I would like to say that turning Fullmetal Alchemist into a video game makes more sense than turning Miraculous Ladybug into a video game. One of the reasons why is because the former franchise is already part of OTL Square Enix's catalog of franchises, but it's possibly the only mainstream anime/manga hit that they own. So, why not make it a video game like it's OTL brethren? At least, that's how I feel about it.
Battle Royale: The Last Generation Of An SNES-CD Saga
- Thread starter RySenkari
- Start date
Fall 2015 (Part 8) - A Triumphant Finale Amidst Troubled Waters
Call Of Duty: Nightfall III
Call Of Duty: Nightfall III is a first person military based shooter published by Activision. It's the third and final game in the Nightfall trilogy, concluding the story of the soldier Craig Bone and his Nightfall Squad as they attempt to keep peace in the world and fight for American interests. Like its predecessors, it's based around nighttime combat, and while it has a slight stealth focus, it's much more of a traditional shooter than previous games in the series, taking some gameplay elements from the recent Advanced Warfare (though its weapons, storylines, and combat are all focused on the present day). It continues the accessibility of the last two Call Of Duty games, with a slightly easier campaign intended to make the game more attractive to FPS novices, and its multiplayer mode is also focused around making the game appealing to as many players as possible, though it still rewards skill and does have a learning curve allowing the best of the best players to enjoy extremely fun and competitive games. Perks return from Nightfall II, though the Know Your Squad feature has been removed, as Bone operates by himself much more often now, and squad-based gameplay has been reduced from the last two titles. In lieu of this feature, enemy and ally AI has been significantly improved, making for more realistic combat scenarios in which the player will be rewarded for more accurately predicting the enemy's next actions. It's now possible to set traps for enemies, and enemies can also set traps for you, though there are plenty of ways to avoid them once players know what they're doing. There's more of a cinematic focus during the game's campaign, and it's possible to interact with certain cutscenes, while combat itself also introduces cinematic moments in which the player can score crucial headshots and environmental kills by watching things more carefully. Camouflage and cover, while not emphasized to the degree that they were in the previous Nightfall games, do remain important elements of combat to an extent, and their importance in multiplayer has increased as well. The player also has more options for non-lethal takedowns and enemy distractions, which can alter how certain firefights play out. Things have a less staged, more organic feel, which is quite an accomplishment considering the degree of cinematic moments that happen in the game. Nightfall III, like its predecessors, doesn't have that much of a star studded voice cast, though there are some notable actors in certain roles. Sigourney Weaver returns to reprise her role as disgraced general Lana Strong, and Jack Black returns as Stingray Huntington. New actors include Seychelle Gabriel as the young whistleblowing reporter Anaya, Jonathan Banks as Senator Winthrop, and Robert Carlyle as the game's primary antagonist, a power-hungry information broker named Courdon who orchestrated much of the events of the first two games and who now seeks to take advantage of the scandals gripping Western countries to crush their economies and plunge the world into an economic depression that he and his clients will be able to profit from.
Call Of Duty: Nightfall III's campaign begins with the revelation that the actions that Lana Strong took to protect Vint in the previous game were exposed, severely harming America's international credibility and provoking numerous terrorist attacks and hostile invasions worldwide. As Bone's Nightfall Squad works to put out the fires, and his group is subject to investigation by Senator Winthrop, Bone himself is tasked with hunting down the person who leaked the information. He eventually leans that the leaker is a young woman named Anaya, who leaked the information with good intentions, believing that the corruption in the military was damaging to the country's long term prospects, and also having a personal stake in the issue, as her older brother, a heroic soldier, was killed primarily as a result of Winter Moon's activities, which were a direct result of Strong's protection of Vint. Meanwhile, the chaos is seized upon by Courdon, who deploys a private team of mercenaries to interfere in a Middle Eastern border dispute. When Bone's Nightfall Squad arrives, Courdon's team ambushes them, leading to many deaths, and leading to Bone and a few surviving soldiers eventually being forced to retreat. Bone meets with Strong, who tells him that in order to secure the peace, Anaya has to die, as her continued leaking of information is inflaming the wars tearing through the world. However, Bone is ultimately forced to rescue Anaya after one of Courdon's assassins tries to kill her, and the two actually work together for a while, with Bone learning that Anaya has stumbled onto a far greater crime taking place within the military. Bone knows that he has to get this information to Senator Winthrop, and knows that Anaya's work might actually help to stop the wars rather than inflaming them. However, Bone remains conflicted about Anaya, and eventually learns something that makes him realize that she might have to be killed after all. After a harrowing series of missions in which Bone and Anaya actually bond somewhat with each other, and Bone comes to understand that her intentions are entirely good, he finds himself increasingly torn, but ultimately, the two reach a quiet area, and Bone is eventually forced to execute Anaya. This is an extremely harrowing scene in which Anaya realizes she's going to be killed and that there's nothing she can do to stop Bone, and the player is actually forced to carry out the execution. Executing Anaya does put a brief halt to Courdon's plans, and allows the Nightfall Squad to stop a devastating cyber attack that would have crushed nearly every Western economy, but Bone still knows that killing her was wrong and that there probably was another way to stop the attack without doing so. Sometime later, General Strong is also killed in an attack by Courdon's squad in which Bone manages to stop most of them, but is too late to keep them from killing his old commanding officer. Bone begins working together with Senator Winthrop, and volunteers to go after Courdon with a small team. In doing so, Bone ends up being forced to commit a war crime that there will eventually be consequences for. Bone confronts Courdon and fights through the last of his assassins, before a cutscene plays out in which Bone kills Courdon by kicking him off the roof of a skyscraper. This ends the threat to the world, and America's prestige is mostly restored, but at a heavy cost. Bone and his squadmates are forced to come clean for all their crimes, and Bone is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the execution of an American citizen (Anaya) and numerous war crimes committed abroad. Though Bone knows that his actions were ultimately necessary to prevent chaos and devastation, he also knows that they wouldn't have been necessary if not for the mistakes and compromises he and his squad made before, and knows that he deserves his punishment. The series ends on a somber message that soldiers must serve their nation with integrity, and that actions always have consequences, even if it takes a long time for those consequences to manifest.
Call Of Duty: Nightfall III is released in November 2015, to excellent critical reviews and enormous fanfare and hype, due to the success of the series' first two games. Despite the fact that it's only being released for the current gen systems (while Nightfall II came out on the Sapphire and iTwin along with the Reality/Nexus/Virtua), it manages to sell even more copies in its first week, 25 million in all, than Nightfall II, making it the fastest selling Call Of Duty game ever, and nearly breaking Grand Theft Auto III's record to become the fastest selling video game of all time. It majorly pushes sales of all three current-gen consoles as well, and is a big driver of Oculus sales for the Virtua, as the game works great and looks beautiful in full VR. The game also generates a great deal of controversy, both due to its storyline centered on an extremely morally ambiguous protagonist who commits several war crimes over the course of the game along with the execution of a young woman, and due to the increasingly toxic environment around FPS games as a whole during this period. The game's release is essentially the peak of the Call Of Duty franchise in terms of hype, sales, and fandom, and during this time, a number of stories about toxic players and Activision's worker crunch would emerge. While most players would ignore these stories, they would rip through the gaming community at large during this time, becoming an even bigger gaming story than Satoru Iwata's death and the release of VR accessories for the Virtua/Nexus. "Did you play Call Of Duty: Nightfall III?" would become a question that would be quite inflammatory in the latter part of 2015, and though most of the controversy and debates would die down in the beginning of 2016, it would certainly shape the rhetoric around Call Of Duty, and Activision as a whole going forward (the Activision controversies would also be compounded by the rampant DLC in Thrillseekers 3).
