Square Enix has already provided a wealth of songs on the vanilla version of Theatrhythm Final Fantasy but that is only scratching the surface as far as Final Fantasy music goes. As such they have plenty of DLC coming out for the game and today the company revealed their August DLC schedule.
It is worth noting that the songs all cost $0.99 a piece, though the question is, when will they release the opening theme from Final Fantasy X-2?
August 2, 2012
1. “Movement in Green” (FINAL FANTASY X)
2. “March of the Dreadnoughts” (FINAL FANTASY XIII)
3. “Gustaberg” (FINAL FANTASY XI)
4. “The Crystal Tower” (FINAL FANTASY III)
August 9, 2012
1. “Battle Theme” (FINAL FANTASY X)
2. “The Dalmasca Estersand” (FINAL FANTASY XII)
3. “The Darkness of Eternity” (FINAL FANTASY IX)
4. “This is the Last Battle” (FINAL FANTASY III)
August 16, 2012
1. “Challenge” (FINAL FANTASY X)
2. “Desperate Fight” (FINAL FANTASY XII)
3. “Battle 2” (FINAL FANTASY IX)
4. “The Final Battle” (FINAL FANTASY V)
August 23, 2012
1. “Otherworld” (FINAL FANTASY X)
2. “The Royal City of Rabanastre / Town Ward Upper Stratum” (FINAL FANTASY XII)
3. “The Final Battle” (FINAL FANTASY IX)
4. “Battle 1” (FINAL FANTASY V)
August 30, 2012
1. “Final Battle” (FINAL FANTASY X)
2. “Boss Battle” (FINAL FANTASY XII)
3. “Dark City Treno” (FINAL FANTASY IX)
4. “The Decisive Battle” (FINAL FANTASY V)
Overview
One decade ago, Square Enix did the unthinkable and released a unique and refreshing Action-RPG on the Playstation 2 by the name of Kingdom Hearts. At the time, there was nothing like it. This monumental title threw all rules out the window and utilized some of the most loved characters in the Disney Universe to tell an engrossing and deep plot with a cast everybody could relate to in one way or another. After seeing a sequel that matched the first Kingdom Hearts’ own greatness, Square and Disney decided to branch out the then highly successful franchise even further – by going portable.
I know..I know, there are many out there who love the handheld entries, but I personally got lost as these side games contained sub-plots that only seemed to cloud the focus of the tales the main offerings so proudly displayed. Yeah – they were decent enough fillers, but a great deal of us have been waiting for the true return of Sora for sometime now, and Dream Drop Distance for the 3DS looked to be that missing piece that would bound the series back together. Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance, or 3D for short, is the 7th installment in the franchise and joins both Sora and Riku as they set out to become Keyblade Masters. The question is, does this journey finally feel as epic as the first two Kingdom Hearts games, or is this just another filler until better things come forth? Let’s find out.
Story
To describe the plot of Kingdom Hearts 3D is kind of like describing a complex piece of art, hung in a museum. Now, I’m not by any means comparing this title’s narrative to art, but what I mean is that I feel each person that plays this game is going to take away a little something different from the next. The general story is that Yen Sid (from Fantasia) is putting Sora and Riku through a series of tests to become Keyblade Masters in order to stop the returning and devious Master Xehanort. Along your trek to unlock seven sleeping worlds, a lot of past faces show up, such as Mickey, Goofy, Donald, and the usual KH crew. New characters have also been introduced into this installment as well, with the likes of the protagonists from The World Ends With You, and a good selection of new Disney characters we haven’t seen cross paths with our hero thus far.
At first, I thought the plot was progressing swimmingly. I mean, it’s not too hard to pull off such a simple plot device and for that story arc alone, Dream Drop Distance succeeds in deliverance. The problem with the story as a complete package however is that there is a lot more going on from the side, and unless you have heavily followed the franchise down it’s recent twisted road, you are more than likely going to find yourself stumped with what is going on. Drop mode doesn’t really help matters, as it’s a newly added mechanic that switches players between Sora and Riku abruptly, quickly taking the player out of one plotline and into another. We’ll get to that in a moment, but without saying too much, this is still an easy enough story to follow, but it’s a difficult task to truly understand everything that comes your way.
