E3 2019 / 2020 - 2020 Update - Dear God, they're going to make it worse.

[Scarlett Johansson]

Apparently Avengers is going to be a service game ala Anthem and Destiny. Lame. I want something similar to Spider Man.

Play Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 instead.

 

[Rivalo]

Also, pretty bad showing for Nintendo I think. Their best games were Pokemon and a port of the Witcher III. AC could be good, but its nine months off.

The sad part (or hilarious, depending on your point of view) is that Game Freak immediately destroyed any and all hype for Sword and Shield with the Treehouse thing, by announcing that you can't transfer Pokémon from older games using Home if they're not on the Galar Dex. Seriously, the entire Pokémon fandom is pissed at Game Freak, on Twitter, on Reddit, on 4chan, 2ch/5ch, and even fucking Facebook.

Spoiler

Even Joe Merrick, the owner of Serebii, is against this (Archive):

Spoiler

It's a dumpster fire.

 

[Ledian]

If there's one thing Game Freak can do very well, it's grasp defeat in the final run-up to the finish line.
This was nothing but a bean counter decision to get more money out of people. They obviously didn't think the PR fallout part of it through. Somehow, did they think stating that not all your Pokemon will be available anymore would be overlooked, especially when it's apparently ongoing policy? To normies and hardcores alike, it sounds like "your favorite might not make it in to the game, sucks to be you bitch" and no one wants to hear that.

 

[Agent of Z.O.G.]

Hey we got an Avengers game made by a competent studio

It's the nuLaura devs, they're not competent.

 

[Pargon]

Is that Collection of Mana worth getting? Never played the Mana series but I like JRPG's. It reminds me of Chrono Trigger and FF...and Shining Force.

Picked it up yesterday. FFA and SoM run just like I remember on their respective systems. SoM allows for three players and it's still a blast. Spell layering still works, rendering the game hilarious.

ToM (aka SoM2/SD3) has no issues with translation or bugs thus far, making it alone worth the price of admission. Secret of Mana has been a pinnacle of action RPGs. They're worth every penny, especially since the SoM remake has the most insufferable VA work I've ever heard and I don't trust Squeenix not to fuck the ToM remake up in a similar fashion.

 

[Kulee Baba]

If there's one thing Game Freak can do very well, it's grasp defeat in the final run-up to the finish line.
This was nothing but a bean counter decision to get more money out of people. They obviously didn't think the PR fallout part of it through. Somehow, did they think stating that not all your Pokemon will be available anymore would be overlooked, especially when it's apparently ongoing policy? To normies and hardcores alike, it sounds like "your favorite might not make it in to the game, sucks to be you bitch" and no one wants to hear that.

Not having all the Pokemon is far from a deal breaker to me. I only care about about the iconic Pokemon which y'know consist of the original 150 and then more or less the starters with each new gen.

The deal breaker is that Sword & Shield look like PS2 budget games. There's no excuse as to why Pokemon can't look gorgeous like Dragon Quest XI or be as good looking as a PS3 game like NiNoKuni.

 

[Cyber Bowling]

If there's one thing Game Freak can do very well, it's grasp defeat in the final run-up to the finish line.
This was nothing but a bean counter decision to get more money out of people. They obviously didn't think the PR fallout part of it through. Somehow, did they think stating that not all your Pokemon will be available anymore would be overlooked, especially when it's apparently ongoing policy? To normies and hardcores alike, it sounds like "your favorite might not make it in to the game, sucks to be you bitch" and no one wants to hear that.

I didn't pick up Sun/Moon until well after they were released, but I was told that they did the same thing with those games but subsequently patched in all the missing ones within a few months. Not sure if that was just random bs or an actual thing, but I'd be surprised if they didn't find some way to incorporate all the mons for the final product. It was definitely a PR stumble though not to expect fans to be annoyed about that, especially with no specifics of who did/didn't make the cut.

