ian5786

Banned
Hey, checking in again after I think 7 or 8 actual months of silent observance. Apologies for that.
About the TTL Puyo Puyo writeup I talked about doing near the beginning of the thread; I was actually slowly writing it all out over the course of these past few months, though I think I got a bit too invested in it since the Word document I have everything written down on is 20+ pages long. I was actually near finished, only having one game left in the timeline to write (Out of around 11 games in total), though I'm a bit concerned about finishing and sending it for review at this point (admittedly, life matters got a bit in the way) since I'm afraid what I've done so far (which is a lot) could potentially contrast or contradict whatever you guys have planned for TTL's version of the Puyo Puyo Tetris crossover (which the mention of it in the Apple keynote is what motivated me to talk about this again in the first place).
I'm open to discussing matters further either in here or in private conversations, and I sincerely apologize if I had left either of you hanging over this topic until now.
is it Puyo Puyo Disney
 
Spring 2016 (Part 9)- The Rest Of The Games
(Here are the rest of the notable games from April 2016 to June 2016!)

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Nintendo Reality-

Justicar: Absolute Verdict

One of two Justicar games released in May 2016, Absolute Verdict is an FPS/RPG title centered around a new protagonist, Mikhail, and tells a spinoff sidestory to the main Justicar universe. As the first game in the series to be released for consoles, it features the best graphics in the series to date, and an extensive online mode, while its plot follows Mikhail's journey to destroy a group of rebels known as the Dark Order. The game's plot is connected to that of the Connect companion title, The Wasting Of The Ways, and this game takes place before that one by ten years. As Mikhail roots out and destroys the Dark Order, the player realizes that things aren't everything they seem, but the quest continues until Mikhail wipes out the entire Order, despite their clearly morally good intentions, and the game ends with Mikhail renouncing his title as a Justicar to become a shiftless wanderer. The game is praised as one of the Reality's better FPS exclusives of 2016, and tells a story in the series that heavily contrasts that of the noble Damon, while also tying in extremely well with the Connect game. It would see moderately good sales, and would ultimately sell more copies than its handheld companion.

Excitebike Reality

Excitebike Reality is a motocross video game featuring races and stunts, and though it's a fairly basic experience, with only a small amount of extra modes, the actual racing is quite fun, and the stunt gameplay, which allows players to ride around a track or race in one of numerous open dirt areas, is exhilarating and exciting. The racing itself features 16 tracks with varying difficulties and features, while there are a total of 14 stunt arenas and tracks to enjoy, with more of both types of tracks available through DLC. There's online gameplay, and the game also makes good use of the Reality's VR features, making this game a fairly complete racing package and leading to strong reviews in the 8.5/10 range. Sales aren't huge, but the game does moderate numbers around the world and makes back its budget by a healthy amount.

Shantae And The Seven Seastones

Shantae And The Seven Seastones is an action/adventure title for the Nintendo Reality, and is a blend of traditional Metroidvania style Shantae gameplay with some fun Zelda-like dungeon crawling. The game sort of plays like Zelda II: The Adventures Of Link, with sidescrolling in both towns and dungeons alike, as Shantae ventures the world to gather up seven stones to save her friends. She starts out the game battling Risky Boots, but eventually the two end up working together, as they face a common foe in the powerful sorceress Grimoria. Shantae and the Seven Seastones is a fun game with gorgeous graphics, and though it doesn't really take advantage of the Reality's features, the animation is incredibly beautiful and the game has a lot of funny and heartfelt moments.

Apple Virtua-

Impact Radius

A futuristic third person shooter about an elite team of strike troops who must drop into a besieged city to liberate it from rebels and robots, the game gets immediate comparisons to The Covenant, but is significantly faster paced and features more energy weapons. The rebels in question are a group of anarchists seeking to strike at the galactic government by holding the city's mayor and city council hostage (with one of the people on the city council being the protagonist's girlfriend). Meanwhile, the anarchists have invaded a robotics factory, causing a multitude of powerful AI robots to begin attacking humans wildly. The game mostly consists of missions where the player needs to get from point A to point B, killing everything they see along the way and not really going off the beaten path. Impact Radius has a big budget (with excellent graphics that pop spectacularly in VR, and a voice acting team stacked with big names), and it's generally a good game, but does get criticism for being relatively generic, limiting review scores to around an 8/10. Sales, however, are quite good, ensuring that a sequel goes into quick production.

Mega Man: Chip Quest

A traditional JRPG based on the characters from the original Mega Man series, this game sees Mega Man team up with allies including Protoman, Roll, and several other friends he makes along the way, as they battle the diabolical Dr. Wily, who is attempting to build the most powerful robotic monster ever created. In lieu of level-ups, players instead install chips onto their heroes, with chips found from defeated enemies or in treasure chests, or purchased in shops. Of course, bosses drop the biggest and most powerful chips (usually), and there's also an element of RNG to what chips drop where and when. As far as RPGs go, it's decent enough, and has lots of allusions and references to keep Mega Man fans satisfied. It's no Super Mario RPG, but it's a solid 8/10 game and sells decently well, especially in Japan.

Superhot

ITTL, this innovative first person shooter relying heavily on time manipulation and careful strategy is funded by Apple, and thus is exclusive to the Virtua (but benefits heavily from improved graphics and a larger game overall). It becomes a digital indie sensation, and is extremely well reviewed, while at just $10 MSRP, it sells a lot of copies to become one of the Virtua's top digital exclusives of the year.

Vectorman: Twin Motion

This console-based Vectorman title launches at a budget price of $29.99, and is structured fairly similarly to other recent titles in the series which have appeared on the Gemini. The game's graphics are of course a step up from those titles, while the game also includes new motion controls allowing the player to raise their arms to directly control Vectorman, allowing for a new range of rotational movement and some really innovative platforming. The game's plot, involving a pair of diabolical scientists who modify their bodies and attempt to take over the world, is fairly simplistic (though the scientists themselves, a pair of young and talented prodigies whose personalities call to mind Troy and Tyreen from OTL's Borderlands 3 minus the streaming element, are quite popular amongst fans), and the game is a smidge shorter than Omega Factor, but it's still plenty fun and makes some of the best use of the Virtua's motion controls to date.

Google Nexus-

Mystery Of The Mirror

Intended for younger players, this game is essentially LA Noire meets Nancy Drew. A young girl becomes a detective and has to help her friends stop some very real criminals (not really violent criminals, just fraudsters and thieves, though they do resort to some violent threats and kidnapping as the young sleuth and her friends close in) in this action packed but ultimately kid friendly story that achieves decent sales and reviews.

Shadowrun Tactics Hexadecimal

The sequel to the acclaimed Shadowrun Tactics, it's much the same game as the last in terms of basic gameplay, but includes some hacking and puzzle elements, making it one of the more innovative SRPGs in recent memory, with players given the choice of attacking enemies straight on or subverting them through hacking, and it's entirely possible to win the entire campaign and all the side missions with hacking and social engineering alone, without a single attack (this becomes a popular speedrun category as well). One of the best tactics games of its generation, with incredible use of the Shadowrun lore, it's one of the best reviewed games of the year, and though it makes a profit, its sales are far below what it deserves.

The Metallurgist

One of the year's more innovative games, this game is all about crafting, starting with stone and ending up with futuristic super materials. It's basically Civilization for material scientists, with a bit of Doodle God thrown in, and it's pretty fun. It's a budget title, released for $19.99, and becomes a digital store sale staple.

