Thing

As already pointed out, E3 coming back this year was kind of a big deal, as the pandemic made it impossible to be held as usual in 2020, and even with the usual croc of shit that the event is and promotes… it’s a ritual, it’s a tradition for many people with huge interest in videogames, it’s a communal experience.

But i wonder if one year of non holding the event made many companies just forgot what the hell the expo was even supposed to be, like old people forgetting something they usually did out of habit because they had to stop doing it for a reason or others.

Mind you, E3 history is full of cringy – and often legendary – conferences often full of people that barely could speak english or had any PR experiences, overblown lies and hype for everything, announcements of announcement without nothing to show for titles of interest, so it’s telling this year’s output was a complete mess.

I don’t think that’s too hyperbolic to say.

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#E32021 Nintendo Direct & Bandai Namco [Highlights]

The final piece of rambles-recap-highlights i’m gonna write about this E3 edition… before the actual “final piece” of considerations and overall evalution.

First the long awaited Nintendo Direct, often topped only by the community basically setting themselves up to expect the moon and bitching about when they don’t get it…. or when they get it, because a certain set of people enjoy ranting and being miserable about the videogames they say to love so much, instead of actually playing said interactive entertaiment. You can’t please people that don’t even know what they want.

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#E32021 Capcom [Highlights]

I was gonna include the Take 2 Interactive showcase…well, it wasn’t called a “showcase”, but a “panel”, but still, i went in expecting to see something about the games, but it’s not that.

It’s a long panel where various figures from the company and not discussing equity and representation in games…. and that’s it. Important topics, absolutely, but why even bother letting people assume it was gonna be a showcase, when you don’t showcase nothing? Why bother tricking The Gamers (TM) into watching this, when you already know they are still offended by a random woman existing in videogames?

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#E32021 Summer Game Fest [Highlights]

Changed my mind, i will write small recaps/highlights of the various conferences, starting with this one.

Which is reall Geoff Khiley hosting “The Games Awards” by another name… yay?

Even more due to the event being sponsored by Prime Gaming…YAY.

Yeah, i didn’t miss this part of the E3 so much.

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Fist Of The North Star: Ken’s Rage 2 X360 [REVIEW] | You Should Have Left The Bronx

The first Ken’s Rage sold relatively well, and it’s Koei, so we got a sequel 3 years later.

Which would be fine, until you realize what it actually implies in this case, and i don’t mean it simply being released to coincide with the series 30^th anniversary.

That is something else entirely that ultimately condemns Ken’s Rage 2, but the main issue is that you just can’t do what Dynasty Warriors does with Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, as the source material for that leaves it open to the real historical characters being reinvented or changed, on what of the many events (historical or pure fiction like the many uses of magic) focus more the narrative, while keeping focus on the essential battles and significant achievements of the warring factions, and their part in the path to the unification of China after the fall of the Han dynasty.

You can’t just re-imagine Kenshiro, his friends and foes, as they have all distinct personalities, distinct character designs, signature moves and Fist Of The North Star’s popularity never really waned in 30 and plus years, so people still are quite well aware of it. On the other hand, you could hardly justify making a sequel when the first game stopped at the end of the Raoh’s story arc.

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Fist Of The North Star: Ken’s Rage X360 [REVIEW] | Ai Wo Torimodose!!

I’ve been wanting to revisit the Ken’s Rage series for a while, especially because it seems like a no-brainer to make a Warriors style game about one of the most beloved shonen series of the 80s, Fist Of The North Star, with Kenshiro and his cast of powerful, larger than life foes, with more post-apocalyptic muscle mountains and the array of martial arts that explode people from the inside, cure them from all ailments, and do whatever insane mystical, awesome bullshit they do.

Not that Fist Of The North Star lacks videogames based upon it, but aside from the first NES game (released without the FOTNS license as Black Belt), most of them never left Japan, or did reworked due to licensing into something else. In either case, here in Europe we almost got nothing of that for decades, so Ken’s Rage was actually a nice treat for starving fans that wanted to experience Kenshiro’s post-apocaliptic odyssey in videogame form on their modern consoles.

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International Workers Days goes brrr

Watch Shirobako.

Why not?

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition NSWITCH [REVIEW]

This is like the 4^th time i review Hyrule Warriors overall (and the second i review the Definitive Edition), but it IS the first time in english, and it IS Hyrule Warriors, so….

Since i also wanted to review Age Of Calamity, might as well do the previous iteration of “Zelda Musou”, one that was conceived as most Dynasty Warriors crossovers with other IP are, as in this is just a spin-off where we have an original story made pretty much to have most character from said license/series/brand appear together and fight in a hack n slash manner through opposing armies, through the power of the usual convenient “dimensional portals”.

Still, even there Nintendo was involved in the project more than previous companies “crossing” their properties with Koei’s trademark style of hack n slash, even Team Ninja (which survived the Itagaki exodus better than Itagaki’s career) helped in the development alongside ol’ Omega Force.

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That’s the sound of 10 years of Ken’s Rage

Sorry to “interrupt” Dino Dicember, but i wanna talk a bit about Koei’s musou series based on Fist Of The North Star, dubbed Ken’s Rage. If you follow any gaming news site, you’ve might already know of this, but since we do have some preview footage running around, i feel the time it’s right to talk about what Koei did to celebrate the 10th year anniversary of Ken’s Rage.

(images taken from Siliconera)

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Super Mario 3D All Stars NSWITCH [REVIEW]

I pointed this out in a previous post, and i have to yet again: the fact this was not only released with limited printing for retail copies, but with an expiration date of 6 months even for the digital version (still priced 60 bucks). It’s insane, even more since the collection doesn’t include Super Mario Galaxy 2, i’m pretty sure it would have fit in a Switch cartridge, but for whatever stupid reason is not in the collection. Maybe to be sold as a separate remaster for full price as well, who knows.

Only Nintendo could pull shit like this and get away with it.

Yes, i got a physical copy of it. No, i didn’t pay extra, i just placed my pre-order fast. Fuck scalpers.

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