Trailer Blazer E3 2021 (Part Four)
Here we are with the final batch of trailers from E3 2021. It has been a long, long road through a forest of expensively produced promotional materials but we're close to the end and, with it, a chance to enjoy a normal life once again. Well, at least until E3 2022. Just a few more Indies and then everything from Nintendo's most recent Direct, which despite low expectations actually had quite a few happy surprises in store. Looking forward to seeing as much of them as I'm ever going to see because none of them will ever drop in price, ever.
If you're sad that you've run out of E3 trailer reviews to read (who even are you?) there's always more to revisit with the below table:
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The Game: An open-world RPG from Whalenought Studios (Serpent in the Staglands).
The Trailer(s): Hey, it's our old friend 2D sprites in a 3D environment - we need a more specific name for this style though, since it's definitely more Octopath than Doom; "Octopathy"? That might get us in trouble with the James Bond people though - this time used for an intriguing RPG about getting stuck on a nightmarish colony planet. From what I've read of Serpent, it's a dense retro RPG with a few flaws so maybe Mechajammer will see those devs iron out the latter while improving their skill creating the former.
The Response: Maybe. It's a real grimy looking game and I should probably try Serpent in the Staglands first even if it's unrelated, but ambitious Indie RPGs are definitely my jam.
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The Game: An empire strategy RPG from Lavapotion (new studio).
The Trailer(s): I've not been following Heroes of Might and Magic too closely - my preference will always be with the mainline M&M series - but I don't think people were too happy about Ubisoft's last one and no more seem to be forthcoming. Ample opportunity for a talented Indie dev team to take a crack at that formula while it's in absentia, and that appears to be what's happening with the familiar-looking Songs of Conquest. Its main distinction from HoMM is that it uses 2D pixel sprites in a 3D polygonal environment; it's pretty novel if you think about it.
The Response: Nah. Not an HoMM guy. Glad they're getting a spiritual successor of sorts, though, they could use a W.
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The Game: An RPG adventure game from Jump Over The Age (In Other Waters).
The Trailer(s): In Other Waters was a fascinating underwater discovery game with a somewhat abstract interface that I've been meaning to get around to, and the studio's next game Citizen Sleeper looks to be something similar - a vaguely open RPG with an odd dice-based way of interacting with the world and a whole lot of tough decisions to make. I don't mean this as a knock against it, but it sorta reminded of Unlimited Saga: similar art style to the character portraits and a similar amount of confusion trying to parse its mechanics from the trailer snippets alone. Here's hoping it's all a little more intuitive in-game.
The Response: Sure. This seems like an "Austin Walker Game" so maybe I'll hear his take on it first.
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The Game: A retro FPS from Buckshot Software (Project Warlock).
The Trailer(s): I love that these devs stuck with the name "Project Warlock" and now their sequel is "Project Warlock II." Sometimes it's hard to shake a working title if it rolls off the tongue that well. The art style's grunchy but you kinda want that murky dank in a throwback FPS; I think the pre-rendered sprites might be more of a divisive issue, depending where you fall on Doom 64 at least.
The Response: Maybe. With a lot of those faster, older style FPS games it's like playing a retro brawler: fun for a while, if just to revisit a time when you used to play a lot more of them on the regular, but a little ends up going a long way.
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The Game: An adventure game from Lithic Entertainment (Dwarrows).
The Trailer(s): This trailer gives the impression of a lighthearted fun time with birdfriends followed everywhere by a tickled studio audience, but checking on Steam the anxiety thing is not only a running theme but an actual mechanic where you are sometimes unable to do anything because the anxiety meter is too high. That... that doesn't sound too wholesome at all.
The Response: Nah. As someone who suffers anxiety, which likes to show up in my life unannounced to "mix things up" much like Kramer in Seinfeld, I'd rather not countenance it in games if I can help it. I know in the abstract that it's extremely funny that the little bird can't do everyday things because of his "wacky" mental health issues, but it's a strain of humor that doesn't usually land for me.
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The Game: An investigative adventure game (two of them!) from Capcom (Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure).
