Breath of Fire 6 & a little rant about the increasing popularity of mobile games with developers

Ahhh capcom, just when i feel i can't find something to write about, you come up with some stupidly idiotic idea worth ranting about. What would i do without you?

So back on thursday, Capcom announced a collection of new titles on the way, of which one was a title that should by all means generate a lot of hype, Breath of Fire 6. So wait, "should" you say? Yeah well basically Capcom has gone out and decided that the next main numbered title in the BoF series is to be a browser/tablet/mobile game. Fans have been waiting for around about 11 years for a continuation of the breath of fire universe, and what we get instead, is a kick in the teeth. Or at least what looks to be a kick in the teeth. Admittedly, this may come across as too hasty a complaint to make, but considering that it has been so long since the last installment, i feel it's a little justified.

It's becoming more and more common these days for companies such as Capcom, and maybe more predominantly, Square-Enix to come out with a bunch of Mobile games or browser based games as a means of cheap title to bolster profits, and that's not a bad thing at all. What is a bad thing however, is bringing in huge IPs such as Final Fantasy, or again, Breath of Fire, and instead of putting together another big game, putting in smaller ones. For some this may come across as a decent enough idea, they don't have the time or money to invest in a full title so they get something more for on the go. For the fans of said franchises though, this more often than not enrages them, tests their patience or even removes some of the confidence they had for a company. Takes for example The World Ends With You, a critically acclaimed title from S-E for DS. They released a teaser site hinting at something new for the series back in August last year which ended up being an iOS port. A lot of people had hoped this may have been a sequel after so long and after high demand, but it never came to be. While the game does hint at a sequel, the case still remains that they put the effort into making the iOS port, and then a social game for the title afterwards. It takes away consumer confidence in my eyes and while i can understand the merits of making the game accessible again via other means, it brings up the question, are we forced to expect sequels on mobiles now instead?

Mobile gaming has become a lot more of a widely accepted field but it still doesn't mean you should place more hit titles on the platform, or even make them social for that matter. We get that production costs are steadily increasing year in, year out, but there is still other options companies can take in getting the games out there, and as full titles. Breath of Fire is a title which i could see everyone accepting as a 3DS or Vita title without any issue, in fact i could even see it bringing in Vita sales considering the popularity of the title as a whole. Not only that, but handheld consoles in general have a lower cost of production as a whole, and the market for them(at least for the 3DS at present) is pretty strong, so there would be guaranteed sales. Considering also that 2D and 2.5D are still pretty popular as well, it wouldn't be too hard to make a game in the same wake as BoFIII or IV just with newer, fresher textures. The need for a physical copy isn't there either, so you would avoid the production costs of cartridges too.

Developers please, stop it. You're making me cry in anger

While i can't honestly come up with numbers and graphs(cause everything looks better with graphs) to back up my idea that mobile games are hurting more than helping major IPs, i do feel that at least on a consumer level, you can see the frustrations caused by it pretty easily. While it may come across as a good idea to make Final Fantasy: All The Bravest SquEnix, it's also one of the worst titles to have dawned the Final Fantasy name. Tarnishing a franchise more that has been struggling for the past few years due to XIV(granted it might be sorted now) and a fairly average XIII isn't what you want to do. You would think that Capcom would realise this as well and focus more of their efforts elsewhere. Though even then, their unhealthy obsession with Call of Duty and attracting that market to every other game they make does show me at least a certain level of obliviousness to what gamers want, so it makes sense why they'd move to social games. It just doesn't sit right with me, and i don't honestly think it should with anyone.

 There is plenty of alternative methods to get a game out there without resulting in the creation of a free to play, microtransaction social game which enrages many fans of a series. Sure, keep making mobile games, social games, browser based games, there is a market there for it, but try to avoid making ones for major IPs, and avoid calling them the next in the main series as well. Try to imagine Ubisoft saying "Assassin's Creed V - For android/iOS only" or Activision making Call of Duty a touch-based tablet game with no chance of console or PC release. It just wouldn't work, it would throw away a good chunk of the fanbase that franchise has created, and god knows what else. Just leave major ips as they are.

DmC:Devil May Cry - Dante returns...wait, his hair is black?

