let you trigger rare offensive and defensive maneuvers.
Gear: An Endless Array of Variety and Effects
There are three types of gear: weapons, armor, and accessories, which can only be equipped when the item’s stat requirements are met. A piece of gear’s value corresponds to its level, grade, and quality, and each reacts differently based on who equips it and how it is used.
Zodiac: Use the Stars to Guide Your Character Build
Undecember’s Zodiac-inspired format lets you use points to increase your Strength (STR), Dexterity (DEX), and Intelligence (INT) stats. If you want to re-spec, you can reset the Zodiac (and your skill set) by using gold or sprinkling the rare Stardust of Oblivion.
Campaign Modes: RPG to PvE
Whether you’re a fan of immersion, fast action, or steady progression, there many ways to engage with Undecember:
Acts
This mode is all about loot. You’ll take on an episode, which consists of five acts. Each one increasing in difficulty, and allowing you to earn better gear as you ascend through them.
Acts are available in both single and multiplayer modes, letting you take on the challenge by yourself or with friends! Succeeding in multiplayer mode is more difficult than in solo-play, but teaming up is worth it, since it can increase your end loot by up to 300%. At launch, you’ll be able to experience 10 different Acts.
Chaos Dungeon
After you clear the main episodes, you’ll be able to challenge a Chaos Dungeon. Use a Chaos Card at the Chaos Statue located in the village to enter. After entering, you’ll have to fight your way to the boss room as you clear the monsters that stand in your way.
Raid
Raids are co-op experiences that you can complete twice per week. Eight players can team up to hunt down a giant boss. At launch, there will be three raid bosses you can take on, each with their own elemental types and attack patterns, with more on the way.
Spire of Barrier
Spire of Barrier places you and up to 3 other party members in a co-op battle against waves of incoming enemies. You’ll need to survive through each wave to make it out and claim rewards, but as you clear each wave, the field will shrink and limit the space you have to dodge away from enemies.
Void Rift
You can enter the Void Rift at Saluto village. Void Rifts let you take on stronger versions of the campaign bosses with more challenging patterns. Rewards increase as you advance, and the content resets every three weeks.
Relic
After players finish episode 2, tutorial quests await at Saluto village to activate Relic, all-new content that lets you summon an Avatar to assist you in battle. Avatars have Passive, Active, and Link skills that can be leveled up by using items dropped by monsters. You can summon one of 12 Avatars, and raise them up to level 30.
Familiar Features for Deeper Interaction
Popular RPG elements round out Undecember such as Player Guilds, an Auction House where you can bid on rare items, and even a Pet System that lets you recruit a faithful sidekick. Plus, an endless variety of skins and colorful costumes allow you to customize your character to fit your aesthetic.
Forward Focused Content
Undecember’s use of the latest hardware capabilities with a creative take on genre conventions makes it a fresh experience for gamers that want to try something new. Players have many ways to interact with the content, customize characters, and break traditional archetypes to play their way.
UNDECEMBER supports cross-play between PC (STEAM, LINE Games PC launcher) and mobile (iOS, Android). It can be played with keyboard and mouse, mobile touchpads, and gamepads. A total of 10 language options are available to choose from, including English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified/Traditional), German and French.
Get ready to experience the rise of Miles Morales as a new Spider-Man, coming to PC! In just over a month, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales will release on PC on November 18, 2022. Today I’m excited to share all the details on the enhancements the team at Nixxes Software has been working on, and to tell you more about pre-purchase bonuses.
Similar to the PC version of Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered we released earlier this year in close collaboration with Insomniac Games, Marvel Games, and PlayStation, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales on PC features many enhancements, customizable settings and support for a broad range of hardware configurations, all the way from high-end PCs to portable PC gaming devices.
The game features options for ray-traced reflections with a variety of quality levels and newly added ray-traced shadows for outdoor light cast by the sun and the moon. This enables realistic shadows with natural gradients in softness and further enhances the visual fidelity of Marvel’s New York.
