“Another 2D arcade shooter on Nintendo Switch?” you may be asking, hypothetical reader, but wait a second before closing the red X in the corner of your web browser. It’s true that there is no shortage of budget, classic and premium shoot’em ups on the portable Nintendo Hybrid but Asterbreed from Playism might still be worth a look – even if you own Ikaruga, 1945, Gunbird and all of the other classics.
One of the hooks of Asterbreed is the way that gameplay seamlessly shifts from side-scroller shooter to an almost Armored Core 4-ish 3D behind the camera mode that has your speeding through levels to a top-down shooter. Intricate looking mech designs fused with anime-inspired 2D artwork and colorful/flashy particle effects create a game that instantly grabs your attention. Visually, Asterbreed looks like a fast-paced and fun ride.
Asterbreed is priced at $19.99 USD on the E-Shop, offers support for both Japanese and English languages and packs in several modes including a full campaign narrative. Here’s a brief rundown of the game’s feature as provided by the publisher:
Features:
A thrilling 2.5D action shooter
Multiple shooting perspectives that seamlessly transition
Multiple game modes to boast hours of fun
An enticing story as humanity stands on the edge of destruction
For the first time ever, available on a portable device
Diablo Immortal is the first entry in Blizzard’s two decades old ARPG franchise to be developed specifically for mobile phones. Revealed during the Blizzcon 2018 opening ceremonies, Diablo Immortal is promising to be the full dungeon crawling experience that players are used too but optimized for mobile devices and touch-centric interfaces. Development duties aren’t being handled by Blizzard directly but rather by Chinese publisher Net Ease who have published Minecraft in China, as well as the popular mobile Battle Royale, games Knives Out and Rules of Survival.
Is Your Favorite Class In Diablo Immortal?
At launch Diablo Immortal will support six classes:
Monk
Wizard
Crusader
Demon Hunter
Necromancer
No additional classes have been announced but during their “Diablo What’s Next” panel, developers did say that they will be listening to community feedback about what classes to bring to Immortal in the future.
What Do We Know About The World of Diablo Immortal?
Lore-wise Diablo Immortal is set between Diablo II and Diablo III and will explain questions like “what happened once Tyrel left heaven?” and “what was Deckard Cain up to between the two games?”.
Skarn, the Herald of Terror will be featured prominently alongside select baddies from Diablo II and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction.
8 public zones will be in Diablo Immortal at launch with the first zone to be revealed called “Bilefen”, another zone called “Frozen Throne” (and no – not Arthas’ Frozen Throne) will also be available. Adventurers will also explore a library belonging to Zoltun Kulle that is different from the one that appeared in Diablo III.
Westmarch is a large thriving capital city during the events of Immortal.
Shared multiplayer open world zones will have respawning monsters while instanced dungeons will not have NPC respawns.
When Will It Be Out?
We don’t know when Diablo Immortal will release on either Google Play or iOS App Store just yet. It is also unknown how monetization will work in Diablo Immortal, if the game will be free-to-play or if it will be a premium priced mobile game. By pre-registering on the game’s official website, future players can unlock rewards.
The city management genre has long been a favorite of mine – able to consume a vast number of hours with ease. I’m no stranger to Paradox Interactive’s Cities: Skylines series either – having reviewed the base game back in 2015 when it debuted on PC. Needless to say, I’ve spent a lot of time planning new residential zones, placing down roads and dealing with the odd unexpected pandemic or two. Now with the game coming to Nintendo Switch alongside two of the already released DLC packs, should returning mayors like myself double dip on the only portable version of Skylines to date?
Cities: Skylines is a sandbox simulation game that offers little in the way of larger goals, instead relying on the player’s creativity and long-term vision for their city to craft any sort of tangible goals and ultimately determines what a positive outcome. Like other games in the genre Cities Skylines tasks players with place a network of roads, properly zoning (and sub-zoning) sections of their city for Industrial, Residential and Industrial use.