Devil May Cry has been a fairly iconic series for Capcom since it's original release back on the Playstation 2 in 2001, so when Ninja Theory showed up with a retake on the title, and some kid essentially posing as Dante, we all raged. And we did, and we expected to just bash it to hell because it wasn't THE Dante we all wanted. But fortunately, things took a different turn as more was revealed. Now the question is, Does DmC match up? And how does it stand as a new title in itself?

DmC starts off by showing off the new dante in a strip club, with an all new attitude, and a thing for the ladies. Following the intro cinematic and the introduction of Kat straight at the beginning of the game with a rather under-dressed dante, you get flung into where you spend 95% of the game, Limbo, and learn soon after someone is targetting Dante, and he gets pulled into Limbo whenever they find him. It's quite the interesting idea, one that is eerie yet strangely gorgeous to gaze your eyes upon. The whole world is basically pulled into the demon realm. Asides from an area or two, it's has a great aesthetic to it, never being truly bland. Dante can only use his sword in limbo, as it's a demon weapon, so anytime you may spend outside of it, you don't do combat. It's basically story based segments leading up to limbo. Perhaps a missed opportunity, but a minor complaint all the same. while the story doesn't focus on limbo, you get a basic jist of what it is from explained, and from the world itself. It's well executed, and the characters do help to carry it forward as well. What's more, you can easily tell that one of the main choices in this re-take was to essentially add the modern world to DmC, something that becomes more evident and maybe more relavent in the later half of the game.

Characters wise, Dante still has that attitude of his, but made to suit that new age and look to him. He's quite the ladies man, enjoys his booze, and still has that "couldn't care less" approach to everything. If it doesn't affect him, he won't care. Good to see it stick, but the development of him learning who he is, what his past is, his relationship to Vergil and who Mundas is adds a new depth to him that really hasn't been explored before. Also, for those that wonder, why his hair isn't white is dealt with too. Panic over. Vergil is not bad, though i feel he doesn't get covered as much as he could. He wants Mundas dead, and will do anything to get it done. People knowing the series prior to this will know what's in store for him later, but it's covered subtly throughout the later half of the game. Kat acts as a good grounding for Dante in this. She's there to help Vergil however she can, and eventually for Dante too, helping when she can and however she can. Being able to see Limbo plays a lot into the progression of things. Overall she's a pretty well designed character, one whom i'd love to see more of.

Get that style combo up and you'll be hitting SSS in no time

Now gameplay. Combat is extremely fluid, and feels fantastic when you get it down, i'd even go as far as to say it's the best of the series in many ways It doesn't take long to get to grips with things, and they've happily supplied you with a training mode in the menu so you can work with combos and learning how to switch between weapons. The longer you can keep your combo going without getting Hit, the more rewarding it is. The Style system ranges from D to SSS, based on your attacks/combos, and how you mix it up. Just doing the one combo all the time will stop it increasing after a while, so upgrading for more attacks is quite handy. All your attacks come from Y(triangle) and B(circle). B being a launcher, Y being your main attack. And X(square) of course, being your guns. You get demon and angel weapons not too far into the game which require you to holding down the right and left triggers respectively to activate and you can dodge with RB/LB(R1/L1). Angel weapons are generally faster and weaker while demon is slow but deadly. Trying to find the best ways to mix these up for SSS is a nice challenge, but it's not so daunting as to scare away new players. it's introduces you fairly gently, and you get the grasp of things by experimenting when you can as well. Devil Trigger allows dante to change into his old colour scheme(red clothes, white hair) and the world to turn white, in this mode throws enemies to the air and you do more damage, take less, health regens, you also get bonus style for air combos, so use it to your advantage. While there is some minor hiccups in framerate here and there, combat doesn't ever really get affected by this, so the performance is top notch as well.

