It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, but Telltale Games has released a season finale trailer for their Game of Thrones series and of course since the sixth and final episode comes out today, the trailer is absolutely packed with spoilers regarding major decisions that the player had to make over the course of the previous five episodes.
If you do wish to avoid any spoilers then you can skip to the three minute and fifteen second range in the video below as that is where the trailer showcasing some of the events to expect in The Ice Dragon begins.
If you’ve ever wondered how the very first Disgaea game played then you’ll soon have a chance to do so without dusting off an old console or handheld. You see, NIS America has announced that they plan on bringing the original Disgaea to PC under the simple name of Disgaea PC. The title will feature all of the content in the original game plus the content that was later added in the PSP release of the game.
Disgaea PC will feature a new control scheme and support various Steam features such as allowing people to earn Achievements and trading cards, use either a keyboard and mouse or a gamepad, and of course easy saving. Although Disgaea PC isn’t set to be released until sometime in February 2016, you can check out the Steam page for the title here.
Last year MangaGamer announced that they had partnered with a new developer named Liarsoft and now the first visual novel that the company has picked up from that developer now has an English release date. Titled Gahkthun of the Golden Lightning players will take on the role of Nikola Tesla, a man who arrives at an artificial island known as The Academia which was created to reclaim the dark foul sea. In an effort to set the land right, Tesla and his assistant are prepared to face off against the council and overthrow anyone who controls elements from the shadows.
Gahkthun of the Golden Lightning is set for PC release on December 23rd and now that the title has a release date the company has opened up pre-orders. Those who wish to learn more about the title and pre-order this 18+ title can do so on MangaGamer‘s official website where they can currently secure the title at the discounted price of $40.45 as it will return to its normal price of $44.95 upon release.
The Crew expansion Wild Run is out now for the PS4, Xbox One and PC! (Sorry 360 owners). Featuring a graphical update, dynamic weather inclusion and trial challenges in a large update that is available free for all owners of the original game, those who actually purchase the expansion can look forward to brand new cars, three new specs in Drift, Drag and Monster Truck, new missions and mission types, the inclusion of motorbikes and new free drive events.
Ubisoft and Ivory Tower promise to support The Crew Wild Run expansion just as they did the original game with new features, tweaks and the occasional free car. You can check out our review of the original game to see what we thought back then when the game was released. The game has had some patches since then that has addressed some of our issues but the review is still mostly true for the most part.
I spent a bit of time back in the world of The Crew before writing this article. The new Monster Truck and Drag events I experienced in the trial look like fun but the drifting felt way, way off, especially after spending a fair bit of time with Need for Speed in the last week. The update is definitely worth a look for anyone looking to get back into The Crew or it’s expansion though. You can download the expansion or the full game from each platforms respective store (Steam or uPlay on PC) and is also available as a new retail release in stores including the original game and expansion in one package, retailing at a respectable $49 AUD.
Madman Entertainment has released several anime titles in Australia today. All of the following releases are now available in stores and from online retailers.
Bleach Collection 27 on DVD (Episodes 355-366)
Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’ on DVD and Blu-ray
Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions ~ Heart Throb (Season 2) Collection on DVD
Today sees the release of the final collection of Bleach episodes. Madman stated that there are no plans for a box set of the anime adaptation, but it is something that may happen in the future. The Naruto Shippuden box set contains the first four Naruto Shippuden films. The limited edition Sword Art Online II Part 2 releases will come with an art book and will feature different cover art.
An official promotional image and English-dubbed trailer for Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin III: “Dawn of Rebellion” is now available on the official online Gundam news and video portal Gundam.info. This episode will premiere in Japanese cinemas in spring 2016. It will take place in the year U.C. 0077 and depict Char Aznable’s and Garma Zabi’s time as cadets. The second OVA, “Artesia’s Sorrow“, premiered in Japan less than a month ago.
Both the teaser image and original Japanese video were originally posted on the Japanese version of the official Gundam news site a few days ago. The teaser poster and the English-dubbed trailer are featured below.
Anno 2205 is taking the economic simulator series to space. The latest iteration of the Anno series will have players building cities in three distinct regions, all while fending off the threat of the Moon-based terrorist organization the Orbital Watch. Anno 2205 supports city sizes five times larger than its predecessor and introduces a session mode that lets player manage multiple maps at the same time.