The game is fully optimized for ultra-wide gaming and supports ultra-wide aspect ratios of 21:9, 32:9 and even 48:9 when using triple monitor setups. Similar to what our team did for Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, the cinematics in Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales on PC are adapted to be fully viewable in aspect ratios up to 32:9.
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales supports the latest performance enhancing upscaling technologies, like NVIDIA DLSS 3. This technology for GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs combines DLSS Super Resolution, DLSS Frame Generation, and NVIDIA Reflex to boost your frame rate to new heights. NVIDIA DLSS 2, NVIDIA DLAA, and NVIDIA Reflex will also be supported.
In the graphics menu, you’ll find many customizable features, presets, and quality levels to choose from. These include texture quality and filtering, level of detail, crowd and traffic density, field of view, windowed, full screen and exclusive full screen rendering modes, and many other options.
With the wide range of graphical settings and features, we want to ensure that gamers with the latest hardware can push their high-end rigs, but also make the game scale to less powerful systems. Below is an overview of the recommended specifications for a variety of graphical presets.
Minimum
Recommended
Very High
Amazing Ray Tracing
Ultimate Ray Tracing
Average Performance
720 @ 30 FPS
1080p @ 60 FPS
4K @ 60 FPS
1440p @ 60 FPS (4K @ 30 FPS)
4K @ 60 FPS
Graphic Presets
Very Low
1080p @ 60 FPSMedium
Very High
High Ray Tracing High
High Ray Tracing Very High
GPU
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 or AMD equivalent
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GBor AMD Radeon RX 580
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070or AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 or AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080or AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT
CPU
Intel Core i3-4160 or AMD equivalent
Intel Core i5-4670or AMD Ryzen 5 1600
Intel Core i5-11400 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Intel Core i5-11600Kor AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
Intel Core i7-12700Kor AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
RAM
8 GB
16 GB
16 GB
16 GB
32 GB
OS
Windows 10 64-bit
Windows 10 64-bit
Windows 10 64-bit
Windows 10 64-bit
Windows 10 64-bit
Storage
75 GB HDD
75 GB SSD
75 GB SSD
75 GB SSD
75 GB SSD
*Use of performance enhancing upscaling like NVIDIA DLSS is recommended when using both ray-traced reflections and ray-traced shadows.
The game also features extensive customizable control options for mouse and keyboard and controllers. When using a PlayStation DualSense controller on a wired USB connection, you’ll get the full DualSense controller experience, including adaptive trigger feedback and haptic response. And with Steam Input support, you can use a variety of peripherals and get innumerable remapping options.
If you want to be ready to play Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales the moment it releases on November 18, 2022, you can pre-purchase now on both Steam and in the Epic Games Store for $49.99 / €49.99 If you pre-purchase ahead of the game’s launch you’ll unlock the following game content early:
● Two-suit pack, including the T.R.A.C.K. Suit, and Into the Spider-Verse Suit
● Early access to the Gravity Well gadget
● Three Skill Points to unlock some abilities from the start of the game
Since the release of Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered last August on PC, the teams at Nixxes and Insomniac have been amazed and humbled by the enthusiastic response of PC gamers worldwide. Our heartfelt thanks go out to all of you, and we can’t wait to get the explosive powers of Miles Morales into your hands.
Welcome back to OlliOlli World! After a wild and wacky journey across the treetops and skyscrapers of Radlandia, and a zany adventure into outer Space with the out-of-this-world Void Riders, we figured it was time to bring OlliOlli back down to earth – we wanted to do something a bit more grounded and sensible and… nah, just kidding! This one’s set in the clouds.
There she blows!
High above the familiar cities, deserts, and forests of Radlandia, the wind is in control – as you skate through the skies, prepare to use the new Windzones to propel yourself forward over obstacles, bounce you backward onto hidden routes, and take yourself out with newer, faster, sillier slams than ever before. Then get back up and do it all over again – it’s a mechanic that compliments everything you’ve learned throughout the main game, and gives you brilliant new chances to pull off more tricks and achieve higher scores.
