NieR Replicant ver. 1.22474487139 System: Playstation 4
Enter the depressing, yet hopeful, worlds of Yoko Taro
NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139 (referred to as NieR for the rest of this article) released April 23rd and I’ve been playing it since then, only finally completing the game over the weekend on May 29th. Yoko Taro & his team, supporting by Square Enix, have delivered on one of the best remasters that has been released in my recent memory.
NieR is essentially the exact same game that was released on PS3 and XBox 360 with improved graphics, smoother combat, two additional game segments – The Little Mermaid, a story quest inserted into the game’s second half and Ending E, which marks a large departure from the final ending of the original, and a few additional scenes that flesh out a number of characters more.
However, none of this additional content was exactly created for the remaster. The Little Mermaid and Ending E are actually taken from “The Little Mermaid” and “The Lost World” short stories from the book Grimoire Nier released in Japan after the original game release.
The stories are seamlessly added to the game’s narrative and newcomers won’t notice anything seeming out of place whatsoever.
The original DLC, 13 Nightmares, has been added to the main game as well, cleverly worked into the game as the entries in the diary of the protagonist’s mother where players do play as the US release “Father Nier” version of the character (I still hope they will release DLC allowing to play the full game as Father Nier).
Graphically, NieR looks better than ever though the graphics didn’t get a full remake so much as an upscaling and much improved cinematic cut scenes. While the original release was not the most impressive graphical presentation on its generation, there are still some impressive areas that looked nice and look beautiful in their own right in the remaster.
Controls are the same generally speaking, but with large improvements to the combat controls. Taking the lessons learned from NieR Automata’s improved combat, NieR actually seems to add a little additional polish in my opinion.
The music remains a stand out for the game with absolutely beautiful pieces, many featuring vocals in the game’s “chaos language” – vocal lyrics that sound like a language evolved from a mix of various modern languages resulting in something that sounds like language but isn’t. Song of the Ancients and its variations are fantastic and those who played NieR: Automata will recognize them, along with Kaine and Emil’s themes as both had versions present (Final Fantasy XIV players will also recognize them after the YorHa Dark Apocalypse raid). Some of the tracks have been rearranged, but the soundtrack could have been brought into the remaster 1:1 from the original game and would have stood alongside any modern release with ease.
NieR’s one and only weakness is replay value. Playing through the game once reaches ending A. Loading the post-completion save starts the game from the middle point and playing through again reaches ending B. Doing the same process two more times reaches endings C and D (or utilizing 2 save points to only replay the final area for ending D). Starting over from the very beginning and getting a short way in will open a new path to Ending E.
Once you’ve played through all the endings, there’s not much replay value as the surprises and twists are known. However, after a few years it can be worth playing through again. I found myself tearing up at a scene I had completely forgotten about regarding an old man near death saying goodbye to his dog.
What was originally a niche cult hit has, thanks to NieR Automata, been given the chance to likewise be a huge hit and fans of Automata will surely find an equally wonderful gem here. The story is beautiful and tragic with themes of the emptiness of hate and revenge, the ambiguity of right and wrong in war and its costs. In addition to the main story of the game, NieR’s world is filled with touching and difficult stories, as well as some quirky and silly ones, in its side quest as well.
It took me about 60-65 hours to get the platinum trophy (and I used the time zone manipulation to get the pink & then white flower from gardening), but the best way to play NieR is to let oneself take their time and get absorbed into the world it’s crafted, for all its amusements, sorrows, and revelations that will lead leave players questioning everything they’ve fought for.
What appears to be a generic shooter secretly offers much more
Alpha Protocol from Obsidian Entertainment released in 2010 to offer a unique RPG experience blending third-person shooter gameplay, dialogue options, stealth, and mini game challenges that combine to create an equally unique espionage experience.
Although the character creator is somewhat limited in options, players create their own version of protagonist Michael Thorton to play through the story of a highly classified black ops agent burned and on the run trying to prevent World War III. RPG elements are at work as players can customize their agent’s skills with various fire arms, martial arts, computer skills, toughness, and more.
Combat is made up of stealth elements and hand to hand combat options while an arsenal of firearms offers somewhat unpolished but still competent third person shooting. As agent Thorton infiltrates enemy bases, sneaks through CIA safe houses, and unravels a war-for-profit plot, he’ll have to hack computers and pick locks. Both of these minigame-like activities take a little getting used to, but once accustomed to them, they offer a satisfying challenge that rarely leans towards frustrating.
Fans of television series Burn Notice or the Jason Bourne series will definitely enjoy stepping into a similar role for an adventure from the Middle East to Russia, Greece, and Hong Kong, often making allies with unsavory groups in pursuit of the greater good. Those who like a little moral gray in their story will likewise find a compelling story where patriotism doesn’t necessary equate to typical lines of loyalty.
A lot of gamers likely missed this one at release, but it’s worth picking up and still fairly cheap to find on either PS3 or XBox 360.
Square Enix didn’t have a large presentation, lasting only 30 minutes and mostly just showing some videos of games coming out.
Starting off with their closest release, they kicked off with Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the third game in the rebooted Lara Croft’s origin trilogy. I was happy to see Jonah brought back for the third adventure, though I hope he pulls through the plane crash shown in the trailer. The gameplay footage looks great and Lara looks like she’s become seriously dangerous. No longer fighting for survival, she seems more like a predator in the jungle more than ever. I also really dig the muscular definition they’ve given her. The mud camoflage is a cool thing that gives me a Predator Schwarzenegger vibe. I still wish we’d get the dual pistols, though, and releasing right after Spider-Man is really painful.
The Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood patch trailer didn’t do much for me since I’m already playing Final Fantasy XIV and love it already! However, a Palico in FFXIV with a Monster Hunter World crossover? Heck yeah! I definitely want a Palico buddy in FFXIV! I still need to give Monster Hunter World a try as well.
Another look at The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit didn’t tell me much more than was previously shown, but I do like the idea of them treating the Life Is Strange world as an anthology setting allowing them to tell stories of completely different characters unrelated to one another’s stories. Kind of surprising that the game will be free.
Dragon Quest XI is another series I never got into (but will someday, right?). The trailer doesn’t look too bad, though the graphics style makes it feel a little dated. I think that’s just a matter of maintaining the aesthetic of the series, though, and I’m sure playing the game would settle into them not feeling off at all. Nothing particularly commanding interest, though.
The trailer for Babylon’s Fall told me absolutely nothing, but I want to know absolutely everything about the world’s lore based solely from the trailer. It looks really cool.
Nier Automata Definitive Edition on XBox One was already announced at Microsoft.
Octopath Traveler interests me, but I’m interested in the RPGs Square is developing for Switch as they feel very retro SNES era RPG. It was an extremely brief trailer.
Just Cause 4 isn’t a series I’ve played, but the fourth entry looks as over the top and crazy as the others. I’d love to try it someday.
I have no idea what The Quiet Man is from the teaser trailer.
Kingdom Hearts III, of course, got a little more shown, but mostly I felt like I’d already seen it from the previous trailer. I’m a little disappointed there is not one single glimpse of anything remotely Final Fantasy. Kingdom Hearts has become pretty much entirely a Disney property game and though the series has always been Disney worlds with Disney party members, I would have liked to see a few cameo teases from Final Fantasy cast members.
Overall, the biggest disappointment was not one single glimpse, tease, or hint about the progress on Final Fantasy 7 remake, which I’m starting to think will be shifted to Playstation 5 since there’s no way for 3 episodic entries to release prior to that console. It would, however, be interesting to see the game release on the exact day of the 25th Anniversary. I’m also personally disappointed we’ll never likely see a sequel to Sleeping Dogs.
Mostly, I didn’t feel like Square showed anything we hadn’t already seen, making for an unimpressive presentation, even if there are a few games I’m interested in.
Grade: D+
Games I’m interested in: Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Octopath Traveler, Kingdom Hearts III, more info for Babylon’s Fall.
Ubisoft
I liked kicking off with a slight jab at GameStop employee leaking Assassin’s Creed Odyssey with the keychain joke.
