The following was unceremoniously ripped from the RESET blog. Make sure to check out this week’s comic!

So, E3 last week, huh? Being a semi-professional game-talking-about-guy, I figure it’s my job to discuss all of the exciting announcements made at the show.

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Well, that didn’t take too long! Seriously, though, out of the coverage I’ve seen, nothing really leapt out at me as particularly surprising or exciting. The new third-person Metroid being developed by Team Ninja was a bit unexpected, but it’s also important to remember that the current Team Ninja isn’t really the one that worked on the various Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive games. When Itagaki left Tecmo he eventually ended up taking most of the top Team Ninja talent with him, meaning whatever Team Ninja is now, it’s relatively untested as a game developing group. So while the current Team Ninja could be great, we really have no frame of reference to make that claim. Still, a 3-D, third-person Metroid is at the very least an intriguing prospect. Just, y’know, don’t get all excited thinking that the new Metroid has Ninja Gaiden pedigree. It really doesn’t.

Microsoft’s Natal is another thing that sounds kind of interesting, but with which we have no real frame of reference to judge. I mean, I guess full-body motion controls are neat, but until we see them in action I don’t know if we should go around claiming that it’s going to revolutionize gaming as we know it. It’s really easy to set up tech demos with optimum conditions where everything functions flawlessly, but it’s another thing entirely to translate that into widely distributed, affordable consumer hardware. As I’m sure you’re all aware, Microsoft doesn’t have the best track record on the hardware dependability front. And motion controls are still pretty new tech. Have you used a Wii lately? I wouldn’t exactly call those motion controls perfect. So another project that certainly has potential but definitely belongs in the “we’ll see” column.

Other than that there were a couple of new Mario games announced, a few other big name sequels getting some more press and, well, that was pretty much it. Looking over the list of titles present at E3, I find the ones that I’m the most excited about are the ones that have been hanging around for a while now: Muramasa, Final Fantasy: Dissidia, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, the new Mario & Luigi RPG, Sin & Punishment 2, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, and so forth. While I’m sure there are some other smaller projects that I’d find fascinating, I’m guessing I’ll probably have to wait until Jeremy Parish and his Retronauts decide to discuss them over at 1up or Gamespite, because none of the big press outlets seem to have anything to say on the matter. My guess is that, despite the claim that this year’s E3 would be a return to the glory of years past, the “recession proof” game industry is having a hard time justifying spending an exorbitant amount of money promoting projects that aren’t a sure thing, or even creating trailers and compiling footage for new sure-thing projects when they’ve got the old ones that they’ve already invested in still kicking around. Oh well.

Why didn’t anybody tell me Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, was being released for Wii Ware last Monday? Talk about anticipated! While I always have my doubts about direct Final Fantasy sequels, IV is such a beloved title for me that I knew I was downloading that one even if it was garbage. After playing through a chunk of it, I have to say I’m still kind of on the fence. On the one hand, some of the redone character sprites are nice, and the plot, though goofy, actually feels pretty at home in the Final Fantasy IV universe. On the other hand, all the enemy sprites are recycled, as are pretty much all the environments, which the characters end up revisiting for the exact same reasons they went there the first time in Final Fantasy IV. This ends up making it feel like both a low-budget cell phone game (which it technically is) and one of those SNL franchise skits where the same characters are trotted out in slightly different situations just so the audience can crack up at them spouting the same irritating catch phrases and doing the same stupid physical comedy gags they did the last time they were on the show. But I still have hope. The game is episodic, with new chapters being introduced whenever the hell Square Enix feels like it. The initial chapter left me fairly ambivalent until right around the end when things started to get interesting. The second one, Rydia’s chapter, was much more engaging right from the start. Unlike the first, which primarily used recycled, or just plain dull, playable characters, Rydia starts out with three all new and fairly interesting companions. If the proceeding chapters are more like that I could see this being quite an enjoyable, if not particularly original, little RPG. My secret, RPG-nerd wish is that all the assorted parties will be united in the final chapter, at which point they’ll have to assail a multi-party dungeon just like at the end of Final Fantasy VI, once again giving me the opportunity to indulge my dark desire to try and craft Final Fantasy dream-teams.

On one final note, Henry Hatsworth is pretty sweet. If you like old-school platformers a la Mario, Mega Man, Castlevania, etc., this is definitely a game you should look into.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 at 4:24 pm and is filed under Incoherent babble. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.