The Trailer(s): Real Professor Layton vibes from this 90 second trailer on the site, which makes sense because the last localized Ace Attorney game was a crossover with Level-5's mannerly puzzle-punisher. The shorter trailer introduces the characters while the longer one gives you a sense of how it plays, highlighting differences from the previous Ace Attorney games. The game is afoot! Or will be in a month!
The Response: Heck Yeah. Love this series and had almost given up hope of seeing these historical ones localized until the reveal earlier this year. I just feel a little bad for Frogwares that they got pipped to the post by a better Herlock Sholmes game.
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The Game: An action-adventure game from Ember Lab (mostly commercials).
The Trailer(s): I keep forgetting this exists, and then I see more footage and I think "why do I keep forgetting this exists? This looks amazing". Maybe it's the title? Either way, I'm getting some strong Kameo, Beyond Good and Evil, and Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom vibes with what gameplay they're showing here, and the trailer itself is super informative of the development process: it's evident this pair of absurdly hunky animator brothers care deeply about the medium, even if this is their first serious foray into it. I also liked how one of the traditional Balinese musicians had an Avenged Sevenfold t-shirt; mostly because of trying to imagine what a Gamelan A7x cover would sound like.
The Response: Sure. Feels like these high-budget action-adventures games went away for a while and besides Zelda hasn't really had a champion to usher them back into vogue (apparently that Ary and the Secret of Seasons game wasn't too hot). Hope it turns out well.
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The Game: An RTS from Stutter Fox (new studio).
The Trailer(s): I wasn't sure how to cover this and the next two games - all of which appeared in the same trailer, in a nice touch of frugality by their shared publisher - so I guess we're just covering each one's segment individually. Falling Frontier looks to be your typical real-time Master of Orion space empire management type, though a bit more details-oriented than most RTS games I've seen. The micromanagement of your ship's turrets, or all those nodes surrounding planets, makes it seem relatively sedate. Sharp graphics, though.
The Response: Maybe. RTS isn't my thing, but I like spacefaring games with a heavy exploration element. I keep meaning to get into a few already out - especially Stellaris, since I picked it up for free at some point - but I always get daunted by the level of commitment these games demand.
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The Game: A 4X strategy sim from KatHawk Studios (new studio).
The Trailer(s): This one also looks pretty dense with the space empire management business. I appreciate that each star cluster is represented by a constellation, though I'm wondering where you'd have to be standing to see them all. Wouldn't they appear different if you looking at them from a different part of the galaxy? Am I thinking too much about this? The infinite majesty of space, man. Just gets the cogs turning, you know?
The Response: Maybe. I'm sure I'll start getting into these methodical, leisurely strategy games any day now. I'll be turning 40 any day now too, and I half suspect these two events will coincidentally line up.
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The Game: A grand strategy sim from Pavonis Interactive (XCOM: Long War, a free mod).
The Trailer(s): I'll say this much - I think fellow mod and strategy fan Fisk0 is going to be happy seeing these three games on the horizon. This one looks a little less fantastical, focusing as it does on our Solar system, though I'm wondering what kind of factions you'll be competing against if it's all in our backyard. Other Earth factions, probably. I could see that leading to some tense scenarios: beating Jeff Bezos to Europa first before he uses drone lasers to turn it into a massive monument of his own head. Imagine living just above Jupiter and seeing that mug looming overhead every evening.
The Response: Nah. I think I just spooked myself out of a purchase.
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The Game: An open-world action-RPG from Piranha Bytes (Gothic).
The Trailer(s): I'm actually playing ELEX as of writing this list. Not on the strength of its sequel's trailer or anything, it just happened to come up. I will say that the pace and tone of ELEX doesn't immediately scream "lead dude from Korn" to me, but Piranha Bytes might be going a new direction for the follow-up to drum up interest from, uh, teens from the early '00s I guess. Given where PB is from, I might've expected Rammstein or Kraftwerk instead (or even David Hasselhoff). I'm trying not to think too hard about what I saw in the trailer, because there's at least one faction missing and I'm wondering if that's an ELEX 1 spoiler.
