I’m not one for side-by-side fighters in general, mostly because I’m so bad at remembering button combos—which is why I enjoy the Smash Bros. series—but one that I don’t mind playing to lose is SoulCalibur. The combat is weapon based, and the backgrounds are usually beautiful, the characters interesting, and the battlefields dynamic. SoulCalibur V will likely be no different. The thing to get excited about here is the addition of Ezio to the fighting roster, whipping around his iconic weaponry from the incredible Assassin’s Creed franchise.
NeverDead is an over-the-shoulder shooter with some unique enemies and clever mechanics. The story follows the demon hunter Bryce, who has been cursed by the Demon King to live forever as punishment for an attack 500 years ago. Demon activity is picking up around the darkened city, and the National Anti-Demon Agency has called on Bryce for assistance. The gameplay is a mixture of targeted gun-play and frenetic acrobatics, while the character must dodge attacks and scripted events in the collapsing environments. The main gimmick here seems to be that Bryce’s limbs are detachable. When Bryce takes too much damage, rather than simply dying, he begins to lose limbs—which hampers his ability to fight, run, or dodge. This requires him to sometimes complete challenging fights or action sequences with only some, or even none of his arms and legs.
Three years after the events of Final Fantasy XIII, Lightning has disappeared and her sister, with the help of her friend Noel, must seek her out in Final Fantasy XIII-2. This is only the second time that Square-Enix has released a direct sequel to one of their Final Fantasy games, as the franchise is typically comprised of adventures which stand completely alone. Unfortunately, the entire franchise has changed, slowly, from one of interesting tactical adventure to a pretty button pushing game. That last good one in the series was XII, which they did not opt to make a direct sequel for. XIII was the first Final Fantasy game that I didn’t play to completion—I was willing to click through the game to watch the story because I was invested in the characters, and thought the story was fun, but when I found myself in a place where I was going to have to go back and grind, I just couldn’t do it. It was literally putting me to sleep. XIII-2 is not much changed thematically or structurally from XIII. As sad as it makes me to admit it, XIII-2 will be the first Final Fantasy game that I’m not going to give a chance (XI and XIV don’t count, and you know it). I simply don’t expect it to be any good. However, if you did enjoy XIII, I’m sure you’ll get more of what you loved about it out of XIII-2.
The Icrontic Spotlight this week parries the rapier of Captain Morgane and the Golden Turtle. This puzzle adventure game seems very reminiscent of the Monkey Island franchise, which its a good thing. The player follows the adventures of Captain Morgane, starting from her childhood, as an adventurous 8-year-old daughter of a pirate, through her quest to get her own ship and eventually be come the greatest pirate of the Caribbean. In all honesty, I don’t see any real evidence that there is something amazing here. How good the game is will depend a lot on how the puzzles function, and how frustrating the item collection aspects are, both of which are yet to be seen. The game makes the spotlight because it doesn’t look like complete crap. This seems like a low bar to set until you think about the other adventure games we’ve seen lately. This genre seems to have been taken over by mostly small studios. We’ve got TellTale, who puts out really good stuff, but almost everyone else who makes an item collection-oriented puzzle adventure game just seems like they slap it together because it’s easy, and they mostly are intolerably ugly and poorly thought-out. This one at least looks like there is a lot of polish on it, and that real effort went into the quality of the finished product. If you’ve been getting into adventure games, but are frustrated by the recent dearth of quality in the genre, you might want to at least give this one a look.
Following is a full list of this week’s announced North American releases:
Windows
- Captain Morgane and the Golden Turtle
Wii
- Captain Morgane and the Golden Turtle
DS
- GO Series: Undead Storm
- Captain Morgane and the Golden Turtle
3DS
- Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword
Xbox 360
- Cabela’s Outdoor Adventures
- Final Fantasy XIII-2
- NeverDead
- SoulCalibur V
- UFC Personal Trainer: The Ultimate Fitness System – Cain Velasquez Workout Pack
- Rhythm Party
PS3
- Final Fantasy XIII-2
- NeverDead
- SoulCalibur V
- Captain Morgane and the Golden Turtle
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