Crashlands

OTL's silly action RPG title combining elements of games like Diablo with lots and lots of crafting is a Google exclusive ITTL, and becomes one of the better received digital titles of the year, thanks to some strong promotion and a few interesting guest characters that the game's affiliation with Google makes possible. Eventually makes it to other consoles, but is a Google exclusive for several years.

Stardew Valley

The hit farming title from OTL also makes it to TTL in much the same form as our reality, only ITTL, it's Google who steps in and offers to help creator Eric Barone with production rather than Chucklefish. With Google's money and development resources, the game expands somewhat, and like Crashlands, benefits from numerous guest characters as well, while also being promoted more by Google initially than by word of mouth (though word of mouth does come later). It comes to both the Nexus and the Nexus Companion, and later gets a port to Android phones, though unlike Crashlands, it never comes to other platforms (Google buys the rights to the game outright, realizing how good it is). Despite being a budget indie title, it's as acclaimed as it was IOTL, and becomes a major driver of Nexus console sales, regarded as one of the Nexus' best titles of the year.

Nintendo Connect-

Works Of Arte

A Nintendo-developed JRPG about a group of heroes who emerge from paintings to save the world from a great evil. Each hero has a different aesthetic, based on a different style of painting. A very fantastical JRPG with rather traditional gameplay (it's turn based, and there's not a huge amount of attack variety, though the game does have some unique timed-hits type systems to spice up battles a bit), the game does have a rather long and epic quest, and features memorable characters and dialogue spiced up by some solid voice acting and good graphics and music. This is probably one of the better RPGs of the year, and a solid new IP for the Connect.

Captain Shock

A superhero/Metroidvania title about a superhero who can blast bad guys with different types of lasers, this gets a lot of comparisons to the recent Vectorman games (and also the Star Siren series, though it's not quite as fast paced and combo heavy) but is somewhat more humorous. As Captain Shock progresses through the world, he gains new powers, and new bad guys emerge to challenge him, while old ones rear their heads, giving Captain Shock a nice little rogue's gallery that will keep the player amused the whole way through the game. A fun little adventure title, this becomes a cult hit.

Justicar: The Wasting Of The Ways

The fourth mainline title in the Justicar series sees Damon on the trail of a strange new group of enemies, while finding clues vaguely hinting at the destruction of a group of soldiers some time before, which turns out to be the Dark Order from Absolute Verdict, ultimately leading Damon to the wandering soldier Mikhail and the truth about his own squadron. The Wasting Of The Ways is more of a traditional FPS title than either Justicar 3 or Absolute Verdict (both of which blend RPG elements with FPS elements), and features a slick new combat system allowing the player to switch between four weapons at once or combine their effects. It's quite a fun and fast paced FPS title and one of the best looking Connect games to date. It ties in well with the Reality game, though not everyone will be willing to spend 100 dollars on both.

SNES Remix

The “Remix” game we never got IOTL, this minigame compilation brings together elements from 60 classic SNES and SNES-CD games, both first party and third party alike, and gives players challenges based on them. With 15-40 challenges for each game, that means there are well over 1,000 challenges in all, making this one of the most robust experiences for the system, and a whole lot of fun for nostalgia junkies and new players alike. It would ultimately see better overall sales than NES Remix, though it doesn't quite sell enough to be considered a blockbuster.

Apple Gemini-

Porcu-Pining

A sidescrolling platformer about an anthropomorphic porcupine who falls in love and must complete a series of increasingly convoluted tasks to win his dream girl. It's a fun and cute game, albeit a bit short, and manages some decent reviews. It does decent sales as well, helped out by the fact that it's a budget title, released at $19.99 MSRP.

Railstorm 2

Railstorm 2 is the long-awaited sequel to 2012's killer app Gemini hit, and this game is much the same as the first: an FPS focused on big, heavy weapons and lots of dakka, bringing back supersoldier Hotch and his companion Elle to do battle with the forces of evil. This game sees invaders from the sky in the form of giant space crustaceans that seem to operate off of a hive intelligence, with Hotch tasked with fending off the invasion and making his way to a glowing object in space that seems to be the center of the hive intelligence. Compared with the original, Railstorm 2 is a lot crazier, with huge enemies the norm (though the space crustaceans also spit out human-sized enemies that lumber on two legs and wield weaponry). The plot is a bit silly, though Hotch is still his normal, soft spoken self. There's another ally character, Winona, who is a general of the human armies and who doesn't like the way Hotch operates, the two frequently clash throughout the game, though she eventually does come around once she realizes he's getting results. The game is an exhibition for the Gemini's graphical capabilities, with smooth animation, polish everywhere, and lots of destructible objects and flying crab parts. It's not as well received as the first game, but it's still really fun and is one of the most critically and commercially successful handheld games of the year.

Multiplatform-

Batman: The Tender Toxin

The follow-up to 2013's Batman: Dark Legend, Batman: The Tender Toxin centers around Poison Ivy, and her plot to kill several prominent businessmen in Gotham to crash the stock market and destroy funding for a project that would cause immense destruction in the world's rainforests. At the same time, Poison Ivy is also looking to find a way to help Harley Quinn escape from jail. Batman, separated from Nightwing and Batgirl (who are on their own after Dark Legend, and who star in their own DLC coming out later in the year), must protect these businessmen from Ivy's plot, though as he investigates the murder attempts, he stumbles upon shady dealings in the city. This is more of a detective-centered game than an action title, though it certainly has plenty of action and fighting, with a more nuanced combat system than Dark Legend, relying on more counters and deliberate strikes. Ivy is usually just beyond Batman's reach, and she's very nearly a dual protagonist in the game, as we get to hear and see her plotting alongside Batman's search. We also get some snippets of Harley Quinn, who is still recovering in jail from her time with the Joker. The game features the voice work of Kevin Conroy as Batman, and in a pair of debuts, Julie Ann Emery as Poison Ivy and Sarah Stiles as Harley Quinn, the first time someone other than Tara Strong or Lyssa Fielding has voiced the character since Arleen Sorkin stepped down from the role in the 2000s. Both Emery and Stiles are highly praised for their performances, while Kevin Conroy does an outstanding job as he usually does. The game itself gets strong reviews for the storyline, though the gameplay is seen as a bit boring, and the game becomes one of the best selling titles of April 2016 (when Virtua/Reality/Nexus sales are combined, only Animal Crossing: Welcome To Suburbia and Strikeback sell more).

INSIDE

OTL's puzzle platformer comes to consoles, handhelds, and mobile, and is pretty much the same game as it was IOTL, receiving similar praise and similar sales, while becoming acclaimed as one of the year's best titles. There are a few plot changes, obviously some of the level hazards are different, but the overall plot and the gameplay itself are the same. The Reality and Virtua versions add some interesting VR effects, while the Virtua allows for full motion controls and also for force feedback once those accessories are released, making it probably the best version of the game.