The Response: Sure. Here's the thing with PB - they make the same damn game every time, only occasionally adding something new like laser rifles, and I keep falling for their same ol' janky shit regardless. Having a world where everything can kill you at the start and slowly working your way up the food chain is an oddly compelling structure.
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The Game: An FPS/brawler from Trey Powell and Jason Bond (new studio).
The Trailer(s): Man, this looks cool. A throwback FPS where they still use 2D sprites (I know, I know) but made them super expressive and vaguely Archer-ish. You can see the sheer pain and confusion on their faces with every nut shot. "Why did you aim there," they seem to say with their eyes, "are you not possessed of genitalia also? Can you not sympathize?" But there is no sympathy for Mr. Weenie on the cold hard streets of Fallen Aces. The quicker you learn this, the less likely you'll need to piss through a tube the rest of your days.
The Response: Maybe. This era of FPS throwbacks has mostly passed me by, but this is like the second or third game with confirmed testicular trauma so far this E3 and it's a promising new development. More promising than four-player co-op zombie shooters anyway.
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The Game: A 2D shooter game from The Sixth Hammer (new studio).
The Trailer(s): I couldn't tell if this was an explormer or not so I erred on the side of caution. If it is, it's following the legacy of games like Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet and Forma.8 with its free-floating protagonist and shooter combat, just with more alien cows and a plot about obtaining an infinite milk source. Sounds like someone's been listening to that Beef and Dairy Network podcast too much.
The Response: Maybe. I'm not sure about that animation - many Indies seem to go for that paper doll animation style and it never looks good - but I am an explormer nut, so I'll take any I can get.
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The Game: A 2D/3D platformer hybrid from Burgos Games (new studio).
The Trailer(s): Early impressions aren't great - the graphics look pretty cheap and the platforming seems awkward - but I will give it props for that 2D/3D alternation thing as a decent gimmick that is probably pretty hard to pull off with a limited Indie budget. If they're going to mew with every jump though, that might be a dealbreaker.
The Response: Maybe. It might turn out to play like a dream, in which case I'm inclined to pick it up as someone who loves 3D platformers.
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The Game: A platformer/shoot 'em up from Digital Yogurt and Ghost Street Games (new studios).
The Trailer(s): That's a stylish trailer for a game that's a little hard to parse visually. The zipping around during the platformer segments along with the shoot 'em up sequences suggests a game where speed is the key, rather than taking your time to explore, but then the trailer made the point that exploration is important also. I kinda dig The Last Starfighter vibe I was getting from the presentation too, even if I'm not particularly jazzed about anything football related. (I might have to figure out where I can download that song.)
The Response: Maybe. It's a combination of genres I'm into and not into so much, so maybe a longer video stream will help me figure out what the ratio is like.
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The Game: A housekeeping puzzle game from Witch Beam (Assault Android Cactus).
The Trailer(s): This trailer appeared a little earlier in the year I want to say but, man... it's still an oasis of calm. Kind of impressive to attach that vibe to a game about moving house and settling in, which usually produces the exact opposite effect in my limited experience. I am curious about how much freedom the player is offered; is it that they have to recreate the room to exact specifications like a big interactive jigsaw, or do they have a certain amount of leeway to go along with the unhurried atmosphere and personalization tools like those photo mode filters?
The Response: Heck Yeah. I should've jumped on this during Next Fest, but there's nothing I find more soothing than some organizing and filing. Everything in its right place, as it were. More games like this please, and I'll take those in isometric too if you don't mind.
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The Game: A farming RPG from Hakama (Rune Factory 4).
The Trailer(s): I'm sure most folks are familiar with Rune Factory some five games in, but this trailer supposes they aren't and quickly runs through the game's story, action-RPG mode, farming mode, and briefly introduces a few potential spouses for your hero or heroine. All looks pretty standard to m- Hold on, the protagonist has amnesia and later joins a mercenary organization called SEED? That's... hmm. That might be significant.
