Howdy, Partners

Microsoft’s announcement last week that four of their games would be coming to other consoles came true, as both Grounded and Pentiment were confirmed for Switch andPlaystation consoles. (While Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves were announced for the PS5.

Epic Mickey is being remastered for Switch, Playstation, Xbox, and PC, with new visuals and updated gameplay. No release date was confirmed.

The original Monster Hunter Stories game, originally a 3DS exclusive, is getting remastered for Switch, PS4, and PC this Summer.

A new game in the Ender Lilies universe, Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist, was announced for this year.

Gundam Breaker 4 will release this year for Switch, Playstation, and PC.

Sega’s releasing a new Super Monkey Ball, Banana Rumble, with four player co-op and 16 player battle race modes. This will be Switch exclusive and launches June 25th.

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, is confirmed for October 10th. We can accept this Nintendo Direct farm game representation.

Suika Game, the viral puzzler, is getting a new multiplayer mode. Local mode is available now, and online multiplayer will release later. It is paid DLC, and a bundle of the DLC and the base game is available.

Shin Megami Tensei V is getting a new version, subtitled Vengeance. This new version will have a brand new route that splits right at the start of the game, adds another 80 hours of gameplay, and has updates to demon interaction. It’ll be out on Switch, but will also be getting released on Playstation, Xbox, and PC, and maybe finally run at a good frame rate.

Penny’s Big Breakaway, the 3D platformer via ex-Sonic Mania devs, is out now! (Right friggin’ now!) It’s available on all consoles.

A release of Star Wars Battlefront has been announced that bundles both of the classic original titles into one! There are new characters and maps as well, plus 64-player matches. This will be hitting every console and PC as well.

Game Freak’s 3DS sleeper hit Pocket Card Jockey got a Switch port available now. It’s really good, if you like card games, please check it out!

Switch Online’s classic games got an update, with five Rare titles added. Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll, R.C. Pro-Am, Battletoads in Battlemaniacs, Killer Instinct, and Blast Corps. are all available today. In Japan, the GBA Switch Online roster got MOTHER 3. Keep dreaming, MOTHER fans. Maybe some day. (Just go replay the fan translation, John knows he will.)

Another Japan exclusive (so far) announcement was the RPG REYNATIS from FuRyu. Its staff is absolutely packed, and John agree with the below Tweet—this better get localized.

The last announcement was a new Endless Ocean, subtitled Luminous. The old Wii games were a delight for the senses, so we are sure this will be a treat as well. There will even be up to 30 player multiplayer as well. It drops May 2nd.

There were a few other reveals, such as a date for the new Contra and Aggro Crab’s new Crab-based Soulslike, so check the rest of the Direct here.

Other Reveals

IGN also had a few reveals lined up, mostly trailers for previously announced games. However, the big new announcement was a port of the Game Boy Advance title Ninja Five-O. This is exciting, as Ninja Five-O is a solid title that many haven’t experienced due to its massive aftermarket price. Now more people will be able to experience this fun title thanks to Limited Run.

Beloved MOBA Gigantic is coming back—this time as a $20 release. The Rampage Edition will release April 9th, with a closed beta starting today.

The League of Legends fighting game, previously known by the codename Project L, is officially named….2XKO. Pronounced with each letter/number separately. Two Ecks Kay Oh. What’re we doing?

Tekken 8’s developers confirm that the game will soon receive a microtransactions shop, certainly concerning players.

The Borderlands movie got its first trailer. We’re sorry for showing you this, but news is news—and this isn’t even the worst bite this week! At least Jamie Lee Curtis gets to cosplay.

Elden Ring‘s expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, has been confirmed to release June 21st. New weapons, areas, and characters were shown off in the below trailer.

Continuing Losses

Creator of Suikoden and director of its spiritual successor Eiyuden Chronicle Yoshitaka Murayama passed away on February 6th. He was 55 years old.

Toys for Bob, the Activision subsidiary behind the recent Spyro and Crash games, laid off 36 people. Rumors said the entire studio shut down, but instead they cut around a third of their staff and went fully remote. This followed the massive 1,900 layoffs Microsoft enacted throughout their gaming sphere after the Activision acquisition went through.

Nijisanji EN vtuber Selen Tatsuki was publicly fired after a lengthy absence, which was revealed to have been due to a self harm. Now rebranded as Dokibird, she has re-entered the Vtuber space and has regained success. Nijisanji released multiple statements on the matter, but only ended up fueling further anger at them.

Kazumasa Habu has stepped down as producer of Digimon titles at Bandai Namco. There is still a new Digimon Story game in development without his involvement.

Mane6, developers of indie fighting game Them’s Fightin’ Herds, were fired from development on the game while mid-quality assurance for the last two characters in their season pass. The characters were released in an unbalanced, broken, buggy state, and it has been confirmed that further development is not planned. Promised story mode additions will not be made.