The levels don't take too long to complete, i'd say you'd get about 5-7 hours of gameplay before you beat the game on your first playthrough, and then you could easily best the game afterwards in about 2 hours when you try to increase your rank and find all the secrets. It's pretty much all linear as well, though the secrets usually have you searching a bit. Keys for doors to secret missions are scattered everywhere, and Lost Souls are hidden in most levels too. Cleverly, or to some irritating, you can't get everything in the early levels straight away. You need to progress some first then go back to old ones to get what you couldn't. This helps increase the replayability. The difficulty is my main issue. Of the three you start with, Nephilim is the hardest. And the main concern i have is that it feels more like normal than anything else. Companies still have this tendency to make "hard" normal now, and it bothers me. Thankfully the 4 extra difficulties you unlock after make up for it. I'd have just liked a bit more complexity on my first playthrough. Also, for those of you that like a challenge, there is the "complete the game on Nephilim with all stages SSS'd" which, at the time of writing this, seems to be all i'm focusing on instead of the next difficulty.

Revisiting early levels with new weapons can grant you access to new secrets

And of course, lastly, the music. The game goes for that heavy to death metal style, which to those that have played DMC before will recognise as a staple for the series. It really gets you going in the early levels too, with a fairly decent soundtrack. It's not my music of choice, but with DmC, it never feels out of place.

All in all, DmC stands it's ground. The combat is easy to learn and incredibly well executed and both the story and characters are well designed, surprisingly deep and interesting for DmC, with so much more obviously set to tell. Sure this isn't the old Dante, but this one stands on his own two feet, and is just as deadly as the previous one. Give DmC a chance, don't just throw it under the rug and imagine it doesn't exist, i think it may surprise you just how good this game is.

Please note i've not touched the PC version of the game, so i can't really add anything about performance or framerate for that here.

Resident Evil 6

Resident Evil has always been revered for it's use of horror, heck it was one of the titles that brought the term "survival horror" to the table as a genre, and looking now, there is many a title that has followed in their footsteps. But in recent years, Resident Evil looks to have forgotten its routes, what made it such a beloved franchise, and moved more into action. Resident Evil 6 comes into play to "appeal to old and new fans alike" with horror elements and that which would appeal to an ever growing market of action fans. This is where the problems start.

The game splits itself into 3(4 when you beat the first three) campaigns, focusing on everyones favourite, Leon kennedy, back to deal with an outbreak starting in Tall Oaks, Chris Redfield, having lost his memory due to events 6 months prior to where the game focuses, and Jake Muller, a mercenary who turns out to be immune to the C-virus(i like to call his campaign Sherrys mode, since Sherry Birkin feels far more important) and is being safeguarded so an antidote can be made. Everything slowly comes to focus on a city in china where all hell breaks loose, but each feature different styles of play and atmosphere that they still feel a little unique. The stories aren't bad, and do have some pretty interesting and sad moments in them, so it isn't my main concern(though the characters do at times make it more annoying to follow). My main concern, is how each storyline is designed.
Leons campaign tries to bring back the feel of RE2, heck you could say RE in general, and for the first 3 chapters, captures it well. Heck, they stand out to me as the strongest chapters of the game. They capture a decent amount of atmosphere you used to get, and you face zombies(you know, those beasts that RE are famous for) instead of the J'avos in the rest of it. It is lost though later into it, but Leon is easily the best character in this. Helena is ok, but that's about as best a comment you can get. Leon is easily the best campaign of the game.
Chris' mode goes pure action, probably where the "attracting the CoD audience" comment came into play from Capcom, and feels tacked on. It has no feel of RE, bar chris being there. Chris and his partner Piers are bland, uninteresting characters that feel thrown in purely to get a reunion of the originals back in one game and someone to kick chris back into action. They probably tried to capture the idea of it not all being about horror, and now becoming slightly more military-like with it starting to go wide-spread, but maybe they tried that too much. It does have it's moments sometimes, like for example mid-way you have to deal with an invisible snake, no doubt a reference to the original mansion and the snake there, and it killing off chris' squad one by one from the shadows, but outside of that, i struggle to name any other memorable segments.
Jakes(Sherrys) mode is the most experimental, and as such the hardest to really judge. At first, i thought they where trying to go stealthy with it, but by the time you hit the later chapters, you realise, this feels like a movie. It's not bad, but again, it doesn't have any real horror in it. It does have a RE3 throwback in the form of Ustanak though. He refuses to die and has his sights set on Jake throughout. Very Nemesis against Stars-like. Stealth is there too, and it isn't bad, but you can just charge in for the most part too. They both aren't bad characters either, but still lacking a certain...something.