Tale Korinthia

The latest entry in Game Arts' acclaimed Tale series of action RPGs follows eight heroes and heroines with elemental powers based around a specific color. The primary protagonist, Arch, is a knight with the power of light energy, symbolized by white, while other members of his team have various powers based on plants (green), ice (blue), water (violet), earth (orange), metal (silver), fire (red), and electricity (yellow) respectively. The villain is a sorceress named Queen Maricela, who opens an object called the Black Book that grants her incredible dark magic, which she immediately uses to launch a campaign of conquest across the world. While the plot is fairly straightforward (there's no real villain twist, Maricela is the villain for the entire game, save for the end when the Black Book itself becomes the villain), the game's plot is mainly character based, with each of the heroes and Maricela herself enduring their own struggles to control their powers. Maricela does redeem herself in the end by sacrificing herself to weaken the Black Book so the heroes can destroy it, and the world is saved, though the eight heroes end up relinquishing their elemental powers at the end to restore balance and peace to the world. Tale Korinthia, with its huge world, epic quest, and detailed characters, is considered the best game in the series in quite some time, and is considered one of the best RPGs of the year. It's released for the Reality and the Virtua, skipping the Nexus, though it achieves strong sales on both consoles it does release on. The series has fallen a long way from Phantasia in terms of mainstream popularity, but still consistently pumps out popular RPGs that players generally enjoy.

Viricle: The Subversive

The sequel to the moderately successful 2013 spy action title, Viricle: The Subversive centers around the protagonist's efforts to infiltrate an organization of assassins, while maintaining a network of contacts on the outside. Missions generally involve sabotaging an assassination in some way, though rarely, the player is forced to carry the assassination out to maintain their cover. Though the protagonist is a new character (once again customized by the player), many characters from the original game, including double agent Alice Summers, show up at various points, with Alice being a late game assassination target who ends up saving the protagonist after an attempt to protect her goes awry. The final series of missions has the player infiltrating a large prison to rescue Alice after she's captured attempting to take the villainous organization down, and the player will need to use all the skills they've picked up to complete their final mission. Viricle: The Subversive is a bit of a disappointment, both from a gameplay and a plot perspective, not quite as innovative or exciting as the original, and resorting to hackneyed tropes a lot more often than the original game. As a result, sales are fairly disappointing, and the series ends up being canned after this title.

A World Away

A horror/shooter title and a sequel to 2015's game, A World Away had one of the quicker production turnarounds for a modern shooter, with production rushed after the first game's success. Despite this, the game manages to be a fully realized and polished game, largely thanks to its smaller scope than the original, taking place mostly in two locations: a government facility and a parallel horror world directly linked to one another. Protagonist Rick Carver returns, after enduring months of interrogation in a government facility as agents try to discover the horrors he saw in Caster City. The only reason he's being kept alive is so scientists can figure out how he was able to survive the horrors of the city, but as he's taken from his cell to be experimented on, an explosion rocks the facility, and Carver ends up in a hallway, surrounded by terrifying mutated creatures, while heavily armed military soldiers attempt to hunt him down. As Carver kills the things trying to kill him, he learns more and more about the experiments that have been conducted over the past few years, both at Caster City and at this facility, and it's eventually learned that something from a parallel dimension made it to Earth and that scientists have been attempting to use its DNA to give special abilities to humans. Eventually, he's thrown into an opened portal by the game's main antagonist, the scientist leading the project, Dr. Veld, who was the one who initially began conducting experiments on the monsters that crawled out of the portal. Carver then explores a parallel facility in this strange horrorworld, and learns that this is the world of the dead, and that the dead have opened up a portal of their own in an attempt to resurrect themselves with the flesh of the living. Carver must explore this facility until he finds the device to shut off the portal, but Veld has pursued him, and injected himself with the flesh of the dead to make himself immortal. Carver eventually defeats Veld and uses him to destroy the portal, sealing him up in the device and escaping just as the portal closes. Carver has been successful in saving the world, and he stumbles out of the government facility, but doesn't know that one living being injected with dead cells still roams the world, and has begun experimenting on others to spread its contagion. A World Away, despite its quick turnover and fairly short length, is about as highly praised as the original game thanks to its intense horrors and solid shooting mechanics. Sales are quite good as well, considering the success of the original game, and a third title enters production for release in 2018 or 2019.

Bully 3

An open world school-based sandbox title, Bully 3 got a slightly lower budget than the last two games, as much of Rockstar's development resources at the time are focused on Grand Theft Auto Online and Doggerland, and indeed, Rockstar actually brought in another studio to assist with development on this game. Despite that, it still manages to be a content-rich game featuring all of the fun gameplay and classic humor that the series is known for. Unlike Bully 2, this game's protagonist is always male. He's a “nerdy” student named Josh who arrives at a technical school for highly intelligent people, but even at a school full of nerds, there's still a social pecking order, which Josh learns fairly quickly. There are some interesting science-based minigames, and more “weapons” than ever before (nothing lethal, just potato guns and the like), while the player ends up tasked with solving a cheating conspiracy that goes all the way to the school's administration. Unlike the last two games, the main villain isn't a student, but instead, is a psychotic professor who frames students he doesn't like for cheating, while extorting those students he helps into helping him down the road. While Bully 3 isn't as highly reviewed as the last two games, and features an overabundance of geek humor and memes, it's a solid sandbox title and scores excellent sales.

Ex-Military

An FPS about former soldiers down on their luck who go on a crime spree, this title is somewhat of a dark take on a Call Of Duty-type game, and one of the more controversial titles of the year. You play as Hud Ellis, a former Silver Star recipient who suffers from PTSD, who gets in with a criminal gang also consisting of ex-soldiers suffering from various traumas or financial hardships or both. The gang decides to commit a bank robbery, but things go horribly wrong, and as a result, the four end up taking hostages and going on a county wide crime spree that includes murder and shootouts (though much of the shooting in this game actually takes place in flashbacks to their time in the war). It's a dark, intense game, with protagonists that can best be described as a “slightly more sympathetic Kane and Lynch”, and a story that addresses trauma in a darkly realistic way while also not excusing the protagonists' actions. With its uniquely dark story coupled with some of the best shooting mechanics of the year, Ex-Military splits critics, with some calling it brilliant and others giving it surprisingly low scores for how high quality it is. It ends up being a high profile sales disappointment, though with price drops it ends up doing better than its initial launch window would indicate.

Pankration

A 3-D fighting game based on the ancient Greek wrestling sport (with a combat system best compared to the OTL UFC games with a lot more brutality). Has a bit of an RPG element of needing to work up the ranks and train. It's as brutal as the real thing and has a surprisingly heartfelt storyline, focused on a low-class family man who goes into the sport after the tragic death of his wife and young child. He starts out with a death wish, but as he rises through the ranks and gains more fans, he finds a new purpose on life, but also draws the attention of powerful enemies. The game becomes a critical success, though the sales don't quite reflect that.

Quixsters: The Grabblegrass

The bite-sized action franchise returns with a huge cast of dozens of heroic kids working together to stop an evil plant menace from taking over the universe! Challenges mostly revolve around yanking or cutting down vines that are ensnaring innocent bystanders and trying to ensnare you, and the game features some hilarious animation of the little brats being flung around the screen, yelling and making loud smacks against the walls or the screen itself, a lot like the animations in Super Smash Bros. Of course, being as competitive as they are, the kids are also attacking each other, racing to stop the plants first and get all the glory. It's as wild and crazy as it sounds, and the game gets fairly high marks, though not quite as high as Enter The Maze. Sales aren't quite as good either, though the game is a big hit on the Nexus, and also does well on the handhelds, where the bite-sized levels and challenges can be played in quick bursts.