A lot of people likely didn’t care for the start of the presentation beginning with the dance routine outside, but I thought it was amusing. It was, up to that point, by far the most entertaining performance of all the presentations. With a mascot panda leading a marching band parade and dancers in colorful and weird costumes making their way from outside into the building and then down through the crowd to the stage, I couldn’t stop watching, all while thinking “wtf is even going on right now” before I finally realized it was their annual Just Dance performance. Major credit to the dancers, who apparently put the whole thing together last minute and are on the E3 floor dancing damn near nonstop all weekend. Sure, it wasn’t showing a game, but it was certainly more entertaining than Andrew WK’s performance for Bethesda. It also got much more of a positive crowd reaction as an opening act than Bethesda’s look of confusion from their crowd.
They went straight into one of their heavily anticipated titles with a long trailer for Beyond Good and Evil 2. No game play presented, but the trailer did give a look at the setting and first glimpse of the characters. A friend of mine who knows absolutely nothing about Beyond Good and Evil was intrigued and interested in the game just from half of the trailer, so they certainly accomplished their goal in that regard. I was rather surprised by the ending reveal of Jade. It definitely feels like an HD facelift for the original PS2/GameCube release would be nice to accompany the sequel (actually prequel). After a few words from the developers, they showed a look at pre-alpha footage with the two explaining a few details, such as solo and co-op play. The game looks to be massive.
An interesting addition is the Space Monkey program where fans can create ideas, music, artwork, and original content to be added to the game. Murals, street art, music, radio content, and more can be submitted to be used in the game through a partnership with Hit Record, founded by Joseph Gordan-Levitt. It’s really cool to see celebrities brought into E3 because their projects or companies are actually partnering with the developers rather than just being brought on stage as a celebrity for some stilted pre-scripted dialogue. The cynical will see it as a way to crowd source free assets, but it’s a cool collaborative project for fans to have their creations in game.
After they went off stage, their mics were still hot, and the excited “we nailed it!” back stage was the cutest part of the presentation. That’s genuine excitement.
Rainbow Six Siege holds no interest for me, but it clearly does for 35 million players. They talked about upcoming esports competition tournaments, but didn’t go too long. They gave a first look at a documentary titled “Another Mindset” about Rainbow Six Siege esports gamers. Normally I’d complain about this being a detraction from showing games, but I understand why they showed it when they did. It allowed them to set up the stage for their next presentation.
Coming into the theater in an Evel Knievel suit on a motorcycle sporting the game title for Trials, we had Antti Il Vessuo, creative director of Ubisoft Redlynx, come on stage to “accidentally” trip and crash through a podium with a TV on it, breaking the whole thing to pieces. Getting up with a simple “oops,” he explained: “Trials is all about crashing with style and getting up again.” He also claimed to be the Prime Minister of Finland before presenting the video for Trials Rising. It was brief, but it scored with the crowd. A camera pan showed people laughing at the crash and “oops” and the applause was there for it. I hadn’t heard of Trials, but it looks like an absolute insane and infinitely more hilarious version of a childhood favorite in Excitebike. This is absolutely not my type of game and I still think it looks like it would be fun to play. After the video, the crew was already on stage cleaning up the set up “crashed podium” and he gave a little aside “sorry about that” which scored another noticeable laugh with the audience before talking more about the game.
By this point I had noticed that Ubisoft was doing something the other presentations had not done – it was connecting with their audience in the theater. Jokes were landing, the little performances and shows were entertaining, and they weren’t overly long before showing and talking about the games they had to present.
I wasn’t impressed with The Division 2 footage from Microsoft, but Ubisoft’s presentation sold me on the plot for the sequel. As it gets closer to release, I’ll see what the gameplay additions are like and make a decision on it. I played the first one with friends and might be happy to do so again with a sequel. Ubisoft has a proven track record with Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs of the sequels having vast improvements over the first game, so I hope that’s the case for The Divison 2 and I just haven’t seen it yet with the first release of gameplay footage. The crowd certainly liked the idea of 8 man raids in the game. Frequent, major content updates were promised with 3 DLC episodes with new story, areas, and activities all free in the first year.
I still haven’t found time to play Mario + Rabbids, but the Donkey Kong + Rabbids was fun with live music played over the video.
Skull & Bones looks like Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag without the Assassin’s Creed backdrop and polished and refined with better graphics. The gameplay looks like it was taken right out of Black Flag with ship combat and base captures. They’ve added a multiplayer component with other players joining together to take down ships and then potentially fighting each other over the loot as well. I loved Black Flag, one of my favorite in the series, so I’d be interested to see more details on this in the future.
Elijah Wood was brought out for Transference VR as his company is involved in working with Ubisoft on the game. I’m not too clear on the game, but it seems creepy as hell.
The next game, Starlink, did a complete 360 for me. The initial trailer interested me with its sci-fi setting and the ship combat looked interesting, though I wasn’t crazy about the character designs and art style. Then I saw it was a toys to life game and I quickly lost interest. I do think these are the best “toys to life” iteration to date, though. Where Skylanders and Amiibo were mostly just little statue figurines that had a chip in them, Starlink toys actually are space ships that can be changed with different pieces to alter them in game. That also makes them genuine toys for kids to play with after turning off the game. They can run around the house with their toys shooting down imaginary enemies and narrowly dodging enemy fire, recreating epic space battles in their imaginations.
After a brief bit of information on the game, however, it was revealed that the good guys in Starlink would need all the help they can get and the video started again. Pursued by five enemies and taking fire, the pilot says “could use a little help here” and the video cut to a ship console. Then I heard it….
At first, I thought “Tell me I didn’t just hear that.” Then I thought “Did Ubisoft leave placeholder sounds in their trailer!?” Then I saw the green eye, clearly surrounded by fur, and covered by a green lens and I thought “HOLY CRAP WTF WTF WTF!?”
Ubisoft had strengthened their partnership with Nintendo and Star Fox, or at least Fox McCloud, would be in Starlink Battle for Atlas. Multiple arwings were seen as Fox took off, so I’m assuming the full team may be present.
Just like that, they sold me on buying a copy. I’ve wanted a model Arwing to put on the shelf for years, but the only one I’ve ever seen is about $500, so a $75 bundle of a toy version with game included is close enough for me. Shigeru Miyamoto was even on hand and seated in the front row of the audience to see. They gave him a first prototype of the Arwing and Fox McCloud figure for the game. It looked pretty cool on the display stand they had mounted it on.
I was surprised to see the next game, For Honor Marching Fire, as from my understanding the first game hadn’t done that well. Apparently, however, it was enough to warrant a new addition. However, this goes to Ubisoft’s credit of maintaining majority control of their company and the benefit of games like Rainbow Six Siege and Assassin’s Creed being tentpole games that help finance smaller projects throughout the company. They’re not exclusively bound to focus purely on profit, profit, profit.
The Crew 2 got a presentation and open beta announcement before showing the video. I’m not too interested here either. Give me a Smokey and the Bandit game, instead, Ubi (I’m kidding….. or am I?).
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was the closing presentation and it definitely looks good. Based on the trailer and presentation, the game looks good and they’re moving even more in an RPG direction. I was surprised, perhaps a little disappointed, to see Assassin’s Creed return to an annual release as I was hoping Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs would start taking turns leapfrogging each other in every-other-year releases.
I have the Ezio statue from the Brotherhood Collector’s Edition and have thought the others were cool since then, even sometimes thinking they would have definitely looked cool with every one of them together on a shelf, but with multiple statues in the new one, I’m glad I didn’t go down that path (though they do look awesome). I’m still hoping Ubisoft goes back on their word and ventures to Japan with the series (as they did with Egypt), as well as back to China and into India, at some point.
I also liked their show conclusion bringing the entire team, both presenters and so many who were back stage, back on stage for a final curtain call. The final note of working more with you, the gamers which makes everything better was a great note to conclude Ubisoft’s E3 presentation.
Grade: A
Games I’m interested in: Beyond Good and Evil 2, Starlink, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, possibly The Division 2 and Skull & Bones once I read up on more information.
Sony
Sony had announced ahead of time that this year would not be announcing new games at E3, but focusing on four pillar games with deeper looks and more information.