Story
After the invention of nuclear fusion reactors, a new space race is kicking off. The Helium-3 isotope needed to fuel the reactors is found in great concentrations on the Moon, and now multiple corporations are now in a race to build cities Moon and harvest this new energy source. At the same time, the Orbital Watch threatens the plan. The surprisingly well armed terrorist organization composed of Moon colonists are hell bent on preventing a new wave of development on the Moon.
Anno 2205 doesn’t really provide a gripping narrative. To be fair, I don’t think most people expect an economic simulator to have much of a story in the first place. The game’s plot is really just a vague window dressing that explains the setting. The writing is average at best, for the exception Orbital Watch. The plotline with the terrorist organization is really lousy, and the lines written for Orbital Watch characters are somewhere between laughably bad and absolutely cringe worthy. The low quality makes it feel like the Orbital Watch was shoved into the story at the very last minute.
Gameplay
Anno 2205 is an economics-based city building sim with some light RTS combat. In the city-building portion of the game, players will need to build their city to drive income for corporation. The main source of income will be the citizens of each city. Happy citizens who have access to higher quality goods and services can be upgraded, unlocking access to better technologies. To support the factories, farms, and research centres, cities will need enough power and logistics to keep the economy moving. Success in the game hinges on efficient use of available land and maintaining the economy’s balance. Keeping citizens happy becomes more challenging as the quality of workers goes up and their needs increases. Eventually their needs can no longer be satisfied with products made in the zone, requiring trade routes to be be set up between settlements and further complicating the economy’s balance.
The game ships with three regions with three maps each. Upon gaining access to a new region, players will choose one of the three pre-made maps, each with its own bonuses. The other two maps will be owned by competing corporations and can be unlocked with a hostile take over with enough credits. Players start off in the temperate region, which lets players build without any restrictions. Once the Space Port is upgraded, players gain access to the next zone. The arctic and lunar zones have some building considerations. Residential buildings in the arctic must be built near industrial buildings to provide enough heat for their occupants. The lunar zone takes this one step further by requiring all buildings to be built near a shield generator to protect it from falling debris. The restrictions on constructions make efficient map set ups a little more challenging. The session system allows for all of the maps to have an effect on the company’s economic situation at all times, meaning players will need to hop back and forth between maps to adjust the economy in response to some growth in another zone.
I had a blast with the economic balancing act in Anno 2205. It is complex enough to be challenging without becoming too frustrating or bogged down in the details. The controls are excellent, especially the move function that lets gamers reorganize their cities as needed. I felt the trading system with the AI to be a little underwhelming. Each map has a trader who is willing to do some small trades, with offers cycling every 15 minutes. I found the trader was rarely willing to do any actual trades. Players can also trade with an AI controller lunar station, with prices being set by supply and demand of all Anno 2205 players worldwide.
The other half of the game are simple RTS combat missions against the Orbital Watch. Players are given a small fleet of ships to fight off Orbital Watch attacks and are rewarded with rare materials needed for upgrading factories in the city-building portion of the game. Helpful weapons and fuel for defensive abilities are littered across the map, encouraging players to explore the map in its entirety. Each combat map has three difficulty levels, with increasing rewards. The combat isn’t challenging and is rather repetitive. There are only a small handful of maps that are repeated often. The combat portion of the game feels half-baked, as if the developers were simply trying to add something to a feature box than creating something fulfilling.
Anno 2205 is littered with optional side missions in both combat and city-building modes. These missions are very simple, often asking for players to search out objects littered in the environment or completing very MMO-like grind quests. These can help minimize the number of combat missions a player needs to go on, as they do have rare resources as a reward. Unfortunately, these side quests feel very cheap and make the game feel a little more like a Facebook game than an actual full priced AAA title.
Anno 2205 has some minor bugs that still need to be stomped out. The controls seem to stick once in a while, needing a left click or two to fix things. Opening up a claim area box with a command ship then leaving the map will also cause the claim box to stay on screen, even when the map is changed.
