Dragon Ball Z Kakarot

Dragon Ball Z Kakarot - January 13

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore - January 17

Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection - January 21

Kingdom Hearts III ReMind DLC - January 24

Journey To The Savage Planet - January 28

Warcarft III: Reforged - January 28

...and the decade kicks off on a whimper. 2020 is set to be an amazing year for releases with Final Fantasy, The Last of Us, DOOM, Resident Evil etc. receiving big releases as well as CD Project Red's follow up to the Witcher 3 in April, but unlike 2017 which had a gluttony of releases, 2020 is starting relatively slow.

Only one relatively big release in DBZ Kakarot. The concept of a DBZ Action RPG is one of those ideas gamers have been clamoring for much in the same way as a Harry Potter RPG, but I'm extremely trepadatious about this release. The developers CyberConnect2 have a flimsy history at best with their most famous releases comprising of the .hack franchise. These were clearly less than Action RPGs compared to say the Kingdom Hearts of Phantasy Star series and felt like slap-dashed Action RPGs. They took some good ideas, but didn't bring anything new to the genre and usually wore out their welcome in quick time. To make matters worse, the DBZ story has been retold in gaming longer than most of us have been alive. They've been revisiting the same storylines since the NES and there's only so much that can be done with the series. The combat looks extremely similar to the Xenoverse Saga with a few basic RPG mechanics thrown in. I think it can still be an enjoyable game for fans of the series, but they're going to have to find ways to expand the world of DBZ to make it more than just another cheap license game. If they can do what Obsidian did with South Park: The Stick of Truth, they could be onto something amazing.

I've barely touched my copy of Tokyo Mirage Sessions, but as a spin-off of the SMT series it's well worth looking into. I feel Persona 5 stole a lot of this game's thunder, if youplay through the game you'll notice a lot of stylistic choices from Persona 5 were included here. With the bigger install base, I feel Tokyo Mirage will finally get the attention it deserves.

My most anticipated release is KH3. I really enjoyed my time with the base game, but it certainly felt lacking after a 13 year wait between console releases. ReMind is set to explore the post game more which was notoriously rushed on the basic release with 16 more bosses. I've been on a KH kick lately, so the timing couldn't be better.

Definitely check DBZ, and maybe Savage Planet...low month, but I got plenty to catch up with.

Just looking at some of the previews for this game.



That looks like a horrible boss fight. Projectile spam intertwined with cut-scenes that break down the action. Environments that are only there for aesthetic purposes and extremely little strategy to speak of. There doesn't appear to be any weight behind the attacks and just looks like it's trying to be as faithful to the license as possible. The sound effects and voice acting is spot on, but they've nailed the presentation for 17 odd years at this point.



Okay so the city actually looks visually pleasing and if there is actually things to do in the city, this game could be more than a basic Action RPG. Unfortunately the gameplay doesn't show anything, so I doubt we're getting anything as in-depth as say Yakuza. Okay, so finding Z fighters out in the wild and challenging them to fights seems like a very basic concept I can get behind. The fishing games and the Tales of style encounter system seems so uninspired. So do most of the environments. I know that Z didn't give them a lot to work with, but like the South Park games, you could always get Toriyama or some skilled writers to come up with some interesting locales to visit.

Hopefully that Vegeta costume is a sign of things to come. If they take a page out of Spiderman or Mario Odyssey it could be one of those small touches that goes a long way.

I might pick up Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore, but that's about it really.

Lol when I saw kh3 I was like wtf we're already getting remixes? But it's coming either way lol.

Dragon Ball Z still exists? Whoa.

Jan 3, 2020 16:24:42 GMT Lony said:

I might pick up Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore, but that's about it really.

Never had the opportunity to play it on the Wii U, so I’m exited to give it a play. 

It's like they turned the open world into a really bland version of NiGHTS Into Dreams where you fly around collecting orbs. Except this isn't 1996 where flying around in 3D was mind-blowing and they feel disconnected to their assigned system. How many DBZ characters became stronger because they flew around the planet relatively aimlessly?