Those looking for a sense of progression will find that advanced buildings like University Campuses, confusingly Clean Energy power-plants, large hospitals and the ability to “dense” versions of the three basic zone types are locked behind predetermined population numbers. This gives new players or those who aren’t quite familiar with Cities: Skylines systems the chance to slowly grow accustomed to providing needs like a network of water pipes for their city or making sure that education coverage is at least adequate across their ever-expanding metropolis. It’s easy to imagine a scenario where a new player might accidently build a mega-water pump, large hospital with the capacity of 10,000 patients or other piece of infrastructure when their town only has a few hundred residents.
Economic Enigma
At first blush Cities: Skylines appears to provide not only a lot of freedom to the player but also a robust simulation of modern neoliberal city budgeting. Players can adjust the level of funding for almost every aspect of their tiny digital urban center: the % of funding needed for road maintenance, the amount of $ going towards that newly built university, how much of the cities cash reserves will go towards fire prevention etc. However, like capitalism itself, this seeming abundance of choice and prosperity is a smoke screen obscuring the flaws, hazards and limitations that these both of these systems create.
Cities: Skylines attempts to make budgeting for the population of thousands of simulants similar to how a household budget may work. Funds are based around the total amount of money collected from taxes (more on that in a moment) and then distributed among a set of priorities to meet the needs of the city’s inhabitants. Except this is not how city budgets operate at all. Deficit spending is common among municipal, provincial and federal governments when large infrastructure projects and transformative social policy are implemented to better serve the needs of the populace.
Problems begin to appear when the amount of available funds starts to approach the literal red. If you need to build some much-needed medical centers, make public transit free or simply need to connect a few roads to fix a traffic congestion problem you’ll be met with the inability to move forward at all until you wait for revenue to come in or take out a loan at a high interest rate. Not only does this bring any plans players may have for their cities to a grinding halt but also does a disservice to the very thing the game is trying to simulate. Should a major bridge collapse, a building burn down or a disaster strike a major city in the real world– the cities’ government couldn’t twiddle their thumbs and do nothing waiting for tax dollars to roll in.
Limiting new construction due to a flawed budgeting model and the lack of deficit spending aren’t the only way that Cities: Skylines tries to push players towards fiscal conservatism and thus a worse overall society as a whole. In the budgeting panel it is very clear that not only are the Residential, Industrial and Commercial tax rates adjustable per type but tax rates can differ depending on player defined neighborhood and night / day. Once again, Cities appears to provide a lot of choice to its Mayors in how they want to run their town but this choice is merely an illusion as behind the scenes Cities has a pre-defined “optimum tax rate” before severe negative consciences start to manifest that can, at times, doom a city to go from a large home of millions to a literal ghost town in a number of months.
Community lead research has found that the “Optimum Tax Rate” for the denizens of Cities: Skylines is anywhere between 9% to 12&. Any higher than that and simulants start to leave a city in droves regardless of other factors like the availability of education, transit, leisure activities or pollution level. Despite all of these factors being able to be simulated by Cities, they don’t factor into the decisions that the populace makes at all – making the simulants not feel like real people at all. Once the tax rate goes over that magic number they pack up and leave – despite the fact that in the real world, no one would move out of their city if everything was going great but taxes suddenly jumped up one percent.
Streamlined For Switch
Skylines is not a perfect game when it comes to the simulation part of things but it still scratches that itch to – plan, execute and evaluate a growing city like the original release did. Paradox Interactive have made a number of changes to how the menus in Skylines work to accommodate for the lack of a Keyboard or Mouse on the Switch. Instead of clicking on an individual icon and then scrolling through a set of sub-menus the Switch version uses a “ribbon interface” where broad categories are selected using the Joy-Con’s d-pad. It works and once you get used to it, the changes to the interface are just as comfortable as the PC original.
For fans of City Management / City Planning games, Cities Skylines for the Nintendo Switch is an easy recommendation to make. Not because it’s the only game in town at the moment but because what Skylines does get right – managing public transit, road placement, day night cycle – are so well execute that it is still a joy to watch buildings grow as they are under construction. For $49.99 CDN not only do Switch get a re-worked interface, the full base game running at a steady 30FPS but also two of the post-release expansions After Dark and Snowfall which add Day/Night and weather effects respectively. Potential mayors should be aware that Skylinesis going to make creating a progressive socialist society as difficult as possible and that the unlimited money option is unlocked right from the get-go.