Visuals
Anno 2205 is gorgeous. The landscapes are absolutely breathtaking. The cities themselves are a little on the quiet side, as traffic seems pretty sparse. The art direction is excellent. The temperate region buildings have a great futuristic style with lots of glass, while the arctic and lunar buildings are designed appropriately for their difficult environments. Everything isn’t perfect though, there are some sloppy graphics. The combat missions suffer from a lot of clipping, causing units to stack on top of each other. The voice acting and the model animations are not synced, leaving models still talking while the voices have stopped playing.
On the hardware side, Anno 2205 has an excellent set of visual options that can tame the graphics down to more manageable levels for older hardware. The FPS is pretty stable for the most part, but large amounts moving water absolutely crushes the FPS. In my testing, moving the camera to high motion areas like waterfalls easily result in a 20 FPS hit.
Audio
The music and sound effects in Anno 2205 are solid, though nothing really stands out. The voice acting is a bit of a mixed bag. Most of it is average at best, with a few standout lines. The weird thing is how bad all of the Orbital Watch lines are. Virgil Drake’s lines are passable, although weaker than the other main characters’ voice acting. The Orbital Watch unit lines are just downright awful and do not sound like they were performed by a professional voice actor. Anno 2205’s lack of proper closed captioning is a bit frustrating. The only closed captioning that is available is a very poor summary of what is being said by the voice actor.
Overall
Anno 2205 is an entertaining economic simulator with some half baked ideas. While the economic-based city building is great, the combat missions and the side quests feel like they were tacked on last minute. The game could have easily done without either of the two features and would feel like a more polished release. The audio/visuals are decent for the most part, though there are some very poor voice acting scattered throughout the game. If you are a fan of Anno 2070, city building sims, or economic based games, Anno 2205 will scratch your itch, but don’t keep your hopes high for the combat.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
A new visual novel is on the way to both MangaGamer on Steam and it just so happens to be called Highschool Romance. Though the title features no adult content, it does offer a bit of a twist since the story of the visual novel follows a young man named Shoji who must now cross dress as a girl after he is accidentally enrolled in an all girls high school.
Developed by AJTilley, Highschool Romance will offer multiple endings and when it is released for PC, Mac, and Linux on November 18th it will be priced at $9.95, though those who want to pre-order the visual novel can do so through MangaGamer (where a free Steam code will also be provided) for $7.96.
Overview There are a number of series that fans of certain genre know will generally deliver a satisfying experience every time and for JRPG fans the Tales series is a near annual reminder of what the genre they have fallen in love with. With many prominent series making the jump to the latest console generation it is now time for the Tales series to do so as well, and with Tales of Zestiria Rnow available in the West, both for the PlayStation 4 as well as those lingering on the PlayStation 3, how does the fifteenth entry in the series make its mark?
Story Tales of Zestiria takes place in a world where two kingdoms are constantly at war between one another, with the Hyland Kingdom battling the Rolance Empire while various guilds profit on the side due to the struggles of the world. Living in such turbulent times has caused a strange force to be generated in the world and this force has the power to transform everything, including the living and the dead, into monsters called Hellion.
In this world however there are also two types of beings, humanity as well as the Seraphim, magical beings that can only be seen by humans that have a strong level of resonance. One such human happens to be named Sorey who has lived with the seraphim all his life, even being childhood friends with a water seraphim named Mikleo. Despite living in isolation, Sorey and his friend manage to stumble upon a woman in trouble only for this woman to lead them down a path that will place Sorey in the shoes of a Shepherd, a man capable of fighting alongside the Seraphim and using their abilities to prevent the end of the world by cleansing it of the malevolent force bringing ruin to the land.
This is a return to form for the Tales series as it ventures back to its roots of being a strictly fantasy title in Tales of Zestiria as it moves away from certain elements previously found in Xillia. Players will find that Sorey’s journey has another staple from the series intact, and that is the incredibly slow beginning period. While necessary, the first six hours of the title feel like a chore but once you manage to get past that point things open up nicely with a number of reveals that give the simple seeming story more depth than it initially lets on.
As for the characters, most of the cast is quite enjoyable and their interactions in the field, during battle victory scenes, and of course during the Skits help create a colorful cast with plenty of humor and personality. It is worth noting however that due to relatively sketchy storyline reasons, players shouldn’t grow too close to one of the first few characters in the game as she is given the boot and replaced by a separate character.
While I found her replacement to have an interesting personality, though she does seem to contradict herself at various times, that manages to mesh well with the rest of the group after a short time, it is easy to understand that few may take issue with the replacement of a character that we’ve grown to enjoy with a sudden newcomer.
