Video Game Tuesday: E3 2018 Predictions

Hey all I’m back with a look at some of the possibilities from this year’s game development version of Christmas! It’s my E3 2018 Predictions!

NO Next-Gen Console Announcements: I’m not expecting to hear about the next generation of consoles this year. If they announce anything other than slim versions of the XBOX and PS4 Pro I’ll be honestly shocked. Regarding the Switch, I’m expecting to hear nothing new, except maybe a more streamlined version equivalent to a slim version if anything at all.  Next Gen consoles are the announcements I’m expecting to hear about next year at E3, but not this year.

Pride Reductions: I’m expecting to hear that the PS4 Pro and XBOX will get some price cuts, and probably the switch as well.

EA to announce more annual sports games: This is less of a prediction than a certainty to me at least, but I’m fully expecting to hear about the next Madden game and other sports game equivalents. Color me unimpressed and uninterested once more.

Super Smash Front and Center for Nintendo: If they don’t really beat the marketing drums to death on this one I’ll be just as surprised as if Sony and Microsoft announce the next gen consoles. Nintendo has no reason not to keep up the momentum that last year’s launch of the Switch and Breath of the Wild brought to the company. Smash Bros is a surefire way to do that.

Pokemon Switch: I’m also expecting to hear about a mainline Pokemon game for the Switch. The system is just begging for a brand new Pokemon game given it’s dual nature as a portable and a console.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday and my predictions for E3 thus far. I may do a what’s been leaked so far post closer to E3 happening, but we’ll see. Do you expect to see anything that I didn’t mention happen at this year’s E3? Leave a comment below!

Video Game Tuesday: Newcomers I Want In The Next Smash Bros

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m looking at who I want to see in the newly announced continuation of Nintendo’s best fighting game. It’s all about Newcomers I Want In The Next Smash Bros!

Isaac (Golden Sun): I’ve been wanting Isaac in the series since before Melee came out, but the fact he’s only appeared as an Assist Trophy is nearly criminal. He has so many different moves with his Psy powers and is perfect for a game like Smash Bros since he can mix it up with some melee abilities. Summoning could easily be his Final Smash if they decide to keep that as a thing in this version of the game.

Son Goku (Dragonball): If even Funimation is asking for Goku to be added to the next Smash Bros, you know it probably ought to happen. I mean with characters like Mega Man, Ryu or even Cloud getting into the game, having everyone’s favorite Saiyan in the next installment would be perfect. I can just imagine him slamming a massive Spirit Bomb into the stage for a Final Smash.

Velvet Crowe (Tales of Berseria): I know that Bandai Namco helped out with the last installments of the game, so letting them pick a character from their RPG series would be awesome as a thank you. Velvet being the first solo Female lead would make an excellent addition to the roster with her various Therion skills and Martial abilities. Any of her Mystic Artes could easily become her Final Smash, or even just making it a powered up version where she uses her Therion abilities for like 20 seconds for increased damage would be cool as well. And let’s be honest, we could use more female characters in the next Smash game.

Banjo and Kazooie (Banjo-Kazooie): I loved the Banjo-Kazooie games and frankly they’d make an awesome addition to the Smash roster. I have no clue what they’d use as a Final Smash, other than some sort of Mumbo transformation.

Real curveballs I never really expect to happen:

Someone from the TYPE-MOON franchises: Any of the multitude of characters of the Nasuverse might be fun to play in a Smash Game. It’d probably end up being Artoria, because of course it would. But I can always hope for Tamamo no Mae, Ryougi Shiki, or Arcueid right? Noble Phantasm’s would be perfect fits for awesome Final Smash abilities.

Nightmare (Soulcalibur): I don’t really want to see Nightmare in a Smash Bros game, but if it was anyone from the Soul series it’d probably be him. Please choose one of the above though Nintendo if you are actually reading this and seriously considering these character suggestions.

Crazy Taxi (Crazy Taxi): I don’t mean the cab drivers, I mean the freaking car itself. Yeah I absolutely expect this to never happen, but if they were to pull it off somehow, it’d be interesting to say the least.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday. Are there any characters you’d like to see added to the Smash Series? Leave your answers below in the comments!