A new way to plan your route
Was the main path through the level too easy? Gnarly route left you wanting more? Well, now there’s a route for that! Burly routes offer a substantial challenge to players who… you know what? Those routes are for players who are better than me at this game. Please tell me what you find up there, and how it is you’re all getting those next-level high scores…
The friends you take with you
You’ll be joined on your journey into the skies of Radlandia by the infamous Radmospheric Three – fellow explorers seeking adventure above the clouds. The grizzled sea-dog Captain Squid, the prim and proper Professor Planks, and the mystically inclined Christopher Licht all have their own reasons for wanting to find Radlantis City, but they’re united by one goal- they want to be the first ones there! Beat Radlandia’s most morally dubious businessfrog, B.B. Hopper, to the map scraps scattered throughout the atmosphere, and who knows what discoveries might await beyond the clouds?
Explore above the clouds
Travel the skies with an all-new crew on a fantastical floating boat as you join The Radmospheric Three on their quest for the hidden city of Radlantis. Soar above the familiar sights of Radlandia, from the spooky clifftops of Wuthering Flights (are there really ghosts up there?) to the grease-laden clouds above industrial Sketchside (they call it OilyOily World). Adventurous travelers who make it to the fabled city of Radlantis will have a chance to meet the legendary Gail Force, and compete before the Skate Godz themselves for the Radlantis Rivals Cup.
Travelling trendsetter
Obviously, thrilling new mechanics, lovingly hand-designed new levels, and a fantastic new crew are fun – but how are you going to show off your new high scores and best combos online without a stylish new outfit to set the whole thing off? Luckily, this expansion comes with a whole host of new customization items, so you’ll be able to strut your stuff (skate your stuff?) right up to the windiest, highest-up stage in Radlandia – Radlantis City itself.
The team has all worked amazingly hard on this, and I know I’m not alone in saying that I can’t wait for you all to get your hands on these awesome new levels. We’ve been totally blown away (pardon the pun) by how friendly, vibrant, and supportive the OlliOlli community has been, so I want to say a big thank you to everyone who’s played the game so far, and to all of you who are excited to play Finding the Flowzone.
OlliOlli World: Finding The Flowzone will be available on PS4 and PS5 on November 2.
Earlier this year, I posted that Monster Train() from Shiny Shoe is in development for a global mobile release. This was originally spotted by our forum member Talbs. Today, Talbs has just spotted that the game is now up for pre-order for a premium release later this month on the App Store for iOS. As of this writing, an Android version has not gone up for pre-registration, and there is no official announcement from the publisher. The game is currently available to pre-order from publisher Good Shephard Entertainment with a release date listed for October 27th. If you’ve not played it yet, watch the Monster Train trailer below:
In addition to the base game, The Last Divinity DLC is also coming to iOS as an in app purchase for Monster Train. Read about this paid DLC on the Steam page here. You can pre-order Monster Train on the App Store for iOS right now for $9.99 here. I’m glad to see Monster Train not only arrive this soon, but also as a premium release. I’m looking forward to playing it on iPad later this month. If details for an Android version are revealed, I will update this story.Monster Train is currently available on Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PC platforms. Check out our forum thread for it here. Have you played Monster Train yet and will you be checking it out this month on mobile?
A bumper crop of PlayStation titles make up October’s PlayStation Plus Game Catalog lineup. All these games will be available to play starting Tuesday, October 18. Without further ado, let’s dive in.
PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium | Game Catalog
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City – The Definitive Edition | PS4, PS5
Play the genre-defining classic of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City updated for a new generation, now featuring across-the-board enhancements including brilliant new lighting and environmental upgrades, high-resolution textures, increased draw distances, Grand Theft Auto V-style controls and targeting, and much more, bringing this beloved world to life with all new levels of detail.
Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition | PS4
Explore a massive world as you embark upon an epic RPG adventure as The Luminary: the chosen one in a world that vows to hunt him down. The Luminary and his unique band of loyal companions work together to survive an onslaught of ne’er-do-wells and overthrow the dark forces that plot to plunge the world of Erdrea into chaos.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey | PS4
Write your own legendary Odyssey and live an epic adventure in a world where every choice matters. Sentenced to death by your family, embark on a journey from outcast mercenary to legendary Greek hero and uncover the truth about your past. Customize your equipment and master new special abilities, tailoring your character’s skillset to your play style. Fight your way across Greece, engaging in visceral battles both on land and sea, to become a legend. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey runs at 60 FPS on PS5.
Dragon Quest Builders | PS4
Gather materials, craft items, and build everything imaginable as you explore a sandbox world made of blocks and packed with memorable characters and dangerous monsters. Use the power of creation in battle against the reigning Dragonlord and restore peace to the shattered realm.
Dragon Quest Builders 2 | PS4
This block-building role-playing game includes a charming single player campaign and a robust multiplayer building mode that supports up to four players online. Set off to revive a forsaken world alongside a mysterious companion named Malroth. Then, take your builder online and join your friends to collaborate and create something truly magnificent.
Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree’s Woe and the Blight Below| PS4
Venture forth on an all-new action RPG adventure. In the peaceful kingdom of Arba, man and monster live side by side. But when the monsters suddenly snap and go on the rampage, it’s up to our heroes to fight back against wave after wave of their former friends! As either the hero Luceus or the heroine Aurora, the player joins forces with a cast of fan favorites from previous Dragon Quest titles to bring the rampaging hordes of monsters to their senses and restore order to the kingdom.
Dragon Quest Heroes II: Explorer’s Edition| PS4
This hack-and-slash, field-roaming action RPG sends players on adventures to restore order in a once peaceful world filled with monsters and battles of epic proportions. Featuring a cast of playable characters each with unique moves and abilities – including a host of familiar faces from the Dragon Quest series and four brand new heroes. Up to 4 players can band together in cooperative multiplayer to conquer swarms of enemies and defeat challenging boss monsters.
Inside | PS4
Hunted and alone, a boy finds himself drawn into the center of a dark project. This dark, narrative-driven platformer combines intense action with challenging puzzles. It has been critically acclaimed for its moody art style, ambient soundtrack and unsettling atmosphere.
The Medium | PS5
This third-person psychological horror game features innovative dual-reality gameplay. Explore the real world and the spirit world at the same time. Use your psychic abilities to solve puzzles spanning both worlds, uncover deeply disturbing secrets, and survive encounters with The Maw – a monster born from an unspeakable tragedy..
Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker | PS4
Multiplayer competitive combat is the name of the game as two teams of four face off on the battlefield to prove who the best group of ninjas are! Build a 4 player team, selecting from fan favorite Naruto characters, and go online and join up with friends to compete against other teams for 8-way ninja clashes.
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China | PS4
Exact Shao Jun’s vengeance on the Chinese Emperor in stunning 16th century China with fresh 2.5D stealth gameplay and a stunning art style that evokes traditional brush paintings. Use Shao Jun’s stylish and empowering combat arsenal: close-combat martial arts, a powerful Kian Sword and her hidden Shoe Blade, then sneak and hide to avoid detection and fool enemies using whistles and disguises.
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India* | PS4
Embody Arbaaz in his quest for retribution through a colourful depiction of Colonial India in 2.5D stealth gameplay. Experience the thrill of a stealthy assassin with a unique set of skills and weapons such as the double kill moves and the chakram, then discover a brand new mode with stealth, speed and assassination rooms.
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia* | PS4
Dive into the aftermath of the Red October revolution in a 2.5D reimagining of the Assassin’s Creed universe set in 1918 Russia. Play as the Assassin Nikolaï Orelov or Anastasia and discover their powerful abilities and versatile tools.