Call Of Duty: Nightfall III is a first person military based shooter published by Activision. It's the third and final game in the Nightfall trilogy, concluding the story of the soldier Craig Bone and his Nightfall Squad as they attempt to keep peace in the world and fight for American interests. Like its predecessors, it's based around nighttime combat, and while it has a slight stealth focus, it's much more of a traditional shooter than previous games in the series, taking some gameplay elements from the recent Advanced Warfare (though its weapons, storylines, and combat are all focused on the present day). It continues the accessibility of the last two Call Of Duty games, with a slightly easier campaign intended to make the game more attractive to FPS novices, and its multiplayer mode is also focused around making the game appealing to as many players as possible, though it still rewards skill and does have a learning curve allowing the best of the best players to enjoy extremely fun and competitive games. Perks return from Nightfall II, though the Know Your Squad feature has been removed, as Bone operates by himself much more often now, and squad-based gameplay has been reduced from the last two titles. In lieu of this feature, enemy and ally AI has been significantly improved, making for more realistic combat scenarios in which the player will be rewarded for more accurately predicting the enemy's next actions. It's now possible to set traps for enemies, and enemies can also set traps for you, though there are plenty of ways to avoid them once players know what they're doing. There's more of a cinematic focus during the game's campaign, and it's possible to interact with certain cutscenes, while combat itself also introduces cinematic moments in which the player can score crucial headshots and environmental kills by watching things more carefully. Camouflage and cover, while not emphasized to the degree that they were in the previous Nightfall games, do remain important elements of combat to an extent, and their importance in multiplayer has increased as well. The player also has more options for non-lethal takedowns and enemy distractions, which can alter how certain firefights play out. Things have a less staged, more organic feel, which is quite an accomplishment considering the degree of cinematic moments that happen in the game. Nightfall III, like its predecessors, doesn't have that much of a star studded voice cast, though there are some notable actors in certain roles. Sigourney Weaver returns to reprise her role as disgraced general Lana Strong, and Jack Black returns as Stingray Huntington. New actors include Seychelle Gabriel as the young whistleblowing reporter Anaya, Jonathan Banks as Senator Winthrop, and Robert Carlyle as the game's primary antagonist, a power-hungry information broker named Courdon who orchestrated much of the events of the first two games and who now seeks to take advantage of the scandals gripping Western countries to crush their economies and plunge the world into an economic depression that he and his clients will be able to profit from.
Call Of Duty: Nightfall III's campaign begins with the revelation that the actions that Lana Strong took to protect Vint in the previous game were exposed, severely harming America's international credibility and provoking numerous terrorist attacks and hostile invasions worldwide. As Bone's Nightfall Squad works to put out the fires, and his group is subject to investigation by Senator Winthrop, Bone himself is tasked with hunting down the person who leaked the information. He eventually leans that the leaker is a young woman named Anaya, who leaked the information with good intentions, believing that the corruption in the military was damaging to the country's long term prospects, and also having a personal stake in the issue, as her older brother, a heroic soldier, was killed primarily as a result of Winter Moon's activities, which were a direct result of Strong's protection of Vint. Meanwhile, the chaos is seized upon by Courdon, who deploys a private team of mercenaries to interfere in a Middle Eastern border dispute. When Bone's Nightfall Squad arrives, Courdon's team ambushes them, leading to many deaths, and leading to Bone and a few surviving soldiers eventually being forced to retreat. Bone meets with Strong, who tells him that in order to secure the peace, Anaya has to die, as her continued leaking of information is inflaming the wars tearing through the world. However, Bone is ultimately forced to rescue Anaya after one of Courdon's assassins tries to kill her, and the two actually work together for a while, with Bone learning that Anaya has stumbled onto a far greater crime taking place within the military. Bone knows that he has to get this information to Senator Winthrop, and knows that Anaya's work might actually help to stop the wars rather than inflaming them. However, Bone remains conflicted about Anaya, and eventually learns something that makes him realize that she might have to be killed after all. After a harrowing series of missions in which Bone and Anaya actually bond somewhat with each other, and Bone comes to understand that her intentions are entirely good, he finds himself increasingly torn, but ultimately, the two reach a quiet area, and Bone is eventually forced to execute Anaya. This is an extremely harrowing scene in which Anaya realizes she's going to be killed and that there's nothing she can do to stop Bone, and the player is actually forced to carry out the execution. Executing Anaya does put a brief halt to Courdon's plans, and allows the Nightfall Squad to stop a devastating cyber attack that would have crushed nearly every Western economy, but Bone still knows that killing her was wrong and that there probably was another way to stop the attack without doing so. Sometime later, General Strong is also killed in an attack by Courdon's squad in which Bone manages to stop most of them, but is too late to keep them from killing his old commanding officer. Bone begins working together with Senator Winthrop, and volunteers to go after Courdon with a small team. In doing so, Bone ends up being forced to commit a war crime that there will eventually be consequences for. Bone confronts Courdon and fights through the last of his assassins, before a cutscene plays out in which Bone kills Courdon by kicking him off the roof of a skyscraper. This ends the threat to the world, and America's prestige is mostly restored, but at a heavy cost. Bone and his squadmates are forced to come clean for all their crimes, and Bone is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the execution of an American citizen (Anaya) and numerous war crimes committed abroad. Though Bone knows that his actions were ultimately necessary to prevent chaos and devastation, he also knows that they wouldn't have been necessary if not for the mistakes and compromises he and his squad made before, and knows that he deserves his punishment. The series ends on a somber message that soldiers must serve their nation with integrity, and that actions always have consequences, even if it takes a long time for those consequences to manifest.
Call Of Duty: Nightfall III is released in November 2015, to excellent critical reviews and enormous fanfare and hype, due to the success of the series' first two games. Despite the fact that it's only being released for the current gen systems (while Nightfall II came out on the Sapphire and iTwin along with the Reality/Nexus/Virtua), it manages to sell even more copies in its first week, 25 million in all, than Nightfall II, making it the fastest selling Call Of Duty game ever, and nearly breaking Grand Theft Auto III's record to become the fastest selling video game of all time. It majorly pushes sales of all three current-gen consoles as well, and is a big driver of Oculus sales for the Virtua, as the game works great and looks beautiful in full VR. The game also generates a great deal of controversy, both due to its storyline centered on an extremely morally ambiguous protagonist who commits several war crimes over the course of the game along with the execution of a young woman, and due to the increasingly toxic environment around FPS games as a whole during this period. The game's release is essentially the peak of the Call Of Duty franchise in terms of hype, sales, and fandom, and during this time, a number of stories about toxic players and Activision's worker crunch would emerge. While most players would ignore these stories, they would rip through the gaming community at large during this time, becoming an even bigger gaming story than Satoru Iwata's death and the release of VR accessories for the Virtua/Nexus. "Did you play Call Of Duty: Nightfall III?" would become a question that would be quite inflammatory in the latter part of 2015, and though most of the controversy and debates would die down in the beginning of 2016, it would certainly shape the rhetoric around Call Of Duty, and Activision as a whole going forward (the Activision controversies would also be compounded by the rampant DLC in Thrillseekers 3).