Paradox Interactive Provided Broken Joysticks with a digital review copy of the game.
SEGA’s classic mix of Real Time Strategy, Visual Novel Storytelling and watercolor inspired aesthetics – Valkyria Chronicles – is now available digitally on the Nintendo E-Shop for Switch. It’s hard to believe that the original tale of Squad 7 was released a decade ago on the PS3, I remember buying it’s original release on day 1! Now veteran commanders and fresh recruits alike can join Alicia, Welkin and the other members of Squad 7 in the game that kicked off the Valkyria franchise. There wasn’t anything like it upon release, and to this day it remains a solid JRPG worth your time, even if it has quite a few harsh difficulty spikes.
Valkyria Chronicles is priced at $19.99 USD or $29.99 CDN and is actually smaller in file size than the PlayStation 3 original. While this release doesn’t support the 60 Frames Per Second that the Remastered version supports on PC and PS4 – it does include all of the DLC an EX missions made for the game.
Features:
Valkyria Chronicles – Everywhere, 23/7 – Play on your TV or via the Nintendo Switch’s built-in screen, the troops are ready to move out.
The complete Valkyria Chronicles experience – all additional downloadable content from the first game in the series is included in this Switch version.
A war, two fronts – Set during the Second Europan War, in this fantasy version of the 1930s. In Valkyria Chronicles, we follow Lieutenant Gunther and his Squad 7 in their fight against the Imperial Alliance.
Experience the CANVAS engine BLiTZ Battle System – Valkyria Chronicles is a watercolor come to life thanks to the CANVAS engine and gameplay mixing real-time and turn-based battle. The BLiTZ Battle System ensure an original and fascinating experience in more than one way.
A legendary composer for a legendary series – The great Hitoshi Sakimoto animates the battlefield with mastery thanks to a soundtrack that remains memorable.
SNK will bring a collection of their older games in one package to the Nintendo Switch in order to celebrate the company’s 40th anniversary. Despite SNK being best known for classic fighting game franchises like FATAL FURY and The King of Fighters but they’ve also published a number of other games in a variety of genres. We knew that the 40th Anniversary Collection would include classic SNK games like Ikari Warriors (and it’s sequel), Chrysalis and P.O.W but now SNK has also revealed 5 of the 10th free DLC add-on games that will launch later on.
SNK 40th Anniversary Collection will be released on November 13th 2018 with a special Collector’s Edition available through the NIS web store.
These additional games include:
Munch Mobile
In Munch Mobile, control a car with a human limb and cruise through various scenic routes to reach your ultimate destination: the garage. Pick up various objects along the way, such as fruit and gas canisters. What a handy vehicle, don’t you think?
Fantasy
Your sweetheart has been captured and it’s time to get her back in Fantasy! To rescue your loved one, trek through the wild jungles and soar above the sea—seems like nothing can get in between you and Sherry!
Sasuke vs. Commander
As the title suggests, in Sasuke vs. Commander, you are the legendary shuriken-wielding ninja Sasuke. You must protect your master, the Shogun, against enemy ninja. Fulfill your duty in this classic set in feudal Kyoto!
Chopper I
“Emergency! This is not a drill!” It doesn’t get much more metal than this! Shoot up tanks, ships, planes, and more to defend against enemy troops. See if you’ve got enough firepower to carry out your mission in Chopper I!
Time Soldiers
Traverse through time with the “D-Scanner” to rescue your comrades in Time Soldiers. There’s just one caveat: if you’re not in the correct place in history, you must defeat that era’s boss before making the leap to the right time period your fellow soldier is trapped in.
The latest version update for Fortnite is here and with it comes a whole pile of new content for both Save The World and Battle Royale players alike. With this patch a brand new major features rolls out for Battle Royale fans – official tournament support. It looks like Epic Games will be holding officially sanctioned tournaments for players within set dates / time-frames. Over on the Player Versus Emvironment the long awaited return of a spooky assault rifle, an event store update and a brand new “beta storm” feature that allow Heroes to test their strength against experimental concepts and mission variations.