So what's the problem with all this? Instead of trying to focus on one or two things, Capcom tried to do too much. Of the three, you have an attempt at horror, an attempt at action and an attempt at making a movie-like style section. Sure they had a big team to work on this, but it's too much. I feel that, in trying to appeal to so many markets at once, they've shot themselves in the foot and are essentially pushing away more crowds than bringing in. I won't mention much on the 4th campaign, as you do need to unlock it, but it does host the freakiest boss of the entire game. A small consolation prize, you could say.

Ustanak, the Nemesis of RE6

So how is the gameplay? Mostly ok. However it's become yet another title in the "must have QTEs aplenty" concern. It's also linear in a bad way. All resi has been fairly linear, but this hasn't got rooms to the side to look into for extra bits, it's more corridor shooter-like. finish this area, see if there is an emblem(files, which you read in the special features section), move on, rinse repeat. You also have a lot of forced sections, running away, QTEs, you name it. It detracts a lot, and it's something quite obviously no-one has learned from yet. Do not force us into QTEs, or situations. Heck the prologue suffered from the same idiocy as Gaiden 3 did. "press back on the control stick, walk forward, press left, walk forward". Sure, it's a prologue, but let us look about. Removing freedom is not something you should EVER do in a title, period. Controls are reasonable too, though they neglect to mention a lot in the instruction manual. You really need to look online for a lot of the control shortcuts(protip: Hitting RB & X (R1 + square for you PS3 guys)on the 360 controller automatically creates tablets from herbs if you have them available), a bad move overall. But again, the moves feel like they are deliberately trying to make it more action like. You run as normal now, need to tilt the control stick slightly to walk. You now dash instead when you hold A(X). Also, i highly recommend you switch the targeting reticule if you do intend to play RE6, the default is pretty abysmal, change it to laser sight and you should be fine.
There is no weapon upgrades this time, no weapon progression either, something i quite liked from RE4 and 5. Instead, everything focuses on skills. Some are what you'd expect, firepower boosts, defense boosts, more critical damage. Others are aimed at making the game easier(and for a couple, harder) for some, getting tablets when your ally helps you up, better accuracy, or you can remove your targetting reticule as well for a damage boost. It's not a bad setup, all things considered.
For those that enjoy it, the one thing that hasn't really gone and been hit bad at all is Mercenaries. It feels like it used to, you against the clock to kill everything you can(this time with a limit, which makes for some good score attacks) whilst collecting time and bonus multipliers. It's still exactly as it was which i'm glad to see. You can equip a single skill for it as well, which may unbalance it a little i find, but not as badly as i first feared. Time bonuses can give more time, longer bonus multiplier, kind of thing. You can switch between them mid-game, but it does mean you could drop your combo, something you need to watch for.

You will spend a fair bit of time crawling and jumping to the ground

I'm yet to try online, and to be honest, i'm tempted not to try it full stop. If you even set it to consider xbox live or anything, you can't pause the game, even if noone else is in your game. I recommend you set it to offline so you can(why that's not default is anyones guess). Co-op is available in mercs and agent hunter(i'm yet to try) as well both, local and online. Local co-op is horrible, it doesn't even take up a full screen. When my brother and i tried it on the PS3 at home(a 40" TV), it left a lot of black bars/blocks all over the screen and these small wee screens for you playing. Whoever considered this a good option needs to be slapped. There was one other segment which annoyed me. The details you get from the files(unlocked by emblems) is not all there. You need a residentevil.net account linked to your XBL or PSN account to get every detail, and you can only get them on the website. Whatever happened to having everything in the game already?