They started off their presentation in a room that had been built to look like a church to resemble the one they had not yet seen in the upcoming trailer. I saw a number of people didn’t like the banjo performance to start the presentation, but I liked it. I immediately knew it was kicking off the show with The Last of Us 2 just based on the early bit of that performance, though I’m in agreement that the church replica was rather silly and completely unnecessary. It caused a weird intermission right at the start of their presentation and broke the flow of their games being shown.
The Last of Us 2, however, looked absolutely fantastic. The detail in the character models and motion capture, the footage shown for gameplay looked very smooth and even more cinematic than the first game did. The focus of the trailer was on the greater danger in any zombie post-apocalypse: other humans. That always seemed like the more dangerous part of the first game, so I like seeing that aspect as the spotlight in the sequel. Ellie laying down in foliage and sliding under cars adds expanded ways to use the environment than just ducking behind things as well. I also found it interesting that the enemies seem to be calling her “wolf” as if she’s earned a title, possibly from hunting their group in the past? I’m a little disappointed we don’t see Joel at all, only getting a hint of him mentioned.
During the intermission while the crowd moved from the first room to the main theater. It took 13 minutes while they talked about Last of Us part 2, Horizon, God of War, and Detroit: Become Human with Worldwide Studios. New Game + coming to God of War was brought up and confirmed as happening. Black Ops remastered maps were announced for Black Ops IIII. Black Ops III was also announced as a free game for PS+ members.
Tetris Effect for PSVR was shown. A short video for Days Gone. Twin Mirror. Ghost Giant for PSVR, Beat Saber for PSVR. Basically a compilation sizzle reel.
Destiny 2‘s new expansion got a featured trailer.
Finally going back to the main stage, Sony presented another musical performance with Cornelius Boots playing the shakuhachi (a Japanese flute instrument) in front of a screen showing hills of grass while dressed in Japanese clothing. Much like the Andrew WK performance, this would have been more interesting if they had some slow paced game footage to show behind him rather than just the grassy hills. Once he was done, we got our first look at Ghost of Tsushima.
This is one of my most anticipated games that was teased at E3 in 2017 and the new trailer did not disappoint me at all. I’m a sucker for samurai and ninja films, so a game set in this time period grabs my attention and an open world style game in this time period is a must have. I’m hoping, really hoping, the final game is playable with Japanese voice acting and English subtitles, though. I even saw a later comment imagining a black & white mode, which would be ridiculously hard to imagine them pulling off, but would definitely be interesting.
The combat looks interesting. It’s definitely not fast paced hack and slash. There are some very Akira Kurosawa moments with the face off and the sudden draw-strike of the katana killing the opponent before regular combat starts. It looks like it’s focused on reaction, blocks and dodges and counter attacks rather than mindless button mashing.
Between games, there would occasionally be weird things like a CG banana playing electric guitar. It was for Dreams, but that game was never really shown.
I have no idea what the game is about based on the trailer, but Control looks like you basically get to play as Jean Gray/Phoenix (but also with a gun), so that looks pretty cool.
Next up was the surprise trailer that almost managed to steal the show: Resident Evil 2 remake was presented from a rat’s eye view. I liked the added touch of an original Playstation controller next to the pizza near the beginning. As the camera moves around, a struggle is heard, the two people fighting knocking things over and eventually falling on our rodent for the camera to shift to a different view to show the killed rat before moving to a zombie biting the sheriff he was fighting before we get our first look at Leon Kennedy.
Expected to have been a remake much like the Resident Evil REmake on GameCube, the footage is above and beyond that in terms of what I expected graphically. The detail is amazing and the crowd loved it, especially when a Jan 2019 release was revealed.
Squanch Games presented Trover Save the Universe from the creator of Rick and Morty. I’ve never watched the show, but if the humor is like this trailer, I do not remotely see the appeal.
Another look at Kingdom Hearts III showed more gameplay and focused on the Pirates of the Caribbean world before showing a lot of what was seen in the previous presentations. The big addition was the reveal of a Kingdom Hearts III PS4 Pro Limited Edition as well as a 1.5/2.5/2.8/3 all-in-one package for PS4.
Death Stranding gave us a long look at the game and its gameplay while still managing to show almost nothing. We know Redus’ character is essentially a delivery courier, seeing a wide number of terrains being traversed while wearing ridiculously large backpacks. There appears to be acid rain causing burns, hence needing the suits they wear. One of the “packages” appears to be a dead body wrapped up or in a body bag. Others are large crates, sometimes with robots coming with them, other times just carrying everything. Scaling a mountain seemed reminiscent of Breath of the Wild. Though towards the end, we see a village and he pulls out a rifle, so there does seem like there will be combat. It seems like whatever the creatures we’ve seen hinted at have human hand shaped feet, leaving hand prints where they walk. Breathing seems to attract their attention. The woman that meets up with Redus’ character has a suit with FRAGILE on the back (possibly the company they work for). The time fold fast forwards whatever it touches, but the past can never let go. If one of the things eats Redus character, he’ll come back, but the area will be a crater. There are humanoid shapes floating in the air as black smoky clouds, tethered into the sky. They catch Reducs and pull him down into an oil puddle to end the trailer. Ultimately still no clue what the game is about… We probably won’t entirely have an idea when it releases.
Give me your hand in death
Give me your hand in flesh
Give me your hand in spirit
Nioh 2 got an announce trailer, marking the third samurai game for E3 this year!
Finally, Sony wrapped up with an extended look at Spider-Man. The game still looks fantastic visually. Previously, it seemed Mr. Negative was the primary focus of the game, but this kicks off with Electro breaking prisoners out of the Raft and webhead chasing him through fighting low tier super powered criminals in the prison while running into more notable Spider-Man villains Rhino, Scorpion, and Vulture. It’s clear the Sinister Six are featured villains here. The sixth, who masterminded the break out and brought the above five together confronts Spidey at the end, but we’re not shown who it is. Norman Osborn is known to be mayor in this setting, so it could definitely be Green Goblin leading the Sinister Six, but Doc Ock is just as possible. Of course, it could be a surprise rather than an obvious choice.
The game definitely looks amazing. Spectacular even. It even looks Web of. Wait, that last one doesn’t work.
Grade: Absolute A++ on the games themselves, but…. B- for the presentation. I’d even hear out arguments for a grade of C.
However, I feel Sony did what they said they were going to do: showed a closer look at the four big games they wanted to showcase with no muss or fuss. The long intermission was the only real problem I had with their conference. If they had kept everything in the main theater, the shakuhachi before Ghost of Tsushima would have been more of a palette cleanser between the two games rather than feeling like we were stretching on far too long without game footage at a game presentation.
Games I’m looking forward to: Last of Us 2, Ghost of Tsushima, Spider-Man, Resident Evil 2, Death Stranding, Ghost Giant, Beat Saber, possibly Control once I know more about it.
E3 kicks off this weekend with EA on Saturday, Microsoft and Bethesda on Sunday, Square Enix, Ubisoft, and Sony on Monday, and Nintendo on Tuesday. While some have begun to bemoan E3 as an unnecessary and antiquated thing no longer needed in the industry, I look forward to watching the presentations every year and would still like to go just once someday, same with SDCC, just for the one time experience.
Sony is always my main interest for E3 as I’ve been a Playstation gamer since the first console and as I’ve said in the past, I never really got into Xbox. Nintendo is the console of my childhood and I have each system they’ve released, but I’d be lying if I said it’s still my primary gaming device (though I wish I had more time to split between PS4, Switch, and MMO gaming).
Here’s what I’m looking forward to and my expectations for each presentation this year:
EA – Saturday, June 9, 11am Pacific Time
Anthem is probably the only thing I’m curious about from EA right now. Unlike some, I enjoyed The Division as a story play through with friends, but didn’t have the interest in grinding endgame. Anthem seems like it will be a similar game and I have one friend who’s very interested in it. If the final product looks to be like a better version of The Division + Destiny, I’ll probably use the same approach of playing through the main story and then leaving endgame behind. I only have time for one MMO at a time. Even with this in mind, Anthem is only a passing curiosity right now and less something I’m truly looking forward to.
