Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Final Fantasy VII Remake: Episode Intermission Was a Fun Return to FF7R

 Reviews, Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Apr 032024
 

Back when I played the Final Fantasy VII Remake, I quite enjoyed it, so I was disappointed when the DLC released in 2021 was PS5-exclusive.

Since I didn’t have a PS5 until late last year, it’s taken me a while to get around to it.

But after finishing Crisis Core a few weeks ago, I decided the other thing to do before moving on to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was to finally get the DLC.

Final Fantasy VII Remake: Episode Intermission is a new story starring Yuffie, in which she heads to Midgar in order to steal materia from Shinra.

Joining her is a young man from Wutai named Sonon, and they team up with members of Avalanche (the larger group, not our primary Avalanche characters from the main game) to get the information they need.

Although Sonon joins you in battles, you only play directly as Yuffie, although you can issue commands to Sonon to have him use abilities or magic. Yuffie’s combat style took a little bit for me to get used to, with sort of a mixed melee/ranged approach, but eventually I enjoyed it. The combat system itself is similar to that in Remake, but with a new “synergy” feature that lets both characters attack together.

There are a handful of side quests, as well as a new mini-game called Fort Condor that I tried a handful of times and then vowed to never touch again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are people who love Fort Condor. It’s not the mini-game’s fault. But it’s real-time strategy, and that’s a genre I’m rarely able to enjoy.

So that was a whole aspect of the DLC I ignored, but I still managed to play for nearly 8 hours. My time would probably be a lot longer if I’d gotten into Fort Condor, so there’s a respectable amount of content here for the DLC’s $20 asking price.

The story is fine. While it doesn’t cover a whole lot, it was a nice look at Yuffie’s character and gave a lot more screentime to Scarlet as the DLC’s main villain.

Click for FFVII Intermission spoilers
It also gave a good role to Nero, from Dirge of Cerberus. Although he didn’t have much in the way of story content here, he was a tough and seriously intimidating final boss. My memories of Dirge are kind of fuzzy, but I didn’t expect Nero to come across like he wandered in from a horror game. I enjoyed his creepy portrayal here.

Meanwhile, the most interesting part of the DLC’s story was the very last scene, which showed Zack, seemingly alive. That scene made me lean more toward the multiple timelines theory, but I’m curious to see where Rebirth takes it.

Overall, playing Intermission reminded me of how much I enjoy Final Fantasy VII and its remake. Now that I’ve completed it, I’m more excited than ever about diving into Rebirth!

The Reynatis April Fools’ Joke is a TWEWY Collaboration

 Video games  3 Responses »  Tagged with: , , ,
Apr 012024
 

Video game news on April Fools’ Day can be frustrating, whether it’s because of fake announcements you wish were real or yet another developer using “we’re making a visual novel” as the whole joke.

But sometimes it leads to something genuinely cool, and that’s the case with the Reynatis joke this year.

I’ve been interested in Reynatis since it was announced and thrilled when its localization was confirmed. It’s an action RPG set in Shibuya…

…so what better game for a fake collaboration than The World Ends With You?

As detailed by Noisy Pixel, this April Fools’ Day joke began with tweets from the official TWEWY and Reynatis Twitter accounts about something occurring in Shibuya.

Although it’s since gone back to normal, the Japanese website for Reynatis then posted new art with the main characters of Reynatis added to the NEO: The World Ends With You key art.

Additional artwork, pictured above, later surfaced showing NEO: TWEWY’s Rindo and Reynatis’s Marin standing together.

Meanwhile, the two Twitter accounts continued to post messages in a back-and-forth conversation between Shoka from NEO: TWEWY and Sari from Reynatis.

This is a cool April Fools’ joke for many reasons, not only because the developers of Reynatis chose TWEWY to acknowledge, but also because even if the collaboration itself is fake, Square Enix clearly worked with them on it. Coming out of NEO: TWEWY’s launch, there were a lot of concerns about its sales numbers. But regardless of how it sold, it seems Square Enix still cares enough about the TWEWY brand to participate in a joke like this.

It also works as genuine cross-promotion; I’ve already seen TWEWY fans looking into Reynatis because of this, and I’m sure some people who were looking forward to Reynatis have been introduced to TWEWY now as well.

In short, while it might not be actual The World Ends With You news, it’s nice to see it still getting attention, and I’m even more interested in Reynatis because of it. Of all of this year’s gaming April Fools’ jokes, this one is my favorite so far.

Edgeworth Wins Yet Another Official Popularity Poll

 Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with:
Mar 292024
 

There’s a lot we could be talking about right now – Uchikoshi’s cryptic tweets, Corpse Party II localization, Cupid Parasite fandisc release date, Reynatis gameplay footage – but let’s talk about Miles Edgeworth instead.

Around a month ago, Capcom opened an Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy popularity poll. Fans were asked to vote for their favorite character from the Apollo Justice Trilogy, and the top 3 characters would be featured in new artwork.

Well, the results are in… and the #1 most popular character in the Apollo Justice Trilogy is Miles Edgeworth!

Phoenix Wright (Apollo Justice version) and Apollo Justice himself came in 2nd and 3rd place respectively, so art director Takuro Fuse released a beautiful new piece of artwork featuring the three of them together.

Also ranking in the top 10 were Trucy Wright, Klavier Gavin, Simon Blackquill, Phoenix Wright (Dual Destinies/Spirit of Justice version), Maya Fey, Athena Cykes, and Ema Skye. I’m satisfied with Blackquill ranking #6, if surprised that he lost to Klavier, and pleased to see Athena in the top 10.

But while Phoenix managed to rank in the top 10 twice, the most impressive thing here is that Edgeworth took the #1 spot. (Although who knows, maybe Phoenix would have won if he wasn’t counted as two separate characters.) I love Edgeworth, but he barely qualifies as an Apollo Justice Trilogy character. Of the 16 cases in the Apollo Justice Trilogy, I believe he only appears in 3.

This follows in the footsteps of last year’s poll about which character you’d want to defend you, which Edgeworth won despite being a prosecutor for the majority of his appearances.

It would seem Edgeworth is so popular that he can win any Ace Attorney popularity poll he technically qualifies for. If Capcom wasn’t planning to remaster Investigations, I’d bet they’re considering it now. Speaking of which, if you’ve been keeping track of Capcom acknowledging Investigations 2, Fuse’s message about the new artwork mentions that Edgeworth in his vest “has not been shown since the opening of Ace Attorney Investigations 2.”

Look, I still believe a new Ace Attorney game should and will come first, but a remaster of Investigations & Investigations 2 feels more likely than ever now… because if Edgeworth really is this popular, it’ll fly off the shelves.

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