Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Final Fantasy XVI New Trailer, Resident Evil 4 Remake Confirmed

 Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , ,
Jun 032022
 

There was a State of Play yesterday, and it had a few nice surprises.

In particular, all I wanted was news about Final Fantasy XVI, and we finally got it!

Final Fantasy XVI now has a summer 2023 release window. That’s a bit further off than I was hoping, since I thought it might actually come out this year, but on the other hand, it gives me more time to work through my backlog.

(Especially with games like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 coming out this year already.)

The release window came along with a new trailer. It’s age-restricted so you can’t watch it outside of Youtube, but I’ll embed it below so you can follow the link.

It’s now rated as “likely Mature,” so it seems this will be an M-rated game like was speculated before.

The trailer introduces some new characters, most notably a woman named Benedikta Harman, who is Garuda’s Dominant, and a man named Hugo Kupka, who is Titan’s Dominant. The official Final Fantasy XVI website has more details about these two, saying that Benedikta “crosses paths with a like-minded Clive and is forced to face her past” and Hugo amasses a fortune but “Benedikta Harman will teach him money and power are far from all the world has to offer.”

The website was also updated with some beautiful new screenshots, including the one I used in this post, so be sure to check those out. It looks incredible.

Getting back to the trailer, we also got a better look at combat.

Three main types of combat appear to be showcased. One type shows Clive up against a single opponent, with each of them having a large health bar. Boss battles, perhaps? We also see Clive facing several enemies with small health bars above their heads. One of these short clips has a different UI for Clive, but we’ll get back to that in a minute. Finally, we see several combat segments in which the player appears to be controlling an Eikon, fighting another Eikon.

Combat seems to be fast-paced and stylish, with special abilities linked to some sort of class system the player can switch between. Judging by the icons in the upper-left, this probably is related to the Eikons.

Now, much attention has been drawn to the fact that Clive appears to be fighting alone. There is no indication of party members in this trailer. However, one thing does stand out as odd, and that’s the UI difference I mentioned above. Most combat clips in this trailer show three class icons in the upper left beside the health bar. However, the clip at 0:49 instead shows Clive’s name there.

Showing his name in the UI suggests it might be possible to control someone other than Clive. On the other hand, that never reappears in any of the other combat scenes, so I don’t know what that means.

The other possibility of having a party, or at least companions outside of combat, is the way Benedikta and Harman are described. I wouldn’t rule out the idea of them traveling together with Clive. That could be linked to how he apparently gains power over multiple Eikons.

Anyway, there’s a lot we don’t know about Final Fantasy XVI, but I’m cautiously optimistic. Combat looks very different for Final Fantasy, but it has a strong team behind it, including the main scenario writer for Heavensward (which I greatly enjoyed), Kazutoyo Maehiro, as the creative director and screenplay writer. And while it was widely assumed already, it’s now officially confirmed that Final Fantasy XIV composer Masayoshi Soken is also the composer for Final Fantasy XVI.

So I’m interested. I want them to say there’s a party, but either way, I’m looking forward to more details about the game being revealed.

Before we finish up for today, the State of Play also included the official announcement from Capcom of a Resident Evil 4 remake for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

Now, I haven’t made a big secret of the fact that I’m in the minority that doesn’t like Resident Evil 4, and I resent it for steering the series more toward action. But the interesting thing here is that the remake looks like it might have more horror elements. If they remake Resident Evil 4 as an actual survival horror game… yeah, I’d be on board with that.

The official Resident Evil 4 remake website also says it will have “a reimagined storyline,” so it sounds like it might be significantly different from the original. I’m not sold yet, but I’ll be keeping my eye on it. It’s set for March 24, 2023.

And those were the two big announcements from the State of Play that caught my attention. What are your thoughts on the new Final Fantasy XVI trailer and the Resident Evil 4 remake?

The Cruel King and the Great Hero is an Adorable JRPG

 Reviews, Video games  9 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Jun 012022
 

(Please forgive the same formatting differences as I continue to go without Internet. Update: Fixed!)

So what did you think of May Mystery Game Madness? Was it a fun celebration? Worth repeating? Or would you have preferred something different?

In the middle of all of our mystery games, I also finished one of my most-anticipated games of the year, The Cruel King and the Great Hero.

The Cruel King and the Great Hero is from the same team that made The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince, which I reviewed for MonsterVine and loved. So when the new game was announced, I was excited even before I learned it would be a turn-based JRPG.

You play as Yuu, a little girl who dreams of being a great hero like her father. Every night, the Dragon King tells Yuu stories about her father and how he saved the world from the cruel Demon King.

With a pot as her armor and a stick as a makeshift sword, Yuu sets out to become a hero.

It’s adorable. I can’t say that enough. Not only the art style, but also little details like how the Dragon King secretly keeps watch in the background in case Yuu ends up in real danger. She has an attack where her sword ignites with fire, but really it’s the king breathing fire on it.

(When you end up in an area where he can’t follow and use that move, the sword never ignites, and the little question mark that appears by Yuu is also adorable.)

It has a turn-based combat system where your energy for special attacks regenerates each turn, adding a bit of strategy to deciding when to use special attacks, when to defend to regain extra energy, and so on. Yuu is joined by a few different party members depending on the point in the story, but only one at a time.

The story is really nice. I was worried about how emotional it might get, due to having played The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince, but while it has some emotional moments for sure, it really ends up being a pleasant, cute story overall.

I wish the party traveled as a group, even if you could only have one partner in combat, to get more interaction between them, but it’s fine.

There are also a ton of side quests, or Acts of Kindness, that you can do to help out characters you meet along the way. While these are mostly fetch quests that often require you to backtrack through previous dungeons, most of them are part of quest chains with their own storylines. They were worth doing for the stories.

And that’s good, because the one thing I disliked about this game was the backtracking. Now, I usually don’t mind backtracking, sometimes even like it. But the problem is that Yuu’s walking speed is so slow.

Once you’ve out-leveled an area, you can run. Until then, you’re forced to walk at this incredibly slow pace, hitting random encounters the whole time. There’s an item that repels enemies, but it only works on enemies you’ve out-leveled. Fast travel is also an option, but the fast travel points are few.

All of this combined means that traveling through an area you’re at relatively the right level for is tedious and time-consuming.

But again, the story (both main story and side quest stories) makes it worth it. The Cruel King and the Great Hero was a lovely little JRPG, and I can’t wait to see what this team makes next.

Small Development Updates on FFXVI and Yakuza 8

 Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with: , , ,
Apr 292022
 

Okay… I really thought we’d have some sort of Yakuza news to discuss today, but no announcements were made at the Super Talk Stage event.

However, at least a small update came from it.

According to the translation here, the script and voice work for the next Yakuza game are in progress, and we should get more news later this year.

Unannounced projects are also in development.

Meanwhile, today also brought a tiny update on Final Fantasy XVI. As translated by Gematsu, Final Fantasy XVI is in the final stretch of development and will have a strong focus on story. Yoshida wants it to be the sort of game that brings back the enthusiasm of players who drifted away from Final Fantasy once they grew up.

(People are coming up with all kinds of strange interpretations of Yoshida’s quote, but that’s all it sounds like to me, or at most hinting that the story will have serious elements.)

So… is this the Final Fantasy XVI news we were told would be coming in spring? It doesn’t feel like that sort of big reveal, so I think we’ll have more news coming in the near future.

On the other hand, I was disappointed to not wake up to any Yakuza reveals this morning. Still, at least it’s good to know Yakuza 8’s development is going well.

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