Tournament Support
Official tournaments can now be found in all versions of Fortnite: Battle Royale in the shiny new “events” tab. Here official tournaments will be listed with a set time. Tournaments are open for anyone to enter and every time you start a new tournament you’re given a clean slate. Completing objectives like killing opponets, making it into the top 20 etc earn points which can be redeemed for “pins”. What pins do, aside from being a badge of success is unknown at this time. Maybe next season they’ll unlock cosmetics with the next Battle Pass?
As taken from the Patch Notes:
Tournaments can be found inside of the new ‘Events’ tab available in game. This tab will host a variety of online competitions which are open to everyone. Jump in and explore!
Each tournament has a series of scheduled dates and times that the competition will be run. A carousel of all upcoming competitions and times will be available for browsing, so you can plan and practice.
Every scheduled session is a completely clean slate with all players starting on an equal footing at the beginning of play.
Compete over the course of several hours to earn points by eliminating multiple opponents or surviving against the competition.
Players are matched against opponents with similar scores during the session.
Score enough points during any scheduled event session and you’ll earn a golden pin for that tournament!
Save The World: Fixing The Taxi Problem
“Taxiing” – the practice of low power level players being brought into higher level content that they wouldn’t otherwise have access too has been the bane of the Fortnite: Save The World community for a while now. It isn’t that lower power level players are bad at the game, rather that because of their level disparity with the rest of the party, they are unable to contribute the proper amount of damage and in some cases can be one-shotted by regular husks.
To fix this issue Epic Games has instituted major changes to the minimum power ratings required for missions. In a public setting (matchmaking) the power level of lowest level player is taken as the minimum for what missions the party is eligible to enter. For private games the party leaders power level is the deciding factor.
Here is the breakdown:
Missions:
Power Level Restrictions
The minimum power ratings on missions are now enforced depending on the privacy setting of your party.
If your match is set to “Public” then the lowest power rating in your party (ignoring any party boost) will determine which missions are available and which are locked.
If your match is set to “Private” or “Friends Only” then the group leader’s personal power rating is used instead.
This prevents low-level players from being brought up into public high-level missions where they cannot contribute fully to the group, while maintaining the ability for friends to privately play together in high-level areas if they choose.
All Plankerton missions now have a minimum personal power rating requirement.
All Storm Shield Defense missions in Plankerton and above now have minimum personal power rating requirements.
Save The World: Beta Storms
“Beta Storms” allow for Epic Game’s developers to try out variations of existing content as well as experimental new content and share it with players. Currently the only Beta Storm available is a variation on the “collect the data” mission type. In this modified data retrieval mission the circle from the storm will close in on the landing site over time. Players will have to make the choice between fighting the husks right on the objective or wandering out into the storm and taking damage to eliminate the undead threat.
Here’s how the patch notes lay it all out:
Beta Storms are an avenue for testing all kinds of new content. This gives us a chance to see what you think of new content and experimental ideas.
Beta Storms are a limited-time Mission Alert. They’ll only stick around for a week or two, and then they’re gone.
This week, we’ve introduced a Retrieve the Data Beta Storm, along with a quest line with escalating rewards for trying out the Beta Storm.
In this new version of Retrieve the Data you are under pressure as the Storm closes in on the balloon’s landing spot. The Storm will cause damage to you and force the combat into a smaller area when defending the Data. The mission is 20 minutes long and the only way to get the maximum reward is to shoot down the balloon as soon as allowed.
This Beta Storm ends when the v6.20 update arrives, so try it out while it’s available.
Wrapping Up
If you’re a Save The World player make sure to save up all the gold you can to grab the limited time Grave Digger assault rifle which hasn’t been available for almost a year now – it debuted during last year’s “Fortnitemares” event, which has yet to return.
Developer Caged Element revealed that the upcoming console release of their futuristic racing title, GRIP: Combat Racing will be available in a limited physical Collector’s Edition exclusively though GAMESTOP in the United States. After inquiring with their public relations people we can confirm that the Collector’s Edition will be available through EB Games in Canada.
Those who purchase the physical Collector’s Edition will receive the game’s soundtrack in 3 formats – CD, Vinyl and MP3 download, a set of art prints, a USB thumb-drive, a set of decals and exclusive DLC.