Fall 2015 (Part 9) - Beyond Good And Evil, Under New Management
Beyond Good And Evil 4
Beyond Good And Evil 4 is an action/adventure game published by Ubisoft. Though it takes place in the same universe as the 2000s trilogy, it also takes place in an entirely different galaxy, and features a brand new protagonist and updated gameplay. It also lacks the involvement of series creator Michel Ancel, who has been working on the Miraculous Ladybug series since concluding his work on Beyond Good And Evil 3. Beyond Good And Evil 4 takes place in a futuristic world ruled by a powerful corporation, and centers on protagonist Karume, who uses her camera to investigate and document this corporation's misdeeds, which draws her into a web of espionage and intrigue. She's a bit more rebellious and immature than Jade, and she's also a lone wolf, not having any friends to help her or people to protect (at least at first). She also fights with her fists instead of with a staff, though she'll learn a whole repertoire of moves over the course of the game. Beyond Good And Evil 4, while having some gameplay similarities with the original trilogy, actually has more in common with the modern Ubisoft games of OTL: a large open world with lots of waypoints and objectives, including large towers to climb in order to open up sections of the map. This template actually hasn't become the Ubisoft standard as of yet ITTL, so it's actually a fairly innovative approach as of TTL's 2015 (though it does remind many players of Miraculous Ladybug, which also has some similarities with that formula, but which has a lot more mission variety). Karume can go around completing storyline missions, but she can also just wander around collecting things, documenting various events with her camera, and completing lots and lots of side missions for various people, which helps her upgrade her stats, skill tree, and move pool. It also unlocks journal entries, which chronicle much of the game's backstory. Karume is more agile than Jade (though she lacks the special powers that Jade would acquire over the course of the previous trilogy), and she's able to clamber up buildings and get the jump on people in ways that Jade couldn't. Karume can earn money by doing various odd jobs over the course of the game, and can use that money to buy equipment and skills. She can also gain "clout" by taking photographs of certain things, and this can be used to access missions and certain areas that she otherwise wouldn't be able to access. There's plenty to do in Beyond Good And Evil 4, and with three large cities that Karume will visit over the course of the game, there's a wide variety of missions and environments at the player's disposal. The game features some of the best graphics in an Ubisoft title to date, with the company really wanting to push this as a major tentpole game, giving everything a polished and detailed look while sticking true to the original series' stylized graphics. The game's voiceover dubbing takes place in Toronto, Canada rather than in Paris/Los Angeles like the original trilogy, and so most of the voice cast is Canadian, including Karume's voice actress, Ana Sani, in her first major voiceover role ITTL.
Beyond Good And Evil 4 starts out in the city of Neoris, which is largely ruled over by the Saber Corporation. Most people in Neoris work for the corporation in one way or another, though in mostly menial roles that essentially tie them to the company in a serflike capacity. It's a crime to be unemployed in Neoris, and that's what Karume is, making her a fugitive as she takes pictures and chronicles the crimes committed by Saber. She spends much of the first third of the game building contacts in the Neoris underground, and eventually winds up tasked with breaking someone out of the bowels of Saber HQ. That someone turns out to be a Skyraider named Lanny, who ended up heavily in debt to Saber after becoming addicted to their products. The Skyraiders are a group of mercenaries who perform sabotage against Saber and other corporations, and through Lanny, Karume gets into contact with the offworlder Lynda, who has a job for her on the distant moon of Mydel. Once Karume reaches Mydel, which is also mostly controlled by Saber, but also being fought for by the rival corporation Rifle, Lynda asks Karume to steal an artifact for her from Saber's research facility on the planet. She ends up partnering with Lanny for this mission (the handsome Lanny soon becomes a love interest for Karume, though she's reluctant to admit it). However, at this research facility, Karume discovers that Saber has been cloning people, and that she herself might actually be a clone of an ancient princess from a lost civilization, a civilization that built a powerful ancient war weapon that Saber and other corporations have been trying to obtain. The artifact that Lynda wants is a piece of this weapon, and Lynda herself is eventually revealed as one of the last survivors of this ancient civilization, who knows the story of the princess that Karume is cloned from. Lynda, Saber, and Rifle, all try to capture Karume, but she escapes with Lanny's help, and the two end up stranded on the port world of Wusha, a somewhat poor city home to all kinds of miscreants and outcasts. After a few more missions here, Karume regains access to Neoris and Mydel, kicking off the last 25 percent or so of the main campaign, in which Karume must find this ancient weapon and destroy it before anyone can gain control of it. This ancient weapon is being assembled above Neoris' planet, and after disabling a series of barrier shields, Karume is able to access the weapon, where the last part of the game takes place. She finds an old holotape file of the princess that she was cloned from, and learns that the princess died attempting to use the weapon to free her people. Karume ends up battling her way to the core of the weapon. Before then, she confronts Lynda, who apologizes for trying to use her and tearfully sacrifices herself to allow Karume to confront the leader of Saber, who is himself a clone of the ancient king of the lost civilization, thus making him, in a way, Karume's father. He implores Karume to help him use the weapon to claim all the universe for Saber, but Karume refuses, battling and defeating him. She then reluctantly takes control of the weapon and uses it to defeat Saber's remaining forces, though this causes the weapon to end up on a crash course for Neoris. It seems that Karume will sacrifice herself to prevent the weapon from hitting the city, but at the last moment, Lanny helps her steer the weapon away and escape, and Karume ends up back in Neoris, which has freed itself from Saber's oppression. There's still some mysteries to be solved and work to be done, but for now, the city is at peace, and the people are free, while Karume and Lanny work together to fight oppression and document injustice.
Beyond Good And Evil 4 is released in November 2015, and is the first game in the series to launch as a multiplatformer. The original trilogy got a successful multiplatform re-release for the next generation consoles earlier in the year, and was a decent sales success, raising the profile of this fourth game. However, critical reception is somewhat mixed: Karume isn't as popular a protagonist as Jade, and the game itself lacks the epic feel of the original trilogy. In addition, the game design itself is criticized, for bogging down the player with optional objectives that don't really mean anything, drawing the same criticisms as Ubisoft's OTL open world titles. The game is also unfavorably compared to Miraculous Ladybug, with many players saying it lacks the heart of that game and its characters and plot aren't as compelling. The game does get praise for the combat and graphics, and is overall quite fun to play, but it's just not as revolutionary or as fun as its predecessors, and reviews average in the 8/10 range. Sales are also slightly disappointing: the game was expected to be one of 2015's biggest hit games, but ends up falling somewhat short of sales expectations (though it still sells millions of copies). Without Michel Ancel, the series lacks the heart and soul of the original games, and Ubisoft is left somewhat baffled about what to do next. However, the game did end fairly conclusively (leaving a few plot threads open for the sequel, particularly the mystery of why there are so many clones), and so it doesn't need a sequel, not immediately. It would be a while before another game in the series would be made, but the series' legacy remains intact thanks to the original trilogy's excellent reception (the re-release of which would sell more copies than Beyond Good And Evil 4). The disappointment of Beyond Good And Evil 4 does expose some problems at Ubisoft that would begin to surface even more down the road, though it would take a few more years for those problems to manifest fully.
Beyond Good And Evil 4 is an action/adventure game published by Ubisoft. Though it takes place in the same universe as the 2000s trilogy, it also takes place in an entirely different galaxy, and features a brand new protagonist and updated gameplay. It also lacks the involvement of series creator Michel Ancel, who has been working on the Miraculous Ladybug series since concluding his work on Beyond Good And Evil 3. Beyond Good And Evil 4 takes place in a futuristic world ruled by a powerful corporation, and centers on protagonist Karume, who uses her camera to investigate and document this corporation's misdeeds, which draws her into a web of espionage and intrigue. She's a bit more rebellious and immature than Jade, and she's also a lone wolf, not having any friends to help her or people to protect (at least at first). She also fights with her fists instead of with a staff, though she'll learn a whole repertoire of moves over the course of the game. Beyond Good And Evil 4, while having some gameplay similarities with the original trilogy, actually has more in common with the modern Ubisoft games of OTL: a large open world with lots of waypoints and objectives, including large towers to climb in order to open up sections of the map. This template actually hasn't become the Ubisoft standard as of yet ITTL, so it's actually a fairly innovative approach as of TTL's 2015 (though it does remind many players of Miraculous Ladybug, which also has some similarities with that formula, but which has a lot more mission variety). Karume can go around completing storyline missions, but she can also just wander around collecting things, documenting various events with her camera, and completing lots and lots of side missions for various people, which helps her upgrade her stats, skill tree, and move pool. It also unlocks journal entries, which chronicle much of the game's backstory. Karume is more agile than Jade (though she lacks the special powers that Jade would acquire over the course of the previous trilogy), and she's able to clamber up buildings and get the jump on people in ways that Jade couldn't. Karume can earn money by doing various odd jobs over the course of the game, and can use that money to buy equipment and skills. She can also gain "clout" by taking photographs of certain things, and this can be used to access missions and certain areas that she otherwise wouldn't be able to access. There's plenty to do in Beyond Good And Evil 4, and with three large cities that Karume will visit over the course of the game, there's a wide variety of missions and environments at the player's disposal. The game features some of the best graphics in an Ubisoft title to date, with the company really wanting to push this as a major tentpole game, giving everything a polished and detailed look while sticking true to the original series' stylized graphics. The game's voiceover dubbing takes place in Toronto, Canada rather than in Paris/Los Angeles like the original trilogy, and so most of the voice cast is Canadian, including Karume's voice actress, Ana Sani, in her first major voiceover role ITTL.