Microsoft – Sunday, June 10, 1pm Pacific Time
I don’t have an Xbox One X and I’m admittedly not a PC gamer (at this time), so there’s not much I’m particularly interested in seeing from Microsoft. That said, as a Playstation fan, maybe even a mongrel hybrid of Sony Pony and Nintendrone, I still watch Microsoft’s presentation every year out of interest in what the competition is offering. While Microsoft still has yet to offer anything to make the Xbox One appealing, particularly with everything being on PC if I truly wanted to play it, I still give them the respect of paying attention to their efforts. Cuphead looked fantastic and was a game I would have bought on release day if I had the console. Ori and the Blind Forest as well as its sequel are games I’d buy without hesitation as well. All of these I can, and Ori I have, buy on PC, though. So I’ll be watching this to see what Microsoft has in the works to try and fight back as the underdog as this console generation enters the later rounds of the fight.
Bethesda – Sunday, June 10, 6:30 Pacific Time
Honestly, I’ll watch just to watch, but I really don’t care. Despite loving RPGs, I’ve never gotten into Fallout or Elder Scrolls. Fallout 76 and Rage 2 aren’t my areas of interest.
Square Enix – Monday, June 11, 10am Pacific Time
The first stand-alone press conference from Square since 2015, I’m definitely looking forward to this presentation. Of course, I’ll be at work, so I’ll just have to listen to it and sneak a peek at the stream when possible.
Kingdom Hearts III will likely get a release date. I haven’t played any of the Kingdom Hearts games, but a release date on the final entry will give me a time frame to finally play through them with the HD releases on PS4.
I’m also looking forward to Shadow of the Tomb Raider and hoping reboot Lara finally steps into her own. I’ve enjoyed the reboot with the first game being the formation of the character, Rise being about tying up loose ends of her past, and hopefully Shadow being where she finally starts setting a path for herself in her life. It’s time for reboot Lara to grow into the twin pistols of classic Lara. We already have pistols for her, there’s no reason to not get some bow is for stealth, twin pistols are for gun fights, rifles & shotguns are for situational selection design established now. With them teased in the first game, I honestly think the twin pistols are going to happen, but are being held possibly even to the finale of this game. The developers have said this is the final game of Lara’s “Tomb Raider origin” trilogy and I really expect the twin pistols are the equivalent of her graduation ceremony “Tomb Raider Diploma.” Once she has the twin pistols, she’ll fully have transitioned into the role of the bad ass globe-trotting adventurer everyone expects her to become.
I’m expecting to see a first tease of the Avengers game Square is working on and possibly a new trailer for Final Fantasy VII remake. While some rumors and supposed leaks suggest a demo for FFVII with a possible release date on the horizon, I don’t think that will happen. I think this year is largely going to be about Kingdom Hearts III. I also think Final Fantasy VII remake is going to wind up being a PS5 game simply because PS4 is indeed entering the later years of its life cycle and there’s no way Square Enix is going to get all three episodes out before PlayStation 5. Now, PS5 may be backwards compatible, so it won’t matter too much, but I really expect to wait a while longer for VII Remake, even if we get a new look at it.
Final Fantasy XIV will have a live letter during E3, but the only thing I expect to come from it will be a little more info about upcoming patches – things like the new Deep Dungeon – and likely the long awaited Final Fantasy XV crossover event.
I’d love to see a teaser announcing Final Fantasy XVI is in the works as well, but I don’t think that’s likely. Between Kingdom Hearts III, Final Fantasy XV, and VII remake, I think their heavy hitters are tied up for the moment. That said, if XVI is in the works, I’d love to see them offer a more high fantasy sword & sorcery with just a touch of steam punk harkening back to IV, VI, and IX in style. I personally divide the Final Fantasy games into fantasy and sci-fi with recent installments of XII, XIII, XV all falling more in the sci-fi (or more appropriately science fantasy) side of things. Airships and advanced moon civilizations aside, the more modern and futuristic the technology, the less of the high fantasy that Final Fantasy built its kingdom on.
Ubisoft – Monday, June 11, 1pm Pacific Time
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey has already been confirmed, which is a little disappointing for me. I was expecting the break that Origins saw to signal a shift for the series to a 2 year cycle with Watch Dogs and Assassin’s Creed leap frogging each other as alternating releases. After Watch Dogs 2, I was hoping that franchise would continue its trend with a new location and new characters each game with just some cameos from the previous games’ members. Especially with the notion of DedSec you could easily have Marcus Sitara, Wrench, and Josh consulting via video conferencing with DedSec members in another city.
I’m admittedly struggling through Assassin’s Creed: Origins. The games were always vast, but the shift to even more open world RPG design lost a little motivation for me in the story. I need to knuckle down and just commit to chasing the main story quests rather than get distracted with side quests, but I’m a habitual side quester. Once I finish Persona 5, I’ll try to finish off AC: Origins and see if my interest is renewed for Odyssey, but Rome/Greece isn’t particularly a setting that really interests me. I’d rather see China, Japan, and India entries in the series.
The Division 2 will be revealed, which does interest me. As I said, I liked the first one with my friends and I’m expecting we’ll hop in for the sequel together for the same style play through as well.
Skull and Bones is another one I have a passing curiosity for. The ship sailing in Assassin’s Creed III was a highlight for me and Black Flag is probably my favorite entry in the series, so Ubisoft has a solid foundation for ship based piracy. Depending on what else is in store for gamers with that title will determine just how interested I get. If it doesn’t offer enough new or interesting aspects, I could just replay Black Flag.
Sony – Monday, June 11, 6pm Pacific Time
Sony has stated there won’t be a lot of new games announced this year and instead they’ll be focusing on more information for what’s been announced and is now on the horizon. This is the conference with the most announcements I’m looking forward to. Before touching on anything I’m interested in game-wise, I really hope this is finally the year, after waiting so long, that Sony will finally, FINALLY, let users change their PSN name. I don’t even care if I have to pay for it, if there’s a time restriction on frequency, whatever. I don’t have an embarrassing PSN name and still I really want the option to change mine.
Death Stranding – As a huge Metal Gear Solid fan, I’m obviously interested to see what Hideo Kojima has planned with his first Konami-free game. As fans expect, everything about the game has been strange, confusing, and tell us almost nothing. This year is expected to be the first real look at the game, possibly with actual gameplay and some more cryptic clues as to just what it’s all about.
Spider-Man – I’ve already pre-ordered the collector’s edition, though I’m still on the fence about keeping that order in place. I’m just not a fan of the costume design, so a statue of said costume has me on the fence. It would be cool to have a statue of classic Spidey, MCU Homecoming Spidey, and PS4 Spidey all together, though. Decisions, decisions. Regardless of that, I’m looking forward to this game and with its launch only 3 months away, we’re sure to get a good final look at the gameplay here.
Ghost of Tsushima – Despite only an initial announcement trailer, this game is a bright, burning spot on my radar. An open world game set in feudal Japan with a samurai turned ninja? This is everything I want in a game. I’m hoping it’s surprisingly further into development than we might expect and we’ll see a full presentation with gameplay to give an idea just what sort of game it will be. Perhaps this will replace my desire for an Assassin’s Creed set in Japan.
The Last of Us, Part II – I loved the first game and I’m looking forward to the second, even though I’m a little on the fence about a new story with Joel and Ellie. I liked the world the first game established and was more interested in seeing The Last of Us becoming an anthology franchise with each game following different characters completely unrelated to the previous game.
Nintendo – Tuesday, June 12, 9am Pacific Time
I never have anything to really look forward to with Nintendo so much as tuning in to find out what I didn’t know I was be looking forward to. Nintendo seems to pull a few cards out that nobody knew were in the works such as last year’s Metroid Prime 4 announcement. This year, I’m hoping for a little of said Metroid Prime 4 information. I’d like to see some surprises from Square Enix on Nintendo Direct since they’ve established a division working on Switch games and I like the SNES era throwback RPGs like I Am Setsuna.