Video Game Tuesday: Breath of the Wild Final Thoughts

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m covering what I thought of my time with the latest Zelda game. It’s my Breath of the Wild Final Thoughts.

Puzzles: I’ve already covered how I loved how Nintendo handled puzzles, but I will say one thing in addition. The puzzles weren’t necessarily difficult but there were puzzles all over the world to uncover various Korok seeds, or Shrines. I enjoyed stumbling across them in my exploration of Hyrule and I attempted to solve them on the spot as soon as I found them. For the most part I was able to do so every time with only a few exceptions. Those were ones I had to leave mostly because I had insufficient supplies to continue either exploring the area or complete the puzzles or challenges. The target balloon challenges in particular were my biggest headache, especially in the Death Mountain region because I was unable to retrieve those arrows after firing them. However overall I enjoyed coming across these random and small puzzles and solving them. Sometimes you had to throw a rock into a ring of some sort, or you had to put a metallic block in a specific place on a structure. Sure they might not take much time, but the sheer number of them was highly enjoyable.

Gear System: I also already covered that in a separate post, so check that for specifics. One more thing I will add is that I’d have loved to made my helmets invisible sometimes for certain armor sets, like the Radiant set.

Enemies: The enemies grew as I did, with some of the easier enemies showing up not at all after I had cleared all the Divine Beasts, which was a nice change of pace and kept me on my toes in my travels. Running across any Guardian was at best a headache for a majority of my playthrough, until I had finally accumulated enough materials and Rupees to acquire the Ancient armor set to allow me to not get absolutely destroyed by their laser blasts when I was unable to interrupt them with an arrow to the eye. Even then however I was still cautious around any enemy except the Chuchus.

Bosses: The bosses were for the most part, pretty easy and the world bosses were all incredibly easy as long as I had come prepared for a fight against them. The final boss was also fairly easy, but I hadn’t attempted it before I was well and truly ready to end my time with the game, which meant I had completed most of the Shrines and all the Divine Beasts. That being said if I had not attempted to do them prepared or done a speedrunner-esque playthrough I could easily see how they might be quite difficult.

Story: The story was good, and I’ll admit I had a couple tears in my eyes during my time with the Zora. Seriously though, Link caught the eye of nearly all the high born ladies in Hyrule. That was more than a bit amusing.

Artwork: I played the game exclusively in the portable mode of the Switch, and I was rather impressed with the quality of graphics. I experienced a slowdown only a handful of times and that was only when I purposefully pushing the system by blowing up 8 or more trees at once to see how the physics handled it.

Music: The music was also pretty awesome, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Overall: I’m really impressed with the game, and frankly I really hope that Breath of the Wild is the new standard they’ll use for every Zelda game going forward. The freedom allowed was incredibly refreshing and being able to go pretty much anywhere was incredibly fun. If I wanted to rain death from above on any enemies I could go climb that cliff next to their encampment and get the drop on them easily.

Video Game Tuesday: Eventide Journal Entry 02

Hey all I’m back with my tale of revenge on that damn island in Breath of the Wild for this week’s Video Game Tuesday. It’s my Eventide Journal Entry 02!

What did you come up with?:  I had done a Divine Beast after I failed so spectacularly and found that I might want to get all the Champion’s blessings. So I waited until I had really gotten myself buffed up with a ton of hearts and stamina as well as upgrading my various runes and unlocked all the Champions Blessings. In fact I was going to wait as long as possible before re attempting the stupid thing. I was still pretty upset about failing so close to the end the first time I attempted it. So I came back right before I went against the final boss, with 16 hearts, 2 stamina orbs and 14 weapons slots unlocked and 8 Bow Slots. I also had found a reliable source of incredibly powerful weapons that respawned every Blood Moon on top of one of the Sheikah Towers.

So I stocked up on a bunch of those and some powerful bows and shields and headed to the peninsula I had first attempted to glide from. Before jumping off though I made sure to deplete my Master Sword’s energy in an attempt to see if I could game the system and let it reappear after it restored it’s energy. I also figured I could try dropping my weapons and shields on the ground of an island right off Eventide to see if I could retrieve it after formally entering the trial and being stripped of all my gear. I made sure I wasn’t going to get hit by a Thunderstorm so I didn’t get blown off course again and proceeded to glide to the island. I attempted to land on the Sheikah platform off the coast of Eventide to see if I could drop those weapons and attempt the trial.