Beyond Good And Evil 4 starts out in the city of Neoris, which is largely ruled over by the Saber Corporation. Most people in Neoris work for the corporation in one way or another, though in mostly menial roles that essentially tie them to the company in a serflike capacity. It's a crime to be unemployed in Neoris, and that's what Karume is, making her a fugitive as she takes pictures and chronicles the crimes committed by Saber. She spends much of the first third of the game building contacts in the Neoris underground, and eventually winds up tasked with breaking someone out of the bowels of Saber HQ. That someone turns out to be a Skyraider named Lanny, who ended up heavily in debt to Saber after becoming addicted to their products. The Skyraiders are a group of mercenaries who perform sabotage against Saber and other corporations, and through Lanny, Karume gets into contact with the offworlder Lynda, who has a job for her on the distant moon of Mydel. Once Karume reaches Mydel, which is also mostly controlled by Saber, but also being fought for by the rival corporation Rifle, Lynda asks Karume to steal an artifact for her from Saber's research facility on the planet. She ends up partnering with Lanny for this mission (the handsome Lanny soon becomes a love interest for Karume, though she's reluctant to admit it). However, at this research facility, Karume discovers that Saber has been cloning people, and that she herself might actually be a clone of an ancient princess from a lost civilization, a civilization that built a powerful ancient war weapon that Saber and other corporations have been trying to obtain. The artifact that Lynda wants is a piece of this weapon, and Lynda herself is eventually revealed as one of the last survivors of this ancient civilization, who knows the story of the princess that Karume is cloned from. Lynda, Saber, and Rifle, all try to capture Karume, but she escapes with Lanny's help, and the two end up stranded on the port world of Wusha, a somewhat poor city home to all kinds of miscreants and outcasts. After a few more missions here, Karume regains access to Neoris and Mydel, kicking off the last 25 percent or so of the main campaign, in which Karume must find this ancient weapon and destroy it before anyone can gain control of it. This ancient weapon is being assembled above Neoris' planet, and after disabling a series of barrier shields, Karume is able to access the weapon, where the last part of the game takes place. She finds an old holotape file of the princess that she was cloned from, and learns that the princess died attempting to use the weapon to free her people. Karume ends up battling her way to the core of the weapon. Before then, she confronts Lynda, who apologizes for trying to use her and tearfully sacrifices herself to allow Karume to confront the leader of Saber, who is himself a clone of the ancient king of the lost civilization, thus making him, in a way, Karume's father. He implores Karume to help him use the weapon to claim all the universe for Saber, but Karume refuses, battling and defeating him. She then reluctantly takes control of the weapon and uses it to defeat Saber's remaining forces, though this causes the weapon to end up on a crash course for Neoris. It seems that Karume will sacrifice herself to prevent the weapon from hitting the city, but at the last moment, Lanny helps her steer the weapon away and escape, and Karume ends up back in Neoris, which has freed itself from Saber's oppression. There's still some mysteries to be solved and work to be done, but for now, the city is at peace, and the people are free, while Karume and Lanny work together to fight oppression and document injustice.
Beyond Good And Evil 4 is released in November 2015, and is the first game in the series to launch as a multiplatformer. The original trilogy got a successful multiplatform re-release for the next generation consoles earlier in the year, and was a decent sales success, raising the profile of this fourth game. However, critical reception is somewhat mixed: Karume isn't as popular a protagonist as Jade, and the game itself lacks the epic feel of the original trilogy. In addition, the game design itself is criticized, for bogging down the player with optional objectives that don't really mean anything, drawing the same criticisms as Ubisoft's OTL open world titles. The game is also unfavorably compared to Miraculous Ladybug, with many players saying it lacks the heart of that game and its characters and plot aren't as compelling. The game does get praise for the combat and graphics, and is overall quite fun to play, but it's just not as revolutionary or as fun as its predecessors, and reviews average in the 8/10 range. Sales are also slightly disappointing: the game was expected to be one of 2015's biggest hit games, but ends up falling somewhat short of sales expectations (though it still sells millions of copies). Without Michel Ancel, the series lacks the heart and soul of the original games, and Ubisoft is left somewhat baffled about what to do next. However, the game did end fairly conclusively (leaving a few plot threads open for the sequel, particularly the mystery of why there are so many clones), and so it doesn't need a sequel, not immediately. It would be a while before another game in the series would be made, but the series' legacy remains intact thanks to the original trilogy's excellent reception (the re-release of which would sell more copies than Beyond Good And Evil 4). The disappointment of Beyond Good And Evil 4 does expose some problems at Ubisoft that would begin to surface even more down the road, though it would take a few more years for those problems to manifest fully.
Yes, but also no. The 2015 year in review update is coming next week, so it'll be a good way to see how people view 2015 in gaming.
Lots of good games, but has there really been one that stands out just yet? Selene 3 is probably the year's last chance at a game like that, so we'll see.
Almost feels like OTL's 2012 Wild Card game. Manziel seems a bit more controlled with Manning, injured or not, as a mentor. Seems like a fun game to go forward with as a Saints fan, exciting to the end.
And much like OTL's Broncos v. Patriots divisional, reality sets in as the team collapses. However, this would be a great point to introduce new talent, especially in establishing a defense, and some pieces for offense to help Manning and Manziel.
Such a bittersweet moment, and so sad. And all for an OC. Great post, if tragic.
It makes some sense to me. Johnny Football IOTL went into the league in a "baptism by fire" sense to the Cleveland Browns and flamed out quickly with no support structure, no solid offensive pieces or line, and not even a solid coach.
Here, he has Manning (injured or not) as a mentor to look to and a coach (which, likely, won't include Sean Payton, but probably somebody within the same competence) to help have some guidance. Granted, New Orleans is a party city and the alcohol variety is like a candy shop, so there is always the opportunity to crash and burn as OTL, but this may be a slightly better situation for Manziel, even if it isn't an immediate dynasty. Only time will tell.
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Fall 2015 (Part 10) - It's Hip To Be Square
Fairytale 4
Fairytale 4 is a turn-based RPG developed by Squaresoft. It's the fourth mainline game in Square's acclaimed fantasy RPG series, and brings back much of the original team from the first game, including character designer Tomomi Kobayashi and composer Yasunori Mitsuda. Unlike the last two games, which featured a focus on religious and spiritual themes, Fairytale 4 returns to the original game's roots, telling the story of the relationship between fairies and humans. The game takes place in a world of fairies, who live in harmony with nature and have built a civilization focused on nature/biotechnology, with giant tree cities and sentient plant automatons. This world exists parallel to a human world on the edge of an industrial revolution. Unlike in the original game, in which the human and fairy worlds existed on the same planet, the human and fairy worlds in Fairytale 4 exist parallel to each other, sort of like the Light and Dark Worlds in A Link To The Past, and it's possible to warp between them via “tesseracts” that begin to appear throughout both worlds (it's also possible to gain an item that will let you warp between the two worlds at will, but you only get that late into the game). The combat system is actually somewhat old-school, it's a turn based ATB system similar to the original game (and can be best compared to games like Chrono Trigger IOTL), with four party members, each with their own attacks and special skills, battling it out with a group of enemies. It's possible to trigger combo attacks in this game, though these combos, like in the original Fairytale, are spontaneous. It is possible to influence these combos via building up relationships between characters or using certain moves. Fairies and humans each have their own equipment that isn't compatible with each other, and fairies also have an attribute called “flight time” in which attacks made in the air are different from attacks made on the ground, with fairies having a limited amount of time they can spend hovering (which is influenced by attacks used or damage taken). Fairies can also pick up human characters to use special aerial human moves, though this costs a significant amount of flight time depending on the weight of the human (both their natural weight and their equipment). The most powerful attacks tend to be two-human combos in which both humans are being held in the air by fairies, so a party of two fairies/two humans is recommended. There are a total of ten playable characters in the game, five fairies and five humans, with two characters being optional “secret” characters.
