[Game-Grinding] E3 2019!

This past week was the biggest event of the year for gamers, E3! And of course, I wasn’t going to miss it. There were many ups, many downs, and I decided to look under the scope and give my comments on them!

I’m going to utilize my concept of “the good, the bad, and the meh” to give you all of my insight about what reared my head in both directions!

The Good

• Let’s start with the first shock to my system: Tales of Arise. I have been a fan of the Tales series for roughly nine years now, and I’ve played a good majority since Abyss that have come to the West. To see this game series evolve from its beautiful graphics a la Ufotable into something… completely breathtaking is a heart-stopper. And I am so excited for it.
• Keanu Reeves coming to Cyberpunk 2077. This one was completely out of left field. I was already excited to see what this game had to offer after glimpsing it at last year’s E3, but to see KEANU REEVES? Like, WHAT?! That makes the game ten times more exciting to look forward to!
• Phantasy Star Online 2. I personally didn’t get to play the first game before servers basically shut down, and I know a lot of people that really loved it. I’d heard rumors and aches about how the sequel just stayed in Japan for longer than life. So to hear that this was coming to us at last, I feel excited for a chance to try it out!
• Final Fantasy VII Remake gameplay, release date, and Tifa’s reveal. Holy. Shit. Did I lose my shit. Final Fantasy has been one of my favorite series for a quarter of my life now (Crisis Core was my first and still is my favorite, BUT Kingdom Hearts introduced me to everything I could absorb about the series), and I was more than excited for this game. I knew they were preparing. I was not ready for the release date of March 3rd, 2020, and I certainly wasn’t ready for how absolutely gorgeous and amazing Tifa looks in this game. I preordered the deluxe edition as soon as the Square Enix conference was over. I wasn’t risking losing ANYTHING about this game. VII opened my doors to Final Fantasy. I am way too excited for this game.
• Watchdogs: Legion. I was… incredibly surprised by how interested I am in this game. Because I was among the haters of the first game, and I didn’t even bother with the second one. I love the concept of using other NPC’s to your advantage, and oh my god, Grandmama Helen is the most amazing human ever.
• Final Fantasy VIII Remaster. DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR VIII TO HAVE A CHANCE IN THE DAMN SPOTLIGHT? VIII was one of my favorite Final Fantasy games. And it kept getting shafted when remasters became a demand. And shafted for IX, and XII, and X, and literally four remasters of VII. And shafted for the Final Fantasy VII remake, until FINALLY, we can have it. Later this year. Finally. Thank you, Square Enix. I love you.
• Lost Words: Beyond the Page. When my roommate showed this game to me, showed me the concept, told me the premise, I was immediately sold. As a writer myself that has dealt with a similar situation to the main character, there is no possible way that I’m going to pass up this game. I’m now following the creators on Twitter. And I am only dreaming of being able to create a story as wholesome as this. Check out the trailer here, tell me what you think.
• Props to Indie Developers! I’m a big fan of supporting Indies, as one myself, and I’m always so grateful whenever game companies that are still developing are given the chance to shine for themselves. So, that’s always a plus to me.
• Nintendo. Just, all of Nintendo. I couldn’t bring myself to bridge anything off on its own, because there were so many amazing aspects of the Nintendo conference! From the confirmation of Dragon Quest heroes being Smash Ultimate DLC to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Link’s Awakening Remake, then all of the amazing games that are going to be released, to Banjo Kazooie being confirmed as Smash DLC, much to everyone’s dreams and desires… and to Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 getting a trailer announcement for development, there was just so much that Nintendo had to offer us this year. It was like Christmas. And Nintendo, much like any other year, came in with a plan, laid down their ideas, and they ripped everyone’s wallets in half. They are going to rip mine as well, and I am scared, but amazed. They truly won E3 this year.

