I, too, was excited that they were playing Hatoful Boyfriend and bummed that they're only playing one hour. If this points folks to Danny's playthrough (I believe this is it: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdrNnETa0pAN6SZ3lMJiusjRrAJ0BIWEr), then that's enough for me. Those later, special chapters of the game were some truly great mind-fuckery. I've never had a desire to play a dating sim, but the few bucks and 5-ish hours it took to see most endings were well worth it.
Honestly, I'd rock the pull over if it was more subtle. I feel a little weird wearing stuff that says "Giant Bomb" on it in public. My previous hoodie is probably 10 years old at this point and a bit worn out.
I had this female cashier ask me about it one time. "...Giant Bomb, huh?" Didn't realize I was wearing the shirt as I just ran out of the house. I said it was a website.. The vibe I got from her was weird lol
..maaaaybe I'll get the zipper.. Not usually my style but eh.
Yeah, I fly too often to rock most GB merch on the regular. I also hate that my podcast player shows the GiantBomb podcast logo on my phone's lock screen. I regularly panic that the passenger next to me will read the words and flip out :)
The zip-up seems awesome and I'll be putting in an order.
And in a few months, when more games are out, I may look into a Switch. It seems like the next evolution in my new definition of couch gaming in this new part of my life.
As a Switch owner/dad/husband, Nintendo is completely missing the mark if they double-down on their young-professional-rooftop-party-having launch campaign. If they targeted ads at folks who used to enjoy games, but can't monopolize the TV anymore, may not have long gaming sessions anymore, want to play multiplayer games with the family, and want to introduce their kids to classic games via the Virtual Console, they'll endear themselves to the "family" market. And those particular features can be explained quickly in a snappy, visual montage!
But really, if one parent is invested in the Switch for those reasons, Nintendo would then have the ability to sell additional Switches to children as they became old enough to want their own gaming machine, especially if family sharing or discount on games were introduced. This seems like a slam dunk.
It looks... alright. The combat looks spammy and QTE drenched, which is something I do not want out of a Final Fantasy let alone a rpg. I heard the characters either become endearing or at least tolerable. I'm not surprised that the story is not very good or mediocre looking at past single player FF games since FF9.
The open world seems rather bad and dungeons looks generic to me with just your party crawling around plain looking caves and getting jumped. How much variation is there to dungeons I have to wonder?
I get the feeling a good comparison will be Dragon Age: Inquisition rather than other FF games. Both franchise getting into the open world genre, but lacks content or has boring busywork like fetch or kill "x" number quests in the world making it feel empty.
Definitely will wait for the PC version or never. Oh well. Back to playing Witcher 3: Blood and Wine for me then.
I'm.. oh, gosh, 22 hours in. Hopefully that's enough time to give some context. The combat is really fun, after spending enough time feeling out its quirks and unlearning its unhelpful descriptions. The characters, while initially off-putting, are really endearing at this point in my playthrough.
The Strange:
The game absolutely feels cut in half. The first, open-world half is really fun, but light on story. The second half (which I'm only a few chapters into) feels very narrative-heavy and linear. While disorienting, I'm actually okay with this. By the time I (very minor spoilers that might identify the threshold) sailed to another continent, I was really ready to stop fussing with sidequests and focus on the mainline epic story.
The Good:
Combat is really, really good. I was disappointed by the US demo and the first hour of playtime, but man does the combat system open up once you start playing with weapons and upgrading. At this point, the Wait-based gameplay feels like second nature and I'm enjoying every encounter.
The dungeons are amazing. As in some of the best in any RPG I've played. Each is interesting, with a unique aesthetic and often unique mechanics. They're the highlight of the game, so far, for me.
The boss fights are oh-my-gosh, what-am-I-even-fighting amazing.
The game is freaking weird. The more I play, the more I realize that this might be the special sauce that attracted me to JRPGs 20 years ago. I literally have no idea what will happen next, whether as a clever design choice or a terrible design choice. I just know I'll be surprised.
The Bad:
The story is really disjointed and reminds me of MGSV in the way that you can tell things were cut up and repurposed without much regard for the overall narrative.
The open-world feel is dampened by frequent "you might not be back for a while, proceed/abort" prompts that really disrupt the flow that most open-world games provide.
I'm having a blast with the game, but as it purports to be a game for fans and newcomers alike, I can safely say that I wouldn't recommend it to my non-FF-fan friends. It takes too much context and digging to even follow the main path, let alone enjoy the sidequest content. But for any kid experiencing this as their first Final Fantasy, I have no doubt they'll have just as fond memories of it as I do of my first.
Great article! As a longtime casual IFComp player, it's neat to hear more about some games ahead of time, as opposed to reading Emily Short's wrapup reviews afterwards.
I was also interested in Infinite Warfare for its single-player, after having skipped the last couple (I think?) of CoD titles, so I Redbox'ed it for $3 to blast through the campaign. I'm about 5 hours in (and I don't seem very close to a finale, with lots of side-missions left and only four-ish main missions completed). It's really fun. The core loop feels like Battlestar Galactica's tone meets Mass Effect ship interactions. Every mission so far, both mainline and side-missions, has not felt like filler. There has been a good mix of stealth, sniping, dogfights, all-out firefights, and neat future weapons like drone hack kits.
Without having an interest in multiplayer or zombies mode, this has been a very satisfying rental.
Trailer only really shows off how to play and not so much what to play. Seeing Skyrim Remastered on it, was a bit of a disappointment, since I personally consider Nintendo as being a separate entity out of the Xbone/PC/PS4 race and I don't really need a fourth place to play multiplat games.
Besides, how will you play twin-stick games if you separate the Joy-cons?
There's hints at a Spla2n (which is a good thing) and yet another trite Mario game with no hints of cover mechanics, chainsaw bayonets or gunplay at all. It's incredible that Nintendo still refuses to evolve their brands like SEGA did. I guess the old idiom holds true: "SEGA does what Nintendon't"
Seriously though, I'm in the same boat as Jeff. I don't commute and don't feel like playing handhelds very much with all these big screen experiences available, so I'm hyped at the possibility of the incredibly strong 3rd party handheld legacy moving to a uniform platform. Just for the 3DS this year, we've had/are getting tons of amazing games like Fire Emblem Fates, Rhythm Paradise Megamix, Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse and 7th Dragon III Code VFD.
I'm pretty much in agreement with you on all points. Except maybe for multiplatform games. I might consider buying AAA games on a lower-fi platform if they came out day-and-date with the beefier consoles or PC just for the option to take them on the go in a non-laptop form factor.
I'm much more enthusiastic about the possibility of bringing the Nintendo mobile developer ecosystem into the home. I also don't commute regularly and use my 3DS almost exclusively for business trips and vacations, so having the ability to finish FE: Fates on the couch without cramped fingers and sore eyes would be a gigantic win. I do worry that we won't see that ecosystem transition as fruitfully as from the DS to 3DS because of the expectations of higher-fidelity graphics on a television. On the other hand, they already have a built-in 3DS AAA price point of $40, so there might be the possibility of $40 mobile-first games and $60 console-first games providing clear expectations.
Great writeup! I've only played the first two chapters of this Dreamfall entry, but I appreciate your thoughts. I didn't feel much pull to return when the later chapters were released. I'll probably check them out eventually, but I didn't feel the specific brand of charm that made the first two games feel amazing. I think your description of visiting new and different locales being part of the draw of the original games nailed the reason behind my melancholy response to the first few episodes.
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