The characters are:
Kylie: The game's primary protagonist, Kylie is a curious young fairy woman who accidentally enters a tesseract to the human world after running away from her academy. She is distrusting and frightened of humans at first, but after she realizes that humans can help her save her world, she comes to trust them (and she's a lot friendlier and more easygoing than Claris from the original game).
Mondo: A young fairy soldier training at the academy, Mondo is somewhat of a bully to Kylie, treating her strictly, though he does harbor secret feelings for her and shows genuine concern when she disappears.
Jewel: A somewhat cruel fairy bounty hunter, Jewel is assigned to retrieve Kylie after she disappears, and starts out in an antagonistic role, though after she realizes the importance of Kylie's mission and that her superiors are wrong, she becomes a powerful ally.
Ridinoux: Ridinoux is a fairy scientist who has fused himself with plant matter to give himself some truly impressive skills. He's a bit of an eccentric, but he's also a loyal ally to Kylie and company.
Leylinia: The headmistress of Kylie's academy and a stern, no-nonsense teacher, Leylinia is one of the most powerful fairy mages, and is also initially an antagonist, but eventually comes around to Kylie's side for better or for worse. She dies as part of the main story, but if the player takes a few critical actions, she can be recruited as a secret character late into the quest.
Hayner: Hayner is a young tinkerer, and the first human that Kylie meets. He's a bit of an awkward klutz, nothing like the confident Mondo, and is Mondo's main rival for Kylie's affection.
Cross: Cross is a hunter, and wields a lethal crossbow. He's actually presented as a fairy hunter early on, and tries to kill Kylie, but he's also friends with Hayner and ends up being an ally.
Willamina: A fancy princess and a dabbler in magic, Willamina loves fairies but only sees them as myths and legends until she meets Kylie face to face. The two become fast friends, even if Willamina is a bit obsessed with Kylie.
Norn: A pale, death-loving woman who loves to design killing machines and wield heavy weaponry, Norn may seem dark and dangerous at first, but she's actually good at heart and becomes a very valuable ally.
Kipper: An anthropomorphic dogman who appears frequently throughout the story, Kipper is a prominent side character but can be recruited to the team eventually if the right side quests are completed.
Fairytale 4 boasts bright, colorful graphics, more detailed and stylized than most games, giving the title a sort of polished Bravely Default look rather than the realistic edge of a Final Fantasy. It's an absolutely gorgeous game, with stunning, fluid animation, and characters looking like they were ripped right out of a storybook. The game's voice casts boasts a lot of talent, with people like Erika Lindbeck as Kylie, Erin Fitzgerald as Norn, and Zachary Aguilar as Hayner, though there aren't any major stars in the cast like there would be in AAA titles.
Fairytale 4's main quest is long and epic, easily spanning 30+ hours, and that's if players avoid the game's extensive side quests (of which there are more of than any other Fairytale game, with some long quest chains in there too, though there's also the requisite “go here, collect this” type of quest as well). It starts with Kylie at the Obelisk Academy, the most prestigious academy in the fairy realm (the equivalent of fairy college). She's a talented young mage, but is bored and disillusioned, and her strict instructors and the bullying she gets don't help her feelings for the school. She ends up running away (not an easy task considering that there are guards posted all over the school), and winds up falling through a tesseract into the human realm, where she meets Hayner but is targeted for capture, both by the fairy hunter Cross and by Mondo and Jewel from her own realm. After some initial missions in the human realm, Kylie is captured by Cross and brought before the human authorities, in particular, the dictator Doan, who has observed other tesseracts opening and believes that an invasion from the fairy realm is imminent. However, Mondo arrives from the fairy realm and assists Kylie in an escape. The two eventually run into Hayner, and then Cross, and after a confrontation, Kylie, Mondo, and Hayner return to the fairy world together. Mondo tells Kylie that she can't go back to the academy and that Hayner is probably in danger, and the three are then hunted by Jewel. Kylie eventually learns that the barriers between the human and fairy worlds are breaking down, while both worlds seem to blame the other for causing it. Kylie and Hayner both believe that the humans are provoking it via their use of technology, but in reality, it's the fairies who are using too much magic, which the game refers to as Esper. For many years, the fairies have been draining the Esper of their realm, causing the barrier that protects them from the human world to break down, as there's no longer enough Esper to sustain it. As Kylie begins to travel back and forth between the worlds, meeting more friends but also making more enemies, she learns that the fairies have been accumulating power in order to resurrect their ancient goddess Vitana. Fairy souls are unable to pass through to the afterlife because of Vitana's dormancy, and they've begun to roam the world as hostile wayward spirits, passing into the human world and causing problems there, which has caused the humans to accelerate their technological development to fight them. Daragoth, a powerful thrall of Vitana, has been secretly running the Obelisk Academy with the goal of training fairy mages to accomplish this resurrection, while Leylinia has served as his loyal follower. Eventually, there's a confrontation between Kylie and her allies with Leylinia, ending in Leylinia's defeat (and soon after, her death if the requisite recruitment subquests haven't been completed). After briefly returning to the human world to battle an out of control mechanical behemoth created by the human civilizations out of fear, Kylie and her allies finally return to the fairy world, just as the barrier between the two worlds almost completely breaks down. Vitana's trained thralls and mages, as well as the hostile spirits of damned fairies, pour into the human world, ravaging it, though Kylie manages to regenerate the barrier to prevent the complete destruction of human civilization. She then does battle with Daragoth, but it's too late to prevent the resurrection of Vitana. Vitana, however, truly wants to help both humans and fairies, but was poisoned by a corruption that has caused the fairy and human underworlds to slowly siphon energy from both realms. The heroes trace this corruption to a single fairy soul who refused to die and who resolved to bring all the realms down with him: Kylie's twin brother, who has been referenced throughout the story (as having died when Kylie was born). He raged against Vitana and the fairy and human realms, and his poison soon corrupted the souls of millions of fairies who were unable to pass on. Kylie must battle him alone, then rejoins the rest of her team to do battle with a corrupted Vitana. This purifies Vitana, restoring the barrier completely, though this will also separate humans and fairies forever. The humans and fairies say a tearful goodbye to each other, with Kylie and Hayner sharing a particularly sad goodbye before returning to their realms for good. Both realms now live in peace, but are also isolated from one another... however, it's learned that humans and fairies can communicate a little bit through the stories they tell of each other's realms, which are passed on by the purified spirits.
Fairytale 4 is released in November 2015 worldwide for both the Reality and Virtua. It receives a highly positive reception in both Japan and the West, viewed as one of the year's best JRPGs and the last great JRPG of a year that saw a huge surge in excellent ones. The game averages in the high 8s in terms of review scores, and becomes Square's best selling game of the year worldwide, even outselling Angels Of Mana. It's the first time Square has done a traditional turn-based console RPG in some time, and it's quite a successful one, showing that the IP remains one of their most popular despite the long lag time between games. The game's light hearted nature also stands in stark contrast to most of the other games of 2015, which are somewhat grim and bleak (with a few notable exceptions). The game's success is symptomatic of the success of Squaresoft as a whole, and with the company poised to release some of their biggest games ever in 2016, it's clear that they're still the king of RPGs and one of the biggest software companies in the industry despite the lack of acquisitions and mergers that changed their OTL identity.