The Tavern District

An old school crime-based sandbox game, with some similarities to OTL's Mafia III. Features a somewhat politics heavy storyline, with race and economics playing majorly into it. The game is a bit polarizing, with great reviews from some critics and disappointing ones from others, and ends up being a bit of a sales disappointment (in that way, it draws a lot of comparisons to Ex-Military, another high profile but highly polarizing game, though The Tavern District isn't quite as controversial).

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Top Selling New Console Games In North America (in terms of sales over the first four weeks of release):

April 2016-

1. Strikeback (Apple Virtua)
2. Animal Crossing: Welcome To Suburbia (Nintendo Reality)
3. Quantum Break (Nintendo Reality)
4. Batman: The Tender Toxin (Nintendo Reality)
5. Batman: The Tender Toxin (Apple Virtua)

May 2016-

1. Battle Buddies (Nintendo Reality)
2. Impact Radius (Apple Virtua)
3. A World Away (Apple Virtua)
4. A World Away (Nintendo Reality)
5. Brothers (Nintendo Reality)

June 2016-

1. Tales Of The Seven Seas: To The End Of The World (Nintendo Reality)
2. Railstorm 2 (Apple Gemini)
3. Bully 3 (Nintendo Reality)
4. Bully 3 (Apple Virtua)
5. Stardew Valley (Google Nexus)
 
Summer 2016 (Part 1) - New Approaches To Nintendo Staples
Mario And Wario: An Unlikely Adventure

Mario And Wario: An Unlikely Adventure is a sidescrolling 2-D platformer for the Nintendo Connect, starring Mario and his rival Wario. The basic level structure mirrors that of a typical Mario game, with seven worlds broken up into a collection of levels, while the gameplay combines the traditional running and jumping of Mario games with the unique powerups and coin collecting of the Warioland series. There are Fire Flowers, Ice Flowers, and Super Stars, but also the Bull Helmet, Jet Helmet, and the Garlic Pot. You can play as either Mario or Wario, and levels are designed in such a way that both of them can access any part of the level, though some parts are trickier to access for one than the other. Each also has a unique ability: Mario can spin jump, while Wario is able to fart, blasting himself into the air or taking out nearby enemies. Coins can be used for a variety of different things, including buying lives/power-ups, buying collectible items, or even accessing secret levels, while enemies include both Mario and Wario's respective rogues' galleries, along with some new enemies unique to this game. The game's plot sees Captain Syrup kidnapping Princess Peach, hoping to ransom her off, which upsets Wario since that was his original plan. However, the two are soon attacked by a new enemy, the Flying Birdbrain, who captures both Peach and Syrup, locking them up in his flying ghost ship, which forces Mario and Wario to team up and come to the rescue, pursuing the ship across seven islands, each with its own set of tricks and challenges. These include:

Palm Tree Island: A beach themed area, and the basic starting area of the game, full of beach themed levels and some unique challenges.
Cocoa Waterfall Island: An island based around sweets and candy, with a gigantic chocolate waterfall in the middle.
Scrambled Egg Island: An island themed around breakfast foods, with "lava" in the form of runny egg residue everywhere.
Dust Bunny Island: An island covered by a gigantic bed, on which a massive giant sleeps. Most of this world takes place under the bed.
Earthquake Island: An island regularly split by powerful earthquakes, with a huge volcano in the center.
Golden Casino Island: A casino themed island rich with golden coins.
Pelican Port Island: A rowdy port city, which is run by the Flying Birdbrain and is his center of operations, with his ship docked in the middle. It's full of rowdy pirates.

Each island has its own boss enemy waiting at the end, and these bosses are unique because Mario and Wario must team up to take them down, with the player required to switch between them at certain parts of the fight. The final boss, the Flying Birdbrain himself, has four different phases each, where the player must switch to damage the Birdbrain again. The game is full of brief animated cutscenes, in which Mario and Wario mostly bicker with each other, though some of these cutscenes focus on Syrup and Peach, who equally dislike each other. In the end though, after Mario and Wario defeat the Flying Birdbrain, they end up bickering over who gets to save the ladies, while Syrup ends up taking all the money from Birdbrain's ship and leaving. Peach actually leaves with her, annoyed by Mario and Wario's bickering with each other, and it's implied that the two go on vacation together while Wario seems upset at losing his money and Mario is just happy that Peach is all right.

Mario And Wario: An Unlikely Adventure is released on August 26, 2016, the same day as equally huge Nintendo first party game The Legend Of Zelda: The Dungeon Fairy. The game is received well, averaging around an 8.5/10 with critics (a good game overall, but compared to other recent 2-D Mario games, it's a bit low). Sales are significantly better than those of The Dungeon Fairy, with first week sales coming in around three times better. It's a more accessible game appealing to a wider demographic than the Zelda title, though both are big successes for the Connect, and coupled with the release of a new Connect model for an MSRP of $129.99, drives sales of the device significantly throughout the rest of the year.

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The Legend Of Zelda: The Dungeon Fairy

The Legend Of Zelda: The Dungeon Fairy is a new 3-D Zelda adventure for the Nintendo Connect, and a spiritual successor to Tower Of Sentinels (different timeline, but same basic gameplay and slightly enhanced graphics). Developed at the same time as the 2015 Reality Zelda remake, it was made by a different development studio, but had a few of the same personnel in supervisory roles, and a few of the quality of life improvements from that title are present in this game. In it, Link must battle a dark sorcerer known as the Collector, who has kidnapped the seven Faeresses of the world and has imprisoned them in dungeons built on leylines, in an effort to channel their power into a machine that will allow him to recreate the Triforce (which was separated by the will of the Goddesses before the events of this game took place). Link is tasked by Zelda (who is best friends with one of the Faeresses, a girl named Norene who only recently discovered that she was a fairy when her magical powers began to manifest) to rescue the fairies, while she goes to protect the separated Triforce shards. Link remains in communication with Zelda at several points in the game, where she updates him on her own quest while giving him advice about the future. As for the game's progression, it's similar to many other Zelda titles in that Link must roam the world in search of these seven dungeons, each of which contain both a special item and the Dungeon Fairy/Faeress herself. The item (including the Bow, the Hookshot, and other important tools) is kept by Link after the end of the dungeon, but the Faeress is only present inside the dungeon itself, and once found, grants him a unique and special power that not only helps him navigate the rest of the dungeon, but also defeat the boss, and this power leaves Link when he exits the dungeon, as the Faeress returns home. These powers range from the ability to fire a magical projectile beam, to temporary invincibility, to free flight, and allow for some unique challenges in the final rooms of certain dungeons. Each Faeress has her own distinct personality, and they also range in age: one of them is a young stoic girl, one of them is a spritely, sagely old woman, while most are either teenagers or younger women (Norene, for example, is a teenager the same age as Link and Zelda). As for the world itself, it's best compared to the world of games such as Twilight Princess or Ocarina of Time, relatively free roaming, with gated off areas opened by story events or the acquisition of certain items. Once a Faeress is freed, her territory on the map changes, to allow for new challenges, new events, and new items to be gained.