Assassin’s Creed III Remastered | PS4
Relive the American Revolution in Assassin’s Creed III Remastered, with enhanced graphics and improved gameplay mechanics. Plus, Assassin’s Creed Liberation Remastered and all solo DLC content are included. 1775: The American Colonies are about to revolt. As Connor, a Native American Assassin, secure liberty for your people and your nation. From bustling city streets to the chaotic battlefields, assassinate your foes in a variety of deadly ways with a vast array of weaponry.
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate* | PS4
London, 1868. In the heart of the Industrial Revolution, play as Jacob or Evie Frye, brash and rebellious young twin Assassins and lead your underworld organization and grow your influence to fight those who exploit the less privileged in the name of progress.
Hohokum | PS4
Explore extraordinary worlds. Become a curious flying kite-like being as you travel to colourful worlds just waiting to be explored. Interact with eclectic characters, wacky toys and peculiar environments to uncover some very strange secrets… or simply roam at your own pace and be totally amazed and amused at the surprises that unfold in front of your eyes.
*Available on PS4 only.
PlayStation Plus Premium | Classics
Yakuza 3 Remastered | PS4
Kazuma Kiryu had earned his retirement. Yet he’s ripped from his new life as caretaker of an orphanage when a shadow from his past threatens to entangle his new life with that of his old clan and the political world. Adventure through the sleepless city of Kamurocho, Tokyo and the tropical lands of Okinawa to help rescue his new wards.
Yakuza 4 Remastered | PS4
The Yakuza story expands as the first time in the series you’ll control multiple protagonists, four souls – a loan shark, a death-row inmate, a corrupt cop and legendary former yakuza Kazuma Kiryu – are drawn together to solve a murder. Unravel a hidden battle over money, power, status, and honor as well as the mysterious woman at the center of it all.
Yakuza 5 Remastered | PS4
Multiple perspectives once again shape a sprawling story as peace between the Tojo Clan and Omi Alliance disintegrates. Play as five different characters, including Kazuma Kiryu, across five major cities whose stories are interwoven as the yakuza organizations go to war.
Limbo | PS4
Uncertain of his sister’s fate, a boy enters Limbo. This unsettling, 2D puzzle platformer was created by PlayDead, the studio behind the equally critically acclaimed Inside, which is also included in the Game Catalog this month.
Ultra Street Fighter IV | PS4
A hulking roster of 44 world warriors, featuring Street FighteR legends Ryu, Ken and Blanka, now includes five newcomers − Elena, Hugo, Poison and Rolento from Street Fighter X Tekken, along with the notorious Russian assassin, Decapre. Train hard and learn the moves and combos to expertly inflict a devastating Tiger Knee, Sumo Smash or Whip of Love to your friends, enemies and online foes.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow | PS3
This third-person action adventure is a dark and vivid re-imagining of the Castlevania mythology that sees the holy knight Gabriel Belmont strike out to battle the evil forces of darkness in revenge for this death of his beloved wife.
Everyday Shooter | PS3
Everyday Shooter is an album of games exploring the expressive power of abstract shooters. Play through different levels each with a completely unique musical, graphical, and gameplay style. Shoot to trigger musical sounds and riffs that combine to form the final soundscape of the game. Use points earned in the game to unlock extra lives, shuffle mode, and different visual filters.
The Essential Picks promotion comes to PlayStation Store on Wednesday October 12. When it’s live you can enjoy discounts on a range of must-play PlayStation titles. What games, you ask? Well, you can find the full list below.
When the promotion begins, head to PlayStation Store to find out your regional discount, which will be offered until Wednesday October 26 when the sale ends.
When the promotion begins, head to PlayStation Store to find out your regional discount, which will be offered until Wednesday October 26 when the sale ends.
The Dimps team is no stranger to Dragon Ball games. They have been at the forefront of development for several titles such as the Dragon Ball Xenoverse series, Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi series, and Super Dragon All Heroes series. From the fighting game genre to the TCG genre, they understand the power of the Dragon Ball universe in so many forms and now they have stepped up to the new challenge of creating an asymmetrical multiplayer survival game!