It just seems like they didn't know what to do with the world, so to compensate, they added those orbs to fill in content. They were probably rushed into development, so this was an easy system to incorporate instead of coming up with their own ideas to make exploring the world interesting. DBZ is difficult because unless you had Toriyama there to help come up with alternative plot details or enemies to face inbetween all the classic fights from the show, all you have is a linear game.

It's been nearly 20 years since I watched the early DBZ episodes, but from memory, it was a mixture of survival vs. adventure. You had a 5 year old kid trying to survive the wilderness and on the otherside of the coin you had Goku running around in the after-life trying to reach King Kai. If you were to try and adapt that into a video game, you'd be looking at a genre flip, something more akin to an action-adventure than an Action RPG. Unless you went into the Nioh style level select style with sub missions and I just don't know if that would translate well either.

But yeah, the first major release of the 2020s and it looks like a budget release. I think it's 74 on metacritic which looks reasonable. I see that 70 range as a reflection that the game isn't horrible, but unless you're a fan of the show, there's better games of the genre. One of those games where one it reaches $20, it'd be worth checking out.

Meanwhile Kingdom Hearts ReMind is imminent. Again, I feel Kingdom Hearts 3 did a lot right but when it was all said and done it kind of felt underdone. There was such a big lull as you played through the Disney levels that when the game got back to the core Kingdom Hearts story, it just became a generic boss rush with only a couple of small pieces to break it up. Hopefully the DLC expands on this section more and makes it as entertaining as it should have been.

I like DBZ but I am tired of playing though the same sagas in so many games.

Which is understandable, the first Dragon Ball game came out in 1986, that's 34 years of playing with the same characters and experiencing the same story.

I can understand wanting to revisit that world as a game designer when the technology has caught up with the show's vision. However, a lot of the designs just seem so archaic. The fact a lot of the major moments in the fights can only be performed during the cut-scenes is so disappointing.

Meanwhile the Kingdom Hearts DLC has come out and it's also extremely underwhelming. I watched a stream and there weren't really any surprises, what you saw in the trailers is all that you're going to get which for a $30 US DLC is a major rip-off. The final world has been slightly expanded, there's a few more bosses during the final portion and the end game now has a bunch of data fights which are reminiscent of the extra bosses from KH2FM.

Finally Temtem, the Pokemon MMORPG has just been released and surprise surprise, the game is buggy to all hell. A lot of servers crashing and from the looks of it there are better fan made games out there. For $35 US, it's at least twice as expensive than it should be. I expect more details to come out as they're available, but Temtem is going to be one of those Pokemon clone games that will be dug up in 5 years time that hardly anyone remembers.

Why is everyone no-selling Warcraft 3?

What is it? Just a re/release of the computer game but with refreshed graphics?

Feb 4, 2020 16:36:37 GMT 🤯 said:

Why is everyone no-selling Warcraft 3?

What is it? Just a re/release of the computer game but with refreshed graphics?

I usually don't highlight remakes in the OP but I gave Warcraft that due. However, I really didn't have anything to say about it. I actually wanted to buy it when it first came out way back when, but I ended up with Age of Mythology instead and it missed it's window. Over the years I've had the odd hankering for it but I was just never on the same page with it when it was on sale. Usually I was neck deep in something else or the game was still the standard price.

I was hoping the Reforged remake would enhance the game so when it did go on sale I could finally experience the game. However from all reports it's supposedly even worse and a lot of the improvements they promised didn't make it into the game. They've also made a mess of the mod scene which was one of the huge selling points of the 2002 release and made way for DOTA one of the biggest franchises in gaming (that I know next to nothing about). Fans are not happy and Blizzard is going to on track to set a record for the most amount of refunds.

It's the worst botched release since Fallout 76, if not Final Fantasy XIV where they had to nuke the original game and start over.