The game's seven dungeons, like the dungeons in any Zelda title, encompass a range of environments and motifs, with the first dungeon being a forested dungeon and featuring a fairly typical Faeress (a young woman with a somewhat flirty personality), who gives Link the ability to charm enemies (which he must then use to solve puzzles in the dungeon, and during the boss fight, he can turn the boss' minions against him). Other dungeons include a fire-based dungeon, a purple poison based dungeon, and a woodpunk based dungeon, with steampunk-like technology but all based on wood, and a Faeress who doubles as an inventor. The game has an interesting selection of bosses as well, including a giant monkey lord (that's the first dungeon's boss, and he summons smaller monkeys to attack Link), a soaring bird of prey, and a boss based around mirrors, which can be killed by reflecting Link's Faeress-granted projectile beam around the room back at him. There's a boss that floods the entire room with lava, creating a situation that would be normally inescapable (but in this dungeon Link has the invincibility powerup, and can survive this). The final dungeon sees Link finally going to rescue Norene, and this dungeon is one of the series' more intriguing designs: a quiet temple-like dungeon with a blue motif and enemies that rely on sound to target Link. Called the Sanctum of Silence, this dungeon features sound themed puzzles, and Norene's unique ability grants Link the temporary use of her voice, which he uses for a huge variety of things in the second half of the dungeon. This dungeon is absolutely massive, featuring huge rooms and eight stories, several minibosses and some brainbending puzzles, and the boss is a humanoid creature with a bird motif and a blue cloak that somewhat resembles the Thunderbird from Zelda II, and must be taken down by using Norene's voice to disrupt its attacks and then shatter the various walls around the room. Defeating this boss restores the leyline and ends the Collector's threat to restore the Triforce, but he manages to capture Zelda, and is eventually revealed as Ganon, who was previously defeated (which is how the Triforce was shattered) before the events of this game, only for his spirit to rebuild itself from his own willpower and sheer hatred. He implores the seven Faeresses to come to the Grounds of the Goddess, and it's revealed that the leylines are tied to Link's Triforce of Courage, which is why the Faeresses were able to grant Link their power. The Grounds of the Goddess are sort of a dungeon in which Link must use all of the Faeresses' powers to advance, and when he reaches Ganon, the Faeresses restore Link's Triforce of Courage by merging into him, granting him the Faeress Sword and all of their unique powers for a final showdown with Ganon, in which Link and Ganon can both fly through the air and attack each other with beams, very Dragonball Z-esque, though not quite as fast paced. Link must use the Faeresses' powers to weaken Ganon before striking him down with the Faeress Sword. Ganon has only one form, a sort of humanoid beast form, but the fight has three phases in all. Ganon's defeat ends the threat to the world once and for all and frees Zelda. The Faeresses phase out of Link and each go their separate ways, with Zelda and Norene saying a tearful goodbye to each other before Norene has to return to the Fairy Realm to protect the world from afar.

The Dungeon Fairy scores slightly stronger reviews than Tower Of The Sentinels, and is overall one of the best received Connect titles of the year, though as far as Zelda games go, it's pretty average in terms of reception. It's a fun and epic adventure that really pushes the power of the Connect close to its limits, and is one of the most action packed Zelda games ever despite being a handheld game. It's released on August 26, 2016, and achieves strong sales, though it's soundly beaten by Mario and Wario in all territories. Mostly, it reinforces that the Connect is still going strong and that Zelda is still one of Nintendo's most valuable franchises, and neither of those things are going to be proven wrong any time soon.

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New Connect Lite Is Sleeker, Smaller, Cheaper, But Not A Whole Lot Better

The Connect Lite, which is being released on August 26th alongside new entries in the Mario and Zelda series, is the new form factor for the Nintendo Connect, and is Nintendo's way of reducing production costs while incorporating five years worth of technological improvements into their flagship handheld. The system itself is about 10 percent smaller and 25 percent lighter than the original Connect, while the screen remains the same size, owing to improvements in the materials and chips used in the design. The battery, despite being significantly less bulkier, will help the Connect run an hour or two longer, even with the most graphically intensive titles, so you'll be able to play it on the go even longer than before. All of this comes in a package that Nintendo will sell for $129.99, or $149.99 if you purchase the Mario or Zelda bundles that include the new games, Mario And Wario: An Unlikely Adventure and The Legend Of Zelda: The Dungeon Fairy respectively. The price on the old Connect model will also drop 20 dollars to $129.99, though Nintendo says it's planning to phase that model out in favor of the new one. So, has a whole lot changed? Not really. It's a bit easier to carry the Connect Lite around in your pocket, and the extra battery life is nice, but there's certainly no reason to swap out your old Connect for this new model, especially since it's the exact same machine under the hood, with no enhancements to memory or graphical power. It's a new form factor to allow Nintendo to save some money on parts, and that's pretty much it. That said, the price drop will definitely help Nintendo in its ongoing battle with Apple's Gemini. The Gemini remains close behind Nintendo in terms of current sales, though it's no longer narrowing the gap nearly as fast as it once was, and Nintendo has sold more Connect units so far this year, after briefly falling behind the Gemini last Christmas. The release of Pokemon Amethyst and Topaz should give Nintendo's handheld a nice cushion that will prevent them from losing a second holiday in a row, and the Connect's overall sales figures are still on pace to make it the best selling Nintendo handheld ever, surpassing the Supernova.

-from an article on Kotaku, posted on August 20, 2016
 
We didn't approve any of that... it's not really relevant to the current timeline, but still, anything like that needs to be approved over PM ^_^;;;
 
Summer 2016 (Part 2) - Steep Goes To The Extreme
Steep

Steep is an extreme sports/adventure title published and developed by Ubisoft for the Reality and Virtua (but not for the Nexus, as Ubisoft wanted to develop the game for the two more powerful systems and though the Nexus Pro would've been able to handle it, Google didn't want any Pro exclusive games). Like OTL's title, Steep is an open world game focused on extreme winter sports, though unlike OTL's game, it also features a full campaign/adventure mode in which four protagonists must live out their extreme sports dream while being pursued by a dangerous gang of criminals. It's like OTL's game in many ways, but also inspired by games such as Downhill and Thrillseekers, and also takes some inspiration from Ubisoft's Far Cry series, with many of the writers behind OTL's Far Cry 3 working on the adventure plot of this game. Like OTL's title, it's an open world winter sports game that takes place primarily in the Alps, and though the adventure mode features four protagonists, you can also create your own character or play as one of dozens of different premade characters in the game's freestyle mode, which starts out fairly basic but is unlocked more and more as the player experiences more of the adventure mode. The game also has online gameplay, but unlike OTL's Steep which was heavily dependent on online, TTL's Steep has the online mode sequestered in its own option, along with adventure mode and single player freeplay. The gameplay itself is fairly bare-bones (compared to the trick heavy gameplay and crowded HUD of the Thrillseekers series), but still includes eight different winter and aerial sports, each of which have their own unique controls and tricks, with accessibility to new players in mind, making it generally easier to pull off stunts than it is in the Thrillseekers series (though there are somewhat less tricks overall). Steep features a more robust in-game economy, with the player able to earn money to buy different equipment and other things (including music) at the various shops located around the overworld map, with money both found on the map and earned via performing different tricks and earning sponsorships. Unlike Thrillseekers, players of Steep must complete the adventure mode to open up most of the game's "free play" areas, though the adventure mode itself doubles as a tutorial for the game overall, teaching players the various sports and how to rack up high scores. The game's graphics are around the same level as TTL's game, perhaps a bit better owing to the extensive resources devoted to the game's VR and photo modes. The soundtrack consists of more than 50+ songs, with all of them being modern tunes as opposed to the mix of modern and classic songs in the Thrillseekers games. Notably, Steep has a Mature content rating, thanks in large part to the adventure mode, which tells an adult story full of violence and strong language, though the violent content also extends to free play, with graphic/realistic injuries when bailing (though these can be turned off if the player so chooses). ITTL, Ubisoft created Steep for an adult audience, and the writers/producers expressed a desire to make a "Thrillseekers for adults" when producing the game.