Maximum Entertainment, the current owner of the Them’s Fightin’ Herds IP, is ending active development on the fan-inspired My Little Pony fighting game, reportedly shifting their focus onto an Avatar: The Last Airbender 2D fighting game set for 2025 and Diesel Legacy, set for this year.

In other news…

Larian Studios achieves several more wins from the 27th D.I.C.E. Awards, ending on a high note by ultimately winning another Game of the Year award for Baldur’s Gate 3. Unlike the limitations that they dealt with at The Game Awards, the recipients were able to take their time in their winning speech to call out the current melancholic and unsustainable state of the games industry.

Hosts of the show this year, Greg Miller of Kinda Funny Games and Stella Chung, were also not privy to holding back on cracking scathing jokes against executives who were in attendance.

Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 also walks away from the 51st Annie Awards winning Best Character Animation in a Video Game.

2B from Nier: Automata has been released as a playable fighter in Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising.

Lady Gaga has come to Fortnite, with her music being added to the Festival mode and a new skin so you can play as Mother Monster and shoot Peter Griffin.

IGN’s Creators Guild has been voluntarily recognized by Ziff Davis. There’s still more work to be done by the union, but this is a huge step in the right direction.

And finally, a beta version of Hotel Mario has been found by YouTuber Game Pak Rat at a thrift store. This beta has unused dialogue and clear versions of old speech, meaning YouTube Poop just got DLC, baby.

The post The Bulletin: Nintendo News and Borderlands Blues appeared first on Gamesline.

Hey everyone, it’s time to join Scott and John as they talk about the week in and around the games industry. John’s been playing more Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth while Scotts digging into the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Demo, Final Fantasy 8, and Helldivers 2. They also speculate about what might be coming from Microsoft and Xbox, rumors about a Mobile Elden Ring, Disney buying equity in Epic, and all the developments around Nijisanji EN.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Twitter @TheGamesline, @john_michonski, and @FKASocks.

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on iTunes, and tell a friend about the show! If you want to send in questions send them to our ask box at gamesline.tumblr.com/ask.

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or directly to our RSS feed.

The post The Gamesline Podcast Ep. 31: Starship Troopers at Home appeared first on Gamesline.

And the biggest talk of the week of course being all of the reports of the severe injuries as a result of a poorly constructed a foam pit at TwitchCon. The foam pit was part of a booth for Lenovo, and streamers were encouraged to jump in the pit while being livestreamed despite its shallow build. Streamer Adriana Chechik has the most severe case of injuries reported thus far, having broken her back in a couple of places and is now getting surgery to stabilize it.

Former QA worker for Nintendo of America, Mackenzie Clifton, has reached a dispute settlement with the aforementioned company. In a complained filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) back in April, Clifton alleged that Nintendo of America fired them for their associations with union activities. Nintendo of America is now ordered to post a notice both in email and on-site reassessing QA workers’ rights under the NLRB.

Square Enix Montreal is rebranding as Onoma.

Konami is now trying to enter the NFT market.

Overwatch 2 players are still catching no break, and several characters were locked out from being playable when the game’s servers when back online.

Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard faces another lawsuit filed by a former employee of the company alleging sexual harassment and the threat of revenge porn by their former manager.

Playrix Games, developer behind mobile titles such as Gardenscapes and Homescapes, is closing all offices based in Russia and Belarus due to the further escalations of the Russia-Ukraine war. They are attempting to relocate employees to other locations.

Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier is ending service in January next year. The game was approaching its one-year anniversary this coming November.

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is coming to the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series systems.

Kingdom Hearts fans rejoice: Animator Seth Kearsley has digitized his copy of what was assumed to have been a “lost” pitch for a Kingdom Hearts animated series back in 2003. Kearsley’s storyboards and rough drawings of the concept have been circulating online for quite some time without any indication that the pitch was fully realized—until now.

The post The Bulletin: Perils Beyond the Pit appeared first on Gamesline.

There’s were so many big news drops this week, so this is but a sliver of what was announced. Oh, and non-show things did happen too.

Games Done Quick (GDQ) has withdrawn and canceled what would have been their upcoming in-person event in Orlando, Florida, making a hardline stance against the state’s recent legislative policies. GDQ representatives have spoken against the Florida’s lax COVID-19 policies and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric present in local legislation that they feel would endanger their group and attendees.

Bonnie Ross officially resigned and left 343 Industries and Microsoft. 343 Industries has worked on several Halo titles since 2007. Pierre Hintze will take over as studio head immediately. 

Square Enix recently partnered with Oasys, a blockchain company, now becoming one of the largest games publishers to invest heavily in blockchain technology.