-
Squaresoft has remained remarkably consistent in its goals throughout its 32 years of existence. The company's primary focus has been on games, and it's stuck mostly to RPGs, though it has branched out into other genres and continues to experiment and dabble as it always has. Perhaps the biggest change in Square's corporate philosophy came in the late 2000s, when it decided to finally stop producing titles exclusively for Nintendo and start making games for Nintendo's competitors, namely Apple and Google. This has proven to be a highly successful decision, with the company reporting record revenues several times in the 2010s, as a likely result of producing games for multiple platforms.
President Yoshinori Kitase, who took over the reigns of Square in 2010, has taken a "games first" approach to the company's business, and soon after, greenlighted more games at a single time than at any previous time in the company's history. 2016 will see those efforts finally take shape, as the company's enormous release slate for that year, which includes console, handheld, and mobile titles, bears fruit. Kitase made an appearance at the company's enormous booth at this year's Tokyo Game Show, which was easily the most crowded at the event. Most people gathered there were lined up to play Final Fantasy XIV, and the game continues to take shape nicely to remain on track for a late 2016 release. Kitase told reporters that the game has been in the works since 2011, even before the release of Final Fantasy XIII, and that it will be the first "action RPG" in the series, fusing elements of real time combat with traditional turn based gameplay. It will also be the first game in the series to be heavily female-focused. Though previous Final Fantasy titles, including 2009's XII, have featured female protagonists, Final Fantasy XIV will focus most of its narrative around three main women: the human scientist Brynn, the powerful and mysterious being Luminous, and the dark warrior Shade, whose stories will be, according to Kitase, "intertwined in a way that we've never presented before". The game's logo features an almost yin-yang clash of white and black, said to represent Luminous and Shade, and the game's narrative will also feature a clash between hyper-advanced technology and traditional rituals and customs, which hearkens back to the Shinra/Wutai conflict in Final Fantasy VII. The game will also feature a few male playable characters, including the brash young reporter Jann and the buff human warrior Gladiolus, and we got to try out a Brynn/Jann/Gladiolus party in the game's action packed demo.
Kitase hasn't been afraid to experiment, however, and his role in the development of Dragonslayer, set for release in March, is evidence of that. The game heavily resembles western RPGs such as The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, but the damage numbers flying off of enemies and the distinctly Japanese character designs betray the game's Final Fantasy roots. We loved the dragon fights, which are every bit as exciting as anything we've seen in the most epic of Final Fantasy games, and Kitase's eager promotion of Dragonslayer shows his passion for game design and his love of everything medieval. While Dragonslayer isn't expected to be as big of a hit as Final Fantasy XIV, it had the second largest crowds at Squaresoft's TGS booth, and those crowds seemed to grow as the show went on.
-from an October 21, 2015 article on RPGamer.net, covering the 2015 Tokyo Game Show
Fairytale 4 is a turn-based RPG developed by Squaresoft. It's the fourth mainline game in Square's acclaimed fantasy RPG series, and brings back much of the original team from the first game, including character designer Tomomi Kobayashi and composer Yasunori Mitsuda. Unlike the last two games, which featured a focus on religious and spiritual themes, Fairytale 4 returns to the original game's roots, telling the story of the relationship between fairies and humans. The game takes place in a world of fairies, who live in harmony with nature and have built a civilization focused on nature/biotechnology, with giant tree cities and sentient plant automatons. This world exists parallel to a human world on the edge of an industrial revolution. Unlike in the original game, in which the human and fairy worlds existed on the same planet, the human and fairy worlds in Fairytale 4 exist parallel to each other, sort of like the Light and Dark Worlds in A Link To The Past, and it's possible to warp between them via “tesseracts” that begin to appear throughout both worlds (it's also possible to gain an item that will let you warp between the two worlds at will, but you only get that late into the game). The combat system is actually somewhat old-school, it's a turn based ATB system similar to the original game (and can be best compared to games like Chrono Trigger IOTL), with four party members, each with their own attacks and special skills, battling it out with a group of enemies. It's possible to trigger combo attacks in this game, though these combos, like in the original Fairytale, are spontaneous. It is possible to influence these combos via building up relationships between characters or using certain moves. Fairies and humans each have their own equipment that isn't compatible with each other, and fairies also have an attribute called “flight time” in which attacks made in the air are different from attacks made on the ground, with fairies having a limited amount of time they can spend hovering (which is influenced by attacks used or damage taken). Fairies can also pick up human characters to use special aerial human moves, though this costs a significant amount of flight time depending on the weight of the human (both their natural weight and their equipment). The most powerful attacks tend to be two-human combos in which both humans are being held in the air by fairies, so a party of two fairies/two humans is recommended. There are a total of ten playable characters in the game, five fairies and five humans, with two characters being optional “secret” characters.
The characters are:
Kylie: The game's primary protagonist, Kylie is a curious young fairy woman who accidentally enters a tesseract to the human world after running away from her academy. She is distrusting and frightened of humans at first, but after she realizes that humans can help her save her world, she comes to trust them (and she's a lot friendlier and more easygoing than Claris from the original game).
Mondo: A young fairy soldier training at the academy, Mondo is somewhat of a bully to Kylie, treating her strictly, though he does harbor secret feelings for her and shows genuine concern when she disappears.
Jewel: A somewhat cruel fairy bounty hunter, Jewel is assigned to retrieve Kylie after she disappears, and starts out in an antagonistic role, though after she realizes the importance of Kylie's mission and that her superiors are wrong, she becomes a powerful ally.
Ridinoux: Ridinoux is a fairy scientist who has fused himself with plant matter to give himself some truly impressive skills. He's a bit of an eccentric, but he's also a loyal ally to Kylie and company.
Leylinia: The headmistress of Kylie's academy and a stern, no-nonsense teacher, Leylinia is one of the most powerful fairy mages, and is also initially an antagonist, but eventually comes around to Kylie's side for better or for worse. She dies as part of the main story, but if the player takes a few critical actions, she can be recruited as a secret character late into the quest.
Hayner: Hayner is a young tinkerer, and the first human that Kylie meets. He's a bit of an awkward klutz, nothing like the confident Mondo, and is Mondo's main rival for Kylie's affection.
Cross: Cross is a hunter, and wields a lethal crossbow. He's actually presented as a fairy hunter early on, and tries to kill Kylie, but he's also friends with Hayner and ends up being an ally.
Willamina: A fancy princess and a dabbler in magic, Willamina loves fairies but only sees them as myths and legends until she meets Kylie face to face. The two become fast friends, even if Willamina is a bit obsessed with Kylie.
Norn: A pale, death-loving woman who loves to design killing machines and wield heavy weaponry, Norn may seem dark and dangerous at first, but she's actually good at heart and becomes a very valuable ally.
Kipper: An anthropomorphic dogman who appears frequently throughout the story, Kipper is a prominent side character but can be recruited to the team eventually if the right side quests are completed.
Fairytale 4 boasts bright, colorful graphics, more detailed and stylized than most games, giving the title a sort of polished Bravely Default look rather than the realistic edge of a Final Fantasy. It's an absolutely gorgeous game, with stunning, fluid animation, and characters looking like they were ripped right out of a storybook. The game's voice casts boasts a lot of talent, with people like Erika Lindbeck as Kylie, Erin Fitzgerald as Norn, and Zachary Aguilar as Hayner, though there aren't any major stars in the cast like there would be in AAA titles.
