Every year E3 seems to have a few distinguishable patterns in its announcements. One year it was 3D, another it was camera support. So what are the trends we noticed in this year’s E3?
Pander Pander Pander
This year’s E3 was full of pandering, not that it’s a bad thing. After Microsoft’s fiasco of not listening to its consumers and Sony profiting from that negative response, both companies kicked “WE LISTEN TO YOU, BELOVED CUSTOMERS” in to full gear. Microsoft started off Pandercon 2015 with its announcement of Backward Compatibility, something customers have been wanting since the 360 and PS3 came out. Then they went ahead and showed off Gears of War 4 gameplay, which was totally unexpected. Hell, at the end of the Microsoft press conference we said Sony would have to hit with nukes to beat Microsoft.
And boy did they.
They dropped the biggest bombs they could possibly drop all in one press conference. Not only is Last Guardian not dead, but it’s being released next year. Shenmue 3 is happening and its Kickstarter went live during the press conference. And last, but certainly not least, the mother of all remakes is happening. The HD Final Fantasy VII remake for Playstation 4 is official. Not an uprez of the original, not the PC version available on PSN, a legitimate remake of the game everyone’s been requesting for years. Sony went all in with the pandering and it paid off big time.
Even Square Enix jumped in after the Sony presser and released more info on Kingdom Hearts III, more info on the new Star Ocean, and announced a sequel to Nier. Couple that with the Final Fantasy VII remake and their announcement of a game coming from a company literally named Tokyo RPG Factory, and hype was at an all time high.
The pandermachine isn’t necessarily a bad thing for gamers. It’s a great time to be part of a very loud crowd that hasn’t had enough attention. Who knows, maybe we’ll get another Chrono game, a PC port of the newer Halos, or even a new Red Dead game. If this rolling carnival of handouts for the loud and ignored continues, we may even get a Super Mario RPG remake.
Adorable Yarn
Though the trend isn’t a HUGE one, it still definitely exists. After the success of Kirby’s Epic Yarn, fabric-based textures seem to be a growing trend in games. Both Yoshi’s Woolly World and Unravel are based around characters made out of yarn and how adorable they are.
Think about it, if Yarny wasn’t made out of yarn, but was rather a little dude running about through the woods, you wouldn’t care nearly as much. And the same goes for Mario’s dino friend. Yoshi’s New Island came out to a tepid response with its map color-esque graphics. We postulate that just maybe the game would have been more successful if it had just been a lot more cute. The game didn’t have bad gameplay, it just looked kinda meh. Slap a layer of yarn, fabric, and some cute details on it and you’ve got a hit!
Colors!
Remember that trend a few years ago where everything was brown and grey and terrible? Like Fallout 3, Gears of War, et al.? Well we’re finally coming out of that, it seems. Fallout 4 seems to have finally shrugged off the terrible color palette that characterized its predecessor, allowing for a far more visually interesting title to come forth. At the time, Fallout 3 looked amazing and the world was huge, so the limited color palette could be overlooked, but playing it now, the game gets so visually boring so so quickly. The graphics in Fallout 4 aren’t even all that much better than in Skyrim, but the colors sets it so far apart from Fallout 4 that it looks like it was done by a different studio. We can’t emphasize how much better it looks.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution was lauded as a great, beautiful game. But everything in the god damn thing was orange and black! Every. Thing. The new title, Mankind Divided, looks much less visually constricted, as if they finally allowed themselves to use greens. It’s a wonderful difference. Even Gears of War, the brownest brown that ever browned, had a nighttime trailer in which the camera showed off other colors. It was crazy. It’s like video games finally discovered the other side of the color wheel.
Daku Con 2018 Photo Gallery
Daku Con 2018 Convention Recap!
PAX South 2019: Splitgate Arena Warfare, World of Horror, JackQuest, and Disjunction
PAX South 2019: Jump Force, Skellboy, A Fold Apart
PAX South 2019: Devil May Cry 5, Young Souls, Magequit
Nan Desu Kan 2018 Photo Gallery
Star Fox Zero
Ever since last year’s kinda-sorta reveal of a Star Fox game, fans have been clamoring for more details. The series hasn’t had a great entry in quite some time, and with the unique two-screen design of the Wii U, the hopes for this game were high. After playing the game at E3, we can assure you of one thing — if you’re looking for a true sequel to Star Fox 64, you got it.