Polyarc Games‘ new release, Moss, is an action adventure puzzle platformer about a small mouse finding herself in a big adventure aided by a ghostly spirit being called “The Reader.” The player takes on the role of this Reader to interact with the environment, but also controls the mouse, Quill, as she traverses the areas and battles clockwork robot bugs. All over the Internet right now, you can’t throw an acorn without hitting a positive review of this charming game.
What I find so enthralling about Moss is that it is a departure from what we’ve come to expect in a VR game and yet if feels very familiar in a rather unexpected way.
VR – New Approach, But Familiarities
While most VR games have leaned towards first person experiences with shooters, the Skyrim port, and a few vehicle driving type approaches, Moss puts the player in the role of an observer with relatively minimal direct action upon the enemies so much as the world itself. Quill is the adventurer in this tale, you are her guardian spirit. The player can move things around like statues and blocks or they can take control of enemies to make them stand still, hold them in place while bringing Quill in to attack, or make the enemies fire their weapons at puzzle switches or other enemies.
Here I’m controlling the light blue enemy to shoot the red ones while Quill hangs out safe up top.
Where things feel familiar for me is the sets designed for each level. Something about them feels like stepping back into childhood of the 80s and early 90s where practical sets and models were used rather than CG effects. Despite being a video game, the areas that Quill explores feel like physical models that you’re allowed to look at due to the nature of VR. Tilting your head to look into a building Quill is going into or raising up and leaning forward to look down at the set to see what’s hidden behind walls and into nooks and crannies really gives a sense of being there rather than merely observing the location.
That feeling of familiarity has been mentioned in a few other reviews as something out of a Jim Henson film with the charm of a Studio Ghibli production, but it reminded me of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Only in this case, it’s more like Mr. Rogers’ World of Make-Believe as designed by J. R. R. Tolkien (or perhaps more accurately, Brian Jacques). All of this combines to feel like you really are looking at the scenes of a storybook, which is exactly what you, The Reader, are doing in a sense.
You can just barely see Quill between the center pillars!
On the topic of familiarity, and since I mentioned Brian Jacques, fans of the Redwall series will surely feel there are some similarities and possibly influential inspiration here. When Moss was first shown, I thought it might have somehow been connected to the series of books, but it’s not. Moss is its own storybook and Quill her own character, and what a character she is.
Quill – Our Heroine
The game begins with the player sitting in a large church-like library. Rows and rows of tables extend before you with a few having stacks of thick tomes on them, but only yours has candles before it with a book set before you to read. The book is titled Moss and your first interaction with the world is to open it. The narrator, who voices all characters in the game much as other indie titles have done splendidly, begins by telling the story of how the Mouse Kingdom fell to a great evil and how their people narrowly escaped with the help of a warrior. That warrior’s wounds proved too great and he died in the forest, a tree growing upon him and holding a powerful artifact, a Glass, within it.
The story is told in small bits, each related to a page in the book which dims when that narration is completed, indicating it’s ready for you to turn the page until the story moves to the current level in the tale.
Quill lives with her uncle and although he warns her about staying out late, she tends to push just a little further in her explorations of the forest beyond their town. We first meet her coming back from an expedition of exploration shortly after the previously mentioned Glass has fallen from the tree. Quill stops to check her pack where she seems to have found a button, though she drops it when she’s startled by a crow and hides in a small hole at the base of a large tree. As she starts to leave, the Glass glows and chimes and she picks it up, putting that in her pack instead of the button.
Then, she notices the player. Looking up at you, she’s startled, but then calms and comes closer, moving to a little pier and her gaze practically invites you to lean down to look closer at her. In doing so, the Reader’s reflection is seen in the water and you do definitely look like something from a Ghibli film. From there, Quill hears the bells and heads home before the gates close.
That’s you in the back there.
The game uses the few areas between the start and getting Quill home to get familiar with the controls, which aren’t too difficult. The most challenging aspect is adjusting to combat later where you’ll want to use the motion controller to move in a 3D space while simultaneously keeping an eye on where you’ve got Quill moving so she’s able to fight. Combat isn’t particularly difficult, but there are a few fights where things get a little hectic trying to control Quill and grab enemies to delay them from getting her. Most of this difficulty for me seemed to be getting my Dualshock 4 out of the PS4 Camera’s field of vision mid-combat.
Over the course of the game, Quill doesn’t gain new abilities or power ups. What she starts with is what you get, other than a story upgrade that doesn’t translate to in-game power. That’s fine though, because what you start with is an adorably charming mouse who is intelligent and expressive. In my first playthrough of the game, the biggest mistake I made was identifying how to solve puzzles and executing that strategy. Not solving puzzles immediately offers you the chance to watch Quill give you a hint with simplified sign language and pantomime with smooth animations.
It’s fun to just watch her sometimes. The Reader can even interact with Quill by holding the button to grab things while hovering over her, allowing the player to give her a little pet to the head, ears, back, or belly. She often reacts positively to this, much like a real pet, though later in the game she finds it annoying in a “now is not the time for petting, this is serious” sort of way.
Here I’m giving Quill an anime-worthy head pat.
Conclusion
Moss is a fun little game that I enjoyed every minute of. I played straight through from start to finish, logging about 4 hours in total. Some might find this a bit too short for the $30 price tag, but I am more than content with the experience. It’s one that’s enjoyable enough that I find myself wanting to play through it again (which I’m going to do to get platinum if nothing else).
The most telling of the game’s affect is that I find myself not only wanting to replay it, but wanting more. Minor non-spoiler: The game ends with a clear indication this is just the beginning of Quill’s tale and that her adventures with the Reader have only just begun. Since the game starts with the player in a library or cathedral reading the book, Moss, I’m curious if the mystical ghost-like Reader in the tale is the reader of the book, able to interact with the story itself or if the literal reader and the mystical Reader are separate entities. Perhaps it’s a question that doesn’t need answering, but it does seem like an interesting one.
I’m curious to know more about Quill’s sword and her arm guard, the mystical Glass artifacts. I want to know more about the evil that rose under their kingdom so long ago. I want to know more about the humans that clearly existed in these lands ages ago. I want a Moss animated series. Most of all, I want one of those adorable Quill figures Polyarc Games has given away with hide & seek games at various conventions and now through various partners and YouTube channels with the game’s release.
Seriously, Polyarc Games, let me give you money. I want to help fund another adventure with our little mouse friend.
I had bought tickets for everyone going, as I typically do. I have the AMC Stubs membership, so buying everyone’s tickets avoids the online “convenience fee” and everyone then pays me back for their tickets. We always catch the opening night 7PM showing for these sorts of things.
Only Warner Bros and AMC flipped it on me.
The normal showing was at 6PM and the 3D showing was at 7PM, reverse of standard opening night times. I had forgotten this and didn’t check my tickets, so we wound up at the theater an hour into the movie. We got passes for later use and went to Wendy’s for a Frosty and hung out a bit before everyone headed home.
I was a bit disappointed, but figured I might see the first showing the next day. I had Friday off and had planned on getting a pizza and watching Marvel’s Punisher on Netflix that day. But Thursday night the thought nagged at me – I’m never off on Friday, so what if a garage sale has some retro games?
It’s the haunting voice for retro game hunters: “What if I don’t look and this is where I miss out on a $5 copy of Mega Man X3 or Earthbound?” “Was that garage sale I just passed the one with a copy of Stadium Events or Little Samson for a few bucks?”
Such as it was that Thursday night. I hopped on Craigslist to see if any garage sales were posted for the next day that had video games mentioned, hopefully with pictures to make it worth going.
There weren’t any.
Awesome, I won’t spend money I don’t have and I can get a delicious pizza and binge watch Punisher. Maybe I will go see Justice League after all as well.
Not So Fast
But then, I saw a post. A huge retro game collection for $1,000 was listed. These sort of posts are things I never think I’d go for, but would like looking at. So I looked. And it was impressive. I saw an NES with ROB the Robot complete in box, everything included. I saw Final Fantasy III’s box. A Super Nintendo. A table lined with Gameboys, Gameboy SPs, Gameboy Colors. By my estimates, only a couple dozen things in the picture were worth the $1,000 and I could see some more boxes peeking out in one of the pictures. This seemed like a treasure trove.