GRIP: Combat Racing is very clearly inspired by the fast paced anti-gravity racers from the mid to late 90s that graced the home consoles of the time. The developers cite the 1999 game Rollcage by Attention to Detail – which I can certainly see in the car designs. Fast cars gripping to the curved surfaces of futuristic racing courses also reminds me of the “Xtreme-G” series from the long defunct ACLAIM studios. Vehicle design and anti-gravity mechanics aren’t the only 1990s inspired features: the final release will also include 22 courses and more importantly – four player split screen!
GRIP’s complete soundtrack will include 24 tracks but the following 11 tracks have been licensed for use in the game:
Battery x Makoto “Submerge”
Krakota x Urbandawn “Coyote”
Inja x Pete Cannon “War Games“ (Instrumental)
Krakota “Citadels”
Royalston “Diorama”
Rawtekk “Restless”
Whiney “Sunday Grunge”
Whiney “Talisman”
Lynx “Clap Track”
GRIP: Combat Racing will be released on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Windows PC on November 6th.
Developer Eden Games has now confirmed that 22 real world manufacturers will be bringing 51 playable cars to this arcade racing sequel on Nintendo Switch. Improvements over last years game include 3000+ kilometers of derivable terrain spread across over 250 races.
The official description from the Teaser Trailer’s YouTube page gives us a bit of insight into how gameplay has changed in the past year:
“With the pedal to the metal, race along more than 1800 miles of roads! On the mountainside, through a nature park, in the middle of the desert or along the coast, defend your position over the course of more than 250 races, including championships, missions and challenges.”
Here is the full list of available cars set to appear in Gear.Club Unlimited 2 when it launches on Nintendo Switch on December 4th in North America and Europe:
“Gear.Club Unlimited presents drivers with a series of themed challenges based not just on the main class/sub class of a vehicle but also the various locales. One particular set of challenges may have you racing along seaside ports in a warm California-like climate while another will another circuit might present mostly night courses. These courses can often look their best during the daylight driving sections when lens-flare strikes just over the roof of the car as you make a hairpin turn. Each course has its own unique layout and varied background objects like buildings, houses and set pieces to help complete the illusion that you are racing down populated metropolis streets. Play close enough attention and you might notice that some courses might reuse sections of tracks, background objects or may be simply reversed or night-time versions of previously played courses entirely. This is certainly understandable when considering the amount, of course, variation Gear.Club Unlimited is providing players, expecting 400 completely unique course variations for a budget price would not only be unheard of but also an unrealistic expectation. “
With Final Fantasy is making the jump to Nintendo Switch throughout the next year there are still many more tales that would be an absolute delight to have on the go on Nintendo Switch. The lack of Final Fantasy 8 in the release schedule has been covered to death – and apparently there’s no modern port for S.E to easily convert to switch – so baring that entry here are six more Final Fantasy titles that should grace our favorite console.
In no particular order….
Final Fantasy Explorers
Monster Hunter World showed that Capcom’s long niche boss gauntlet game can have massive mainstream appeal and the recent launch of Monster Hunter Generations: Ultimate on Switch was nothing to sneeze at either.
Now take the barebones structure of Monster Hunter’s gameplay and apply it to possibly the most well-known RPG franchises to exist and it sounds like a winning combination. Foregoing the well-known narrative structure of previous Final Fantasy entries1, like Capcom’s games, Explorers had players traverse an island performing various objectives from gathering to combat. With well-known jobs like Red Mage, Fighter, Summoner, Dragoon and more available, how is this not a rife for a complete remake for Switch?
Final Fantasy Tactics
Ivalice is a world that has been visited many times and Nintendo Switch owners will get the chance to visit Dalmasca when Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age arrives next year but missing from Square’s line-up is the game that started the Ivalice mythology – 1998’s Final Fantasy Tactics.