The four Adventure Mode protagonists consist of two men and two women, all in their 20s. They've been best friends since college, and two "couples" have formed among them as well, though they haven't quite progressed to the level of actually dating. They are:

River: An extreme sports thrill junkie and the "leader" of the group, River makes his money producing extreme sports films and viral videos online, and loves to have his friends along for the ride. Despite his reckless nature, he's actually pretty smart and serious, and likes to think he knows what he's doing. He's voiced by Steve Zahn.
Lisa: A beautiful blonde who's usually modeling when she's not doing extreme sports, Lisa loves the thrill of snowboarding and wingsuit flying, as it serves as a way to decompress from her stressful career. She's extremely kind and generous, and doesn't always see eye to eye with the others in the group, though she'd still do anything for them. She's voiced by Alexa Vega.
Trev: Trev is a bit of a loser. He doesn't have a job, unlike the others in the group, and is somewhat absentminded as well, though he's still a nice guy and a lot of fun to be around. He feels bad sometimes about the others bringing him along, but he tries not to show it as he doesn't want to be a bringdown. He's voiced by Greg Cipes.
Kat: Kat is a young woman from the UK, who met the other three as an international student, but quickly grew close to them due to sharing their love for extreme sports. She's the only one who does extreme sports for a living, competing professionally, though she missed out on her Olympic dream due to an injury. Now she wants to redeem herself by becoming a viral video star, but sometimes she pushes the others a bit too far, leading to some friction. She's voiced by Kirby Howell-Baptiste.

The Adventure Mode itself takes place across five chapters, and plays out somewhat like your typical Ubisoft open world game, with some main objectives and then lots of side objectives. The side objectives include both fairly basic missions to earn money and gear, but also missions expanding on the characters and telling some optional side stories. The main storyline itself focuses on the four trying to shoot the ultimate extreme sports video to earn fame and glory, only to accidentally catch footage of a crime being committed. As they struggle to get back to civilization, however, they're pursued by the criminals and forced to separate, with dramatic results. You can't equip a gun in the adventure mode, but there is some melee fighting during certain scenes, and it's even possible to use some extreme sports equipment such as a snowboard as a weapon. Many of the goals in the adventure mode don't require getting a certain amount of points, but instead, using your extreme sports skills to get from point A to point B by building up enough speed to clear gaps or evade pursuers. Overall, the adventure mode isn't quite as difficult as the one in Thrillseekers, though more of Steep is devoted to the overall plot concerning evading the bad guys, rather than ancillary goals such as scoring a lot of points. In addition, whereas the criminals in Thrillseekers were almost universally one-dimensional killers, the criminals in Steep are significantly more fleshed out and sympathetic (compare them somewhat to Bodhi's gang in the film Point Break), creating some interesting dynamics between the heroes and the villains. In the end, the criminals are apprehended (and their leader is killed after a stunt gone wrong), and the heroes are safe (though Kat gets a "fakeout" death scene at one point). The four even manage to get their video, and their friendship is as strong as ever (with River and Lisa even becoming an actual couple).

Released on July 12, 2016, Steep gets high praise from reviewers, who enjoy both the storyline and the free play mode, while the most criticized aspect of OTL's game, the online, is significantly better received due to being more of an optional thing. The biggest concern that critics have with the game is the same concern many have with Ubisoft's OTL sandbox titles: there's too much to do, and most of the icons on the screen ultimately don't amount to anything. Critics also take issue with the requirement that you play through adventure mode to unlock much of the game, a requirement not present in the Thrillseekers games (which Steep is of course compared to). Overall, however, it's a very popular game, with high review scores and strong sales, ultimately proving to be a better Thrillseekers imitator than EA's The Ride, which was released to only moderate sales and only slightly good critical scores. The success of Steep not only shows that Ubisoft is becoming more comfortable with the kinds of sandbox games it's been releasing IOTL, but also shows the impact of the Thrillseekers franchise on video game writing and structure: the idea of a comprehensive adventure mode and storyline in games that otherwise wouldn't bother is a major trend separating TTL from OTL, and it largely started with Thrillseekers all the way back in 2004. While story modes have kept the extreme sports genre alive longer ITTL than IOTL, it's also almost impossible to do an extreme sports game without a detailed story, which some gamers have gotten exhausted of, as it can distract from the actual gameplay itself. Steep, while quite successful, pushes this conversation into the forefront more than any other game to date, and it's a conversation that continues with the release of Thrillseekers: Thin Air 2 later in the year, and well beyond even that.
 
This trend of story modes in sports games is reminiscent of EA's real life FIFA ones, but at least they don't seem as monopolistic here as they are IRL.
 
I apologize if this has already been asked, or being off subject, but a thought occured to me:

Does G4 still air Ninja Warrior (Sasuke in Japan) or is that on another network because of butterflies?

It airs on another network.

Also did the Atlanta Thrashers move to Winnipeg?

They still do, yep.

In fact, I thought of something that feels like a pipe dream. Would we see Naughty Dog make a mega crossover with all their IPs, like how Argonaut made that Star Fox x Squad Four x X crossover? I mean, think of the possibilities for such an IP blend!

Well, they had a kart racing game for a while, but at this point I don't think we'll see anything like that, they're too busy working on their AAA titles. We MIGHT see Naughty Dog North do something, but it's up in the air.

Hey, checking in again after I think 7 or 8 actual months of silent observance. Apologies for that.
About the TTL Puyo Puyo writeup I talked about doing near the beginning of the thread; I was actually slowly writing it all out over the course of these past few months, though I think I got a bit too invested in it since the Word document I have everything written down on is 20+ pages long. I was actually near finished, only having one game left in the timeline to write (Out of around 11 games in total), though I'm a bit concerned about finishing and sending it for review at this point (admittedly, life matters got a bit in the way) since I'm afraid what I've done so far (which is a lot) could potentially contrast or contradict whatever you guys have planned for TTL's version of the Puyo Puyo Tetris crossover (which the mention of it in the Apple keynote is what motivated me to talk about this again in the first place).
I'm open to discussing matters further either in here or in private conversations, and I sincerely apologize if I had left either of you hanging over this topic until now.

Well, we didn't really have any plans for Puyo Puyo Tetris other than mentioning that the game is a thing that exists, so you're free to come up with whatever you want for it ^_^

Has Andrew Lloyd Webber been up to anything ITTL?

Not anything notable.
 