I hopped on Google Hangouts and messaged my friend Phil, who was now fully getting into retro game collecting as well:
Me: Got $500 you want to spend? I’m thinking about taking $800 out of savings for a game purchase >.>
Phil: What? Explain now.
Me: (Link to craigslist ad) I want to see if they’ll take 800.
Complete ROB Deluxe in box, 2 NES, a top loader, An SNES, Games CIB. Boxes and boxes of stuff. I was calculating and got down to about $350 with just some of the boxed stuff I can see + consoles
Phil: Wait… where did the $500 come from? If it’s $1k And you were thinking $800….
Me: Randomly asking if you wanted to take 500 to split 50/50 But then I thought “Wait, wonder if I can get it for 800”
Phil: There are bound to be things in there that I’d super want. I already see Mega Man. And one of the toaster NES’s.
Me: Alright, let’s look at it this way…. Are you up for going in at $500 and we split 50/50? And if I can get it lower, great?
Phil: Yeah
Me: We’re insane. You know that, right?
Phil: This is insane. ….I was just typing that.
So I emailed the guy about the ad. Phil and I waited anxiously as the night wore on, occasionally messaging each other with joke comments like “Answer the email dang it!” on Hangouts, but there was no reply. Any time there’s a too good to be true post, it’s possible it’s a prank…. Or someone’s looking to mug you for $1,000! In this case, it looked to be a prank post or someone beat us to it.
Letting Go and Moving On….But Wait
That weekend there was a Facebook group meetup, but again I had no money, so I needed to move some extra stuff I still had. Trades or selling would have been great, but I only sold Berserk Guts Rage for Dreamcast. $25 more than I started with, but not a lot to be excited about.
Sunday and Monday came and it seemed like the post was indeed a joke as it was still up and we still had no response.
Then on Monday night, I got an email back. The seller had been busy and had updated a new post with better images showing more stuff and had increased the price to $1100. I confirmed with Phil he was still good with going in 50/50 and we agreed to the price and arranged a time to pick up. I checked the seller’s address on Google Maps and it seemed like a nice neighborhood, so I was less concerned of getting mugged, or killed and fed to crocodiles (there are no crocodiles in these non-aquatic regions of Texas, but what if someone had a full pit of them in their back yard for this very purpose!?).
“Vidya gaemz? HA HA HA, You fool! It was WE, CROCODILES, ALL ALONG!” (Note: these are alligators, but they are standing in for the fictitious crocodiles. Thank you.)
Picking Up The Pickup
Phil met me at the seller’s house Tuesday morning. I had taken an early lunch to get everything loaded up and take it to my house so we could unload, then I’d go back to work. Phil was off the following day so we’d start going through it then.
The seller was a nice guy, a bit younger than us I’d say, who welcomed us into his home to look over everything and figure out how we were going to haul it all out. He started putting boxes on a table and told us to start loading up.
As we took boxes out to load Phil’s vehicle, the seller explained to us that it was all in a storage locker his mother owned and he thought it belonged to her ex originally. He knew it was worth more than $1100, but video games weren’t his thing, so he was happy putting the money in his pocket, recovering his living room, and someone else taking the time to individually sort everything, clean it, test it, photo it, and spend time selling it individually to flip it for profit.
He asked us if we were sellers or collectors and we were honest that we’d surely do both. We’d be keeping a lot of what we saw just based on the photos, we’d trade with other collectors in a group we were in online to get more things we’re after, and we’d sell some or trade for store credit at various game stores, but we’d be definitely focusing on keeping it or trading with collectors. He was happy to hear a good chunk of it would be going to collectors who would enjoy an appreciate it.
It turned out I was one of the first people to email him the day the original post went up, or at the very least the first one who was reasonable. He had emails offering him $600 for all of it and he knew he was already pricing fair and likely rather low at $1100. For everything there, we were more than happy to pay that $1100.
He also showed us his garage, which was essentially consumed by stock from a comic book shop. For the right price, that was all available as well and part of me wished I had more money to invest in that purchase too (as if my house could hold much more inventory for sorting and selling…or room for more collectibles for that matter).
Unloading & Fighting Temptation
It took every bit of space in Phil’s vehicle plus every free seat and the trunk in mine, but we were able to load everything.
Driving it to my house was a weird sensation. I had just taken $550 out of my savings account, which wasn’t quite where I wanted it to be in the first place, to buy a ton of video games. There were a lot of sports titles on SNES, though even at 50 cents each they’d add up. I told myself that the NES with ROB was worth almost $300 and I’d surely find more I wanted to keep. I’d get my $550 worth and Phil would surely find that much in value. I was sure, and reminded myself, we would at least get value equal to what we spent, if not more.
Still, this was the first purchase I’d made of this size since I started game hunting, so it was a bit surreal and exciting to think of what could be in all those boxes while also a bit guilty feeling to take money from savings at a time I was flat broke on the game hunting budget.
We saw some exciting things as we unloaded. I spotted a Chrono Trigger box in good condition. A Final Fantasy III box (in addition to the one in the photos), and an Ocarina of Time collector’s edition box which I’d been looking for! Phil saw a number of NES carts he was interested in. We wanted to take that afternoon and just start looking through everything, but we had to wait. Though Phil said I could start going through some of it that night if I wanted.
I went back to work for what seemed like the longest half day I’ve ever experienced.
That night, I decided I’d go through organizing a bit and start with the manuals, paperwork, and hardware like controllers. The boxes and games would wait for a team effort.
First Night Results
I started off going through the boxes of controllers and sorting them out. Totals were:
10 NES controllers
33 SNES controllers – some original, some 3rd party variants like asciiPad or wireless + receiver
17 N64 controllers
2 GameBoy Players for GameCube (no discs, sadly)
2 Wavebird controllers – 1 platinum, 1 gray and 1 receiver for them
3 Dreamcast controllers
Sega Genesis Model 2 with hook ups and 1 controller
1 PS1 dualshock controller
PSone system
X-Box system with 2 controllers and hook ups
NES Top Loader
3 NES systems (“toaster” models)
1 SNES system
Note: It has now going on 3 months since we made this purchase and I still haven’t found time to test all the controllers.
40 Strategy Guides from Nintendo Power, Prima, Brady Games, and Versus Books – including various Pokemon, Secret of Evermore, Nintendo Power’s Chrono Trigger guide, and more. The coolest one in terms of most unique was the Vanguard Bandits strategy guide as it is a hardcover book.
I also alphabetized the manuals, of which there were over 500 total.
Some notable manuals, some of which I eventually kept, included:
NES:
Contra
Ghosts n Goblins
Mega Man 1, 2, 3
Zelda II
SNES:
Chrono Trigger
Donkey Kong Country 2 & 3
Final Fantasy III
Legend of the Mystical Ninja
Lost Vikings
Lufia II
Secret of Evermore
Secret of Mana
Super Adventure Island
Super Bomberman
Super Castlevania IV
Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts
Super Mario RPG
N64:
Bomberman 64
Bomberman Hero
Conker’s Bad Fur Day
Ogre Battle 64
Mega Man 64
Mario Kart 64
GameBoy:
Mega Man II
Metroid II: Return of Samus
Metal Gear Solid (GB Color)
The most notable manual, however, was probably Soldier Blade for Turbo Grafx 16, valued around $100 by itself.
The fruits of this purchase were already looking exciting, but we wouldn’t really dive into it until the next day when Phil could join me in going through this. Since we were 50/50 business partners on this, I had to resist going through more, though it was tempting. It was really tempting.
An antique store near work had an outdoor sale where people were able to bring things and set up for basically a collective garage sale in the parking lot. I didn’t expect to find anything, and I still hadn’t recovered from Retropalooza, but I still stopped. No games, but the original Star Wars trilogy on VHS for $3 was a great deal!
While I was there, I did a quick check inside and found a booth with games was doing 50% off sale, so I picked up Paperboy 2 and Bubble Bobble on NES as well as XIII on GameCube and Brutal Legend on PS3. I already had some of these, but they’d make for good trade offerings later. I also got a sealed copy of Has Been Heroes for half off, which was nice since I’d been wanting to pick that up anyway.