Fairytale 4's main quest is long and epic, easily spanning 30+ hours, and that's if players avoid the game's extensive side quests (of which there are more of than any other Fairytale game, with some long quest chains in there too, though there's also the requisite “go here, collect this” type of quest as well). It starts with Kylie at the Obelisk Academy, the most prestigious academy in the fairy realm (the equivalent of fairy college). She's a talented young mage, but is bored and disillusioned, and her strict instructors and the bullying she gets don't help her feelings for the school. She ends up running away (not an easy task considering that there are guards posted all over the school), and winds up falling through a tesseract into the human realm, where she meets Hayner but is targeted for capture, both by the fairy hunter Cross and by Mondo and Jewel from her own realm. After some initial missions in the human realm, Kylie is captured by Cross and brought before the human authorities, in particular, the dictator Doan, who has observed other tesseracts opening and believes that an invasion from the fairy realm is imminent. However, Mondo arrives from the fairy realm and assists Kylie in an escape. The two eventually run into Hayner, and then Cross, and after a confrontation, Kylie, Mondo, and Hayner return to the fairy world together. Mondo tells Kylie that she can't go back to the academy and that Hayner is probably in danger, and the three are then hunted by Jewel. Kylie eventually learns that the barriers between the human and fairy worlds are breaking down, while both worlds seem to blame the other for causing it. Kylie and Hayner both believe that the humans are provoking it via their use of technology, but in reality, it's the fairies who are using too much magic, which the game refers to as Esper. For many years, the fairies have been draining the Esper of their realm, causing the barrier that protects them from the human world to break down, as there's no longer enough Esper to sustain it. As Kylie begins to travel back and forth between the worlds, meeting more friends but also making more enemies, she learns that the fairies have been accumulating power in order to resurrect their ancient goddess Vitana. Fairy souls are unable to pass through to the afterlife because of Vitana's dormancy, and they've begun to roam the world as hostile wayward spirits, passing into the human world and causing problems there, which has caused the humans to accelerate their technological development to fight them. Daragoth, a powerful thrall of Vitana, has been secretly running the Obelisk Academy with the goal of training fairy mages to accomplish this resurrection, while Leylinia has served as his loyal follower. Eventually, there's a confrontation between Kylie and her allies with Leylinia, ending in Leylinia's defeat (and soon after, her death if the requisite recruitment subquests haven't been completed). After briefly returning to the human world to battle an out of control mechanical behemoth created by the human civilizations out of fear, Kylie and her allies finally return to the fairy world, just as the barrier between the two worlds almost completely breaks down. Vitana's trained thralls and mages, as well as the hostile spirits of damned fairies, pour into the human world, ravaging it, though Kylie manages to regenerate the barrier to prevent the complete destruction of human civilization. She then does battle with Daragoth, but it's too late to prevent the resurrection of Vitana. Vitana, however, truly wants to help both humans and fairies, but was poisoned by a corruption that has caused the fairy and human underworlds to slowly siphon energy from both realms. The heroes trace this corruption to a single fairy soul who refused to die and who resolved to bring all the realms down with him: Kylie's twin brother, who has been referenced throughout the story (as having died when Kylie was born). He raged against Vitana and the fairy and human realms, and his poison soon corrupted the souls of millions of fairies who were unable to pass on. Kylie must battle him alone, then rejoins the rest of her team to do battle with a corrupted Vitana. This purifies Vitana, restoring the barrier completely, though this will also separate humans and fairies forever. The humans and fairies say a tearful goodbye to each other, with Kylie and Hayner sharing a particularly sad goodbye before returning to their realms for good. Both realms now live in peace, but are also isolated from one another... however, it's learned that humans and fairies can communicate a little bit through the stories they tell of each other's realms, which are passed on by the purified spirits.
Fairytale 4 is released in November 2015 worldwide for both the Reality and Virtua. It receives a highly positive reception in both Japan and the West, viewed as one of the year's best JRPGs and the last great JRPG of a year that saw a huge surge in excellent ones. The game averages in the high 8s in terms of review scores, and becomes Square's best selling game of the year worldwide, even outselling Angels Of Mana. It's the first time Square has done a traditional turn-based console RPG in some time, and it's quite a successful one, showing that the IP remains one of their most popular despite the long lag time between games. The game's light hearted nature also stands in stark contrast to most of the other games of 2015, which are somewhat grim and bleak (with a few notable exceptions). The game's success is symptomatic of the success of Squaresoft as a whole, and with the company poised to release some of their biggest games ever in 2016, it's clear that they're still the king of RPGs and one of the biggest software companies in the industry despite the lack of acquisitions and mergers that changed their OTL identity.
-
Squaresoft has remained remarkably consistent in its goals throughout its 32 years of existence. The company's primary focus has been on games, and it's stuck mostly to RPGs, though it has branched out into other genres and continues to experiment and dabble as it always has. Perhaps the biggest change in Square's corporate philosophy came in the late 2000s, when it decided to finally stop producing titles exclusively for Nintendo and start making games for Nintendo's competitors, namely Apple and Google. This has proven to be a highly successful decision, with the company reporting record revenues several times in the 2010s, as a likely result of producing games for multiple platforms.
President Yoshinori Kitase, who took over the reigns of Square in 2010, has taken a "games first" approach to the company's business, and soon after, greenlighted more games at a single time than at any previous time in the company's history. 2016 will see those efforts finally take shape, as the company's enormous release slate for that year, which includes console, handheld, and mobile titles, bears fruit. Kitase made an appearance at the company's enormous booth at this year's Tokyo Game Show, which was easily the most crowded at the event. Most people gathered there were lined up to play Final Fantasy XIV, and the game continues to take shape nicely to remain on track for a late 2016 release. Kitase told reporters that the game has been in the works since 2011, even before the release of Final Fantasy XIII, and that it will be the first "action RPG" in the series, fusing elements of real time combat with traditional turn based gameplay. It will also be the first game in the series to be heavily female-focused. Though previous Final Fantasy titles, including 2009's XII, have featured female protagonists, Final Fantasy XIV will focus most of its narrative around three main women: the human scientist Brynn, the powerful and mysterious being Luminous, and the dark warrior Shade, whose stories will be, according to Kitase, "intertwined in a way that we've never presented before". The game's logo features an almost yin-yang clash of white and black, said to represent Luminous and Shade, and the game's narrative will also feature a clash between hyper-advanced technology and traditional rituals and customs, which hearkens back to the Shinra/Wutai conflict in Final Fantasy VII. The game will also feature a few male playable characters, including the brash young reporter Jann and the buff human warrior Gladiolus, and we got to try out a Brynn/Jann/Gladiolus party in the game's action packed demo.
Kitase hasn't been afraid to experiment, however, and his role in the development of Dragonslayer, set for release in March, is evidence of that. The game heavily resembles western RPGs such as The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, but the damage numbers flying off of enemies and the distinctly Japanese character designs betray the game's Final Fantasy roots. We loved the dragon fights, which are every bit as exciting as anything we've seen in the most epic of Final Fantasy games, and Kitase's eager promotion of Dragonslayer shows his passion for game design and his love of everything medieval. While Dragonslayer isn't expected to be as big of a hit as Final Fantasy XIV, it had the second largest crowds at Squaresoft's TGS booth, and those crowds seemed to grow as the show went on.
-from an October 21, 2015 article on RPGamer.net, covering the 2015 Tokyo Game Show
ITTL, Conan has an HBO show, does whatever he wants, is getting paid craploads of money, and wins the Emmy pretty much every year. If that's screwed, I'd like to get screwed
Basically, no Game Of Thrones means that HBO has to spend that money on something, and they use it to back the Brinks truck up to Conan's door and steal him from NBC.
Is it a four-a-night show like OTL on TBS? Or a weekly show like Real Time and Last Week Tonight?
The Blockbusters Of 2015
The Top 25 Highest Grossing Films Of 2015 (North American domestic gross only):
(Authors' Note: Avengers vs. X-Men: Civil War was given to us by the reader Pyro!)
1. Avengers vs. X-Men: Civil War ($787.4 million) (Note: Just an absolutely massive movie, scores the #2 highest domestic gross of all time up to this point.)
2. Jurassic World ($684.2 million) (Note: This massively popular sequel shows up ITTL and is equally successful with Dwayne Johnson in the starring role that Chris Pratt had IOTL. This is why Johnson didn't appear in TTL's Black Adam, probably to that film's detriment, even with an excellent Vin Diesel in the title role.)