Gameplay
Now if you have been craving that magnificent combat that we seen on consoles so long ago..you know, that fast and fluent hack-n-slash action, then you will undoubtedly be pleased with what Dream Drop Distance has up it’s sleeve. Sora (or Riku) can be controlled with the slide pad and never miss a beat when it comes to your standard exploration of these lush Disney worlds. When fighting the new enemies in the game (known as Dream Eaters), it’s pretty much an all out button slapping fest you would expect to see from the game, with a nicely organized command list in tow for your special attacks and healing. The Keyblade still has that satisfying element that keeps the combat from becoming dreary or tedious, and the many upgrades players will encounter only improve it’s uses as the game flows on.
Speaking of flow, that in itself is a major part of the combat scheme within this game. Flowmotion is a new ability that lets our main protagonists jet in the air at full speed; whipping around poles, bouncing off walls, and usually smashing into enemies with all of that momentum in a hefty parkour flavored spectacle of sorts. A simple tap of the Y button is all that is needed to trigger this mechanic, and while I did have a few moments that a set off like a rocket when just trying to perform a dodge (they both have the same input), Flowmotion proved to be a both competent and enjoyable addition that blends nicely with the tight control layout.
Yes, the flow is with this one without a doubt, but other elements feel a bit too stapled in. Instead of having party members like Donald or Goofy, 3D partners our heroes up with spirits that can assist in battle. Players can create up to two of these magical little beasts at once, and link with them to get the edge in battle. It all sounds great on paper and the thought behind these Poke-esque allies is there, but I found that the fine details that are needed to properly use these spirits can quickly boggle the experience down due to the system’s unnecessary complexity. To up the stats of your beast, you must partake in little mini-games that resemble a generic pet sim – with all of the stylus petting and photo taking you could ask for. To do this, you must head to a menu, pick your pet of choce, run through a large variety of options, and then get to the tapping on the screen. There are a good number of power-ups and abilities that each spirit can possess and all of your efforts can greatly pay off, but the 3DS’ gimmickry attached just makes these little creatures feel like more work than their worth.
The Secret World Publisher: EA Developer:FunCom Platforms: PC Release Date: July 6th, 2012 Price: $49.99USD (Buy Here)
Overview
The Secret World is the latest MMORPG offering on the market from EA and is created by FunCom. The game is a supernatural mystery kind of game with a hint of the occult and conspiracy theorism. It blends traditional MMORPG elements with some detective work and a unique leveling system to make a conceptually interesting game.
Story
In The Secret World, players are brought into a secret world that co-exists with the natural world. The game follows the intrigue brought about through folk-lore and other paranormal kinds of mysteries. Whilst this may sound like a fun and unique concept for an MMORPG, the way that the story has been handled in this instance was not so.
The first problem I want to talk about with The Secret Worlds story is that it is heavily rail-roaded. What I mean by this is that the game practically forces you through various storyline segments should you want to proceed further through the game. To make matters worse, the first 20minutes of the game are of the player being rail-roaded through a massive and very un-interactive storyline segment. Or at least that’s the way it felt during my playthrough as a Dragon-affiliated character.
I have really strong feelings against games throwing the story at the player, especially when that story is the same for everyone AND ESPECIALLY when that game is an MMORPG where individuality is supposed to be a major thing. I mean, what would you prefer to have? A game where you’re adventuring along and realising the story for yourself? Or a game where it’s all: “HEY I’M A STORYLINE ELEMENT AND YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME BECAUSE I’M RELEVANT!”? I’ll bet you chose the first option.
I feel that MMORPG’s are heading down a path that makes them single-player games with other players running around to slow down progression by making people wait around for parties to gather to take out bosses. And by having a story-element that is the same for all players and is directed at all players experiencing that same content, it only reinforces the point against strong storyline elements in MMORPG’s.
