Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Eternal Radiance is Out Now! (And Other News)

 My Games, Video games  6 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Dec 162020
 

After launching in Early Access earlier this year, our action RPG Eternal Radiance is now finished and officially available!

Eternal Radiance is inspired by JRPGs, and it follows a young would-be knight named Celeste who goes on a journey to reclaim a stolen artifact after failing her initiation into the Ashen Order.

I wrote the story and dialogue for Eternal Radiance, and I’d love to revisit its world and characters someday. For now, I’m excited that all of you will have a chance to experience it!

It’s come a long way from its initial Early Access release, because in addition to completing the game’s content, we were also able to improve the combat and polish things up. Once again, Eternal Radiance is out now on Steam, with console ports planned for next year!

In other game news, the last couple of days have been a little crazy, so here’s a rapid-fire account of the highlights:

  • The Tales anniversary live stream had no news, but since 2020 was the way it was, the 25th anniversary has been extended for another year, with exciting announcements promised. Tales of Arise is also reportedly in the final stages of development.
  • Nintendo held another Indie World Showcase, which included the announcement that Finding Paradise is coming to Switch. It’s the sequel to To the Moon, and it’s really good.
  • Kojima Productions announced an anniversary announcement for midnight Eastern Time. At midnight, they announced the announcement would be in an hour. An hour later they revealed a wallpaper, eventually followed by some merchandise and the news that they’d won an award. It probably would have gone over better without the announcement of the announcement of the announcement.
  • Details on the next Trails game surfaced from Famitsu, as translated here. Combat details are still a little murky, since it’s a real-time action system that doesn’t require input skill, and you can switch to command-based combat. Hopefully they’ll show it on the 20th. Nayuta no Kiseki is also being remastered.
  • And this morning, the horror game Devotion was announced to be returning… only for GOG to reverse the decision mere hours later due to “many messages from gamers,” an explanation absolutely no one believes.

I was hoping we’d be celebrating a big Tales announcement today, I have mixed feelings about the possibility that Trails is switching to action combat, and I was planning to buy Devotion the moment it went live… but at least we have some good news to celebrate in there, too!

Melody of Memory: A Celebration of Kingdom Hearts

 Reviews, Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with:
Dec 142020
 

Over the weekend, I finished Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory, the Kingdom Hearts rhythm game that came out for the Switch, PS4, and Xbox One.

(I played the Switch version because I like the convenience of playing handheld.)

Going into Melody of Memory, fans had a lot of questions. How much new story content would there be? Is it worth buying? Do you need to play it to stay up to date on the series?

In short, I would say this: if you love rhythm games and Kingdom Hearts music, it’s worth it. If you’re only interested in the new story content, you’re probably better off looking up the scenes. Melody of Memory is about 95% rhythm game, 5% new story… but what new story content it does have will probably be very important to the series going forward.

Since I played Re:Mind, I knew that the basic story premise for Melody of Memory is that Kairi is going back through her memories for any clues about finding Sora. It’s a good thing I knew this ahead of time, because the game doesn’t bring that up until the end. It doesn’t frame the story at all, just throws you right into the rhythm game like there is nothing else. I’d imagine the ending must have felt like it came out of nowhere to anyone who didn’t have that context.

If you’re a rhythm game fan, there’s a lot of content here. It retreads every Kingdom Hearts game except the mobile games, generally with two songs per world, plus additional songs for key moments, bosses, etc.

…Until you get to the Kingdom Hearts III section, which has one song per world, plus the songs for the ending scenes. It really surprised me that Kingdom Hearts III got substantially less content here than the other major games, but it might be because the presentation is different.

Most of the songs in the “World Tour” (story mode) have you running along a track, hitting the correct buttons to the beat to defeat enemies that appear. There are a handful of boss fights that include different mechanics and show a boss fight from the series in the background, with the rhythm game determining how well you attack or defend. But the Kingdom Hearts III Disney worlds all use the “Memory Dive” format instead, where you play a sequence similar to the boss fights while cutscenes from the game play in the background.

This format is also used for certain songs you can unlock for the Track Selection mode, but it felt odd that World Tour went to that only for Kingdom Hearts III. I guess they wanted to show off the cutscenes.

Anyway, as you progress through worlds, you’ll occasionally get a cutscene that summarizes part of the game in question. This is not gradual, so I wouldn’t say it’s a good way for someone new to the series to get a recap.

However, as a celebration of the series for someone who is already a fan, it’s fun, and it reminded me that I really love Kingdom Hearts music. I’m surprised it took them this long to make a rhythm game.

Then once you get to the end of the World Tour, you finally reach the new story content that shows where the series is going next. I’d say it takes about an hour, and it’s very interesting. Part of it involves Kairi’s memory of her past in Radiant Garden, covering the events previously only ever referenced in Ansem’s Reports, and the rest takes place after the end of Re:Mind, dealing with the results of the characters’ search for Sora… and it’s going in wild directions that left me very excited for the next game in the series.