The Bad

• Fallout 76 getting a battle royale mode and NPCs?!!! ….Honestly, I probably have no right to judge Fallout. I’m among the few that have touched a single one. I’ve only ever watched my friends play Fallout 4, and I have a close friend that wants me to try out New Vegas. But I think that the issue for me with Fallout 76 is that this game shouldn’t have been empty from the start. If you have to cheer for NPC’s finally being in a game before your world is meant to be a desolate, isolated wasteland, then I think you’re doing something a bit backwards.
• There really aren’t a lot of noteworthy/decent looking exclusives for Xbox. At least, in my opinion. I can say, I’m surprised about some games being on Xbox, such as Tales of Arise, which I haven’t seen a Tales game on Xbox since Vesperia, but there’s not many games that I can point out that I’m generally interested in, aside from maybe Ori and the Will of the Wisps.
• EA’s “conference.” This was less of a conference, more of a discussion, because I’ve never seen EA have a decent one in my seven years of streaming E3. I never really find myself drawn to their games in any sense, and the company only continues to dwindle. The only game that has some form of tug for me is Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, and even that barely makes the mantle.
• Bethesda’s conference. Let’s, um… let’s just say that the memes that have evolved from this conference speak for themselves. Shout out to you, one guy screaming in the audience. You are immortalized. But, that said, I think that the only game I really was interested in from their conference was Doom Eternal, which finally has a release date of November 25th, 2019. Bit surprising, I was expecting January 2020.
• Thousands upon thousands of mobile games. I think the appeal of E3 is not on mobile games, but on console and PC games. Granted, I play mobile games as well on occasions, but I only play one extensively: Kingdom Hearts Union Cross. I also play Fire Emblem Heroes off and on and I want to try Another Eden. I can’t bring myself to play Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius. But why were there so many mobile games announced this year? Some aren’t even that appealing to watch, or are unnecessary, or even a disappointment like Captain Keen. Just… why?
• Some game about apes? And please don’t take this one in a controversial manner, I beg of you. I don’t remember much on it, I just recall that it was a bit obscure. A nature themed video game with a bunch of apes lounging around. That’s all that I can really think on. I wasn’t really hooked, just confused.
• Outriders… Did not at all look appealing to me. Something that I can’t displace kind of puts me off about it. And pointing it out now will help me figure it out later. So I’m dropping it down here to say that there’s something I don’t like about it.

The Meh

• Halo: Infinite kind of lacked on content. While I was okay with them showing actual details on what happened after the end of Halo 5: Guardians, I feel like it just lacked… something. Something besides gameplay. I feel like there were a lot of missing holes that had to be filled in, especially if that was meant to be the introduction into the game. And, this is details that my roommate left me with before I decided to leave it in “meh” rather than “bad,” but 343 Industries left more information that needed to be read up on Halo: Infinite to get a better understanding of the direction that they took for their reveal on more about Halo, and to me, that just isn’t very selling.
• For some reason, there was a lot of Terminator? And to me, it’s not a bad thing at all, I did like Terminator, but now there are two games with content involving it for DLC purposes, and I’m kind of confused as to why.
• Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. I haven’t touched much on Ghost Recon in recent years, but I do think that Breakpoint looks decent. Not great, just decent, and I’m curious to know more about it down the line.
• Ubisoft’s conference. Again, decent, not great, not really much that was incredibly noteworthy for me, but I didn’t think that their presentation was bad overall, so I’ll give them a pass on the spectrum.
• Kingdom Hearts III: ReMind DLC Trailer and controversy. This is not so much a “meh” as a personal gripe. Kingdom Hearts is my favorite series of all time, and I wouldn’t be who I am or doing the things that I am without it. But, this is a gripe because the trailer for this was leaked the day before it was shown at E3, as it was shown at the Kingdom Hearts orchestra. Nomura had warned to concert-goers that there would be consequences for those that recorded it and leaked it. And now I think that those that are fans are mainly paying in disappointment. As for the trailer itself, I have a lot of questions about what is going to take place involving it. Especially about certain characters and details. Now, I also wish that they had included audio, but I’m also fine with the idea that they didn’t, as it is more of a stylistic approach that Square Enix has shown in trailers and actual game content before. I just hope this isn’t a sign

An Overall Standpoint

There’s much that E3 leaves me with every year. Excitement, droning, and even screaming. And this year was no different. I’ve had a lot of things completely sell me over, and some things that I just can’t get behind.

And, that’s okay. Because the best thing about events like this is that it brings so many hearts together to embrace this passion for games, their stories, their characters, and everything in between.

Cheers to another E3 that has come and gone.