Gameplay
Gameplay in The Secret World will feel amazingly familiar if you have played any MMORPG released in the last ten years. I remember when the game was being hyped up that the gameplay would be a lot more free than most other MMO’s and that it’s combat system was going to be one of it’s main selling points.
Well no longer! The combat system is pretty much the same as every other MMORPG. For instance you click on an enemy, or use the hotkey, to select an enemy monster and then you mash your skillbar until it dies. That’s it. That’s the combat. I mean, you can kite enemies around (like I do), but generally they keep up with your pacing and hit you anyway. Of course when boss fights come around, you need a bit more co-ordination, but basically, just have good enough gear and mash skills until you win.
The one thing that The Secret World has going for it is that it has done away with traditional leveling systems and replaced it with a much freeing level wheel. Basically with this system you gain exp by killing monsters and doing generic fetch or kill this quests and whenever you hit a certain threshold, you’ll gain a point to add onto your abilities wheel and your skills chart.
This system allows for players to become really focused in one area, or to build up a collection of skills around different areas to fit their own playstyles. However, you can’t just keep adding one point to one ability, you have to start hoarding points to get those skills up to a much higher level.
The one other thing the game has going for it is that apart from the usual fetch quests and go to this spot to kill this type of monster quests, is that there are some quests that require you to actually do some research to solve puzzles. Fortunately the game includes a web browser to research the riddles or to just look up the solutions. I wont chastise anyone that just looks the answers up, but it’s much more personally rewarding to work this stuff out for yourself.
Overall, the gameplay just felt way too generic for me to want to invest much more time into this MMORPG than I had to. With the exception of some quests and the leveling system, there just isn’t enough to justify recommending the game to others. I was sorely disappointed with this game as it was one I was -really- wanting to enjoy.
Visuals
Visually, The Secret World is one of the messiest games that I have seen make a full release. There are just to many problems and many of them are horrible. I am by no means a graphics whore, but when you have a tonne of visual problems, it starts to impact the enjoyability of a game and when I play games, I want to enjoy them.
The first problem with the visuals that I want to talk about are the player characters themselves. Now, I play this game on maximum settings, so you would think that this would alleviate some concerns with Player Characters. Not so. There are a tonne of visual errors at play here, like the way the hair sits on a characters head. Even worse is when you can see all the different polygons on a characters model even with the skin stretched over it. Urk.
The next visual problem comes with visual scaling. This is one of the hugest gripes I have with the game. I don’t know why, but everything seems like it’s smaller than it should be, or that the player Characters are too large for the world around them. It’s really immersion killing when your character seems like he’s way too big for a door frame or he’s able to walk onto a cars bonnet. In MMO’s I always though that it was standard practice to make everything slightly larger and more spacious to accommodate for players and immersion. A weird scale really killed the immersion for me with this game.
The monsters in this game were cool though. As were some of the effects. The colouring was pretty varied, even if it didn’t quite look right.
Audio
Honestly, this game’s audio is not memorable at all. I don’t find myself thinking about it, I don’t particularly remember any lines from the game and I definitely don’t find myself playing the game just hear the background audio.
As with most games audio that I don’t like, I just can’t write that much about it. It’s bland, uninteresting and failed to capture my attention. Avoid if you’re a person that wants an awesome soundtrack for their games.
Overall
If you’re a fan of paranormal kinds of stories and MMORPG’s with standard mechanics, you will probably like this game a little bit. However, it has a bunch of issues that wouldn’t stand for a full release single player game, so why should you pay a subscription constantly for a game with them? My recommendation is to avoid this game.
Be sure to check out the first 25mins of the game to see what the game is like. Keep a look out for some of the things I mention in my review. Do you agree with our review? Let us know in the comments below.