Genshin Impact is getting some sort of animated project. The adaptation will be developed under Ufotable, who is known for their work on Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba and the Tales and Fate series.

In the tabletop gaming world, Wizards of the Coast has finally filed an injunction against NuTSR for using Wizards trademarks to publish “blatantly racist and transphobic content”. This long-winded legal saga has been going on for years.

Babylon’s Fall will be ending service in February 2023. The game has been online for less than a year.

Also having been active for less than a year, the relaunched G4TV has been hit with huge staff layoffs.

A huge portion of Fanbyte’s staff have also been laid off. The publication has been under Tencent since 2020.

And getting into all of the major show news…

A majority of the announcements made in the latest Ubisoft’s Foward event was all about Assassin’s Creed.

D23 Expo

Huge hardcore Disney heads and investors making bills rain know the D23 Expo is a huge deal, and this year features a substantial amount of games-related announcements from the House of Mouse.

Return to Monkey Island releases on September 19 for the Nintendo Switch and PC. The game will be published by Devolver Digital in will be in coordination with Lucasfilm Games, the latter acquired by the Walt Disney Company back in 2012.

The Sega Genesis Gargoyles game from 1995 is getting remastered. No release date has been determined, but it is slated for release on consoles and the PC.

Disney Illusion Island will be a multiplayer co-op platformer that will release exclusively on the Nintendo Switch. The game is a revisit to a previously canceled title that would have been Metroidvania-like.

Indie studio Bithell Games has been given the green light to help develop TRON: Identity, an adventure-mystery visual novel set to release next year in 2023. The game seems to take place in a new setting that has yet to be explored in the rest of the franchise.

Disney Dreamlight Valley, Disney’s newest online roleplaying game, will have its first major content update revolving around the universe of Toy Story. Dreamlight Valley’s character creator is available and free to try,  in which the character you produce can be imported into the full game.

Somehow, we’re still getting Avatar content in the year 2022, so trust us, Avatar: Reckoning will be coming out eventually. Reckoning is intended to be an online MOBA for mobile devices.

Nintendo Direct

The rumor of the rumor was true: The latest Nintendo Direct wasn’t delayed, but it wasn’t shown live in the UK. Speculation believes it might possibly be due to the The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s sequel subtitle in relation to the recent death of Queen Elizabeth II—

And after much waiting, “Breath of the Wild 2” is officially now known as Tears of the Kingdom. The game will be released in May 2023.

Previous leaks have proven that the stark, red-blue character design of the main character in the upcoming Fire Emblem Engage is apparently real. The game revolves around a mechanic in which you can summon past Fire Emblem characters to aid you in battle.

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life is getting a remake. The game will be billed under the official Story of Seasons localization trademark for its English-language release. A remake of the GameCube game that came out in 2003, the game will not only feature a significant graphics overhaul, but will now allow you to play a male, female, or non-binary protagonist on top of flexibly being able to woo any of the game’s marriage candidates regardless of gender.

Various Nintendo 64 games are coming to Nintendo Switch Online. Titles like the first Mario Party, Pokémon Stadium, and GoldenEye 007 are included in this lineup.

Tales of Symphonia is getting remastered. The remaster seems to be based on an older PC port and will run at 30 FPS, much to the chagrin of fans who played it at 60 on GameCube.

John is ready to be hurt again because Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE is the new game from Tookyo Games and Spike Chunsoft. Yeah, the Danganronpa team is bringing the band back together for a new mystery solving game. It launches Spring 2023.

Splatoon 3 is having its first Splatfest near the end of this month!

Nintendo Switch Sports will now have golf. But you have to wait.

Pikmin 4 has been confirmed as the next mainline game in the respective series.

And a little more of Bayonetta 3 has been shown.

You can watch the entire Direct below.

Sony Playstation’s State of Play

God of War: Ragnarok now has a story trailer.

Tekken 8 has been officially announced. The game is currently being built from the ground up using the Unreal Engine.

Bandai Namco is debuting a new IP called Synduality.

Pacific Drive, the debut game by Ironwood Studios, has now dropped a reveal trailer. Ironwood Studios is based in Seattle, Washington, comprising of a team of developers who have previously worked in AAA.

The entire State of Play is can be watched below.

Accompanying the State of Play’s showcase was the RGG Summit, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s own showcase regarding their studio’s IP, announcing that:

The previously unreleased in the West Yakuza spin-off Yakuza: Ishin is set to release as a remake titled Like a Dragon: Ishin!

Judgment and Lost Judgment are now officially available for the PC.

And finally, Like a Dragon 8 is set to release in 2024. It seems as though that Yakuza series is set to drop the “Yakuza” moniker here on out, following Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Like the seventh game in the series, the game will remain a turn-based RPG. Protagonists Ichiban Kasuga and veteran Kiryu Kazuma are to return.