Switching gears to general e3 stuff, I think it's a little soon to pronounce it dead. This was by no means the strongest showing, but it sets a low bar for next year. Not only that, but if new console releases are a thing next year, which seems likely, that's bound to generate hype. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years e3 started to dwindle in popularity/relevance. I think the big death knell will come from more companies deciding to do their own thing outside of e3. Even then, I think e3 has at the very least a few years left.

 

[Dunsparce]

I didn't pick up Sun/Moon until well after they were released, but I was told that they did the same thing with those games but subsequently patched in all the missing ones within a few months. Not sure if that was just random bs or an actual thing

All of the Pokemon were fully coded into Sun and Moon, even on launch. The only wait time was getting Bank to be updates so you could transfer your Pokemon from Gen VI into Gen VII. But there was a similar wait in the prior gen, which also had all of the Pokemon in the coding. What Sword and Shield are doing is a lot different. They won't even let you send over the Pokemon not found in the game ever after Home comes out.

 

[adorable bitch]

I don't really hate the graphics, though tbh I'm kinda underwhelmed. I expected them to be nicer by virtue of being on a more powerful system (plus I think botw looked lovely). I like the look of the character models, towns and pokemon, but I'm not so sure about the wild areas.

(no national pokedex though what the fuck)

 

[WhoBusTank69]

GameFreak fucked themselves majorly by setting that standard in Gen 3 - the better option would have been to limit it to importing from the previous generation - but now they do not have an option to make each game completely standalone.
They dug their hole and are trying to airlift themselves out.

 

[WaltherPPGAY]

Is that Collection of Mana worth getting? Never played the Mana series but I like JRPG's. It reminds me of Chrono Trigger and FF...and Shining Force.

Not sure about the specifics of the collection, but the individual games are all excellent, obviously, aged but great little action RPGs. I would say compared to Chrono Trigger there is somewhat more focus on combat.

Trials of Mana was unique for it's time since you pick a main character and two party members from 6 possible characters, and each character has class upgrades which makes for a bunch of different possible party builds. Each character has a beginning story and there are 3 possible endgames based on who your main character is.

 

[Mike Hunt]

I've been watching a lot of the usual YT vidya talky bois and the general consensus is that "it's an off year," "it's the end of this generation's cycle," "expect 2020 to be much better."

I'm not taking that as absolute gospel, but I will agree that this year was incredibly dismal.

I think a lot of that just boiled down to the fact that so much of this was one step forward and two steps back.

"We're bringing back Commander Keen for you older gamers.... and it's going to be a mobile game."
"The Battletoads are back... and it's created by a D-list studio with an art style that looks like it was done by Cal-Art dropouts."
"Shenmue 3 is almost here... and it's an Epic Store Exclusive, go fuck yourselves kickstarter backers."
"Hey look everyone, it's Sam Fisher... as a character in another fucking mobile game."
"Hey we got an Avengers game made by a competent studio... annnd the characters look like cosplayers and VA'd by the same VA's that you seen in every other AAA game. Be impressed or something."

Not saying it was all bad, but this year left a LOT to be desired.

I think it ultimately boils down to the publishers themselves doing piss-poor jobs of presenting games (Nintendo, Squeenix, and Devolver aside), and bringing out lackluster, phoned-in games altogether (looking at you Bethesda and EA). I really can't blame E3 organizers for this year's sad showing, it's not like they had logistics issues or the power went out in the middle of a presentation or anything that can be pointed at the organizers.

You can even forgive the sad-looking games (really, there will always be dud games and/or stuff that won't appeal to all) if the presentations were at least as brisk as Nintendo went through theirs, or if it were sandwiched between quality games. For example, the new Contra looked terrible, personally, but Nintendo didn't spend the next 20 minutes jerking themselves off about how important Nintendo is to the world, pandered to the woke crowd, then cut to unknown (to me and a huge bulk of gamers, I bet) streamers with fake over-the-top reactions in the hopes they give extra positive coverage to their streams. Instead of just being underwhelmed by the games, now people are also thinking about the time presenters wasted in getting to their actual announcements.