Dragon Ball: The Breakers is the newest game to be developed by the Dimps team and it will release for PS4 on October 14. Ahead of the launch, we wanted to give Dragon Ball fans and Survival game fans a chance to hear more about the behind-the-scenes development with an exclusive interview with the Dimps team and our very own Bandai Namco Entertainment producer, Ryosuke Hara!
Thank you for joining us for an interview at such an exciting time for Dragon Ball: The Breakers! Please introduce yourselves and your role on the game.
Ryosuke Hara: Hello, I am Ryosuke Hara, the producer at Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc.
Yoshiya Otsuka: Nice to meet you. I am Yoshiya Otsuka, the developer at Dimps Corporation.
We’re excited to have you part of the interview! As you work to produce several Dragon Ball titles, we would like to ask what excites you most about working on Dragon Ball: The Breakers?
RH: From a larger perspective, the fact that we are taking on the challenge of developing a Dragon Ball game that has never been done before is exciting in itself. While there are challenges because of the unprecedented nature of the project, at the same time we are able to experience a level of fun that past Dragon Ball game producers have never experienced. From a smaller perspective, as a Dragon Ball fan myself, I really enjoy the time I spend thinking about what kind of Raiders and Survivor character skins to add, and what skills to include to make it more interesting. Every time I do this, I realize that the charm of Dragon Ball is unfathomable and that we have yet to fully tap into it.
It is an amazing track record for Dimps to have over 20 years of experience developing Dragon Ball games. What excites you most about working on Dragon Ball: The Breakers?
YO: What excites me is that this is a game which breaks the rule of the past Dragon Ball games. Dragon Ball games have traditionally been one-on-one games, or games in which players fight in teams of the same number of players. However, this game is an asymmetrical one-on-seven action game that challenges the genre in a way that has never been attempted before. In addition, instead of controlling the main characters such as Goku and Vegeta, players control ordinary people in the Dragon Ball World, such as Bulma and Oolong, who have not been playable in previous Dragon Ball games. We hope that our customers will enjoy the Dragon Ball world that they have not been able to experience in previous Dragon Ball games.
We’re very excited to be able to ask you both some questions to learn more about the development process. To start, what were some of the considerations that had to be at the top of your mind when developing an asymmetrical multiplayer survival game with 7 survivors working to escape from 1 super strong Raider?
RH: The concept is the “overwhelming difference in strength” that is unique to Dragon Ball. There are many asymmetrical fighting games in the world today, but I don’t think there is a game in the world where characters from the same universe have such a large difference in strength than Dragon Ball.
YO: The balance to make an asymmetrical game of 1 vs 7, while producing the “overwhelming power difference unique to Dragon Ball” was one of the elements we have been careful with. At first glance, it may sound contradictory as we wanted to achieve an overwhelming difference in strength and yet maintain balance, but if this balance is not achieved, the game will not work. Even now, we are still adjusting the balance through testing right before the launch. As we will continue to operate the game after launch, constantly adjusting balance while adding new characters will be an ongoing matter.
In a match, survivors may run into one of three Raiders – Cell, Frieza, or Majin Buu. As the match begins, the Raider starts with its first form and then evolves as the time progresses. This is such a fun and dynamic element unique to the survival game genre because it allows the player who is the Raider to also evolve their strategy throughout the match. It also creates such a sense of urgency among the remaining Survivors! How did your team implement concepts of each form into each of the Raiders?
RH: Briefly summarizing, we differentiate our play styles in the following ways:
Cell : “All-rounder type” with fast growth speed and stable search skills
Frieza: “Technique type” in which the key is the use of his search skills
Buu: “High-risk, high-return type” that evolves slowly but hunts down Survivors at once in the latter half of the game.
What Raider was your personal favorite to design and why?
RH: I like Frieza better. I can place Zarbon and Dodoria anywhere on the map with my skills, and I can place them well to have hidden Survivors come out, or place them in front of down Survivors to prevent them from being revived by other Survivors. This Raider is fun to use because it offers a wide range of strategies.
