During the hustle and bustle of Freshers’ Week, while many fresh faced students were signing up for countless societies (and only caring about one or two) , and many more journeyed students were staying up until unthinkable hours getting back into the swing of things after the summer, I had the opportunity to play publisher Bandai Namco’s lineup of games from Gamescom 2018 in Cologne.
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown
The first game I was introduced to was Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown. I must admit that when it comes to aerial action games, my experience is largely limited to Star Fox, Panzer Dragoon and Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, all of which feature streamlined mechanics, compromising realism for accessibility. This meant that I was unfamiliar with the more complicated aspects of the series’ mechanics. These games are not for the faint of heart. The ability to strafe and to tilt either aileron gives one multiple ways to manoeuver their jet. A comprehensive understanding of the flight system is paramount to flying where one wants, when one wants. I did discover, however, that toward the end of my play time I began to learn and employ a few rudimentary manoeuvers. My advice would be to wait for a review, but the game shows the promise of a deep, tactile, and compelling experience.
Soul Calibur 6
There was a trio of fighting games on display. The one I was most immediately drawn to, however, was Namco’s party staple Soul Calibur. For the uninitiated, the Soul Calibur games are a series in which one’s opponent is defeated either by witling down the opponent’s health bar, or sending them flying off the edge of cliff on certain stages. As one can imagine, momentum and positioning are incredibly important. The players do not want their backs to the wall, and they definitely do not want the opponent pushing them back with a string of combos. This tug of war dynamic makes for thrilling competition. This, 6th iteration, has some of the smoothest gameplay the series has yet seen. The game features the character of Geralt of The Witcher series as the customary guest character, and he follows in the footsteps of previous guest characters being highly accessible and powerful. Soul Calibur 6 certainly carries on the spirit of the series, though its computer controlled opponents felt rather docile; they were unable to achieve more than one win against me collectively. Although, this may have been an easier setting for the demo so as to allow those more unfamiliar with the series to get a feel for the flow of the game.
Jump Force
The second fighting game, Jump Force, sees the characters from various Shonen Jump anime collide in a game which seeks to match the scale of its source material. From Dragon Ball to One Piece, there is a face represented for every fan of the genre. The player is given the scope to create many fanfiction 3 on 3 match ups that can take place anywhere from locations in the shows, to Times Square. My only problem with the game is that, while the fights look grand and spectacular, if one is not trying to create a specific narrative they feel insubstantial. A Batman: Arkham Asylum-esque attack that enables the player to shoot across the battlefield makes movement a touch redundant. While the arenas are vast, they often feel desolate and empty.
My Hero: One’s Justice
My Hero: One’s Justice is a similar game based around the anime My Hero Academia and goes some way towards alleviating the failings of Jump Force in my opinion. The stages are noticeably more intimate. There’s something far more satisfying about sending an opponent flying 15 metres through a few school desks or a bar counter, than seeing them shoot 150 metres across an empty plain. The game is vastly more kinetic and fast paced. In both this game and Jump Force, each player selects three characters. In Jump Force, each character is a unique fighter, hence, each match becomes a set of carefully timed switches, to ensure that every character’s health bar is exhausted as far as each player darest leading to drawn out battles. While these are true to the source material, I feel that this is one element the adaptation should have dropped. My Hero: One’s Justice does not share this problem. It opts for a “sidekick” system, where each player chooses a main fighter and the two auxiliary characters function as phone-a-friend special-attacks. These sidekicks, therefore, can be called upon at the beginning of, or amidst, certain combos in order to keep up the pace of fights, as opposed to dragging them out. For this reason, I feel as though this will be a fun romp for any fans of the show.
11-11: Memories Retold
From creative director Yoan Fanise of Valiant Hearts fame comes 11-11: Memories Retold. Like his previous game, Fanise is returning to the trenches of the Great War, or not so great, as it may be. Fanise calls World War I a “forgotten war”, and in the shadow of the war that was to follow, he has a strong case to make. I think forgotten is a good term to describe what this man looks to find in each project he approaches. We forget that wars are about more than guns, we forget that there are human beings on both sides of any conflict, and we forget that not everyone on a battlefield is there for crown and country. These are the themes at the core of 11-11’s narrative, and I am so happy to see a game that is attempting to take the path less trodden. Even the game’s art style is an impressionistic one, created by Aardman studios, who were behind Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run. While it is encouraging to see a novel approach to a game, I fear that the writing may not keep pace. Valiant Hearts tended towards the cartoonish at times, and while levity in a game as heavy as this is a necessity, I hope that 11-11 can keep one foot on terra firma. In spite of the director’s previous failings, I will continue to support his sincere efforts to broaden what we think games are capable of.
The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan
Grey morality has always been a sticking point for video games. It has thus far been difficult to make the goal-oriented nature of the medium jive with decisions that have no clear win or failure state. I fear that Dark Pictures: Man of Medan will not bug this trend. One thing that is intriguing about the game is that its binary choices focus not on the conventional good vs evil axis, but on a logical vs emotional one. This system has the potential to add nuance, in the sense that instead of an objectively right, and objectively wrong path which one explores solely for curiosity, both options can be morally or practically correct, depending on the situation. As the game takes place aboard a haunted ship, it is likely that characters will be deeply disturbed, and helping them to persevere may take an emotional touch, whereas confronting whatever lies in the bowels will require a calculated logical approach. Unfortunately, my time with this demo was short lived, and I did not see such nuance. It remains to be seen if it will deliver, but Dark Pictures: Man of Medan certainly has potential.
Twin Mirror
Twin Mirror is an attempt to create a satisfying mystery game. In the demo, I assumed the role of investigative journalist Sam, as he tries to piece together where the blood on his shirt came from, after he wakes in a hungover state. At this point, you must look for objects and other clues in Sam’s motel room, each corresponding to a possible action. The player must then assemble the most probable sequence of events. This fixes a long-standing problem with mystery games. When one solves the mystery and is asked to give their answer, the form the answer must take can sometimes spoil the solution. Many games present the conclusion as a multiple-choice question, which narrows the solution down to a handful of possibilities. Twin Mirror forgoes this by forcing the player to identify a set of variables that create many different possibilities. This encourages the player to think through their answer, as opposed to tediously trying all of the possible combinations. While this preview was just a demonstration of the concept, these mechanics present a vast range of possible interesting scenarios. My only reservation is that the main character seemed to display few endearing traits, and his dialogue felt slightly robotic. Hopefully the final game contains more varied monologue.
Bandai Namco’s lineup for the coming 12 months is certainly interesting, and I can’t wait to see how many of these games turn out, but I am also acutely aware of their potential failings. As such, I sincerely hope that there will be more hits than misses.