The Response: Sure. Some gatekeepery spoilsports made the point when Stardew Valley was big that Rune Factory had been doing the same "Harvest Moon but RPG" thing for years, so maybe now that everyone's way into de-stressing farm games this series might find a bigger audience this time.
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The Game: An action-adventure roguelite from Afterburner Studios (new studio).
The Trailer(s): So I guess the big gimmick here is that all the action and combat happens in the dreaming world, and during the waking world you're out building stats and other things to help your next dream "run." If that's the case, are you going to get all prepped for a showdown and instead have the dream where you're naked at a school exam? Because that would be a bummer. For a number of reasons.
The Response: Nah. No rogue-anythings for me still, though I like the idea of more games having that Persona balance of fantastical monster slaying at night and normal-ass social calendar and part-time work during the day. Just don't make the Persona part procgen and run-based and we're good.
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The Game: A golf game from Camelot (Beyond the Beyond).
The Trailer(s): Ah, it's always a bittersweet moment when writing these multi-part Trailer Blazers when I hit a game that has come out in the time since I started the reviews. Then again, you didn't need a trailer breakdown to know whether or not you were on board with a new Mario Golf game; either it's your shit or it ain't. It's not rocket science. That would be Waluigi's Space Program, coming to Switch later next year. (Nothing really notable about the trailer itself, except they somehow got Irish Bill Clinton to do the narration.)
The Response: Maybe. Super Rush has been getting mixed reviews, and I think it's because a lot of these Nintendo first-party games are in a rut right now. Having an identical UI in every game isn't helping that same ol' same ol' feeling either. There are some upcoming Nintendo games on here that I am definitely psyched for, however.
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The Game: A puzzle-platformer from Studio Fizbin (The Inner World).
The Trailer(s): This game has already come out also, though to be fair it showed up right when E3 was underway. The trailer isn't a minute of islands, but a minute-twenty, so someone somewhere screwed up. It looked like yet another cute puzzle-platformer type until the whale carcasses showed up, at which point it got waaaay cuter.
The Response: Maybe. It looks good but there's been some criticism of its shallow gameplay. One of those games I hope shows up in a bundle someday.
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The Game: An open-world skating game from Roll7 (OlliOlli).
The Trailer(s): OlliOlli had always existed in this world of abstraction - you never even saw your skater's face, though you did get some sense of a personality with those little crowds at the finish line - so for the franchise to turn around and introduce this whole Adventure Time aesthetic and "funny animal"-filled world is a little surprising, but not necessarily unwelcome. Also looks like they're going for a branching format rather than the stages of the previous games, so I'm wondering if it'll have something like a Mirror's Edge Catalyst open-world exploration format with fast-travel nodes and such.
The Response: Nah. For all my curiosity, I never liked how the original felt to play and I can be very particular about my skating games. In short, it's THPS controls or bust.
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The Game: A boss rush action-adventure game from Fallen Flag Studio (new studio).
The Trailer(s): Some day, perhaps in the near future, we're going to run out of words to put next to "Souls" in a video game title. FromSoftware will have to close up shop, and all subsequent games are going to be so easy to complete that bored audiences will leave gaming in droves for new pastimes (if I had to guess, the yo-yo will make a huge comeback after a period of decline). It'll be the end of video games as we know them. But sure, keep calling your games "_____ Souls" Indie devs. Tempt fate, why don't you.
The Response: Sure. The trailer we have on the site is just the opening story cinematic which is why I went off on a tangent instead; the gameplay trailer on Steam suggests more of a Titan Souls/Jotun top-down boss rush action-RPG and thus definitely in my wheelhouse.
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The Game: An adventure game from White Paper Games (Ether One).
The Trailer(s): Trust a fellow Manc to make some grim as hell game about the main living miseries of the Great North. Actually, this looks to be an atmospheric period adventure game where you solve a murder Rear Window-style, watching everything transpire from your own living room as others gather clues on your behalf.
The Response: Maybe. I'd heard some good things about Ether One from others on this site (mostly Vinny, the only staff member who played adventure games besides Abby) so I've no doubt these guys can craft a riveting tale but as I've said before, games that are too realistically dour just don't sit well with my mood.