My opinions here may not seem to suggest it's an entirely bad game, and for the most part, it's not terrible, but it's not good either. What makes Resident Evil.....Resident Evil? This should be obvious. Survival horror. That fear of going up against the unknown, watching your ammo, a dark atmosphere, etc. This doesn't happen here. Sure, there is this more global style fear of things happening...but it doesn't capture anything i remember and loved. Maybe i should approach this as the new way forward as capcom are trying to say it needed to go, but it doesn't work. It doesn't give me what i want from the RE franchise. Why can't they make a game ala Revelations? That captures the fear of another "raccoon city" style even, yet keeps the atmosphere and fear alive? Why do we need the Call of Duty fanbase to help us move forward? The design choices just don't add up for me, and i don't think they ever will. They have taken what resident evil once was, put it into 3 chapters, and made a title that may as well have a different name on it. It might even do better if it did. But because it tries to expand the world of a fan favourite, it has done nothing but hurt itself. Perhaps capcom will take from this and go back to what it once was, or they might try and use this as a way to say "out with the old, in with the new" and move in a direction which will do nothing but push away it's core player-base. All i can say is, if this is a sign for things to come, i fear for the franchise, not because it's going to make bad games, but because it no longer is Resident Evil.

Sega x Capcom x Namco Bandai 3DS game - first details

With the official site revealing more later today, famitsu have got the drop on the details for Capcom x Sega x Namco Bandais game for the 3DS: Project X Zone. They never gave us much in the way of details, however we now know that the game is a strategy RPG which has the characters in the game work in teams of two for the combat in the game, though how else the combat works, we are yet to see. The great people over at AndriaSang got the first list of characters shown off on famitsu released for all to see, which in their teams of two, looks like the following;

Capcom

Ryu & Ken (Street Fighter 0), X and Zero (Mega Man), Demitri and Dante (Darkstalkers and Devil May Cry), Chris and Jill (Resident Evil)

Sega

Shinguji Sakura and Ogami Ichiro (Sakura Wars), Pai and Akira (Virtua Fighter), Kurt and Riela (Valkyria Chronicles), Ulala and Touma (Space Channel 5 and Shining Force EXA)

Namco Bandai

Sanger Somvold (Super Robot Wars), Jin and Ling Xiaoyu (Tekken), Kos-Mos and T-elos (Xenosaga), Yurie and Estel (Tales of Vesperia), Kaito and Black Rose (.hack)

They also got an interview with the teams working on the game over on their site too which maybe worth giving a quick read if you're interested in the title at all, as it details a couple of other small tid-bits in relation to the moves characters will have for example. This, you can of course read over on AndriaSang

Capcoms Captivate 2012 - leaks + speculation

Captivate, Capcoms own style of press conferences/showing off of new titles and so on has been taking place recently, and has been set to finish as of today. Needless to say, this is when all the details start flying, but it came as a surprise that Sony leaked a good few pieces onto the web sooner than originally planned. So instead of waiting until we get all the details, i'll throw in what i know of the 3-4 that have been detailed so far. Let's get started

Resident Evil 6

The not-so-surprising surprise announcement back in January of the continuation for Resident Evil hit the ground running with a new trailer, which if you are fast enough, you can still watch over on ShopTo with a ton of story details. As a quick summary, Sherry Birkin and "Wesker Junior" are the third duo of Main characters in the story, as we all called ages ago, Chris looks weird, Ada seems to be one of the people running this new set of events going on, or so it seems. The Virus is now known as the C-Virus, and there is a lot to do with spawning things, clones and i dunno what. A lot takes place in china, leon and his partner fake their deaths at some point, and yeah. And before we forget, it actually changed the release date. We can now expect to see Resident Evil 6 on the 2nd of October this year. Quite a surprise, obviously they are further along in production than they had expected, and hopefully, this'll make up for the absolutely abysmal Operation Raccoon City released last month. I'm going to do a post later on resident evil speculation, since there is a lot you can cover with it, but i'll leave the details there for now.

Lost Planet 3

The biggest surprise, and i don't mean this in a good way, was Lost Planet 3. There is nothing much to see with the trailer, bar the fact that you may actually get a named protagonist this time round, whether it's any relation to the first game at all, who knows, but god, why are they making this? Consider it this way, Lost Planet 2 had absolutely terrible sales, it wasn't well received by anyone either, so why would capcom go and decide that this was a good investment? Surely this will only end with them making a loss? Or is there going to be a big game changer thrown in somewhere? I dunno, i'll wait for the full official embargo of details later on today.

If you want to see the trailer, you can find it here.