The demo plops you down in Corneria where you learn how to control the Arwing. On first glance, duh, you know how to control the Arwing. That is, until you try to aim. You see, the second analog stick isn’t what you use to aim, that’s reserved for acrobatics and movement (boost, brake, banking, etc.). Your reticule is instead controlled by a combination of your movement and the Wii U Gamepad’s gyro. Like Splatoon, more precise aiming can be achieved by moving the gamepad about, but unlike Splatoon, the movement also shows you more depending on the mode you’re in. With All Range mode and the new Targeting mode, the gamepad gives you a cockpit view of your Arwing and allows you to shoot in any direction regardless of your current heading. Having a cockpit mode in which you can aim independent of your movement and see more than what’s on the top screen is useful for flyovers on ground enemies and dogfights. That being said, it does take getting used to and requires you to move about while sitting on your couch, something we’re not sure anyone is a fan of.
The only transformation we got to experience in the demo was into the ChickenWing (our name, not theirs), and while it wasn’t the most useful thing, it gives you new perspectives on the level by showing you areas you can’t access with the Arwing. The Corneria level culminates in a battle where you must destroy a ship from the inside and have to use the ChickenWing to do so. When you breach the structure, you’re met with a really simple boss that consists of a few whirling weak points that grant you the opportunity to really test the maneuverability of the land vehicle, and it actually feels pretty good!
All in all, if you were hoping for another game like Star Fox 64, then this game is for you. It’s a beautiful game that adds to the classic Star Fox 64 gameplay arsenal with transforming vehicles while also adding in the fresh element of the cockpit view.
Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes
Legend of Zelda: Four Swords was an add-on for the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past port for Gameboy Advance. The multiplayer Zelda title was so well received that it was then expanded on to make Four Swords Adventure, a full game in which you and your friends teamed up to take down puzzles and bosses. Now, Nintendo is releasing an all new multiplayer Zelda title called Triforce Heroes for your and your friends to hate each other in.
Though the rupee grabbing elements of the game seem to be gone, everything else is in tact, from picking up your fellow players to using your items in conjunction to solve puzzles. One interesting new element added to the game is costumes. Though they don’t seem to affect gameplay, they affect auxiliary things about the game, such as luck or damage modifiers. They also affect how super kawaii uguu~ you are.
The demo had three players work through a dungeon together. In our particular level, we were using the gust bellows and bombs to navigate across gaps, hit enemies from afar, and totem up to hit switches. All in all, this really seems like another Four Swords game, just running on the Legend of Zelda: Link Between Worlds engine. If you’re in to that sort of thing, and we definitely are, then you need not wait long, as it’ll be out later this year.
Yoshi’s Woolly World
Some games, you just know are going to be too cute for their own good. Kirby’s Epic Yarn was one such game, and now the fabric-texture cuteness sinks it claws into Yoshi in Woolly World.
As is with the previous two games, it seems Nintendo is taking a note from their past selves and bringing back the gameplay elements and feel from the Yoshi’s Island games to this new, saccharine title. One notable difference, and in our opinion improvement, is that you can do two player with a gamepad and a Wiimote, meaning more adorable Yoshi, more cute adventures, and new, slightly difficult puzzles to solve with your friends. The game feels very fluid, adds in some interesting fabric-based puzzles like platforms existing only when behind a piece of fabric that has a light behind it.
We’re sure there’s some amount of story here, but it doesn’t really matter. I mean, look at that guy. He’s slurping up yarn and pooping out yarn balls. How cute is that? Speaking of cute, while we were in line to play this, we spied the three Woolly World Amiibos, and they are just as cute and soft looking in person.
Daku Con 2018 Photo Gallery
Daku Con 2018 Convention Recap!
PAX South 2019: Splitgate Arena Warfare, World of Horror, JackQuest, and Disjunction
PAX South 2019: Jump Force, Skellboy, A Fold Apart
PAX South 2019: Devil May Cry 5, Young Souls, Magequit
Nan Desu Kan 2018 Photo Gallery
First off, let me just say they may have started off the show in the cutest way possible — by making Iwata, Miyamoto, and Reggie muppets. They’re adorable.