Shortly after, GameStop had a B2G1 sale, so I picked up Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE, Kirby & The Rainbow Curse, Sonic Lost World, Sonic Boom (I’m a sucker for getting all the Sonic games, even the bad ones), and Snoopy’s Grand Adventure. All of these were bought with store credit, so I didn’t feel like I was doing too bad in what should have been a financial recovery period.
I did, however, snag Wolfenstein + The Old Blood combo for cheap online from Amazon. Despite these few purchases, the cost wasn’t too high and I still didn’t consider myself back in game hunting just yet.
Super Mario Odyssey, Asdivine Hearts/Ys Origins, and Undertale were pre-orders that came in.
A Long Intended Sale
Despite being low on cash, I had recovered a little from a few sales of doubles and there’s a sidewalk sale in downtown Dallas on the first Saturday of each month I’d been wanting to check out for a long time, but just hadn’t gone to yet. The sale actually starts on Friday night around 7PM officially. I decided I’d make the trip to check it out.
When I first got there, there was nobody there. A couple of vehicles sat in the area, but nothing for sale. The site said people tend to get there early and are looking at things as they’re unloaded and I started to wonder if the sale was still held.
I walked around a while and finally saw someone setting up. I asked if this was smaller these days and they said people usually get there later. I decided to walk around some and, although I didn’t want to spend more money on dinner, I wasn’t going anywhere (I already paid for parking), so I went to Hooters.
You must answer three riddles and determine which owl is the liar before entering.
After eating, and killing some time, I went back out and a few more people were set up, but nothing too impressive. There was one GameCube game, a Simpsons game, that might have been worth picking up for a trade or flip, but they wouldn’t budge on price at all. Finally, someone pulled up and had some gaming items, including an original NES complete in box! It was priced slightly high, but still fair, but they didn’t have anything that interested me.
I was told there was one guy that usually came and had a huge set up and he might have games, but it would be another hour before he arrived. I was tired and sleepy, but figured I’d wait around until 11. Sure enough, he showed up.
As he and his team unloaded things, I actually lent a hand, helping organize some things on their table to maximize their available space. Eventually, I did see some games start to come out. Tomb Raider games for Playstation (disc only) and a few Xbox titles. I snagged FF X-2 and Fable cases with manuals (no games) and Rock Band on Wii as well as the Oblivion Collector’s Edition on Xbox 360 and Race Drivin’ CIB for Sega Genesis.
Still nothing amazing and I wasn’t sure I’d want to buy these after all. Then I spotted the portable screen for the psone! That was worth grabbing and ultimately was only $5. I kept looking as they put more out, but didn’t see anything else. As I started to decide it was mostly a bust, I opened a little case that turned out to be full of Leapfrog cartridges…..and The Legend of Zelda Collector’s Edition disc! I’d been looking for that, though I wanted it complete. Still, for the overall price, I took all the games, plus a PSP game and a Spongebob GameCube game, as well as a Warcraft CCG raid deck for Black Temple all for about the cost of just the Zelda disc.
All for $25, worth around $100
I’ll probably check the sale out again in the future. You never really know what will be there and that Zelda disc was an exciting find to end the night.
Despite a lack of updates here, I’ve been insanely busy the last few months 2017 and a great deal of that busyness has been due to three things. First, of course, was game hunting itself, but for the last six months of the year, I was working on converting my father’s vinyl collection to mp3 to give him for Christmas. That was about 200 albums in total, which required each one to be recorded on each side, then converted with meta data added in. In addition to this project was organizing another large quantity of items, but that’s where this story will eventually lead.
While I normally wouldn’t reach back and relate game hunts from months back, these sort of snowball into the biggest gaming find I’ve ever experienced, so it’s worth telling the whole story over the course of a few posts.
So get your Super Scope, put on your Captain N jacket, and strap in. We’re going on a game hunting story time adventure!
Retropalooza 2017
On October 7th and 8th, The Game Chasers held Retropalooza V in Arlington, Tx and despite the relatively close scheduling between it and Let’s Play Game Expo, of course I had to go. I had spent about half the money I set aside for Let’s Play at that convention, so I assumed I would spend about the same about, and the remainder of my game hunting cash, at Retropalooza.
In addition to that cash, I had a number of the sealed games from the Half Price Books gold mine for trade. As is becoming tradition, my first stop was at seeing the Nostalgic Nerds at their table to see what they had. Honestly, not too much caught my eye with the exception of Kickle Cubicle and Mega Man X3. That price tag on Mega Man X3 caught my eye as well, though. As expected, it was pricey. Around $250, though the quality of the label certainly demanded a high price tag for a rare game.
I wasn’t looking to wipe myself out immediately and wasn’t sure I wanted to spend that much on a game in general, so after we chatted a bit, I moved on to see what else was around. As always, Retropalooza had a ton of vendors and they all had great stuff. Prices weren’t outrageous, though some were higher than I was willing to pay and a few a little higher than I thought was reasonable. Of course, as with most conventions, you can usually negotiate if you buy a stack of things.
The first booth we came across that really caught my attention was a small one, a bit cramped with 3 tables in a “U” shape that only allowed a couple of people to stand in there at a time. My friend Phil looked over some of their hand held games while I waited to get in. Nothing much on top of the table really got my interest other than Winback Covert Ops for N64 at a fair price (finally) and Tiny Toon Adventures 2 on NES, but there were boxes and tubs under the table that weren’t open. Only one was and I wondered what might be down there.
The one box that was open had the Nintendo Power StarFox 64 promotional VHS, which was kind of interesting. I remember having it as a kid, so I pulled that out, but nothing much else in there besides Powerpuff Girls Relish Rampage (Pickled Edition) on GameCube, which was on my hunting list. A few more good games were there, but nothing else I was looking for from my list.
Moving over to the closed boxes, I opened one to take a peek and saw a pretty good stack of things. Namely NES game boxes. In great condition! I asked about Super Mario Bros 3 and he wanted $10. Star Tropics complete in box (with the letter) was about $10 as well. Lion King for SNES box, GBA Sonic collection, Sonic Advance box. An Akira figure of Kaneda with the motorcycle for a few bucks. Digimon World and Digimon World 3 were super cheap as well! Then, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on Playstation. It was a blank case, but the disc was in great shape and it had the manual. Normally $30 for just the disc, for $5, it was a steal!
Phil got a few things from them as well, but we combined it into a single purchase and started Retropalooza off taking a pretty big chunk out of my cash, but we got far more value than what we paid.
I stopped by The Gamer Chasers booth and caught Billy clearly up way too early for his liking. It was almost 10AM and he informed me it was closer to the time he normally went to sleep, not got up. They’re not kidding on the show when they say he’s not a morning person. I purchased a Caught ‘Em Slippin’ t-shirt and each season of the series on DVD, but left them with Billy to, over the course of the convention, get everyone to sign them. I managed to get Billy & Jay, Melvorn, AlphaOmegaSin, and Woods, but it would take a return on the second day to manage to get Dodongo’s signature.
A big goal of this convention was to finish off the last of my N64 targets. I had just gotten Winback Covert Ops, leaving Loderunner 3D and Goemon’s Great Adventure to be found. Towards the end of my winding through the booths set up, I finally found one with the last of my N64 targets, and for reasonable prices. Done and done. I was finally finished with my N64 collection. I didn’t go for a complete collection and don’t plan to, though I might start keeping more if they fall in my lap. For what I set out as my goal on the system, though, I had finished that set. Plus, a booth cut a price to almost half off to convince me to add StarCraft for N64 to my collection as well.
Finally found Crystal Castles and the Tron games for Atari 2600 and I picked up a few manuals as well.
Overall, a good day and certainly the bulk of my spending and game finds, but there were still some gems to pick up upon returning the next day!
Day 1 was not too shabby!
Day 2 – Return to Castle Retropaloozastein
The second day is usually either pretty light or extremely heavy, depending on your luck. Sometimes vendors want to go deep on discounts and clear as much as possible so they don’t have to load everything to take back. That wasn’t on my mind, though, with so little left in my wallet. Don’t let that deter you at a convention, though. I know someone that made a wild pitch of $10 for an entire box of games and walked away with them. Nothing great, all commons, but they traded into a local store and he got enough credit to get a high value game from said store for essentially the $10 he spent.