DmC - Devil May Cry

DmCs trailer showed very little in terms of combat, though it did at least show some, unlike the other two trailers released today. It more or less showed off the point of the TV show looking for Dante, and some demons. It has style, i won't deny it, but i still can't get used to the look of Dante. I just hope the gameplay makes up for it, and they can make the story at least link into him becoming the proper Dante.

Again, the trailer is found over here

Other than these three, not much else has been fired out. The patch for Street Fighter x Tekken is due out today, and that's about it. As soon as we get hit by the full details, i'll add them into another blog post later.

Street Fighter x Tekken - CAPCOM! My rage, have all of it.

So Street Fighter x Tekken is finally just a few days away(2 days if you are in the states) from being released, so a few will have it by now. This is cool, i've got mine pre-ordered, was feeling pretty damn good with myself, ready to get back into the fighting game community, then suddenly it happened. The fantastic guys over at Destructoid published an article on the game, specifically for the 360 version, showing that not only was the alternate costumes already on the disk, the 12 DLC characters set to be released as part of the full Vita title are there too, and by that i mean the character models, prologues and endings. This drove me mad.

Now to clarify, the characters are Sakura, Blanka, Elena, Guy, Cody & Dudley(capcom side) and Lei, Christie, Jack, Brian, Lars & Alisia on the Tekken side, plus, the biggest kick in the teeth, Megaman and Pacman are on the disk too. Now, being a 360 owner, i always knew i was getting the worst deal for it, but to know that somewhere down the line, capcom where going to release megaman and pacman to us as well just made me want to rage. Sure, ok, they have yet to tell us if the characters will be paid DLC or not, but that's not the point. The fact of the matter is that the game has these characters, to whatever extent ALREADY ON THE DISK. If they are on the disk, i don't give a toss what kind of deal and money sony have given you, give us megaman and pacman for free, with the game at launch. The other 12? Well yeah, that's also an issue. The Vita will get them normally. Really? I mean, giving a handheld version of this game, which i might add, will never be used for competitive play, all these characters before the home console editions? and no less, for free? That is a sign that tells me capcom are just out to steal our money, and i'm not having that. They are going to have to offer these to me cheap or for free to get me convinced this will work. But chances are, everyone who is picking this game up and wants to get into it fully, will buy these characters. Heck, i want Sakura so i can get my dream combo of Sakura and Asuka into the frey, but i'm not more inclined to head to gamestation and cancel my order, and telling them why at the same time.

Mind you, this shouldn't even come as a surprise to us. Bioware/EA just did something as stupid as this with Mass Effect 3. If you buy the Collectors edition, you get the "From Ashes" DLC free with it. DLC which, i might add, had dialogue and data in the original data-mined beta xbox had leaked back in october-ish last year. This "Day 1" DLC has apparently been made after the game went gold, so why is this data on the disk already? And why can't you offer it to us for free much like you did to all new copies of Dragon Age for Shale, or Mass Effect 2 and Zaeed/Cerberus Network? I want to shout EA as loud as i can, but i may wake someone up, but you get the idea. We're constantly getting screwed around with thanks to this DLC system now in place. What happened to the days where we could get a full package, at the launch of a game, and be extremely happy with it, no problems whatsoever?

I can only think of two games worthy of being called "full packages" at the moment, and they are The Witcher 2 & Twisted Metal(PS3). The guys who made the new incarnation of Twisted Metal decided they wanted the game to be complete on launch, with no consideration for DLC. This is FANTASTIC. I'd buy the game to support them just for that mindset. A mindset i miss dearly. CDprojekt decided to release all DLC for The Witcher 2 as free updates, and heck, even the stuff being added to the 360 version is being included for free for the PC as just as regular update. THESE are the people we need in the gaming market at the moment, not money grubbing whores like Capcom and EA, who are out to use their franchise names to make a pretty penny over things we should get for free.

If you want to use the DLC market for stuff that is properly new and not even considered at Day 1, awesome, that's fine. You want to have costume packs or purely cosmetic extras as DLC? that's fine too, as they change nothing. But, especially with a fighting game, 12 characters which aren't included at launch, and have a decent amount of data on the game disk straight off is unacceptable, and i for one, am at wits end with it.

For those interested. Here is the Destructoid post which shows you the stuff that was leaked.