YO: I would say Cell. When you select Cell and the game starts with the larva, that is the moment when you feel this is something you can only experience in this game. In a sense, Cell is a character that symbolizes the game, so I hope that you will become Cell and strive to go from the larva to the final form.
Caption: Not gameplay footage.
The Breakers has such a unique twist to the survival game genre as the main goal for survivors is to escape rather than focus on battling. What was the reason for this element of the game?
RH:BNE has produced numerous Dragon Ball games. Most of these games have focused on battles and the retelling of the original story. While I felt that this was to be expected, since that is the image of Dragon Ball and what many people find appealing about it, I also wondered if that was really the only appeal of Dragon Ball, and at the same time, I have always had a vague feeling that this was not the case. I came up with the idea that the threat of battles between super warriors could be more strongly felt by viewing them not from the perspective of strong characters, but from the perspective of ordinary people, taking a hint from the existence of unique characters such as Bulma and Oolong, who do not have super powers and do not participate in battles. Furthermore, the “asymmetrical battle” game genre was already well known in the industry, and the development of this title began from the point of view that the combination of this game genre and asymmetrical battles could create new IP value and synergy.
In The Breakers, there’s a game mechanic called Dragon Change where Survivors can borrow the powers of Z fighters, but it’s generally used as a means to escape rather than to battle. This is a bit different from other Dragon Ball games where the main focus is on the fights. How was it designing survivor characters who are essentially powerless?
YO: In order to produce the concept of “the overwhelming power difference that can only achieve in Dragon Ball”, which was given by Hara-san, the “escape game” matched the concept well instead of previous battle-based games that was developed. On top of it, by having ordinary people in Dragon Ball world such as Bulma and Oolong becoming part of the game, it resulted in an experience that has never seen in a game while basing on the original story.
In what other ways does this game bring in elements of the Dragon Ball franchise to make it a recognizable part of the universe? (Specifically what are some iconic Dragon Ball elements and story moments players can look out for when going through the different matches and maps?)
RH: This title has a different perspective from the previous Dragon Ball games, with elements that symbolize the original story scattered throughout the game. The most obvious examples are Bulma, Oolong, and the Farmer, who do not have super powers. Their characteristics and skills would not be utilized in previous battle games, but this title is designed in such a way that they can be used to their full advantage. On the Raider’s side, the process of evolution, destruction of areas, defeating civilians, and other experiences of roaming the map as an enemy character are all new original story experiences. There are many other elements to the game, such as summoning Shenron by collecting 7 Dragon Balls, using various skills, Dragon Changes, etc., but I hope that you will experience them for yourself when you play the game.
Lastly, it would be great to end with some fun advice for the players! What are some of your tips for being a Raider and being a Survivor?
RH: We believe that the shortest way to defeat Survivors is for Raiders to use their own eyes and ears to search for survivors, in addition to utilizing their skills and special moves. In particular, the ears tend to be neglected, so we hope that you will wear headphones and search for Survivors efficiently. It is important for Survivors to simulate in advance what they will do when they are attacked by Raiders. At first, they may try to escape by simply running, but of course Raiders will soon catch up, so we would like you to customize your own way of escaping after understanding the characteristics of your skills.
YO: Survivors will enjoy cooperating with other players in order to escape, but there are many elements for players to communicate with each other, such as stamps, emotes, and signals, so we hope that you will enjoy the game while making use of these elements. We hope that you will enjoy the game as much as we do. Raiders also have custom voices that allow them to speak the lines of Cell and Frieza at any time from the original story. The ability to speak the lines of Cell and Frieza in battle situations similar to those in the original story is another way to enjoy the game! These items will be added to the game in the future, so we hope that you will continue to enjoy the game long after its release.
Thank you so much for taking the time to discuss Dragon Ball: The Breakers in detail as we get ready to launch the game on PS4 this October 14, 2022!