The post The Bulletin: Directs and Drops appeared first on Gamesline.

As someone who’s replayed Kingdom Hearts II somewhere in the ballpark of twenty or so times, having the thirteen-years-in-the-making game come out only to be quickly forgotten was a bummer of unimaginable magnitudes. Dealing with the issues of easy and brainless gameplay, plot holes aplenty, and an overall feeling that this game felt more on par with a side game than a true successor to the last numbered entry in the series, was disappointing to say the least. While some of the issues with gameplay were resolved through various free patches to the game, the main allure of Kingdom Hearts has always been its story, so for it to have ended the series’ main arc on a pretty sour note made those fixes just pass me by.

Kingdom Hearts Re:Mind is definitely overpriced, and it definitely should have been something that was included with the original game from the beginning, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t make me remember why I loved Kingdom Hearts all over again.

Although the main thing people will be looking for in any Kingdom Hearts game is the narrative, there are lots of little features baked into Re:Mind that feel like they were made specifically to cater to Kingdom Hearts die-hards. First is the addition of the Oathkeeper keyblade, which powers up into a form that lets you dual-wield and shoot out light pillars everywhere just like the series’ best boy Roxas. There are also new “Pro Codes” which let you make the game harder with stuff like constantly draining MP or no healing magic, if you didn’t think the post-launch Critical Mode was hard enough. For the less fighting-inclined, there’s also the new Data Greeting feature, which lets you mash all the various characters of the game up against each other like shippers have dreamed of for years. There’s lots of object, location, and color filter options too, so if you want to say, create a hypothetical angelic-looking date between two characters of your choice, this DLC has got you covered.

The main path of Re:Mind is one part retcon, and one part boss rush, sending players back through a revised telling of the game’s original ending sequence. While this plays out very similar to the original launch finale, there are lots of little touches added to help flesh out and cover all the bases that were originally glossed over and resolved a little too quickly. If you were wondering how certain fighters managed to make their way to the closing brawl, or even just wanted to resolve each character arc as not Sora, Re:Mind will impress.

While the original boss fights largely remain the same, new options and mechanics have been added to make the game feel a lot more like Kingdom Hearts II, the last real fully featured game in the series. The fight involving the Birth by Sleep protagonists, for example, now lets you play as Aqua for the entire duration, using special combo moves with Ventus to better demonstrate that this battle is about them and what they need to do. Even the new encounters added with the DLC have more original recipe flavor to them, with plenty of characters you wouldn’t have expected to interact mixing and mingling on the battlefield with a mix of comedy and downright cool as hell shit.

Speaking of the newer boss fights, they help make the climax of the game feel much more like a team effort, rather than a constant cavalcade of everyone else fucking up only to have Sora roll in and win whatever has been happening all by himself. In a game like Kingdom Hearts III, which is ultimately the culmination of so many different character groups and arcs, the original game’s focus on making Sora the ultimate archetypal hero who solves everything with a smile was more than a little frustrating. Now you get to see absolutely off the walls bullshit, like Mickey Mouse clinging to life in a sequence reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid 4’s microwave hallway, or an encounter where you control every single Kingdom Hearts protagonist at once in a cycling group attack that has all sorts of wild character interactions that feel like fanservice at its best.

There are still tons of problems with the base game for sure, but these changes have helped III actually start to feel like the mainline Kingdom Hearts game everyone expected. While the original game wasted a ton of time meandering around largely disconnected and hollow Disney worlds, Re:Mind takes you immediately into the stuff fans are looking for. Instead of making you wade through redundant build up, you get to hear Xehanort talk about being a libertarian right from the get-go! The new final boss encounter is especially redeemed now, with a playable Kairi being given the chance to put her sword to some actual use in a tag team battle alongside Sora, rather than as a fridged damsel in distress.

This is especially true for the second part of the DLC, Episode Limitcut, which brings back the Final Fantasy characters who were weirdly absent from the original narrative to introduce a wildly difficult gauntlet against new “Data” versions of old boss encounters. Though most of the story here is limited to the initial cutscene, the personality and depth to these boss fights are much more reminiscent of Kingdom Hearts II than anything else in the game. Each boss is a character you already fought somewhere else in the game, but their mechanics have been overhauled, making each battle feel like how the fight against them should have felt all along.

While some of these fights are adapted from their Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix renditions, they’re much more dynamic, with mechanics that actually require significant engagement with the game’s systems on higher difficulties. One of the biggest problems when Kingdom Hearts III came out was that so much of it was a face roll, even on the hardest difficulties you would have had to go out of your way to not end every boss encounter in a few seconds. Such a scenario is impossible against these new bosses, with enemies like Xemnas taking his original kit from Kingdom Hearts II, but upping the ante with no quick-time events or button prompts to save you from his endless assault.

