E3 2019 Discussion

[Sload Soap]

Caught the Nintendo direct, lots of interesting stuff. The Link's Awakening remake looks adorable and I was so pleased to see Panzer Dragoon. I think it is also a remake as the limited footage shown is pretty much just the first level and boss. No Starfox/F-Zero/Metroid, )(specially Metroid) news was a touch disappointing but also par for the course.

Aside from that not much has caught my eye. Cyberpunk 2077 looked much as it did last year, that Avengers game looked like it could go either way same with the new Star Wars product. The Halo trailer was baffling as well. Way to show off the power of the Scarlett with a high octane and explosive, er, conversation in a metal locker room.

Finally, and I don't want to sound like a total negative nelly, but I am less convinced now by the FF7 remake than I was before. I'm going to spoiler my rant but the short and narrow of it there's way too much missing for me to be anything more than worried.

It worries me that since it was revealed in 2015 we have not had a single bit of footage from outside of Midgar. It also worries me how readily people are accepting that an entire game is being built out of a 5 hour, at best, section of a 40 hour game and how the pacing won't be effected accordingly. I'm envisioning a similar situation to the Hobbit films here. It worries me that Kitase said today that they "don't know ourselves" how many parts the whole thing will break down into. How can you not know? You have a release date for the first part but not the second? Is there a second part or is this a Ground Zeroes type deal? This guy are sick.

I'm still concerned with the potential for the game to be episodic. I know Square has had good success with Hitman and Life is Strange being parceled off in this fashion but those titles are more suited to it both from gameplay and storytelling perspective. I'm still not convinced FF7 is, as both a RPG and a remake of a story we already know. And I'm not one who thinks it's a cynical way for Square/Enix to maximise profit; I just think the project has been poorly handled so it's kind of ended up happening this way almost by accident.

If you look at Square/Enix's recent track record with similar projects (FFXV and KH3) they tend to show that internally they can't keep a project of this magnitude on budget or on time. My guess is this seems to stem from the project lead/management (cough, Nomura) and trickles down which leads to missed deadlines and work being redone, or in the case of FFXV (which started off as a FFXIII sequel/spin-off) entirely scrapped. What is sort of confounding about Square is this is still happening after FFXV and KH3. I have to just assume that both games high sales justify this sort of self destructive behavior. I dunno, just guessing.

My theory is now that A LOT of the story will be condensed down to play out in Midgar, either in real-time or via flashbacks. If you think that disc one alone takes in Midgar, Kalm, Junon, Costa Del Sol, Mt Corel, Corel Town, Gold Saucer, the desert prison, Gongaga, Nibelheim, Rocket Town, return to Gold Saucer, Temple of the Ancients and City of the Ancients while also introducing Yuffie, Cait Sith, Cid and Vincent along with a slew of ancillary characters with sub stories and that's without mentioning the optional stuff like Fort Condor, Cosmo Canyon and Wutai...there's a lot. There is a lot of glorious block handed PS1 goodness to squash into those blu-rays and I'm not sure the Square/Enix of 2019 is up to the task or not the whole task as it were.

Happy to be proven wrong though obviously.

Nice to see footage of Doom Eternal looking all Doom-y, hope that Panzer Dragoon is multi-plat (I think it is), Shenmue III keeps hitting the right notes and that we get gameplay of Elden Ring soon. Otherwise a pretty average show, probably owing to Sony's absence.

[Xeogred]

I think I'm losing faith in that Metroid Prime trilogy collection at this point.

How do you think Sony would have made this E3 better though? It probably would have been the same beats at last year, which is why I think Xbox's show was pretty flat too and they didn't show off much that was new. No actual gameplay of Halo or Gears still. Sony probably would have just shown more of Last of Us 2, Death Stranding, Ghosts of Tsushima, etc, stuff we saw last year. So I don't think they lost out on much skipping this year nor would they have changed much. I guess they have some deal with Call of Duty so that could have been highlighted, but CoD has been CoD for a decade plus now so that's not a game changer either.

I think Square and Nintendo's Direct were the best shows (if we can even count the Direct haha). Didn't waste time unlike Bethesda's and some of the others.

The irony is that by the time Xbox has some new stuff to show with these studio pickups, Sony's first party lineup will probably be ready to showcase some new stuff again as well haha.