Admittedly the concept was pretty cool. A Pokemon clone for iOS devices with an MMO twist, so that players can walk around in the same world online and battle each other. Minimon Online at this point was flooding with potential to be an amazing game but sadly, it was all downhill from there. Perhaps this could be something special, but as it stands Minimon Online feels like a boring, awkward, unpolished and unfinished build of a game that seems nowhere close to being ready for a public release and clearly needs a lot more work.
Gameplay
The lack of polish is clear from the second you begin Minimon Online. There is no welcoming title screen, no options, nothing. You just select your monster and head into the game. Furthermore, there is no story, no explanation, no tutorial….nothing. The game just assumes you know how Pokemon is played and sends you off into the world. The main difference to Pokemon (ok the only really noticeable difference) is the WIFI indication at the top with a number next to it. What this means, I think, is how many players are online at time playing in the same world as you. Notice how I said “I think”? That’s because I’m just guessing There is no tutorial or explanation for it, or anything else in the entire game. You can see these players walk around throughout the land, but you cannot interact, battle or talk with them. You can battle them however in one particular arena, located in the third town if you can be bothered playing the game for that long. The game also fails to tell you that, so after hours of gameplay, you need to figure that out for yourself as well. Developer Sergio Flores has stated the issue will be addressed in future updates however, but for now this feature just seems almost non-existent.
That being said, there is still plenty to do offline. There are monsters to catch in Capture Boxes (Pokeballs), Inns to rest in (Pokecenters) and plenty of items to buy, but grinding in this world is purely a chore. For example, you start out with your Minimon on level 5, and one of my first battle encounters was against an AI trainer with a monster on level 15. Minimon Online really throws you in the deep end quickly, and grinding and leveling up becomes a major chore. With this considered plus unattractive battle animations, combat becomes annoying quite quickly. Towns are also boring with hardly anyone to talk to or anything to do in them and various bugs and issues are common such as collision detection allowing you to walk through some people, and menu screens pausing or freezing for brief periods of time. Yeah that’s right, even going through the menu screen has issues. With nothing to do in these towns, Minimon Online starts to feel like a walking simulator more than anything, but walking feels awkward and slow at times as well. It should be noted developer Sergio Flores has said walking speed will be increased in a future update however.
Audio/Visual
Sadly the audio department is nothing special. While the music is decent, it is poorly looped. Graphics look decent for the exception of the human players, as they seem quite big and very pixelated. So while backgrounds look decent, the player you control looks very rough and unattractive. The one shining element of Minimon Online however is the monster’s character design. These monsters are a breath of fresh air throughout the game, as they not only look the nicest and sharpest graphically speaking, but their character designs are pretty sweet as well. Sadly however, this doesn’t make up for everything else in the game.
Overall
Honestly, I had high hopes for this game. The concept was clearly awesome, but the game feels clearly unfinished. Grinding and leveling up instead of feeling rewarding feels like a chore. Walking is slow and boring. There’s nothing to do in any town. You can see other players walking around, but you can’t interact with them except for in one particular arena. Bugs such as people you can walk through and menus that pause and freeze are present. Human characters are pixelated and are not consistent with backgrounds. Music isn’t even properly looped. There is no story or anything to motivate you on this ‘adventure’. The only redeeming qualities of Minimon Online are the monster’s character designs and the idea/concept as it could’ve had potential if proper effort went into this game. If this was an early BETA build for FREE I could be more forgiving, but this is a $0.99 in the app store and has been released as a completed game with a few updates coming. I really tried to like this game and give it a nice and honest fair review, but there isn’t really anything in the game to give it credit for. Better luck next time to developer Sergio Flores.
Bethesda and id Software kicked off their QuakeCon 2012 event today and with the beginning of the event came the first trailer showing off Doom 3 BFG Edition’s pack of new content, The Lost Mission. This content is exclusive to this HD remastered version of Doom 3 and it certainly looks like it is worth the price of admission.
You can check out the trailer below, but you should prepare everyone around you for the amount of excitement you’ll be displaying once the trailer finishes. Though you will need to contain that excitement for a couple of months as Bethesda’s Doom 3 BFG Edition won’t hit stores until October 16th.
