Ninety Nine Nights X360 [REVIEW] | #musoumay

In the 2000s, the Dynasty Warriors series (and most of its subseries) was not well received in western grounds, often maligned by people that never even gave the formula a real chance but eager to play them for 5 minutes, stop and write some half-baked “review”, because it was cool to bash musou games, and they’re a niche interest anyway, who cares.

But that didn’t stop various other company from having a go at the formula, often proclaiming that them alone knew how to “fix” musou games… and then churning out shit that only demonstrated how people genuinely misunderstood the formula and the appeal of these games, often thinking that they just needed to beef up the enemy IA… leading to crap like Spartan Total Warrior.

One of the “musou pretenders” from that era was definitely Ninety Nine Nights, or N3 because we’re cool like that, dawg. Drop the beets for the l33t.

A X-Box 360 exclusive launch title, developed by Q Entertaiment and Phantagram, Ninety Nine Nights also had a fairly rushed development cycle, which you can really tell from the story perspective. It’s the usual “Light VS Darkness” bullshit set in a medieval-ish looking world with all expected high fantasy races and tropes: goblin, trolls, orcs, dragons and all dat shit.

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So Microsoft just bought Activision Blizzard King, like that

I usually don’t comment much on gaming news, stat, but this is such a monumental event i feel compelled to say something, as it doesn’t happen everyday that Microsoft just outright bought Activision Blizzard, one of the biggest companies since the Atari era.

And boy, my opinion on it really can’t be anything but disgust, as its another “Disney move” leading to an even shittier cyberpunk present we have, as it strangles even more the flebile sense of “competition” in the market, as corporate behemots are eaten by other mostrously larger corporate behemoths.

One might argue that this new leadership situation might improve the hive of scum, sexual assault and toxic workplace culture Activision Blizzard (which also including King, the Candy Crush guys) has become known for (alongside his many, identically minded buddies like Ubisoft), and it might, but it doesn’t change the fact that Microsoft now has Bethesda and Activision-Blizzard under its direct control.

I don’t expect much to change in terms of console esclusivites, as it doesn’t gel much with Microsoft current business strategy of basically wanting to sell its services (especially the Game Pass) as wide as possible, so i don’t expect them to make Call Of Duty NOT come out on PS consoles or anything like that in near future.

Again, some good things might come out of this, but i’ve seen how this industry behaves long enough to not trust anything positive change in it, not where it matters.

So, i’d say it sucks shit, and it’s kinda depressing overall, honestly.

#E32021 Conferences Recap/Review/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 XBox-Bethesda & Square Enix [Highlights]

Still haven’t fully digested that Microsoft did actually buy Bethesda, but i didn’t have much interest in their games before… with the exception of Doom, Wolfenstein and pretty much anything they published but not developed, but still, it is a big deal.

Cared more than i could ever care about Microsoft’s offerings this last generation (and if anything so far into the X-Box One X is indicative of something, make it two), but whatever, let’s see if the two companies can offer a proper conference, at least with the standards we expect from “AAA” publishers and console makers.

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E3 No Jikan (Again)

It’s really that time of year again, and while this year the expo is happening (for those who forgot, in 2020 the pandemic maybe it impossible to host for obvious reasons), it’s gonna be a digital only event.

And for the better, i think, since most people couldn’t afford to go there anyway and it wouldn’t be wise anyway to do a big gathering of events while the pandemic is still going (people are bored of it, but it ain’t over yet), so oddly everyone will share the same viewing experience. If you still care.

And frankly, i don’t care much for the E3 anymore. I still do to some extent, but it’s just for the communal, ritualistic aspects of it being the “big event” for the gaming scene.

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