Picked it up yesterday. FFA and SoM run just like I remember on their respective systems. SoM allows for three players and it's still a blast. Spell layering still works, rendering the game hilarious.

ToM (aka SoM2/SD3) has no issues with translation or bugs thus far, making it alone worth the price of admission. Secret of Mana has been a pinnacle of action RPGs. They're worth every penny, especially since the SoM remake has the most insufferable VA work I've ever heard and I don't trust Squeenix not to fuck the ToM remake up in a similar fashion.

I well and truly wanted to pick up the collection as soon as I saw the announcement, but I'm exercising patience in springing for the physical version. It's a tough wait.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Not sure about the specifics of the collection, but the individual games are all excellent, obviously, aged but great little action RPGs. I would say compared to Chrono Trigger there is somewhat more focus on combat.

Trials of Mana was unique for it's time since you pick a main character and two party members from 6 possible characters, and each character has class upgrades which makes for a bunch of different possible party builds. Each character has a beginning story and there are 3 possible endgames based on who your main character is.

Should I get the digital version or wait two months for the physical?

 

[Pargon]

I well and truly wanted to pick up the collection as soon as I saw the announcement, but I'm exercising patience in springing for the physical version. It's a tough wait.

Yeah, two months is a long time especially if you're a sperg like me who jumped in emulation about eight decades too late and could never find a ROM. I've been waiting for SD3 for 24 years and that was long enough.

(If storage is an issue btw it doesn't seem like the title is very large - it comes with a sound test for all three games and I'm not sure if they pull from the game files or if there's a separate set. The download did seem like it took a bit longer than you'd think for one GB and two SNES ROMs.)

The game plays great and loading it for the first time honestly made me feel like a kid again. I was in grade school when SoM dropped and it was both my first pre-order and the first game I bought with my own money. Yesterday was a good day.

@jellycar see above. HTH.

 

[Mike Hunt]

Yeah, two months is a long time especially if you're a sperg like me who jumped in emulation about eight decades too late and could never find a ROM. I've been waiting for SD3 for 24 years and that was long enough.

(If storage is an issue btw it doesn't seem like the title is very large - it comes with a sound test for all three games and I'm not sure if they pull from the game files or if there's a separate set. The download did seem like it took a bit longer than you'd think for one GB and two SNES ROMs.)

The game plays great and loading it for the first time honestly made me feel like a kid again. I was in grade school when SoM dropped and it was both my first pre-order and the first game I bought with my own money. Yesterday was a good day.

@jellycar see above. HTH.

It's not a concern about the space, it's really more so I can introduce the game to my nephews who are getting into gaming now. I want to at least show them a world beyond Fortnite and Smash, LOL.

I perfectly understand your emulation journey. I played SoM then got bummed that SD3 never made it outside Japan. I remember making do with a patched ROM when I found out about emulation, but whose translation I can't really say if it's accurate or not. It had English menus and stuff, though, so I was able to play that. Good to hear about the collection playing well, I appreciate the feedback.

 

[Cubanodun]

I have a suspicion a remaster of the original game might be coming down the line. MS/Rare could use the extra marketing boost from the nostalgia trip and channel it into sales.

Amazon listed Banjoo Kazooie for Switch so maybe a remaster is on its way

 

[Nisse Hult]

I just realized I wasted time watching the AMD event when I could've just watched this digest version.

 

[Revo]

Can i declare that todd howard is a lolcow at this moment?

 

[Marissa Moira]

I definitely want that mana game collection. I picked up the physical edition of the SOM remake, while it was clearly made on a budget the only annoying things were that the enemies take far too long to despawn and the rare drops were a pain in the ass to farm for.

I'll wait for the physical for the collection and trials. With the Final Fantasy 7 remake square is really on a roll.

 

[Zaryiu]

The sad part (or hilarious, depending on your point of view) is that Game Freak immediately destroyed any and all hype for Sword and Shield with the Treehouse thing, by announcing that you can't transfer Pokémon from older games using Home if they're not on the Galar Dex.

I know i have stopped playing since the time of X/Y but still FUCK THEM IN THE EYE