Tales of Arise is out now, but don’t forget that we’ve got a new mobile Tales game on the way as well.
New details about Tales of Luminaria will be coming soon, in a live stream announced for September 24. The live stream will reveal details about the world and characters.
As we discussed before, Luminaria is a completely original game with its own cast and story, instead of being a crossover like previous mobile Tales games.
I’m still hopeful that Luminaria will be a regular game, with no gacha, but I doubt will get that information this soon.
From other comments made recently, it sounds as though mobile games are a way to bring in a more consistent stream of money while they work on new entries and remasters/remakes. I’d be happy to see that, especially since Arise feels great so far (although I dislike its DLC practices).
I just hope the western release of Luminaria isn’t left to die like Link and Rays, and I hope Crestoria sticks around long enough for me to get a device that can play it!
Anyway, after the live stream on the 24th, we should have a better picture of what Luminaria will be like.
What are you hoping to learn about Tales of Luminaria?
In July, I wanted to play a game that would make me smile, so I turned once again to the Yakuza Remastered Collection and moved on to Yakuza 4.
While the past few games focused mostly on Kiryu, Yakuza 4 switches things up in a big way by having four playable characters.
Unlike Yakuza 0, which alternated between its two protagonists, Yakuza 4 has you play through each character’s story before it all comes together at the end.
This has the effect of feeling almost like four miniature Yakuza games, although each story follows the previous one instead of taking place at the same time like I originally thought they might.
Anyway, I liked all of the characters story-wise and enjoyed the change of pace.
(Gameplay-wise, each character has his own combat style, which means that as someone who prefers faster styles, Saejima’s combat was agony for me. But I still love him.)
I liked seeing how the different characters’ stories all came together, and there were definitely some exciting points in the plot as it unfolded. Unfortunately, there were also some goofy moments, and not necessarily in a comedic way. I can stretch my suspension of disbelief, but Yakuza 4 requires a bit more of that than any other entry in the series I’ve played so far.
Click for major Yakuza 4 spoilers
Rubber bullets. Everyone complains about the rubber bullets. And you know, I can accept this Layton-esque twist of all of Saejima’s bullets being secretly replaced with experimental rubber bullets that non-lethally knock everyone out so that the antagonist can regain consciousness and shoot everyone else to survive while placing the blame on Saejima, sure. It’s convoluted, but sure.
But how did Arai not notice that the man he shot in the head at point-blank range wasn’t actually SHOT?
Also, Akiyama keeps literally all of his money in a gigantic unlocked safe in his office. Unlocked. It’s protected by a button hidden behind a book. The bad guys find it by accident. Giant unlocked safe. Giant unlocked safe.
Still, the rest of the game is full of Yakuza goodness like entertaining substories and wacky Revelations to learn new moves. Several substories also follow up on substories from previous games, which I really liked. The Yakuza series might not exactly have an overarching story (although Yakuza 4 drew on knowledge of the previous games more than ever), but I love that side characters and even minor substory characters develop over time.
And why did the series ever drop Revelations? They’re great!
I probably spent less time on the mini-games than in the past, but that’s partly because none especially stood out to me and partly because Lost Judgment is practically knocking on the door.
Anyway, Yakuza 4 comes in at the lower end of my Yakuza rankings, but a weak Yakuza game is still a great game. I enjoyed my time with these four characters and their questionable plot, and I look forward to reaching the final part of the Yakuza Remastered Collection in the future!
Yesterday was the PlayStation Showcase, and we have a lot of great things to talk about!
I went into it hoping for God of War and maybe an update on Final Fantasy XVI (although I thought that was unlikely), but I came away with a lot more.
So here are my favorite highlights from the showcase!
They started with a Star Wars game, and I was intrigued. Then I saw what it was. Yes, it’s really happening… a Knights of the Old Republic Remake!
The teaser didn’t show much, but it’s a Knights of the Old Republic remake! I love the original game so much, and so now I will live in mixed excitement and dread. The announcement post says they’ll stay true to the story, so I hope they mean that.
Moving on, the next game was an action game I first heard about last year and thought seemed interesting, Project EVE, and it looks great! It might be a lot of fun (and maybe fill the stylish action void while we wait for Bayonetta 3).
I knew it was sci-fi, but it also looks like it’s got some creepy enemy designs, so I’m on board with that!
Meanwhile, Square Enix was there with a new Forspoken trailer.
I know Forspoken has gotten some grief for its isekai setup of a character from our world being transported into a fantasy world and becoming its hero, but I think it has potential.
However, the trailer involves a cat. Comments have rightfully pointed out that the cat does not appear to go with her to the fantasy world. I demand happiness for the cat, Square Enix!
Alan Wake Remastered got an October 5 release date, and I’m mainly excited about this because it brings us one step closer to getting an Alan Wake 2. Yes, I know I still need to play Control. I’ll do that soon.
One of the biggest surprises of the show for me was getting to see Ghostwire: Tokyo again. I was interested in Ghostwire: Tokyo from the time it was announced, but my excitement did diminish slightly after last year’s showcase, where we saw it would be more action and less horror.
But… it looks really cool and like it might still have a pretty creepy atmosphere at times!
It’ll be out in Spring 2022.
There’s a cute open world adventure game called Tchia, but of course the next major highlight for me was the game that closed out the show, our first real look at God of War: Ragnarok.
I was hoping for a release date, but even though we didn’t get one, I’m sure it will be out sometime next year. It looks great! Sure, some people are complaining that it looks graphically like the previous game, but I don’t care! I loved God of War 2018, and I’m so excited to see that story continue.
One thing that has me a little worried is that they made some comments afterwards that sounded like the Norse saga would wrap up in this game. I thought it would be a trilogy at least, since it feels like there’s a lot of stuff to pack into a single game to end the Norse storyline here.
However, what the director specifically said was that “You can’t call the game God of War: Ragnarok and not have Ragnarok happen in the game. So you know, it’s gonna happen, we’re gonna cap off the Norse series with it.”
While that does sound like this game will conclude the Norse saga, I think there’s a chance that it will build up to Ragnarok occurring at the end and lead into another game that deals with Ragnarok. We’ll see.
Either way, I can’t wait!
There were a lot of other things in the showcase that we didn’t talk about here that I know fans are excited for, like the new Spider-Man game, but these are the ones that stood out to me personally. What were your favorite highlights from yesterday’s PlayStation Showcase?
Tales of Arise is out now, but don’t forget that we’ve got a new mobile Tales game on the way as well.
