The Gaming Gamma

For full disclosure, I personally put $15 into the game’s kickstarter which was the amount needed to get the game.

Developer: Wayforward

Publisher: Wayforward

ESRB Rating:T

Release Date: December 20th, 2016

Platforms: PC, PS4, *PSV, X1, & Wii U

*Version played

Kickstarter is an interesting place. You’re essentially giving money to funds someone else’s idea. Shantae, however, isn’t a new idea at all. She has been around since 2002, with her second game releasing in 2010. In between 2012 and 2013, Wayforward even announced the third and fourth entry in the franchise. One of which was a kickstarter that received about double its initial funding goal. It’s been three years since that kickstarter, but Shantae: Half-Genie Hero is finally out. This fourth entry serves as a sequel, as well as a small reboot for the franchise. As the title suggests, the game is about a half-genie named Shantae. Shantae lives and watches over Scuttle Town as its guardian. The story here is that the genie world is in trouble, and it’s up to Shantae to save it from its impending doom- all while helping her uncle build his newest invention: the Dynamo; a machine that will keep all monsters and pirates at bay. As usual in Shantae, the plot more or less takes a back seat, and the game is filled with witty dialogue, and a few jokes that break the fourth wall.

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This morning SEGA has announced that  the entire new series branch in the Valkyria Chronicles series, Valkyria Revolution will be heading to the west on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PlayStation Vita (Digital Only) in the first half of next year.

 The Valkyria, the embodiment of death is returning to the battlefield in Valkyria Revolution and players will have to do – and sacrifice – whatever is necessary to seek out their vengeance. Previously reported as “Valkyria: Azure Revolution,” the newly titled Valkyria Revolution will release in the west both physically and digitally for the PlayStation®4 and Xbox One™, and as a digital-only title for the PlayStation®Vita. Valkyria Revolution is also in a sense a revolution from the traditional Valkyria Chronicles universe, as it’s set in an alternate timeline based on the European industrialization era and eschews the traditional turn-based strategy gameplay for a new hybrid of real-time combat and tactical strategy across battlefields. Valkyria Revolution will be available in Q2 of 2017.

All it takes is a single spark to start the inferno of war, and in the story of Valkyria Revolution, players will experience that firsthand. Five lifelong friends consumed by personal revenge plunge an entire continent into a terrible war, sacrificing the lives of countless innocents for a cause based on twisted half-truths and outright lies. This “Circle of Five” use their combined influence in their political and military positions to motivate their small, economically blockaded homeland to rise up and become a powerful resistance against its imperialist oppressors. Will the Circle of Five be remembered as heroic liberators, or will their selfish motives expose them as traitorous conspirators who sacrificed untold lives just to carry out a personal vendetta? Players will watch this history unfold in Valkyria Revolution and find out the truth behind the events…

Valkyria Revolution Features:

• A Brush with Death – Turning the tide of battle in Valkyria Revolution is Brunhilde, one of the last of the ancient and powerful Valkyrur, magical beings with near limitless power. She’s bound by oath to the enemy forces and players will have to figure out how to defeat her.
• Prepare for LeGION – Valkyria Revolution has a brand new battle system that mixes real-time combat and tactical strategy. Players can take control of the battlefield using brazen combos or cunning tactics and finding a balance between them is the key to excelling in skirmishes.
• The Ingenuity of War – Through adversity comes great engineering, and with a besieged homeland, players will have upgrade their existing weapons through branching customization paths.
• A New Painterly Look – Valkyria Revolution has a refined look thanks to the new Gouache rendering engine, giving the graphics a unique canvas texture.
• Classic Composer – Valkyria Revolution has a vibrant soundtrack brought to life by the incredibly talented composer Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger, Stella Glow)

Now it should be noted that in Japan the game was actually called Valkyria Chronicles Azure Revoltion, but the Azure title was dropped from the western release. SEGA explains this reason as follows:

1) The way the first Valkyria title was localized had a really nice ring to it: Senjou no Varukyuria (lit. Valkryia of the Battlefield) became Valkyria Chronicles. When faced with Aoki Kakumei no Varukyuria (lit. Valkyria of the Blue Revolution), a literal translation was unwieldy, and difficult from a graphic design standpoint as well, and adding in extra punctuation (e.g. Valkyria: Azure Revolution) didn’t help either. So we stuck to a similar cadence of the first Valkyria title and went with a two-word title. Plus:

2) Given how vastly different the two games are (Revolution drops the turn-based gameplay, takes place in a different time period, different world, different almost everything), the new name helps to ensure the two titles stood equal but apart from each other.

Boxshot Wizard file used for creating global boxshots

Due to technical limitations of the Wii U, Playtonic Games has announced this morning that the Wii U version of Yooka Laylee is being canceled. However, never fret Nintendo fans, as Playtonic games is making the switch to the well, Switch! Yooka Laylee will now be released on PS4/Switch/XBO and PC. With the PS4/XBO/PC versions releasing on April 11th. This is what Playtonic games had to say to backers regarding this situation:

The Playtonic team is sad to confirm that despite our best efforts and exploring every possible avenue, we’ve encountered unforeseen technical issues that unfortunately mean it will be impossible for us to release the game on Wii U as initially planned.