Also Sload Soap: I don't think I disagree with any of your points there on FF7R. Midgar was indeed only like 5 hours from my memory of playing it a few times too. However I always wanted more out of Midgar. If this is like a 30 hour game, that would be amazing to me. But yeah, this approach does make me worry just how much longer this saga could drag on for. I have mixed feelings on the FFXIII trilogy (came to peace with the first, but I love XIII-2), and I hated FFXV and how it was dragged out this entire gen. No matter how much I love FF7 and am enjoying what I'm seeing with the remake now, I don't want to be playing this remake for the next decade. I think three games/a trilogy should be the the absolute longest this project goes. If it's more than that then yeah, my patience is going to dry up at some point. It's also going to be really tricky carrying over RPG stats and stuff between games. I honestly won't be surprised if major gameplay changes happen between each part too, so maybe it's even better to approach this like a FFXIII / Mass Effect trilogy situation.

One huge complete and consistent release of this remake certainly would have been the dream. But yeah... Square Enix and project management... I'm just hoping they've learned their lessons and now that FFXV and KH3 are done, they've got all hands deck on this going forward.

[bmoc]

Konami is making a TG16 mini. I did not see that one coming. No price or release date yet.

6 games announced so far:
R-Type
New Adventure Island
Ys Book I & II
Ninja Spirit
Dungeon Explorer
Alien Crush

Japan is getting Rondo of Blood on their PC Engine mini. Here's hoping we get it too.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Konami is making a TG16 mini. I did not see that one coming. No price or release date yet.

6 games announced so far:
R-Type
New Adventure Island
Ys Book I & II
Ninja Spirit
Dungeon Explorer
Alien Crush

Japan is getting Rondo of Blood on their PC Engine mini. Here's hoping we get it too.

Strong. I guess I’m getting another mini console...even if I already have most of these on my Wii U.

[BoneSnapDeez]

If you want a physical copy it's a limited run and seemingly only available on the Square store with $11 being the cheapest shipping option.

I see it listed on the GameStop website now. Was shopping there last night and they tried to convince me to pre-order. Looks amazing, though I already own the original games and kind of have compilation fatigue at this point.

Seems like retro throwback stuff is the biggest thing to come out of this E3. Link's Awakening looks amazingly fun. Final Fantasy VII... hard pass.

Happy to see the TG16 Mini has Ys on it!

[Gunstar Green]

Got my new From Soft game so I'm happy on that end.

PSO2 coming to the west? About fucking time. I'm going to be miffed if it's a Windows Store exclusive on PC since my girlfriend is still running Windows 7.

The Star Wars game has my interest but I'll wait and see if EA finds a way to screw it over.

Not sure about the Avengers game, I'm not really interested in the multiplayer aspect.

The TG-16 mini has me excited, I ended up skipping out on all of the other mini consoles so far because I didn't need them but this is the first one I might actually buy since I never owned a TG-16 or PC-Engine.

Demon x Machina and Links Awakening looked great on the Switch. Maybe someday.

That's about it for me, lots of stuff to look forward to.

[Blu]

I feel like it's a slower E3 in general. Haven't the years prior to a console successor release been slow? I feel that was evident with Microsoft and would have been similar for Sony. I also completely forgot how long disc one really is for FF7, thanks for reminding me Sload. I feel if Square Enix could get their ducks in a row, similar to how the Yakuza team cranked out sequels to the Kiryu storyline, then FF7R wouldn't have to be so caught up with development hell. I too don't want to be playing this for ten years.

I think Nintendo is really hitting their stride.

Overall I am must buy for:

Links Awakening
Luigi's Mansion
Animal Crossing
Panzer Dragoon
BotW 2
Cyberpunk 2077

Borrow/Rent:
Wolfenstein
Doom

[Xeogred]

PSO2 coming to the west? About fucking time. I'm going to be miffed if it's a Windows Store exclusive on PC since my girlfriend is still running Windows 7.

Hopefully it'll hit Steam, since they're bringing Halo and stuff to it now.

[Xeogred]

Blown away by how cool the SD3 "Trials of Mana" remake looks:

https://youtu.be/K7KXJOYWCYw

It'll be dual audio too.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I'm one of those huge nerds who couldn't resist playing PSO2 on the Japanese servers. And...... I wasn't crazy about it. Everything that's followed the original PSO has been vastly inferior, sadly. Pretty rad this is coming to North America though. What I really wanted was that Vita version........ back in 2013.

Someone clarify this for me...... Seiken Densetsu 3 is now called "Trials of Mana" for its Western (compilation) release..... but we're also getting a remake called Trials of Mana? Is that correct? I assume that remake will be digital only?