Star Fox 0
The new Star Fox gang puts us back in the pilot seat of the Arwing to take down the forces of presumably Andross. One of the maps shown in the trailer looks like a completely revamped Corneria. You can still tell it’s Corneria, but it’s so so much prettier and more detailed. The game has a few different modes, like Star Fox 64, including All Range Mode and a new Target Mode in which you get a cinematic view of the action on the TV and instead rely on the Wii U gamepad to fly and shoot.
In fact, there’s a lot of emphasis placed on the gamepad’s importance in the new Star Fox since it allows you to aim in a different direction than your flying with a cockpit view. It’s very clever, but potentially concerning for people who prefer a joystick camera if there’s no option for that. The game also features the return of the landmaster and the addition of transformations. The Arwing can transform into what look like a chicken robot to run about on the ground for sections that may call for it. In Corneria, there are some areas that are much more easily accessed via ChickenBot (our name not theirs). This title looks to be taking the Star Fox 64 legacy and innovating the crap out of it, something we, and fans of the series, deeply appreciate.
The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes
You heard it! A new Legend of Zelda title coming to handhelds for everyone that’s missed Four Swords. In this title, you’ll take control of one of three Links to solve puzzles, kill baddies, and save Hyrule together as a team. The creator says instead of having a rupee-driven contest, the game has a more serious tone, like a normal Legend of Zelda title, just with two extra players. Another neat feature is that Link now has costumes, which will help distinguish your Link from your friends. We’re not sure if the costumes provide powerups, but Link can wear Zelda’s dress, which will definitely help people get his name right. You won’t have to wait long for the multiplayer chaos as The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes comes out this Fall to Nintendo 3DS
Metroid Prime Federation Force and Metroid Prime Blast Ball
Everyone’s been clamoring for a new Metroid Prime title, but unfortunately, these are not the droids games you’re looking for. The cartoony graphics of Federation Force feel so far removed from the serious ton of Metroid Prime that it’s difficult to call it a Prime game. It seems to be a fine enough title, but there was no Samus in the trailer and nothing felt very Metroid-y. Same with Blast Ball, though that at least feels more like their earlier pinball title. The games are probably fine, we’re just really aching for a new Metroid game.
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer and Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival
For all you fans of the home building, town managing game series, Animal Crossing has a few new spinoff games to whet your appetite. First off is Happy Home Designer, which seems to be mostly about just designing and decorating homes. Looks like an Animal Crossing game, but without all the outside bits. If you hate the outside bits, that’s great, else, they have another title you may enjoy. Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival looks like a less hate-driven Mario Party in which your characters traverse a board to collect/dispense happiness. The winner is the one who has the most happiness at the end of the match. How adorable is that? It looks like it may be just an amiibo game, but this saccharine virtual board game should send fans into squee fits. Happy Home Designer will be on 3DS and amiibo Festival will be on Wii U soon.
Yoshi’s Woolly World
When the new Yoshi title was announced last year, fans took note of how much it looked like Yoshi’s Island and Kirby’s Epic Yarn had a baby. And that’s still true! This adorable platformer has you taking control of a wool plush of Mario’s best dino friend with some interesting mechanics to boot. Platform unravelling by slurping string, converting string to egg yarn balls, and super cute transformations make this title a lot more interesting than the previous entry in Yoshi’s series. Also the amiibos are absolutely perfect. Look forward to this game coming October 16th of this year.
Super Mario Maker
The concept of Super Mario Maker isn’t a new one — it’s been done tons of ways on the internet, most notably by Super Mario Brothers X. But since it’s a Nintendo game, there’s a lot to expect of the DIY Mario game. And it delivers. A stupid simple level editor, the ability to switch art assets and change Mario’s costumes using amiibos are all finishing touches on a strong, powerful engine to create your own Mario levels. Miyamoto also says it’s a great place for people to learn how to do game design through trial-by-fire, meaning if someone asks why you spend so much time in it, you can claim career development. Super Mario Maker will be available for download September 11th of this year.
Daku Con 2018 Photo Gallery
Daku Con 2018 Convention Recap!
PAX South 2019: Splitgate Arena Warfare, World of Horror, JackQuest, and Disjunction
PAX South 2019: Jump Force, Skellboy, A Fold Apart
PAX South 2019: Devil May Cry 5, Young Souls, Magequit