That didn’t work, because as soon as I landed on that platform the trial started. Luckily I had saved just before taking off so I reloaded the game from that point and tried again. Figuring I could try with some rocks poking out of the water right next to that platform I glided to those, and landed on them without triggering the trial. So I dropped all my prepared gear and walked on to the island to start it up, after I got stripped of everything I tried to go back to those rocks to get my gear. I wasn’t able to get to those rocks without leaving the trial which beat the entire purpose of me dropping them in the first place. So I reloaded for a third attempt, with my plan to get into the shallow water right at the edge of the island since I hadn’t triggered the trial until I actually got out of it and onto the island itself. This time my plan worked, thankfully , and I proceeded to quickly clear the enemies out near the first orb and put it on the platform in the ocean I had just attempted to land on a few minutes before. Figuring I should try to avoid making the same mistake as last time I decided to do the orb I had done third the last time I was here in order to avoid getting blindsided with a blood moon again. I quickly made my way up the hill and found that another thunderstorm was going to occur. Fortunately some of the enemies had dropped wooden bows so I wasn’t going to attract lightning, but I still had to scramble around to avoid getting my ass handed to me by the enemies with much nastier weapons than my tree branches I had picked up as I was clearing the forest for some easy food. Thankfully I was able to take advantage of the storm and it dealt with the nastiest enemy which was a Moblin. I took down the rest, occasionally using a metallic weapon I had brought with me for a few seconds before re-equipping a tree branch before I was hit by a lightning strike. I then put the orb in the nearby platform and decided to tackle the Hinox, this time I was able to get onto it’s chest and steal the final orb with ease. I did however wake it up as I was running away with the orb.

Thinking quickly I used my improved Stasis Rune to freeze it for a few seconds before I fled around the hill and got out of it’s line of sight before it unfroze while carrying the orb. I cleared out the final set of enemies in my way and was about to put in the orb before I remembered I probably should un-equip my smuggled gearand drop them before clearing the trial or I’d probably lose them for good knowing my luck. Then I put in the orb and got all my stuff back minus the gear I had dropped just a moment ago. I picked that up and decided to thoroughly destroy the damn Hinox as a form of petty revenge while I made my way to the Shrine that had just appeared on the Island. I got my revenge and got the spirit orb from the shrine, which thankfully didn’t have any puzzles since the entire trial to get to it in the first place would count as such.

That’s it for my time with Eventide Island, and it was memorable enough. I enjoyed going back and thoroughly taking advantage of breaking the system.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday!

Video Game Tuesday: Breath of the Wild’s Durability System

Hey all I’m back with my thoughts on last year’s probably best game’s, that I only just got to play this last weekend, only flaw. It’s all about Breath of the Wild’s Durability System!

Durability System?: For those unaware the weapons in Breath of the Wild all have a set durability that prevents you from keeping any one weapon indefinitely. There is an exception though, but the base game still prevents that exception from being usable 100% of the time. This is highly annoying and causes you to constantly scrounge up weapons. For hoarders like myself we hate having to waste good weapons on trash enemies, but sometimes we are left with no choice but to do so.

What can you do?: Well thankfully there are trees everywhere so if you get really desperate you can always throw a bomb at a tree to knock it down to get a quick weapon i a tree branch. Unfortunately they last as long as you’d expect a stick to last, which is to say not long at all. They also do absolutely crap damage, so you won’t be taking down any real enemy quickly with it, only the easiest of monsters will fall before the branch breaks.

Does it get better?: Like I said there is one weapon that doesn’t break, but with just the base game you won’t ever be able to use it all the time, as it also has a durability and has to wait a few minutes before being usable again.

My hope is that in future Zelda games they never include the durability system in this form again. I’d really like to be able to at least repair some of my weapons for a few Rupees.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday, do you enjoy the Durability System in Breath of the Wild? Leave your thoughts below in the comments below.