3. As Gods: Eschaton ($506.2 million) (Note: The third film in the radically popular superhero series is a bit of a disappointment with critics and fans. It's still an enormous success, but not quite on the level many people thought it would be.)
4. Inside Out ($346.2 million) (Note: Pixar's emotional animated film is mostly the same as OTL.)
5. G.I. Joe: Retribution ($265.3 million) (Note: Unlike OTL's sequel, which threw out most of the original cast, this movie continues their story and performs quite well at the box office.)
6. Zephyr ($259.7 million) (Note: The breakout superhero film of the year, this film stars Melissa Benoist as Faith Herbert and is massively critically acclaimed.)
7. The Martian ($247.8 million) (Note: The book and movie both show up ITTL.)
8. Cowboys And Aliens 3 ($227.1 million)
9. Zapper ($223.5 million) (Note: A Disney animated movie based around a video game character, this film is very much like Wreck-It Ralph, but not quite so meta, and focused around a hero instead of a villain. Not being a musical, it doesn't have as much hype as other recent Disney titles, but is still plenty of fun and acquires quite the loyal fanbase.)
10. Khan ($217.5 million) (Note: This epic tale about Genghis Khan is much, MUCH more accurate than The Conqueror, with a Mongolian-American actor in the lead role. It does embellish a few things, but is still a strong film that ends up being an Oscar contender.)
11. Harley Quinn: Birds Of Prey ($210.6 million) (Note: This sequel isn't nearly as irreverent as the OTL film, but is still pretty fun. Introduces Karen Fukuhara as Zatanna, in a much more lighthearted role for her than her OTL Katana turn.)
12. The Manhattan Project ($201.9 million) (Note: A dramatized account of the scientists who built the first atomic bomb, this is an Oscar bait drama film with a star studded cast, great critical reviews, and an unexpectedly good performance at the box office.)
13. Men In Black: 21 Jump Street ($200.4 million) (Note: This film, which has also been speculated to be eventually made IOTL, appears here as the TTL sequel to 21 Jump Street as well as the comeback for the Men in Black series. It does well, but it's not a huge hit.)
14. Mad Max: Fury Road ($198.8 million)
15. Mission: Impossible – New World Order ($197.2 million)
16. Hotel Transylvania 2 ($185.3 million)
17. Black Adam ($183.2 million) (Note: A bit of a disappointment considering its budget, but this is a solid supervillain origin film.)
18. International ($170.1 million) (Note: An action film about a group of agents who have to stop a series of assassinations and terrorist attacks, this is a smart and clever movie but it does suffer from comparisons to Mission Impossible. It's a bit less outlandish, but it's not as big a success as it could have been.)
19. East vs. West ($160.5 million) (Note: This film focuses on the East Coast vs. West Coast rap battle, centering mostly on Biggie and Tupac, and has a similar reception to OTL's Straight Outta Compton.)
20. The Revenant ($159.3 million)
21. The Mask ($153.6 million) (Note: Acclaim's R-rated reboot of the 90s superhero hit, this is a dark comedy and gets a mixed critical reception, though fans love it.)
22. Old Flames 3: Mother-Daughter Day ($153.2 million)
23. Pest Control ($142.1 million) (Note: A Fox animated film focused on talking bugs, but rather than being focused on bugs in nature, like A Bug's Life, it's focused on bugs inside a house and their struggle to escape the wrath of the exterminator. It's actually a pretty funny movie, and features a star-studded voice cast.)
24. Awkweird ($137.8 million) (Note: A romantic comedy about a socially inept young woman, this is the breakout romcom of the year. Not too much to say about it other than that.)
25. Creed ($137.4 million)
(Authors' Note: Avengers vs. X-Men: Civil War was given to us by the reader Pyro!)
1. Avengers vs. X-Men: Civil War ($787.4 million) (Note: Just an absolutely massive movie, scores the #2 highest domestic gross of all time up to this point.)
2. Jurassic World ($684.2 million) (Note: This massively popular sequel shows up ITTL and is equally successful with Dwayne Johnson in the starring role that Chris Pratt had IOTL. This is why Johnson didn't appear in TTL's Black Adam, probably to that film's detriment, even with an excellent Vin Diesel in the title role.)
3. As Gods: Eschaton ($506.2 million) (Note: The third film in the radically popular superhero series is a bit of a disappointment with critics and fans. It's still an enormous success, but not quite on the level many people thought it would be.)
4. Inside Out ($346.2 million) (Note: Pixar's emotional animated film is mostly the same as OTL.)
5. G.I. Joe: Retribution ($265.3 million) (Note: Unlike OTL's sequel, which threw out most of the original cast, this movie continues their story and performs quite well at the box office.)
6. Zephyr ($259.7 million) (Note: The breakout superhero film of the year, this film stars Melissa Benoist as Faith Herbert and is massively critically acclaimed.)
7. The Martian ($247.8 million) (Note: The book and movie both show up ITTL.)
8. Cowboys And Aliens 3 ($227.1 million)
9. Zapper ($223.5 million) (Note: A Disney animated movie based around a video game character, this film is very much like Wreck-It Ralph, but not quite so meta, and focused around a hero instead of a villain. Not being a musical, it doesn't have as much hype as other recent Disney titles, but is still plenty of fun and acquires quite the loyal fanbase.)
10. Khan ($217.5 million) (Note: This epic tale about Genghis Khan is much, MUCH more accurate than The Conqueror, with a Mongolian-American actor in the lead role. It does embellish a few things, but is still a strong film that ends up being an Oscar contender.)
11. Harley Quinn: Birds Of Prey ($210.6 million) (Note: This sequel isn't nearly as irreverent as the OTL film, but is still pretty fun. Introduces Karen Fukuhara as Zatanna, in a much more lighthearted role for her than her OTL Katana turn.)
12. The Manhattan Project ($201.9 million) (Note: A dramatized account of the scientists who built the first atomic bomb, this is an Oscar bait drama film with a star studded cast, great critical reviews, and an unexpectedly good performance at the box office.)
13. Men In Black: 21 Jump Street ($200.4 million) (Note: This film, which has also been speculated to be eventually made IOTL, appears here as the TTL sequel to 21 Jump Street as well as the comeback for the Men in Black series. It does well, but it's not a huge hit.)
14. Mad Max: Fury Road ($198.8 million)
15. Mission: Impossible – New World Order ($197.2 million)
16. Hotel Transylvania 2 ($185.3 million)
17. Black Adam ($183.2 million) (Note: A bit of a disappointment considering its budget, but this is a solid supervillain origin film.)
18. International ($170.1 million) (Note: An action film about a group of agents who have to stop a series of assassinations and terrorist attacks, this is a smart and clever movie but it does suffer from comparisons to Mission Impossible. It's a bit less outlandish, but it's not as big a success as it could have been.)
19. East vs. West ($160.5 million) (Note: This film focuses on the East Coast vs. West Coast rap battle, centering mostly on Biggie and Tupac, and has a similar reception to OTL's Straight Outta Compton.)
20. The Revenant ($159.3 million)
21. The Mask ($153.6 million) (Note: Acclaim's R-rated reboot of the 90s superhero hit, this is a dark comedy and gets a mixed critical reception, though fans love it.)
22. Old Flames 3: Mother-Daughter Day ($153.2 million)
23. Pest Control ($142.1 million) (Note: A Fox animated film focused on talking bugs, but rather than being focused on bugs in nature, like A Bug's Life, it's focused on bugs inside a house and their struggle to escape the wrath of the exterminator. It's actually a pretty funny movie, and features a star-studded voice cast.)
24. Awkweird ($137.8 million) (Note: A romantic comedy about a socially inept young woman, this is the breakout romcom of the year. Not too much to say about it other than that.)
25. Creed ($137.4 million)
In hindsight, I would have been surprised if no one made that joke........You know what must be done....
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/nint...r-fox-mario-kart-prototype-much-more.1557910/ a shame didn't leaked before
.......You know what must be done....
If not that, then this: