I'm completely on board with a direct sequel to Mass Effect 3 for the same reasons Vinny noted, assuming they continue with the story as it was laid out. Putting that system/galaxy in a completely different place and telling a focused story around the characters and factions trapped in the Sol system would be Mass Effect storytelling at its best - ignore ancient aliens and space macguffins and tell political stories about alien races colliding in interesting ways.
I even think there are smart ways to work the rest of the galaxy into the game. My fantasy script for the game has been 100-200 years on from ME:3 and starting to re-build the mass relays, resulting in a your team being a discovery squad that jumps into systems that have been isolated for centuries. What happened to the Geth/Quarian situation after you left? How did the Krogan get on after ending the genophage? Did the Asari or Turians stop being giant assholes once cut off?
The larger problem is that they would have to pick canon endings to a lot of storylines that could have ended very differently once you invoke the larger galaxy. There are entire races that could be effectively dead depending on the choices you made in the first trilogy.
This looks fine - the quintessential Ubisoft game I'll buy for $10-20 on sale in less than a year and put a couple dozen hours into before I get bored. The biggest issue seems to be the bad stoner-level humor, but I can put on a podcast and just fly around a world for a while.
But the timing and comparisons are all doing it a pretty big disservice. The third Ubisoft open world game released this holiday and unlike the others its not coming from a major franchise. Unfavorably compared to Breath of the Wild in open world design and to Hades/God of War/AC:Valhalla in terms of use of gods and mythology. Beat to market as a Breath of the Wild inspired game by Genshin Impact that allows you to do a lot of the same exploratory things for free. Oh, and a completely forgettable name.
Hard to see this succeeding for this reason, but glad to see Ubisoft doing something new. Just surprised they didn't push this to release next year when there is a lull, more next gen consoles are out there, and people are looking for new stuff to do on the new consoles.
So, that moment about Kingdom Heartache and "pilling back the curtain" makes me think one of two potentialities: Either they didn't draw the view numbers to justify the time to film them, or two (and less likely) Tetsuya Nomura SHUT THAT SHIT DOWN WITH A DMCA! Which, really, is a huge betrayal to his best friend Jan.
If you're trying to identify who shut down Kingdom Heartache, you'll have to look deeper. There's only one with that kind of power. He's got two giant ears and is a keyblade master.
Wow, I guess I should have suspected with it being a follow-on Square music game, but all of those note charts / result screens look IDENTICAL to the screens in the Final Fantasy Thetarhythm games. I'm now strangely interested in this given how much I loved those games.
EDIT: Though now having watched the video, this appears a lot more barebones and not nearly as good. The Thetarhythm games were jam-packed with different modes, progression stuff, weird RPG party/ability combo ideas, and tons of songs from a dozen+ games. The main rhythm mode in this looks not great and most of the unlocks were just glorified concept art from the games.
I checked and this was also done by indieszero who did the Theatrhythm games. I suspected that much seeing the Theatrhythm-looking versions of the characters in the loading screens during the video. It sucks they didn't just call it Theatrhythm Kingdom Hearts and make it look/play just like those since the Theatrhythm FF games' playfields were many times easier to read than this since they were 2D based.
Yeah, I'm surprised they went for 3D tracks given how hard it makes things to read, though maybe that made for easier model re-use. But they had the chibi designs in there for the taking. And it at least looks like they've tried to approximate some of the elements of KH, but the result is not nearly as much depth as you had in Theatrhythm and instead a gloss on KH with an extremely basic retelling of the game stories.
In Theatrhythm you had great rhythm game modes, but the add on top of those games was unlocking and coming up with a party, leveling up, getting a skill loadout, and then focusing on a crazy boss battle, tough challenge, or high score run.
Wow, I guess I should have suspected with it being a follow-on Square music game, but all of those note charts / result screens look IDENTICAL to the screens in the Final Fantasy Thetarhythm games. I'm now strangely interested in this given how much I loved those games.
EDIT: Though now having watched the video, this appears a lot more barebones and not nearly as good. The Thetarhythm games were jam-packed with different modes, progression stuff, weird RPG party/ability combo ideas, and tons of songs from a dozen+ games. The main rhythm mode in this looks not great and most of the unlocks were just glorified concept art from the games. They should just re-release those games.
People don't talk enough about "summoning shame". Like brad said, you feel like you have to do it yourself. Even people who say they don't judge but have to do it themselves, there is implicit if not explicit judgement in that.
"Well I would never do it... but I guess other people might"
I feel for Brad and his anxieties with Souls. Follow your own advice about grinding: it's in the game, it's fair. Don't feel ashamed about grinding. Don't feel ashamed for summoning. Don't feel ashamed for picking Royal. It's all in the game, it's all valid.
(There's a streamer I used to watch who equated collecting your souls from a death as cheating, and that felt like the shittiest judgement on people who don't want a game that punishing)
Yeah, the difficulty-shaming in this series is one of the most ridiculous things that goes around the Internet with every Souls-like release. The games are made with certain features (leveling, summoning, different builds) that will make encounters more or less difficult. They are all in the game for a reason. Use them if you like. It will still be a hard game you get enjoyment out of, even if you overlevel the content and summon for bosses.
From has demonstrated itself more than capable of changing things up when they want to create a different experience. Bloodborne takes out tanking/shield builds entirely. Sekiro basically removes leveling and forces parrying in many encounters. Presumably Elden Ring will have entirely different systems that create different challenges or opportunities to exploit. They are all different games and have different fanbases as a result. Lots of people hated Sekiro because it doesn't have leveling as an outlet to override difficult encounters!
Criminally low viewers on twitch. Wonder if it has anything to do DMCA. Probably will get it to stream to my game group while we wait for others in a discord lobby.
I have to imagine if you play this game on Twitch the copyright police nuke your account from orbit.
Everyone's making fun of the mustache, but the real Wahlberg crime is whatever they've done to the rest of his face to attempt to make Marky Mark approximate a grizzled look. I'm also looking forward to whatever his attempt at a gruff voice is. Sully lives by the mustache and cigar, but it's really all about the voice makes the character.
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