Eschewing the Active Time Battle system and even the traditional side-view combat camera angle – Final Fantasy Tactics takes all of the trappings of previous FF titles and crafts something truly unique. Playing more like a strategy RPG, complete with isometric camera angles, Final Fantasy Tactics crafted an intricate narrative set in the aftermath of a great war. Featuring 20 different jobs (PlayStation original version2), interesting conflicts between characters and a vast wealth of lore – Final Fantasy Tactics is perfect for players who want to immerse themselves in both strategy and deep storytelling.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 / Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Square Enix’s “Fabula Nova Crystalis” might not have panned out as originally intended but what did it eventually give us was a trilogy of games that greatly expanded upon one of FFXIII’sheroine Lightning and the world’s lore. Welcome but unexpected (to me) at the time was FFXIII-2 focus on her sister Serah’s quest to find Lightning after the events of the original XIII. Taken as a trilogy the XIII Saga greatly expands upon the larger universe with the introduction of deities, alternate timelines and even the ability to view alternate timelines where certain events did or did not take place.
The Final Fantasy XIII trilogy takes the world initially created for the first game to unexpected places but you might be wondering why the first game didn’t make it onto this wishlist. Simply put the original FFXIII would never fit onto a single Switch cartridge or even two of them. As of the writing of this article Nintendo Switch carts are limited to 16GB and some of the largest digital Switch games come in at approximately 30GB (hi DOOM!). XIII has a number of 720p cut-scenes that made a Blu-Ray disc on PS3 mandatory (or 4 Xbox 360 DVDs). Switch owners would be better served by a truncated movie version of the XIII events or that game’s story as a data-log.
Final Fantasy XIV
At last we come to what is undoubtedly my most wanted FF title on Switch – Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood. What can be said about the world of Eorzea that hasn’t already been expressed by other fans and Warriors of Light? Naoki Yoshida and his team have taken XIV and made fashioned a world that I simply want to live in – from the rolling green foothills of the Azim Steppe to the lush forests of New Gradania, the world of Final Fantasy XIV is as vibrant as it is diverse when it comes to setting. Special mention also goes out to the music – from the memorable City State themes, Zone themes you can’t but help to humm or the amazing music brought to every raid tier by the talented Masayoshi Sokken – the music in FFXIV will leave you awestruck. Flesh all of that out with a Main Scenario that helps create characters that resonate with players and a regular patch cycle that adds new content to the game every few weeks and it is easy to see why thousands of people login to FFXIV every day.
I’ve been playing FFXIV since the waning days of A Realm Reborn and it remains a place that I visit every day – whether I’m exploring the new Main Scenario quests, running daily content with my spouse or just logging in to hang out in chat with my comrades in my Free Company. With dozens of classes- both battle and crafting – seasonal events, 24 person raids and weekly loot drops – there is always something to do in FFXIV and it really is my second home.
Paradox Interactive’s critically acclaimed city building game Cities: Skylines might be available on almost every platform (PS4, Xbox One, PC) but Nintendo’s console/portable hybrid has been devoid of the city building/management genre for the past year and a half. All of that has changed with the unexpected release of Cities: Skylines on the Switch.
Skylines is pretty much a spiritual successor to EA abandoned Sim City franchise (and no the waiting clock that is Sim City: Build It does not count) – as Skylines makes use of several core mechanics that originated in EA’s games. Concepts like zoning (industrial, residential and commercial), building parks and other leisure activities, managing city policies and budgets are all present. The base game alone improvements like definable districts, custom bus routes and even bonuses for making your municipality run on 100% green energy.
Above: The PC Version of Cities: Skylines
The PC version of Cities: Skylines has been out for years now and has had six paid expansions to date (After Dark, Snowfall, Natural Disasters, Mass Transit, Green Cities and Park Life). Each of these expansions add things like new weather patterns (Snowfall), a Day / Night cycle (After Dark) or massively overhaul the transit options available within these virtual cities (Mass Transit Add-on). This means that the version of Cities: Skylines is very different from the initial launch. On Nintendo Switch owners are given the base game, the After Dark Expansion and the Snow Fall expansion. Paradox also overhauled the user interface and controls to intuitively with Joy-Cons.
I reviewed the base game of Cities back in 2015. Here is my conclusion on the game from that time:
“Despite a few nitpicks here and there – including the lack of an ability to automatically bulldoze abandoned buildings and no pre-defined end game – Cities: Skylines is an absolutely fantastic city simulator. If you are looking for a city simulator with moderate system requirements, large maps and a lot of micromanagement including the ability to plan bus routes than Skylines is the game for you. It is easily to get lost for hours in the planning and perfection of your own metropolis. “
Paradox Interactive has provided a digital copy of Cities: Skylines for Nintendo Switch for our consideration. We will have more coverage about this unexpected port later on this month.