Christopher Eccleston, best known as his stint as the Ninth Doctor on Doctor Who, has been confirmed to play Malekith the Accursed, a sometime ally to Thor’s brother, Loki, in the upcoming sequel to Marvel Studio’s Thor 2: The Dark World.
Malekith, a member of the Dark Elves, possesses super strength, agility, durability, as well as superhuman intellect. And, like Loki, he also a master at manipulating the forces of magic, able to teleport, shift into mist to fly, and energy projection, yet is vulnerable to iron as it cancels out magic, much like in folklore. In the comics, he forged an alliance with Loki on behalf of the Fire Demon Sutur, and used Faeri Food to take control of Earth. He is the ruler of one of the Nine Realms mentioned in the first Thor, Svartalfheim, and intended to use the Casket of Ancient Winters to bring down eternal cold to another realm.
Eccleston, having left the set of Doctor Who in 2005 and giving the reigns of the Doctor to David Tennant, pursued other roles, portraying the invisible man, Claude, on the set of Heroes, and was Destro in the movie G.I.Joe: Rise of the Cobra.
Today until the end of the weekend (August 5th) Steam users will be able to take advantage of a massive deal held in honor of QuakeCon 2012. You see, Bethesda is offering consumers a QuakeCon 2012 pack that will contain more than 20 different id Software and Bethesda titles for only $99.99.
If you also happen to pre-purchase Dishonored on Steam during this deal you will receive Arx Fatalis for free and you will even be able to pick up the entire QuakeCon 2012 pack for only $79.99. Now if you don’t feel like dropping that much money at once then you’ll be happy to know that the company is holding a different sale each day. With Rage costing 50% less today, Saturday will see all Fallout titles as well as DLC at a 66% discount and Sunday will drop 75% off the price tag of Quake and Doom titles.
Today Bethesda Softworks had a nice little surprise for all you PC gamers out there. If you happen to check Steam today then you will see that the PC version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’s first piece of DLC, Dawnguard, is now available.
The DLC will still cost you $19.99 so it is still the same price as the 360 version released a month earlier. Those who are looking for the PlayStation 3 version of Dawnguard will have to wait a little longer because Bethesda is currently “not satisfied yet with Dawnguard’s performance on the PS3” and that they would “would like for everyone to have a chance to play Dawnguard, but we aren’t going to release it for PS3 knowing that some people’s experience in Skyrim will be worse.”
It is good to see that the company is doing its best to try and make sure that everyone is going to be able to experience a bug-free DLC experience by working out the bugs beforehand rather than release a buggy version and work on patches later.
No this isn’t the Need For Speed: Most Wanted from back in 2005, this is a reboot of the Most Wanted spin-off series, which is aptly titled Need For Speed: Most Wanted. This time the game is being developed by Criterion Games whom you may know for the Burnout series and the game Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit.
EA has released a new trailer for Need For Speed: Most Wanted, which shows off some of the glorious gameplay on offer, the majority of which involves being chased by the police, because you are ‘most wanted’.
Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think of the game in the comments section.
Are you a fan of those crazy guys who make those crazy songs, known as Linkin Park? Well good news, their new single ‘Castle of Glass’ is set to appear in EA’s latest upcoming first person shooter game, Medal of Honor: Warfighter.
That’s not the end of it though, ‘Castle of Glass’ which is hot off Linkin Park’s latest album ‘Living Things’ will feature a Medal of Honor: Warfighter themed music video, with a focus on a soldier and the sacrifices that a ‘warfighter’ must make alongside clips of the game itself. Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda also has composed the game’s soundtrack, which is said to add new depth to the Medal of Honor experience.
This isn’t the first time Linkin Park have been involved with the Medal of Honor franchsie though. Their hit song ‘The Catalyst’ was previously featured in the reboot game simply titled Medal of Honor.
What do you think of this cross over between Linkin Park and Medal of Honor: Warfighter? Let us know in the comments section below.