Summer 2016 (Part 3) - Time After Time
After Time

After Time is an FPS/RPG/MMO developed by Bungie. In development for nearly six years, and originally intended to be a Google Nexus exclusive, Bungie decided to make the game for the Reality and Virtua as well after Google declined to purchase the rights to the IP, which lengthened development time by at least a year but also enabled Bungie to expand the game and make a number of graphical improvements. After Time has a lot in common with OTL's Destiny, in that it involves an alien invasion, a postapocalyptic Earth, galactic travel, and collaborative online gameplay, but there are a lot of crucial differences as well, most notably in the interactivity of the game's storyline and the nature of the game's villains, a group of alien conquerors known as the Geth, which have imprisoned the souls of the humans they've killed in order to power their war machines. The game also features a substance called Chronum, which allows for the manipulation of time. On a personal scale, it allows individuals (both humans and Geth) to briefly slow or stop time, or speed it up, and this forms the bulk of the special abilities that players can use on enemies (OTL's Destiny had different hero classes, but After Time features only one class, and a larger, branched skill tree for that class). Players can slow down enemy projectiles to dodge them, or speed up their own bullets to increase their killing power. There are also "time bubbles" from which players can use weapons or items with different effects, depending on the nature of the bubble. This Chronum is important on a cosmic scale as well: the Geth seek to use Chronum as a weapon, freezing entire planets in time, or speeding them up to age and kill the people living on them, while humans simply wish to go back to before the apocalypse that ravaged Earth. It's revealed that humans have used Chronum to colonize parts of the galaxy as well, so even though the game takes place only a few hundred years after the present day, there are human civilizations that have been around for 10,000 years or more due to the use of Chronum. There are also monsters known as Xenofauna scattered around the galaxy. Some are small and friendly, others are large and menacing and pose a threat to both human and Geth alike. After Time also features melee combat which also makes heavy use of Chronum skills, with the player able to use fighting moves enhanced by the use of Chronum to speed up their blows and slow down enemy movement. Like OTL's Destiny, After Time is a "looter shooter" with a wide variety of weapons possessing six different rarities: common, uncommon, rare, epic, legendary, and unknown, with legendary and unknown weapons being "unique". There's no special merchant in After Time, so unlike in Destiny, weapon acquisition isn't bound to player timing. Instead, weapons are acquired like they are in games such as Diablo and OTL's Borderlands: by defeating enemies and gathering loot drops, with more challenging enemies and missions providing better drops generally. The best drops are usually acquired via "raids", in which at least four (but sometimes more, especially after the first DLC drops) players team up to take on especially difficult missions, usually after the completion of the base storyline. Many of these raids are recommended for high level players fully decked out in legendary and unknown gear, though of course with enough skill it's possible for solo players with lesser gear to take them on. After Time's storyline is driven by online events, some of which are special events that occur only once, and it's possible for player feats to affect the game's storyline. This is mostly done by being one of the first to complete a new legendary raid, being a low level player who completes a majorly high level task, or discovering something entirely new in the game. Depending on the player's chosen faction, the game's storyline ends up playing out in different ways. Usually this means that the faction with a plurality of players ends up driving storyline events, but sometimes the game producers will throw things for a loop by having a minority faction score a crucial victory. This generates a lot of hype around special timed events, with some dedicated players often scheduling their lives around these events (this will be a lot easier for streamers who play games for a living). After Time features excellent graphics, with beautiful, panoramic views of alien worlds and exotic creatures. The game features a soundtrack by Martin O'Donnell, and a strong cast of voice actors, including film actress Jessica Chastain as the voice of Sergeant Erika Landon, the most prominent NPC in the game, who the player will spend a lot of time interacting with on the single player campaign. Keith David voices Rak'uvar, the leader of the Geth, and David Spade, in a rare dramatic turn, voices Colton Agle, the player's former squadmate. He does have some comic relief moments, mostly in flashbacks, but ends up meeting a tragic end.

The game's campaign, which takes around 20 hours to complete, sees the protagonist, who can be male or female and who is called The Survivor by those they meet, departing a ravaged Earth, leaving their squadmate Agle behind (though Agle agreed to stay behind to help secure the Earth base against monster incursion). They end up on a refugee planet called Desolar, where they fight to survive before being rescued by Sergeant Landon, who believes that the Survivor has the key to helping stop the Geth and gather up more Chronum. Their travels take them to several planets where humans are fighting the Geth and the monsters inhabiting the worlds, guarding huge deposits of Chronum and menacing other human refugees. Eventually, the Survivor comes to the world of Neoterra, where a human civilization has somehow been thriving for many thousands of years, and where humanity has seemingly repelled both the Geth and the Xenofauna. The humans of Neoterra have enjoyed peace for so long that they have forgotten what war is like, and have an almost "there is no war in Ba Sing Se" attitude toward the Survivor, who needs the Chronum from Neoterra to construct the machine that will help save Earth. The Survivor also learns that Agle was briefly here, and may have been taken prisoner, though when the Survivor infiltrates Neoterra's prison system, they find no one of any importance. However, the Geth soon arrive and attack Neoterra, which, despite the planet's strong weapons and defenses, can't hold off the Geth forever. The Survivor eventually finds Landon, who arrived on Neoterra earlier and was taken prisoner herself, but managed to escape, finding a way to reach the Chronum stores. While some of the Chronum is destroyed, the Survivor is able to gather up enough to potentially power the time dilation device, and leaves the wartorn planet with Landon (though they'll be able to return to do missions for both the Neoterrans and the human defense forces). After a bit more galactic wandering, the Survivor has gathered enough Chronum for the device, though their efforts are soon foiled, not by the Geth, but by a man named Roderick (also voiced by David Spade), claiming to be a descendant of Agle, who ended up living out his days on Earth, inside a time bubble created by a Chronum mishap. He and some other survivors banded together, and he found comfort in the arms of a woman who bore him a child, and that child took the last of the Chronum and ended up wandering the galaxy, looking for a way back to civilization and finding other human colonies. As it turns out, Agle's descendants are the ones who seeded humanity throughout the galaxy (via some Chronum-fueled misadventures and a fairly longwinded exposition that ends up being one of the more controversial plot points of the game), and they don't want time to be reversed, as the apocalypse has given humanity an opportunity to spread throughout the stars and become a civilization powerful enough to destroy the Geth. The final missions involve the Survivor making his way onto Roderick's ship to stop a Chronum-fueled attack on the military leaders of the human faction by the Descendants of Agle, while the Geth mount a massive attack on the human armies. The Survivor defeats Roderick, and then battles a Geth military leader who has injected himself with Chronum to enhance his abilities. After this leader is defeated, the Geth are repelled and the human military leaders are safe, but now the human leaders are torn as to whether or not to use the time dilation device to restore Earth or to colonize the galaxy. While humanity is safe for now, the Geth are still a threat, humanity seems to have split into two factions that face civil war, and there are new threats popping up everywhere as other alien races are provoked by the Descendants of Agle. These battles rage on as the game's DLC is released over the next two years, forcing the game's player base to take sides in the galactic war.

After Time is released on August 2, 2016, and mostly lives up to the hype, with review scores averaging in the low 9s. Though the game's plot gets some criticism, the graphics and online gameplay are both highly praised, and overall the game is considered less of a disappointment than either of OTL's Destiny titles, both of which were plagued with problems from the get go. Sales are extremely strong, about the same as Destiny, making it one of the biggest games of 2016, with the Virtua actually seeing more sales than either the Nexus or Reality (though only slightly), and PC sales being very strong as well, especially among players with high end rigs. After Time is a very successful game, but it also heavily pushes the "live service" model that many games were criticized for doing IOTL, with everything that goes with it, including microtransactions and lots of DLC. As one of the first major games to adopt the trend ITTL, it takes a lot of criticism from game journalists for the practice, though most of the general player base seems to accept it due to the quality of the game. It would be a debate that would rage for the rest of the year, especially as After Time's Game Of The Year campaign ramps up in a crowded field...
 