We can however confirm the exciting news that we are now working very closely with Nintendo to look to bring Yooka-Laylee to the upcoming Nintendo Switch. We’re looking forward to exploring the opportunity and will have more details to share early next year.

We’d like to apologise to those affected by this development and offer all Wii U backers the opportunity to move their pledge free-of-charge to any of the versions launching on April 11th (PS4, Xbox One, PC, Mac or Linux) or upgrade to the Nintendo Switch version when we announce further details in 2017.

-Playtonic Games

So Wii U backers can either change their pledges to other platforms, or await for more updates on the Switch version to make the full switch.

Yooka Laylee so far looks really amazing, and I am glad that even though the Wii U version was having technical problems that Playtonic Games was able to have a back up plan to still bring this game to Nintendo fans to enjoy.

In the mean time, check out the latest trailer for the game!

This morning Koei Tecmo dropped a surprise announcement that two of their PS4 Gust games will be making their way to Steam next year.

It’s is very interesting to see Koei Tecmo making the jump to PC with these games. Hopefully Koei Tecmo will do these ports justice and we can have two amazing PC ports of these good games. Let’s also hope that this could lead to future PC ports of other Atelier games in the future. Atelier Sophie and Nights of Azure launch on Steam on February 17th, 2017.

Developer: Examu

Publisher:  XSEED Games

ESRB Rating: T

Release Date: (PC) December 8th, 2016

A review copy was provided by XSEED Games, thank you.

Today we’re taking some time to take a look at Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel developed by Examu, which has just made its way to PC. Will this port of the fighting game which uses visual novel characters and the like be able to hold itself up on this platform, like it has in the arcades and on console? Let’s see!

Nitroplus follows some traditions set in place by previous powerhouses in the genre with fast-paced gameplay, double jumps, assist characters, and air dashing, all mixed in to the fray. The button layout is the more unique five button type, which includes: Weak, Medium, Strong, Escape, and even a Heavy Action button. Weak, medium, and strong are your standard normal moves; Heavy Action (HA) is similar to a blow back action when standing, while crouching HA is turned into a sweeping move that will knock down the other player, immediately. Doing HA while in the air causes the same effect; while holding HA will turn it into a guard-crush move. The escape move is simply a dodge-rollー similar to that in King of Fighters, and follows the same properties as well. This move can also be done in the air, and is often used as a blitz option during combos or for applying pressure on an opponent.  So much more could be said about the buttons and what they do, but as most fighting games go: it’s all about discovery, and what can be done with those tools.

Before we head into the meat of the game (the gameplay,) let’s cover what modes there are to the game. We have your standard arcade-mode-Story mode involving beating a set amount of fighters and then fighting the final boss (with cut scenes, of course.) After completing this story mode once, we then unlock “Another Story”ーwhich is a continuation of the story offered in arcade mode. Next up is Versus, your standard, local play mode; Score Attack mode, where you take place in  continuous fights to make your score the best on the leaderboard and Training, where you can brush up on practicing your most damage dealing combos and more! Visiting the Gallery allows you to view the art and cut scenes from Story and Another Story mode. Option mode lets you adjust the audio, window options, keyboard and controller key settings, and in-game settings such as rounds, time limit, and CPU level. Lastly, we’re going to go over one of the more important modes: Network mode. What we have here is like all other online modes: a ranked, casual lobby search mode; replay options; a leaderboard. The netcode of the game felt on par to that of Ultra Street Fighter 4, when a stable green connection is made between two players. In other words: the game only has about 4-6 frames of input lag, which, on average, is very minimal in terms of impacting online matches

Setting all this aside, it’s finally time to look at the gameplay of Nitroplus. During character select there are 14 playable characters, ranging from all sorts of different visual novels and similar IPs. A few worth noting being Saya from Saya no Uta, and Aino Heart from the “Arcana Heart” series. There are plenty more, of course. Once your character is selected, you then need to choose two assist characters from a roster of 19 different options, with each one again from a series or title connected to the Japanese publisher in some way. While in game, you have the standard health bar and super gauge, although it is broken into three separate bars. This is a bit unusual, but not unheard of. Apart from the usual, you also have your assist gauges, which charge over time to become available. Once a round is over, said gauges deplete back to zero in time for the following round. One of the more interesting mechanics to Nitroplus is the Infinite Blast move, which works similar to that of the burst from “Guilty Gear” with additional properties. To quickly go over what Infinite Blast does: when activated it’ll regenerate health over time, gain more to the super gauge, and cancel special moves into escape actions. On the flipside, it can only work once per round.

Overall, Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel is another one of a kind fighting game brought over to the PC. Although one of the more niche fighting games using primarily characters from visual novels, there is no doubt it’ll make an even greater impact now that it’s accessible to the PC fighting-game crowd, and market.

My verdict for Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel is:

7/10

Pros:

-Phenomenal/Solid gameplay

-Varying archetypes of playable characters

-Very solid netcode

Cons:

-Less than average roster size