I am never getting off this wild ride.

Once again, if you’re looking for a celebration of Kingdom Hearts and its music, Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory is worth playing. If you’re interested in the story, you need to at least look it up to see what’s going on. As for me, I can’t wait for more!

The Game Awards 2020 Highlights

 Video games  6 Responses »
Dec 112020
 

The Game Awards 2020 were last night, and as usual, I mainly tuned in for the announcements (although I was pleased to see Final Fantasy VII Remake and Hades win some awards).

Let’s start with a few things that weren’t at the Game Awards.

There was no new trailer for Bayonetta 3. It has been three years since Bayonetta 3 was announced, without a single trailer or update since then beyond assurances that it’s going well.

There was no new trailer for Elden Ring, either, despite the game being far enough along in development that Phil Spencer was able to play “quite a bit” of it last month.

And the highly-rumored new Silent Hill game did not make an appearance. You’d think this would quiet down the rumors, but I’ve already seen supposed insiders who reported it would be at the Game Awards now claiming Sony decided to postpone the news.

Anyway, let’s move on to the biggest highlights from what was shown at the Game Awards 2020.

Once again, there was no clear distinction between the pre-show, which included award announcements and world premiere trailers, and the actual Game Awards show, which included award announcements and world premiere trailers. Both also had concerts, with the pre-show having a Persona 5 Strikers performance of “Last Surprise,” which I enjoyed.

We got to see a new trailer for the Nier Replicant remaster (which I’ve linked instead of embedding because the trailer is age-restricted and can only be viewed on Youtube, for some reason), and it looks so good. The combat looks fast and fluid and the game just looks great overall.

Moving on, I’m not a Super Smash Bros. player, but the surprise announcement of Sephiroth as the next Smash character was interesting, to say the least.

A new Perfect Dark game is in development, the first new entry since 2005, although there was a remaster of the original in 2010. I’ve never played them, but it’s neat to see a series like that being revived.

There’s also a new horror game coming out called The Callisto Protocol. It’s from the creator of Dead Space, and it looks like it could be interesting. Some sites are reporting that it’s set in the same universe as PUBG, which is a bit of an odd choice if true.

The next big highlight for me was when we finally got a trailer for the next Dragon Age!

Apparently “Dragon Age: The Dread Wolf Rises” isn’t its title after all, since the trailer just calls it Dragon Age. It still doesn’t really show a lot, but this is the most we’ve seen from it so far. Varric is back, and it sounds like we’ll have a new protagonist again.

After a lot of game announcements and updates that don’t particular interest me, we got a new trailer for Scarlet Nexus. My interest in Scarlet Nexus has been steadily increasing, especially because the team working on it previously worked on Tales games such as Vesperia (which I still need to play).

For some reason, the Game Awards trailer only shows Xbox, even though Scarlet Nexus is also coming to PS4, PS5, and PC. I guess Xbox has the marketing rights or something. Scarlet Nexus is due out in Summer 2021, and I’m looking forward to it!

Eventually there was a montage of games coming to Xbox Game Pass, and there near the end was Yakuza 3 Remastered, Yakuza 4 Remastered, Yakuza 5 Remastered, and Yakuza 6. No big announcement, just quietly included in the Game Pass trailer, and RGG Studio confirmed that yes, Yakuza 3-6 are coming to Xbox and PC.

(It’s kind of funny that we got more Yakuza news from the Game Awards than from the anniversary live stream.)

I have them all on PS4, but I was excited to see this announcement because now even more people can play the Yakuza series!

Getting back to the game announcements, I’m still somewhat intrigued by Ruined King: A League of Legends Story, despite having no interest in League of Legends. It’s being developed by the same team that made Battle Chasers: Nightwar, and it pretty much looks just like it. Since I enjoyed Battle Chasers, I might get this one as well.

And finally, the last big reveal was a teaser trailer for the next Mass Effect game.

It’s very short, but it seems to imply this game will be a direct sequel to one of the Mass Effect 3 endings. That’s curious, especially since the previous Mass Effect tease showed what appeared to be an angara.

I’m not sure how to feel about the new Mass Effect (which has no official title so far). If Dragon Age is in my “cautiously optimistic” category, Mass Effect fits in there even more firmly.

I want to believe they’ll both be good games, but I just don’t know.

Anyway, Nier and Scarlet Nexus were the major highlights for me despite being already announced, and I was pleased to see the Yakuza news. What were your favorite parts of the Game Awards 2020? Did we all collectively hallucinate Bayonetta 3 three years ago? Do you think the new Dragon Age and Mass Effect games will be good? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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