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The Game: An action-adventure game from Nintendo EPD (1-2-Switch).
The Trailer(s): The most curious aspect of this particular trailer for BotW 2, which we still know next to nothing about story-wise (not that story matters too much for Zelda) or even its name, is that the early teasers implied some sort of crossover with the Twilight Princess setting whereas this one seems to suggest it's a Skyward Sword continuation with all the high-altitude stuff, perhaps explaining the upcoming Skyward Sword remaster. Could even be we're getting a little bit of many previous Zelda games for franchise fans to pick apart and it's going to feel like a celebration of the franchise's history, though maybe that's just my own headcanon at work.
The Response: Heck Yeah. I'm not necessarily on the "best Zelda ever made" train for BotW but its strengths vastly outweigh the aspects I didn't care for. That people are still finding new quirks and surprises with that engine is a testament to its quality and versatility, so it feels perfectly sensible to give it another outing with a few new tweaks.
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The Game: An explormer from Mercury Steam (American McGee Presents: Scrapland).
The Trailer(s): The announcement of Metroid Dread was a pleasant surprise, but a fairly explicable one - I'm guessing Nintendo had this commissioned soon after their "we need to redo Prime 4 from the ground up" announcement to keep the horde of Ridleyheads at bay. Of course, that theory pre-supposes that Nintendo considers the presence of Metroid fans, so it's dubious at best. Dread definitely looks to continue where Fusion left off, doubling down on the indestructible chase bosses and folding in some of that parry tech from Samus Returns. It's graphically a little anodyne right now, but hopefully the finished product will have more of a personality to it.
The Response: Heck Yeah. A self-avowed explormer fanatic like me isn't going to let an entry from the genre's most famous franchise pass them by. I just hope that, unlike Samus Returns, it goes on sale occasionally because I'm not sure I want to be putting $60 down for a 2D game that'll take five hours to beat.
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The Game: A strategy sim from WayForward Technologies (The Smurfs Party Pack).
The Trailer(s): I'm aware that people were into the Advance Wars games, and Nintendo getting all nostalgic for the GBA is appropriate given it recently turned 20 (and Konami looks to have its own celebration on the way with their GBA Castlevania Collection), but the whole point of this franchise - the Nintendo Wars franchise - is that each console got their own version. Famicom Wars, Super Famicom Wars, Game Boy Wars, and then Advance Wars before it petered out with a DS sequel or two. Why not just make a new Switch Wars? You could have fun color-coding the two sides to match each player's JoyCon in multiplayer. (Of course, that might still be on the table and this remaster could be a way of gauging interest...)
The Response: Maybe. I trust WayForward to do a good job with the remaster, but I feel like the era of these games came and went. I don't even know what a modern Nintendo Wars from Intelligent Systems would look like. Maybe if the red tank and the red plane fell in love and had a kid...? (And then that kid got added to Super Smash Bros. to the disdain of all?)
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The Game: A mini-game collection from Intelligent Systems (Kaeru no tame ni Kane wa Naru).
The Trailer(s): Now here's a GBA franchise that still has gas in the tank, gas being the operative word with Wario and his high-protein diet. All right, fine, so if this is what Nintendo has I.S. doing then Switch Wars can wait a few more years. They're actually using the extended cast in an interesting way this time, as each approaches the mini-games with a different ability; I imagine it'll be the case where certain characters are good for some microgames but not others. Should make the luck of the draw that much more a factor in multiplayer.
The Response: Sure. Haven't met one of these games I didn't like.
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The Game: An action puzzle compilation from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio (Binary Domain).
The Trailer(s): Really? The Yakuza guys are behind this? Not that I mind, but I'd like to see their spin on a Monkey Ball game rather than all these older ones remastered. Super Majima Ball, anyone? I think this would be incredible value to money for anyone who loved these games in the past, especially as the appeal of the older ones has been kept alive by the speedrunning industry and GDQ events, but the trailer is a little ambiguous. It goes through the entire history of Monkey Ball releases, but not all of those games are in this collection: just the first two and the Deluxe version they made for non-GameCube consoles. Specifically, it's a bunch of levels taken from all three plus a selection of mini-games. Still, though, I imagine that's pretty much anyone wants from a Monkey Ball compilation. Is anyone really demanding a return of the Wii motion control games? Or the half-sized 3DS one?