Gameplay
The release of Tales of Zestiria is the first one in quite some time that gives the player such an immersive feeling of having an open environment to explore. Almost every environment that players can venture through is given a massive field with plenty of unique objects to examine and items to collect and of course plenty of enemies to fight. Even little side-quests can be hidden in these environments that, when completed, provide players special skills that can be equipped onto their characters.
By providing so much to do in the field players will find themselves really wondering why the series hasn’t managed to try this before as it is hard to imagine going back to the old style, especially since the dungeons make use of this same style. I say this because the dungeons in the game still feature very formulaic mechanics that are the exact opposite of open feeling, by forcing players onto strict bland corridors and implementing various simplistic puzzles in an effort to pad things out.
Of course while exploring players will find numerous enemies to fight and while Tales of Zestiria still makes use of the LMBS (Linear Motion Battle System) that the series is known for, it has been changed up a bit. Rather than being transported onto a separate field, enemies encountered, with advantages being given to the player if they strike first, in the field are sealed into that environment with the player’s party deploying as the enemies usually grow in number as well.
It is worth noting that thanks to the storyline’s nature of featuring Seraphim and Shepherds, two humans and two Seraphim are allowed in battle at one time with each Seraphim being paired with a human. This does make party creation more restrictive than some fans of the series would like but it is also entirely possible to switch between Seraphim on the fly. To top that off, players can also make use of special transformations with their currently assigned Seraphim by triggering Armitization.
Armitization allows a human to temporarily fuse with their Seraphim and gain a massive boost to their stats, a changed appearance, and unlock some new skills. This type of action can really turn a battle in the player’s favor but the developers did make it a bit more balance since it reduces the number of fighters on the field down a bit which can be a big negative at times, especially if the Armitized character is defeated.
Other than that though players will find plenty of Artes at their disposal as well as numerous elements to customize their characters to prepare them for battle, in fact the customization may be a bit daunting at first but everything is introduced in a way that is easy enough to learn as players grow accustomed to fusing equipment together to create powerful armor and of course taking advantage of various passive skills and cooking in-between battles to provide special boosts. This creates plenty of ways to customize and deck out your party and possibly change up your strategy on the fly in a manner that will please many fans of the series.
Visuals & Audio Now although Tales of Zestiria has been released on the PlayStation 4, it is readily apparent that this was not what Bandai Namco had been intending on. I say this because despite its transition onto the latest console generation Tales of Zestiria suffers heavily from both terrible pop-in rates when it comes to objects in the environment, but also some rather noticeable drops in frame rate come into play far too often to be ignored.
Thankfully the character designs are still as lovingly detailed as fans will remember as each of the characters are excellently handled here. The same can be said about the environments players will be exploring as there is quite a bit of detail put into most of these landscapes, though some repetition does factor in here.
The music for the series remains as impressive as ever with a number of outstanding orchestral tracks that appear from time to time as well as plenty of enjoyable common themes that are used throughout the game. As for the voice acting, the actors handle their character’s personalities well enough with the title supporting a fully voiced dub.
Overall Tales of Zestiria returns the series back to its somewhat simpler roots by basing its story around a boy from the forest who is tasked with saving the world but throws in plenty of details and enjoyable characters to keep things fresh after the initial slog through the beginning. Sure the title may not have seen a proper transition onto the PlayStation 4 here, but the revamped combat system and the new way that world exploration is handled breathe some fresh air into a series that continues to remain dependable. Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Did you know #86 is Maxwell Smart’s agent number from the old Get Smart TV show? This week’s Indie GalaEvery Monday Bundle won’t teach you how to be a super agent, but there are two brawlers that will make you feel utterly badass. This week bundle packs six indie games for $1.99.
One Finger Death Punch – A fighting game that uses a 1:1 response system that rewards skilled players for not button mashing.
Double Dragon: Neon – The classic beat ’em up has been rebooted for a whole new generation of gamers.
Hatred – A violent twin stick shooter starring an angry antagonist on a shooting spree.
Loot Hunter – A RPG on the high seas full of pirates.
Pizza Express – A fast paced restaurant sim that will have players attempting to survive against the withering competition against the local bistro.