Surprise! The fan favorite mayoral assistant, Isabelle, from the Animal Crossing franchise is joining Nintendo’s upcoming Super Smash Bros Ulitmate. Her reveal footage actually starts off like an actual Animal Crossing game – misdirecting fans to think that they were actually watching the reveal trailer for a brand new entry in the series. It is only once she receives an official letter asking her to join the grand melee is it obvious that she is the latest newcomer.
Isabelle is not an echo fighter (direct clone) of the already existing Animal Crossing Villager, but the pair do share a few moves between them. Watch in this 30 second video above as she uses a bug net to swat at opponents, captures Luigi with a fishing rod and most importantly builds an entire city hall for her final smash.
Needless to say the internet absolutely adores her and will do everything they can to protect her. From her previous appearance as an Assist Trophy in Super Smash Bros For Nintendo 3DS, to racing in Super Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Isabelle has been making the rounds in Nintendo crossovers for awhile. It’s nice to see her take a break from all of that civic work and find time to kick some butt!
If you’re a “Tales of” fan like myself you’re probably really looking forward to the upcoming HD Remaster, Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition. Bandai Namco never officially gave ToV: Definitive Edition a solid release date in the west when it revealed the game at Xbox’s E3 presentation this past June. Many fans and even some retailers expected the game to drop sometime this November but it appears the publisher had other plans for Yuri, Estelle, Rapede and Karol for their current generation debut.
The gang’s going to get back together for their 10th anniversary when Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition releases worldwide on January 11th on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and digital only on Windows PC.
RPGSite.net had a run-down of features for the game that looks like it comes from the official press release:
Features
A Beloved Tale Returns — The tale of a young hero on a quest for justice that captivated Tales fans returns to Xbox and makes its way for the first time to PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Steam!
Everything in One Edition! — Dive into the definitive version of this game with updated full HD graphics, brand-new music tracks, exciting mini-games, bosses, and a collection of unreleased costume DLC!
The Party Grows Stronger! — Yuri sets sail on his adventure with Estelle, a young noble woman; Karol; a boy in pursuit of a guild to call his own; Rita, an eccentric scholar; Raven, a laid-back archer; Judith, a mysterious dragoon; and Repede, a pipe-smoking dog… and now two more playable characters join the fray!
Patty Fleur, a cheerful and tough young pirate girl in search of treasure, adventure… and her forgotten memories.
Flynn Scifo, Yuri’s best friend and an Imperial Knight, now joins the rest on their journey!
Fight with Flair! — Assemble your favorite team and enjoy exciting real-time battles with all new Mystic Artes and skills!
Alongside the release date, Namco Bandai also revealed that the Definitive Edition will be receiving a special Steel Book physical edition. The case features the loyal woofer Rapede on the front cover and the backside features every “Tales of” fan’s favorite doggo striking quite a few poses. In 2009 Bandai released a similar physical Steel Book edition that included a separate soundtrack CD. No word yet on what extras will be included in the 2019 special edition, but you can be sure I’ll write about it as soon as I do.
For a battle royale game that regularly has modes that cranks up the ‘ridiculous meter’ to 11 with situations where players can soar through the sky with ease or use nothing but explosives and jetpacks – what’s the easiest way to ensure that as much destruction as possible is going to occur? Apparently the answer to that question is give squads of players a single objective.
Doing The Crime, In The Shortest Amount of Time
Fortnite: Battle Royale’s brand new Limited Time Mode is called ‘The Getaway’ (not to be confused with the Sony first party title on the PlayStation 2 from 2002) and like the title implies – players are tasked with grabbing a sought after score from a set location and getting the heck out as fast as possible. To accomplish this seemingly straight forward objective players are divided into squads and asked to go to one of four drop locations where a safe is about to spawn. Once the safe spawns a single player is able to claim the crystal llama inside and they’re supposed to make it back to the escape vans before time expires.
On paper the above sounds like it rewards communication and teamwork but given that this is Fortnite: BR, where a pink mascot bear can kill you seemingly out of nowhere with a pickaxe, things rarely go as planned. In just a couple of hours of play I encountered the following hilarious hijinks:
Entire squads picking different objective points on the map and splitting up to pursue our own goals – hint: we all died pretty quickly.
A safe objective uncontested for several minutes until one other player finally showed up. Sadly, both of us had no weapons and only our harvesting tools – this lead to probably the most accurate recreation of Goldeneye 64’s ‘Slappers Only’ mode possible. Both of use helplessly strafing around the objective until one of us died.
I was killed sliding down a cliffside, losing the precious crystal llama, only to have my death avenged by a teammate a few seconds later… and then my teammate died. Time to kill is really short when everyone is concentrated in a few small spots of the map.
Unlike most of the highly publicized Limited Time Modes, Getaway comes with its own unique set of challenges that unlock special in-game rewards. These challenges aren’t tied to the $10 Season 5 Battle Pass, meaning that they are open to everyone. Sadly the center piece of the event, those white suit wearing heist skins, are only available through real money purchase.
Here are the Fortnite: Getaway challenges:
Play 10 Getaway Matches – 5,000 Seasonal XP
Collect The Gem In 5 Different Matches – “Cash Flow” contrail.
Deal 500 DMG to opponets who are carrying the Jewl – Special event emote
Complete all 3 challenges – Special Crowbar pickaxe skin
Are you enjoying The Getaway LTM? Let me know in the comments section. I’ve yet to complete the ‘deal 500DMG’ challenge but with a week left, there’s still plenty of time.
Thought officially sanctioned tournaments for Fortnite Battle Royale were just invite events for well known streamers and top level players? Epic Games will be holding an open registration tournament for Battle Royale at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, Washington from Friday the 31st of August until Monday September 3rd.
Attendees with a Penny Arcade Expo badge will be able to register for the first three days open qualifier rounds in-person. Each day will feature three open rounds with a final round open to only the best of those. Players who place in the top 33 of each day’s final qualifier will move onto the final round which will take place on Monday the 3rd of September.
If you want to watch all of the action Epic Games will be streaming the tournament from 6PM PST until 11PM PST on all days. Whether you’re going to be watching on Twitch or Youtube they’ve got you covered. They’re offering up $1.5 Million in prizes and will have activities available across Solo, Squads and Duos team compositions.
[Head Image Source: Me! taking silly pictures of the Durr Burger]
[News Source: Dexerto]
Did you miss out on Ubisoft’s multiplayer only fighting game For Honor when it released back in 2017? Forget to claim (or not want to claim) the game for free when it was given out on U-Play during E3? Now is your second chance to knab a gratis copy of For Honor: Starter Edition on Steam this weekend. All you have to do is navigate on over to the game’s Steam Page and click play to permanently add it to your library.
For Honor pits three different factions of warriors (Samurai, Knights and Vikings) against each other in a series of multiplayer focused battles. Combat in For Honor is a bit different than other action titles, each of the factions have 3 unique stances (Left, Right and Raised) which can be used to parry or overpower an enemies attacks – think of it like Rock, Paper, Scissors. In addition to the six existing multiplayer modes which support 3 different configurations – 1 vs. 1, 2 vs. 2 or 3 vs. 3 – For Honor (all editions) provides a co-op capable single player campaign that will teach you the ropes before jumping into the multiplayer modes.
There are a few differences between For Honor: Standard Edition and For Honor: Starter Edition, which is being given out for free – the number of heroes unlocked from the start. Standard and Deluxe players are able to use all 18 heroes right away but Starter Players are limited to 3 “Vanguard Heroes” and 3 additional heroes tied to the individual faction that you chose. The remaining 12 heroes not unlocked will have to be earned using an in-game currency called “steel”, apparently can be slow to accumulate, or purchased with individual micro-transactions.
Currently available concurrent player count numbers (from SteamSpy) put the average on Valve’s platform at a healthy 5,800+ in the last 30 days. This doesn’t include players using U-Play to take advantage of the E3 For Honor giveaway, however. It should also be noted that For Honor is also included in this month’s Xbox Games With Gold and is available on that platfrom until the end of August.