The Response: Maybe. I liked these games in the past and I respect the developer, but I do already own the first two games and it'd be easier to bust out the ol' GameCube than spend the $50-60 they're going to want for this. Man, are those bananas are going to look sharp on a PS5 though...
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The Game: A medieval torture device from NDcube (Tube Slider).
The Trailer(s): We have our fun that the Mario Party series is this cursed thing - it even outlived its original creators Hudson - but it is kind of a bummer that for a series that demands so little creativity the last few games have been remixes. Super Mario Party aside, we had that Top 100 mini-games compilation and now this curated remaster of early Mario Party boards. But hey, at least you get to be Birdo again. Remember Birdo? She's like a reverse Yoshi. (Don't google "Reverse Yoshi".)
The Response: Nah. There's no incentive to play these games if you don't have three colleagues you secretly hate. Or siblings, which are pretty much the same thing.
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The Game: A turn-based RPG from Atlus (Armored Police Metal Jack).
The Trailer(s): I was a little nostalgic for the Satanic panic around video games in the early '90s for a moment, wondering what those rampaging puritans would think of a trailer where you literally summon Beelzebub. This just looks like regular old SMT - the multi-layered fusing and negotiations returning as major features - but I guess if you're way into summoning demons and have already made it through that Nocturne HD remaster you're probably poised to grab SMTV when it comes out in November. I'd like to know what kind of new features it has to set it apart from previous entries, if anything; the trailer was very cagey about anything too novel.
The Response: Nah. SMT requires a dedication for grinding (it is, after all, a Pokemon game that hits the Hot Topic after school) and a high tolerance for insta-death bullshit. Sometimes that can work for me (Persona/Tokyo Mirage Sessions) but usually it does not.
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The Game: An adventure game compilation from Spike Chunsoft (Dragon Ball Z: For Kinect).
The Trailer(s): A Danganronpa compilation for Switch that includes the three main games, though oddly enough not the spin-off Ultra Despair Girls, as well as a Switch exclusive bonus developed from the post-game sugoroku mode from Danganronpa V3. It's a convenient way for Switch owners to witness every shocking death and lascivious Monokuma double entendre in one place (except for Ultra Despair Girls). The games will also be available separately (digital only) for those already partway through the saga.
The Response: Nah. But only because I already own them all. Danganronpa has its flaws - the courtroom scenes are frequently an irritation - but there's some fun VN yarn-spinning in that series and V3 especially has some wild twists. (And, if I'm being honest, Ultra Despair Girls isn't that important to the lore; just kind of conspicuous that it's absent and replaced with a non-canon promoted mini-game.)
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The Game: A CCG RPG from Cygames (TIGER & BUNNY Lord of Hero).
The Trailer(s): You like Yu-Gi-Oh? You like Persona? Yeah, they're good games. I wasn't really going anywhere with this; sometimes it's just fun to reminisce. Despite featuring a lot of new and upcoming games E3 is also a time to get nostalgic for those big game reveals of our past, and how we'd never guess they'd become such huge franchises further down the road. After the difficult year that was 2020, it's easy to lose sight of what makes us excited about the future beyond being able to leave the house again, and for all its flaws E3 is a way we can anticipate the fun days ahead like our younger selves once did. The world won't ever be the same, and there'll be other problems to deal with, but I'm thankful the game industry isn't going anywhere just yet. OH, wait, I gotta talk about this trailer! It's some Yu-Gi-Oh mixed with Persona anime bullshit.
The Response: Nah. I do like anime bullshit, for the record, but I'm not into deckbuilding RPGs or anything of the like even if you frame a highschool dating sim around it.
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The Game: A 2D platformer from Navegante Entertainment (new studio).