Summer 2016 (Part 4) - From Battle Royale To A Battle For The Galaxy
Slaughtered Planet 2

Slaughtered Planet 2 is a WRPG developed by Rare (albeit a different division of the company than the one that created Battle Buddies). It continues the story of the original Slaughtered Planet, taking place mostly on the same world and with a few familiar locations from the previous game (though Rare was also careful to create plenty of new areas for players to explore). Like its predecessor, Slaughtered Planet 2 features loads of weapons and allows players to choose whether to enjoy the game as more of an FPS or a third person adventure, though there are two big changes to the overall flow of the game. Rare listened to the complaints from many players about there being "too much to collect", and scaled down the different types of things players will need to collect in the game. Though there's still plenty of loot to find, players won't need to find as many different varieties of items to upgrade or build their equipment, or to purchase things from stores (there's only two types of currency now). In addition, there's more open exploration in the game, with a lot less railroading, something that turned players off of the previous title (a huge world to explore, but big parts of it closed off for long stretches of gameplay). Now, Vaon (who can once again be fully customized by the player in terms of appearance, though it's also possible to transfer a save from the original Slaughtered Planet to this game to get the same appearance and loadout) is able to really stretch his legs and explore the planet fully, even from the beginning of the game. Players can also choose one "Legacy Skill" from the original game to max out right from the start, and if you have an original Slaughtered Planet save, you can max out two skills. Early enemy mobs have been balanced for this, providing a challenge to the player according to what skill they chose to have Veon master. In addition to Strength, Defense, Skill, Intelligence, and Luck, there's now a Charm stat, which influences Veon's persuasive abilities and is used to solve certain in-game skill checks. Though there's still plenty to explore, with lots of cities, towns, and structures, there are more ruined areas now, with different kinds of beasts, including Slaughter Beasts, which have been influenced by the dark god and have special unique abilities (but can also sometimes carry unique treasure). There are more vehicles in the game as well, and it's possible to "get lost" on long quest lines that take players far from the main quest of the game (which focuses on a rebellion against Queen Sylea, possessed by the last remaining fragment of the dark god). Of course, the graphics have seen significant improvement, a huge step up from the original Sapphire title. Some of the original voice actors have been replaced, including Colin Cunningham, the original voice of Vaon, and Italia Ricci, the original voice of the rebel leader Ren, though Laura Bailey does return to reprise her role as Sylea, now the game's primary antagonist (for much of the game, anyway).

In the two years since the events of the original Slaughtered Planet, Queen Sylea has been corrupted and possessed by the dark god Slaughter, who is using her to exert his will over the people of Camus Black. Sylea is raising an army to conquer the galaxy, and in addition to her human armies, has an army of beasts at her beck and call. Vaon has gone into self-exile, not wanting to get involved with the rebellion, as he blames himself for allowing Sylea to be corrupted by Slaughter. Instead, it's Ren who leads the battle against Sylea, while Vaon has been mostly offworld. He's brought back by a young scrapper named Turk who managed to escape Camus Black and witnessed Sylea personally killing rebels, while also catching a glimpse of the weapon she's been constructing. Once Vaon arrives, he rendezvous with Ren, who is disgusted with him for leaving, and tries to kill him. Vaon escapes, and from there, the game largely opens up to allow the player to engage in one of three main quest threads or complete one of many side quests that become available. Vaon learns that Slaughter seeks out whoever rules Camus Black, and that the corruption engulfing the planet goes deeper than Sylea, but is in fact a part of the planet's nature, accumulating whenever anyone wields any sort of political power for personal gain. Vaon seeks to get to the bottom of the corruption engulfing Sylea, in the hopes that he's able to save her before the corruption consumes her. The main quest has Vaon going back through Sylea's life, visiting the places she's been and the people she's met, leaning their problems and their relationship to Sylea. Another main quest thread has Vaon patching up his relationship to Ren, or at least attempting to, and the third main quest thread has Vaon teaming up with an old farmer named Hennipen, who once led a rebellion against a corrupt ruler of Camus Black, but this time, instead of leading a rebellion, he seeks to build a great city free from Sylea's control, and needs Vaon's help. These three storyline threads are associated with a different alignment for Vaon: the Hennipen path represents the Light path, a more noble path for Vaon. The Ren path represents the Dark path, a path of destruction and war, while the Sylea thread represents the Balance path, seeing moderation between the two approaches. Any of the three paths is valid, and they all lead to the same place: a confrontation with Sylea at her seat of power, and the revelation that an offworld faction called the Deathmoon Syndicate seeks to make a pact with Slaughter. This faction, led by a cunning tyrant named Brandeis, inhabits the husk of a moon that once suffered an apocalyptic event, only for its people to refuse to die. They inhabit the planet as ghostlike creatures, while Brandeis is a sort of necromancer, using his power to keep his followers alive. He seeks Slaughter's aid to end the curse afflicting his people, which will leave Brandeis free to use all of his power for conquest rather than to preserve his subjects' lives. Vaon actually visits the Deathmoon at one point in the main quest, and there are some side quests that can be completed there, but ultimately the goal of the player here is to sever the link between Brandeis and his people, which would cause them to die permanently (thus preventing them from aiding Sylea's army). Meanwhile, Ren's rebellion consumes Camus Black, leading to all out war on the planet, which Brandeis attempts to take advantage of. Depending on the players' actions, they'll either need to fight a corrupted Ren (Light path), a corrupted Brandeis (Neutral path), or a corrupted Sylea (Dark path). Either way, no matter what happens, Slaughter is set free in his true form, while Ren is killed and Sylea is freed from its influence (though she may be in a coma if on the Neutral or Dark path). Slaughter inhabits the husk of the Deathmoon, and tries to ram it into Camus Black, forcing Vaon to intervene. If Sylea is conscious, she'll aid Vaon, otherwise, Vaon will be on his own or with another companion. Slaughter is destroyed once and for all, though the exploding Deathmoon causes a cataclysm on Camus Black, leaving much death and destruction in its wake. Sylea survives no matter what in the end, as does Vaon, and the two will lead the rebuilding efforts on the planet (either together in the light/neutral endings, or apart in the dark ending).

Slaughtered Planet 2 is released on August 12, 2016, exclusively for the Nintendo Reality. For the most part, it receives excellent reviews, on par with, if not slightly better, than the original game's. Praise is given for the game's graphics, gameplay, and improved focus, though some criticize the repetitive enemy selection and simplified loot system (it's considered an improvement over the original, but some critics think too much has been removed). Most notably, it achieves sales on par with those of the original game, becoming one of Nintendo's biggest first party titles of the summer and one of the most successful games of the year. Slaughtered Planet 2's release is accompanied by some content for Battle Buddies involving the addition of Slaughtered Planet characters and content into that game, and vice versa, with Battle Buddies players getting some extra perks in Slaughtered Planet 2. In just three months, Rare has released two massive hits for Nintendo, and despite a five year stretch that saw the departure of many old faces at the company, the arrival of young blood has revitalized the culture at the company, allowing for some of Rare's best releases ever. The company remains as synonymous with quality as it was during the SNES/Ultra Nintendo days, and the company continues to work on strong new IPs that will be released in the years ahead.
 

ian5786

Banned
Excuse me did Anpanman come to end ITTL unlike IOTL and is replaced by Mighty Cat Masked Niyander is it still Exist or Butterflied ITTL, Also i wanna see Lupin the Third still Exist ITTL
 
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