While this might seem brutal at first, if gone into with the right mindset and plenty of patience, each fight is incredibly rewarding. There’s something that feels really good about having to manually block the iconic laser dome attack from the climax of Kingdom Hearts II. Instead of feeling like the omnipotent god the story often makes Sora out to be, you feel like you’re winning these fights on sheer grit and earned prowess. Even more gimmicky fights with Luxord’s card games or Xigbar’s ranged tactics feel really fun to work your way around since all the tools to contend with them are at your disposal, it just takes learning the knowhow.

THIS RULEShttps://t.co/Aks6n2banm pic.twitter.com/ioKVT3j8Ow

— RMT (@horngal) January 24, 2020

When you manage to work your way through Episode Limitcut, you’ll unlock a secret episode with a real hell of a superboss with some really confusing and wild implications for the ongoing Kingdom Hearts story. While I don’t want to spoil anything that happens outright, let’s just say that Nomura is doubling down on some really wild ideas and I cannot wait to see where Kingdom Hearts IV, or whatever sick as hell subtitle they come up with next, ends up going. If you’re someone who’s worried about difficulty stopping you from getting to the new story content worry not! Most of these fights are much more manageable on lower difficulties, with items like revive tokens and the new “Fast Pass” options (which allow you to adjust the difficulty in more minute and specific ways) trivializing these encounters. While the last superboss might remain rough even with all that help, the only difference between a win and a loss here are a couple of minuscule differences that you can probably look up on Youtube if you really can’t be asked.

Even after all my praise however, that kind of brings me to my unfortunate and prevailing opinion on Re:Mind as a whole: you should probably just watch it on Youtube. Though the new fights and options are great if you’re the type of person (like me) who loves replaying Kingdom Hearts games, it’s pretty hard for me to feel okay recommending people to go out and dump half the price of the game again on an experience that largely rehashes the source material, one that probably should have been included from the get-go. There’s an effort here for sure, but unless you’re really in love with the high-level gameplay, there’s really not much that couldn’t just be seen secondhand.

As someone who adores the gameplay of Kingdom Hearts, however, Re:Mind was exactly what my lovelorn heart needed after Kingdom Hearts III. It was the little things, like Xigbar’s quickdraw minigame, Marluxia’s Final Fantasy-style doom counter, or even just Luxord’s frivolous but earworming taunts as he slides around on his cards. The spirit of Kingdom Hearts was strong as it ever was in this one, and I can’t wait to see whatever nonsense will come next.

The post Kingdom Hearts III’s DLC Reminded Me Why I Love Kingdom Hearts appeared first on Gamesline.

Kingdom Hearts III is the culmination and execution of nearly every single narrative point that has been brought up in the ten entries that have been released since the first game way back in 2002. It brings all sorts of characters and plotlines into the same room, and makes them mash up against each other in the complex yet melodramatic ways that only a Kingdom Hearts game could pull off. While there’s plenty of great moments of resolution, Kingdom Hearts III isn’t interested in one last hurrah, but rather making sure everything is set up for whatever comes next.

Picking up after the events of Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance, III finally brings Sora, Donald, and Goofy back together after nearly 13 years. While most of the non-numbered entries in the series implemented unique twists on the standard Kingdom Hearts combat- with gimmicks like using cards to attack, or collecting Pokemon-esque buddies to help- III is a welcome return and update to the refined and robust combat II featured. I’ve always considered the Kingdom Hearts games to be like a much more simplistic and approachable Devil May Cry, with a focus on spectacle and player skill over managing statistics or menus.

The new and improved combat plays like an absolute dream, and it’s hard not to consider III as a contender for one of the best playing games of all time. Sora jumps and jabs in the most satisfying and successful ways that it makes every enemy encounter feel entrancing. Adapting the drive forms from Kingdom Hearts II, at the end of nearly every other combo, Sora is able to transform his keyblade into a variety of different and stronger weapons that all feel completely unique. There’s keyblades that turn into drills or hammers, there’s pugilistic keyblades, and there’s even keyblades that turn into straight up guns. Thanks to the new weapon upgrade system, you’ll also be able to pick and stick with whatever keyblades you want to use as well, unlike past games where picking and choosing keyblades was more based on their stats and abilities.

On top of forms, there are a variety of special moves like upgraded magic, partner abilities, and more, so it’s impossible to go even a few seconds without prompting the appearance of a new show stopper. Unfortunately, even on the game’s hardest difficulty, the game feels trivially easy with all these tools at your disposal. When you’re constantly fluctuating through a whole slew of explosive and effective moves against waves of largely inactive enemies, it can become frustrating just how little a threat everything poses. I typically play through the Kingdom Hearts games on Critical difficulty, but that option isn’t present in III for whatever reason, instead capping out your options to “Beginner,” “Standard,” and Proud.” I’d go so far as to recommend people play through Kingdom Hearts III on the hardest difficulty, if only because there’s at least a degree of resistance there, and I personally shudder to imagine the simplicity of Beginner mode.

At times it can feel like the game has forgotten just how fun its core combat is, and tries way too hard to lean into those moments of spectacle to the detriment of the overall experience. One of the best examples of this is the Attraction Flow feature, which puts Sora into a Disneyland amusement ride that renders him pretty much invincible while performing some sort of minigame to inflict damage on nearby enemies. Each of these Attractions force you into a jarring cutscene that takes momentum away from the combat while you press X for a bit. The Attractions range from outright frustrating at worst, to just mediocre at best, and each time they popped up on my command list I ended up doing my damndest to make sure that I never accidentally activated one. It’s cool to watch your moves evolve as you fight and figure out what the best way to solve any given encounter is! It’s less cool to watch Sora get into a pirate ship for the fiftieth time and just mash X as it rocks back and forth to instantly win.

There are so many other aspects of the gameplay that end up feeling unnecessary. There’s an entire elaborate system designed around finding various ingredients around the game world and taking them back to the rat from Ratatouille (who is being managed by Scrooge McDuck because Kingdom Hearts owns) to make meals to eat. Everytime you go to make a meal, you have to go through a short but frustrating minigame where Sora cracks open an egg or something, and it’s all too easy to fail these and lose your valuable components. When you succeed, the food you make can be eaten to receive temporary buffs and abilities, but in a game already as easy as Kingdom Hearts III, this feels tacked on just because every other JRPG has a cooking minigame these days.

There are minigames that actually feel good and well implemented, and it’s largely because they integrate so well with the core gameplay. Challenges like the parkour Flash Racer courses in the Big Hero 6 world, or the various Flan minigames that range from silly selfie taking to combat encounters with specific rules, present a compelling and fun challenge because you’re utilizing the tools you would normally use. Instead of having to arbitrarily pressing X to the rhythm of a carousel, or tilt the control stick just the right way to mignon that filet, you’re dashing and mashing around the way you usually would. If the Attractions were utilized more in a scripted way, where it made sense with the current environment you were in, or enemies you were facing, they could legitimately be really fun! There was even a system like this back in Kingdom Hearts II, where certain enemies would have exclusive counters and attacks, so it’s just bizarre that the game would take so many steps forward, and these few bizarre steps back.

As with the battles, the environments of Kingdom Hearts III are just as confounding as they are compelling. More on-model than ever before, it’s clear just how well the aesthetics of Pixar and the more three dimensional Disney movies mix with the sensibilities of Kingdom Hearts. Worlds like Toy Story’s Toybox and Frozen’s Arendelle look so perfect that it absolutely feels like you’re stepping into those films. Kingdom Hearts has always been infamous for how hilariously out of place Sora and his compatriots can look at times, but in III he fits into nearly every environment. I was even surprised just how well he fit into the Pirates of the Carribean world, with his custom outfit and darker shading palette making it seem like he really belongs there.

Unfortunately not everything is as perfect as it looks. While it makes sense that Square Enix would want to take advantage of just how far game technology has come in the last 13 years, it’s all too easy to get lost in the visual vastness of it all. Instead of the various rooms separated by loading screens that have permeated the Kingdom Hearts series since its inception, most worlds are made up of a few massive areas built like shopping malls and mountains with plenty of verticality. While it’s nice to wander around without much waiting to take you out of the game, it can be hard to parse exactly where you’re meant to go. Luckily there is a minimap to show you a zoomed in portion of the area you’re currently in, but there’s no way to expand it and see where you should be, or which sections of the map you haven’t visited yet.

This is made all the more baffling by the fact that you pick up maps from treasure chests. You’re getting what should ostensibly be helping you figure out where the heck you are, only to be presented with something that is only half as helpful as it sells itself on. While most of the game is pretty straightforward with plenty of signposts on where the story wants you to go, there are lots of collectables that you’re always going to watch out for, and with these huge environments, it becomes annoying with just how hard it is to keep track of where you’ve been. Especially in areas like Frozen’s Arendelle, where each zone is characterized by snowy mountains that largely blend together into looking like the same place everywhere. It’s all beautiful and perfectly recreated, but eventually I end up struggling to visualize what I need to.

Now it’s finally time to talk about what is arguably the most important aspect of any Kingdom Hearts game: the story. The Kingdom Hearts series has always been known for its convoluted and complex narrative, full of proper nouns and dozens of versions of Sora, and it has given the games equal amounts of devotion and distaste. If you’re the type of person who’s frustrated by the idea of managing large complex webs of names and concepts over the course of ten games, then Kingdom Hearts III may feel a lot more like a research project than a game. However, If you are into that, and have been involved and aware of pretty much everything that’s gone down from Birth by Sleep to Re:Coded, then you’re going to get nearly everything you’ve asked for.

Kingdom Hearts III was never meant to be a final ending. Series director Tetsuya Nomura made it clear this is the ending of the current “saga” long before the game came out, and in that vein it absolutely has a whole bunch of beautiful finishing touches. Every single original character who has ever been in a Kingdom Hearts game is represented and accounted for, with their stories resolved one way or another. While the game is very blatantly focused on setting up a whole new web of intrigue and another decade plus of storytelling, the way that things are told in no way detract from the weight of just how good the conclusions to this era of Kingdom Hearts are. I found myself in tears multiple times over the course of the game’s two hour long ending stretch, and reminisced over so many memories I had growing up with these characters as a super passionate fanfic writing teen.

While I absolutely adored the ending overall, and I loved playing through Kingdom Hearts III to 100% completion, there were a few problems with how everything shook out in the end from a structural standpoint. Firstly, the narrative is almost entirely backloaded, with little to no advancement to the plot occurring until the twilight hours of the game. While plenty of games in the Kingdom Hearts series have done this, Birth by Sleep especially, there was usually at least some sort of larger conflict that happened in the midst of the story to really keep the momentum going. In III, however, you’re going to be blasting through seven Disney worlds in a row with only the occasional transition of suggestive plot details in between. This wouldn’t be so bad if, but the Disney worlds’ stories do very little to support Sora as a character like in previous entries, so they end up feeling more like unrelated busy work.

Instead of adding in some sort of twist or wrinkle on the various featured films’ narratives, most of the worlds in Kingdom Hearts III are almost complete and nearly unchanged retellings of their source material. While the Toy Story world and Olympus Coliseum offer more unique stories, others like Tangled, Frozen, and Monsters Inc. straight up regurgitate either memetic quotes or entire scenes from their source material in ways that can often feel out of place. Almost the entire ending to the Frozen world, for example, is taken directly out of the film, including the character of Hans who until that point had been completely unknown to Sora and co, but now he’s here as the central conflict I guess? It all just feels very strange and almost lazy when compared to how worlds have been in the past. I loved how the Nightmare before Christmas world in Kingdom Hearts I and II featured the concept of Halloweentown Denizens coping and playing with the concept of Heartless. It made sense for these edgy emo characters to get hype over the villains and try to figure them out, but in KH3 it feels like all the enemies are…just sort of there.

Even worse, there’s a complete dearth of Final Fantasy characters throughout the entire plot. While this isn’t a game-ruining problem or anything, it ends up making a majority of the game feel like a licensed Disney joint, instead of the Square/Disney crossover that Kingdom Hearts has always been. Characters like Cloud or Squall brought levity and a sense of outlandishness to the series, and while I can understand the presence of every Kingdom Hearts original character might make adding more of them feel overwhelming, their absence is noticeable. It’s such a shame too, because when the characters of a Disney world interact with the Kingdom Hearts villains, it’s almost always completely hilarious. Seeing Woody call out Xehanort by saying no one has ever loved him and that he has no friends made me absolutely lose it, as did a similar scene where Mike and Sulley try to take out series edgelord Vanitas in an outrageously elaborate fashion. I would’ve loved to see more of this, because the idea of Cloud Strife having to interact with literally any Disney character is the funniest thing in the world to me even after all these years.

Even more frustrating is the lack of respect for almost all of the women characters amongst the main cast whatsoever. While Kingdom Hearts has never particularly been caring towards letting women have agency, recent games like Birth by Sleep 0.2 had given the glimmer of hope that hey, maybe a woman will be allowed to wield a keyblade and fight as good as all the men. Unfortunately that glimmer was lost to the darkness, and it would’ve been nice if say, Kairi, who had been set up for multiple games as becoming a huge keyblade master, who spent the entire game training to fight, wasn’t forced into being just a damsel in distress yet again.

Kairi isn’t the only one who has to suffer either, as the typically heroic, if not chronically failing Aqua accomplishes absolutely nothing throughout her entire narrative. It often makes me wonder why so much effort and emphasis was ever put on them in the first place, if they were never intended to actually do anything meaningful. While I can understand a primary focus on Sora being important after so long, and the fact that having such a heavy roster of characters makes who gets focus a balancing act, I don’t understand why the women have to get short shrift so often. It’s ridiculous to see a character like Aqua, who is touted as an indispensable and strong keyblade master, lose every conceivable conflict she’s placed into, just so she can be saved by the incredibly dweebish Sora. When they inevitably make a Kingdom Hearts IV, I hope that for all the girls’ sakes, and mine, that they get to be treated even half as well as any of the men do.

I may seem like I’m really firing off all cannons at Kingdom Hearts III here, but I actually really did adore the game. Playing through the game and doing every conceivable thing struck a feeling in my heart that hardly anything else manages to. I absolutely adore the homoeroticism the series has always projected, and getting to see Riku and Sora hit on each other in high definition was a complete game changer. I also love how the series has continuously delved into more psychological themes like disassociation or even trans narratives with the characters of Xion and Roxas, regardless of whether it was intended to or not. The endgame sequence, where Sora goes up against every villain from the series’ history and has a therapy session with them after an explosive and elaborate fight is one of my favorite segments of a game literally ever! It’s because of all this love and appreciation I have for the game and series at a whole that I can’t help but be more harsh with my criticisms, because it can be better, and I desperately want it to be.

Under a capitalist society it can be hard to find endings. So many stories have ended up squandered as the creators ended up desperately searching for the maximum amount of potential profit possible. Games like Mass Effect 3 have sacrificed nuance and depth in favor of trying to onboard as many previously uninterested players as possible, while shows built for serialization like The Simpsons last in perpetuity long past their expiration date. Kingdom Hearts III is bold to me because it caters so specifically to its most dedicated and passionate fans, and tries to give an ending for each of them. Whether you loved the trio of 358/2 Days, the Wayfinders of Birth by Sleep, or the classic Sora, Riku, and Kairi combo, there’s something in here for everyone, and some sort of soft end to make you feel something inside. Simple and clean is the way Kingdom Hearts has always made me feel, and I’m glad that I haven’t had to let it go.

The post Kingdom Hearts III (PS4) Review appeared first on Gamesline.

Gazillion had suddenly disappeared recently, skipping out on their weekly updates and not following through on a Thor: Ragnarok tie in and Halloween event. Most fans assumed that something had to be happening and sure enough, they were right.

Four years is a long time to keep any kind of large scale, free to play title running, and Marvel Heroes was certainly successful. Perhaps Marvel and Disney are looking to reassess their current license holders, or maybe Marvel Heroes just wasn’t generating the revenue like they used to.

No word on how long Marvel Heroes’ servers will stay up, or if, kind of like Deadpool, the game will just get de-listed once the license completely expires. Hopefully, Gazillion has proven themselves enough to get the chance to create another wonderful game with another company soon.

The post Marvel Heroes Shuts Down appeared first on Gamesline.

Although the safe money was on Frozen, or even Moana, the reveal instead featured Sora and company battling their way through the brightly-colored world of Buzz and Woody. This is a first for the Kingdom Hearts franchise, as no prior games have featured Pixar properties. In addition to some classic Kingdom Hearts story bits about hearts and friendship, the footage reveals new gameplay mechanics such as piloting a mech, and a keyblade apparently based on “The Claw” from the first Toy Story film.

It was an unexpected but not unwelcome reveal, as the gameplay and aesthetics look as good as ever. However, another unexpected reveal came at the end of the trailer: Kingdom Hearts III is due out sometime in 2018. Assuming this release date holds, the long wait for the third proper adventure of Sora and friends might be sooner than we think. It’s about time.

Check out Buzz, Woody, and Sora in the new trailer below:

The post Kingdom Hearts III Due Out 2018; Includes Toy Story appeared first on Gamesline.

There’s obviously no release date on the teaser, but it promises more info and a new trailer at D23 Expo this July. Who knows when Kingdom Hearts III will finally be unleashed, but this trailer proves the combat is as high-energy and engaging as ever. It’s refreshing to see more and more info about this long-awaited follow-up coming out, especially for those of us who have been waiting twelve years.

Check out the new, action-packed trailer below:

The post New Kingdom Hearts III Trailer Reveals Gameplay appeared first on Gamesline.

According to the article on Kotaku, Disney Infinity 4.0 would’ve finally introduced a story mode to Sandbox, allowing characters from one franchise to cross over into another. Infinity playsets, which were the original story mode, had licensing restrictions keeping characters from jumping from world to world, but in Toy Box, there were no limits. That won’t be happening, however.

Other plans included figures from Rogue One, Moana, Cars 3, and all other future Marvel and Star Wars movies. There would have also been 12″ figures of popular characters such as Buzz Lightyear and Darth Vader that lit up and had different powers in game.

There’s also a look into what killed Disney Infinity. Sources claim that toy overproduction and a lack of interest for lesser known characters hit the hardest, as well as standard competition from Skylanders, amiibo, and Lego Dimensions. For direct quotes, check out Patrick’s article.

The post Disney Infinity Sequel Plans Leaked appeared first on Gamesline.