The Trailer(s): A platformer as attractive as Ori with the co-operative puzzles of The Lost Vikings? Color me intrigued, though I'm maybe not as sold on the name. I figure Greak must be the name of one of those little mouthless heroes but it reads like a Hellenic typo. It's a strong trailer anyway, demonstrating each of the three protagonists working separately and together in what appear to be linear stages rather than an open-ended explormer map; the story suggests you're escaping some great menace, so backtracking wouldn't really make sense in that context.
The Response: Sure. It might turn out to be nothing special, but I love platformers and this one's real pretty.
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The Game: A survival horror game from Hashbane (new studio).
The Trailer(s): Is it weird that I'm less excited that this upcoming survival horror game is about dinosaurs (when was the last one of those? Dino Crisis 2? 3 was in space it doesn't count) than I am that it's not four player co-op? Feels like modern horror game devs forget that the most important element of these games is that you're usually by yourself, facing untold terror with only your own wits to protect you. That's scary. Do I think I'm smarter than a velociraptor? Hell no. I can only open doors three times out of five. I'm just glad it's summer and I can leave most of them ajar. It's made getting to the bathroom in time less of a dice toss, lemme tell ya.
The Response: Maybe. I will say that these dinosaurs don't look all that scary. I figured they'd be mutated super raptors, but they mostly look like dopey herbivores. That one at the end looked like an aardvark. This game's going to have a lot to prove as a Dino Crisis successor is all I'm saying.
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The Game: An open-world sandbox game from Prideful Sloth (Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles).
The Trailer(s): To most, the violin music in the background of this trailer sounds like generic fantasy BGM, but to my well-trained ear it sounds a lot like a certain track from Dark Cloud 2. I'm taking this to mean that the Yonder guys are specifically targeting my favorite game of all time as the source material for this similar exploration-heavy follow-up. I have rejected whatever reality was here and substituted my own. Do not try to interfere. If Dark Cloud 3 isn't happening, I need this.
The Response: Sure. I'd like to try Yonder first before I make a decision on Grow, but I'm a sucker for these low-key life-sim exploration games where "conflict" usually amounts to choosing which color roses to plant around my house. Or do I want azaleas? Maybe some nice leafy ferns? Actually, this might be too much stress.
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The Game: A FMV adventure game from Half Mermaid (Telling Lies).
The Trailer(s): It's probably not a good sign that a 55 second teaser trailer for a text-heavy game managed to get a typo in there (apparently the "none was"/"none were" thing is a matter of contention; but "none" in this case refers to a group of items, so...) but I've enough respect for Sam Barlow's approach to these meta twisty narratives that Immortality might be worth a glance. I just hope he learned his lessons from Telling Lies; I haven't played it but it sounds like they created a structural problem isolating halves of a conversation, leaving lots of dead air to sit through. Looking through old movie footage to find clues about an actress's disappearance (did they check Robert Wagner's yacht?) sounds more compelling on paper at least, if that is indeed what this game's all about.
The Response: Sure. I'm as rueful as anyone about the way FMV killed the adventure genre in the late '90s, but in the hands of a gifted storyteller the genre has the potential to rise above its checkered past. All this recent Souls/Bloodborne talk on the site reminded me that Keyblade Master and Big Boi navigator Natalie Watson is involved in this too, so I hope it turns out well for her sake also.
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The Game: A 3D brawler from Sloclap (Absolver).
The Trailer(s): E3 brings us another stylish, dialogue-free trailer for the upcoming martial arts epic Sifu, though one that glosses over the strange but intriguing mechanic introduced in earlier presentations where the protagonist physically ages several years every time they get knocked out. Along with questions about how much slower you get as you age, does this also put a strict limit on player KOs and a need to restart several times over? I'm hoping it checkpoints frequently and trying to beat the game on a single credit, as it were, is reserved for stubborn trophy hunters.
The Response: Sure. It still looks rad. Given how my Souls playthroughs tend to go I'm worried there's a limit to how old the main character can get after failing a boss fight too many times. He's going to look like the bad guy from The Last Crusade before I'm done. (Speaking of done, looks like I can go from Sifu to STFU because I've finally run out of trailers! Hooray! See you all next year!)