I hadn’t had any luck with trades the first day and the second proved lackluster in working any trade deals as well. Although I had some good titles, sealed games didn’t grab much attention since they’re hard to move and take longer to find a buyer.
I picked up an SNES Super Scope for $5, which was just a fun thing to have, even though I’ll never really use it. The big score out and about was a booth that I guess had opened a lot more of their crates and were trying to clear them out. Crate after crate of Atari 2600 games at $3 each or 3 for $5. I knocked out 9 Atari 2600 titles I’d been looking for and was more than happy to do so.
Wrapping up the day, I rounded back to Nostalgia Nerd’s booth and took a final look at what they had. I had a few things they were interested in taking as trade and so, with a combination of trades and the last of my cash, I got that Kickle Cubicle and, of course, that Mega Man X3, completing my SNES Mega Man X trilogy. And, as tends to be my luck, Mega Man X3 has steadily dropped in value since I bought it…. but I have a beautiful condition label and it’s a great game, so I can’t be too disappointed.
I didn’t quite end the day there, as I finally decided to add one final N64 game to my library that wasn’t on my original list. Since I had Goemon’s Great Adventure, I decided to sell some Texas Instruments game cartridges and used the money to pick up Mystical Ninja starring Goemon to have both Goemon N64 games.
Finally tapped out and rather tired of two days of convention walking, I headed home. Of course, an hour before the convention ended, I came back when I realized I had left my Super Scope with the Nostalgic Nerd guys so I wouldn’t have to carry it around. It was this final hour return run that let me get Dodongo’s signature on my Game Chasers DVDs as well.
Day 2 wasn’t as hefty, but Mega Man X3 was a huge addition.
And with that, finally, Retropalooza 2017 drew to a close for me. I thought my game hunting was pretty much done for the year. After all, October leads right into holiday shopping season and Christmas gifts would need to be bought, but of course….
I have to admit the Assassin’s Creed series is a guilty pleasure for me. I didn’t love the first one, but it was enjoyable and I could see potential to build on what it started. Assassin’s Creed 2 and Brotherhood were a fantastic improvement and Revelations was a satisfying conclusion to Ezio’s trilogy. Assassin’s Creed III offered a fun addition in ship combat, which took center stage with Black Flag. I didn’t play Rogue and I picked up Unity and Syndicate when they were cheap, but I didn’t get around to them for a long time.
The past few weeks, I finally started playing Unity. More than a year after release, the bugs are mostly smoothed out, so I had a fairly standard play through in that regard. Overall, I wasn’t as pulled into the story now that the meta narrative has been largely abandoned and we’re just loosely still concerned with modern day conflict. Arno didn’t grab my interest at first, either. Then, as I upgraded gear and started looking at color options I unlocked, something occurred to me.
With the Prowler outfit dyed red, I’m basically playing Assassin’s Creed: Daredevil. I can be le diable de Paris, the devil of Paris, rather than Hell’s Kitchen. Oddly enough, this simple thing increased my interest in the game. Switching from a sword to a mace, a non-lethal weapon, completed the motif. I could have played the DLC and unlocked a cane club as well, which would have been better, but I wasn’t that committed to the idea.
Don’t ask me how smashing this over someone’s skull is non-lethal, though.
The leather of the Prowler set is absolutely perfect in the red. In the light, it’s the bright red Daredevil is known for. In shadows, it’s a dark red and can almost look black at times. In some shading, it even looks a bit brown, like dried blood. It’s exactly what I imagine Daredevil’s costume is really meant to look like, the right shade of red and the right material to go from red to concealed in the shadow.
As I progressed through the game, Arno’s relationship and partnership with Elise even gave me a slight Matt / Elektra vibe with the two being close, then driven apart by differing loyalties, enemies due to those loyalties, then ultimately teaming up again.
Running across roof tops, parkouring around the city, leaping across streets with impossible bounds to grab onto a ledge and climb up to perch upon the gothic architecture of a Catholic church, even the series’ Eagle Vision akin to Matt’s sonar/radar ability; it all fit so well, I began to realize something…
The Assassin’s Creed engine, at its fundamental base, is perfect for a full fledged Daredevil open world game!
Recently, it’s no secret Disney/Marvel has begun to license out its properties to reliable studios to work on rather than making games in house. Square Enix is working on an Avengers game while Insomniac is developing a Spider-Man game.
The good news here is Insomniac is being allowed freedom to do their own world, or a more comic based world, for Spidey, so a Daredevil game could use a gamut of comic book villains and could stay more true rather than being limited to the more gritty and grounded Netflix MCU world.
If Ubisoft were to gain said license and make such a game, the Assassin’s Creed engine and gameplay would be near perfect for implementing the radar and horn-head’s method of traversing the city with just a few tweaks to allow for his grappling hook for the taller buildings and greater distance between city blocks. Combat would work better with a bit of Rocksteady’s Arkham series influencing it, giving Daredevil the ninja martial arts style and better fluidity of tackling a dozen enemies at a time.
I’d love to see a few opportunities woven into the story to delve into the Murdock side of Daredevil with court cases to be able to play through as well. Not all would dig this, so perhaps optional side missions to access.
The parkour of Assassin’s Creed, the Arkham-esque combat, with just a hint of both series’ crime solving, plus some of Spider-Man’s web swinging to translate into the briefer grappling for Daredevil. He doesn’t have the full web swinging of Spidey, nor the grapple and glide of Batman, so it would have to be adjusted to work for DD. The overall idea certainly intrigues me and I’d love to see Ubisoft tackle the project.
Anyone else think Assassin’s Creed has the right elements for the foundations of a Daredevil game?
I had a pretty rough week with the post office losing a package, a rather expensive order that’s been delayed 2 years not getting a response for an update, and yet another delivery sending the wrong item. Phil suggested some game hunting was in order to counter the negative vibes and so once again, we headed out on the hunt!
First Stop – Cash America
Pawns shops were our main target again, this time looking for current games that were priced cheaper than GameStop’s trade value. With the 60% bonus credit deal, it’s possible to rack up quite a bit of store credit, which can be used for new games coming out or retro games on their site.
With this in mind, our first stop did not disappoint. Red Dead Redemption, Injustice, GTA V & NBA 2K17 on 360 for $35. Trading these in with the promotion was $75 store credit (though I lost a few bucks to refurbishing fees). Plus I grabbed Destroy All Humans and Call of Duty 2 on PS2 for $1 each.
Second Stop – First Cash Pawn
We went to a different First Cash this time, going in a completely different direction that our previous outing. Not too much to choose from and the one game with value had the wrong disc in it, but I got a GameBoy Advance SP for $15 with a carrying case and a Namco Museum game in it. That’s all in all worth about $50-$60.
Pawn Shop Busts
We hit some more pawn shops in the area we were in, but were coming up empty. The only thing I added to the finds was a free copy of Whacked on Xbox without the manual. Not bad for free, but overall it looked like we were mostly done.
Final Stop – Half Price Books
I’ve said before a lot of people dismiss Half Price Books, but I still like to check them from time to time. I’ve found good stuff in clearance before and a lot of the stores are getting better about pricing games fairly instead of how they used to price Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt at $50 and anything Zelda was $50-$100. There are a few in my area that I really like stopping by, so after grabbing a bite to eat, we went by one of my favorites.
And it proved the right choice.
Someone had recently brought in a treasure trove of games. Phil snagged a handful of Game Gear games with their manuals for $2 each before he started eyeing things in their cabinet. He picked up Persona 4 and I picked up Persona 3 on PS2, but Persona 3 had a crack in the center of the disc and Persona 4 was just a little overpriced, enough to pass for now.
Inside the case, however, was Legend of Zelda Link’s Awakening DX complete in box for $50. Lost Kingdoms for $15. Atelier Iris 3 for $20, Alundra for $50, and Shadow Hearts for $40. I had been looking for Shadow Hearts for a while to complete that trilogy, so I grabbed all these only to find Shadow Hearts was factory sealed. Yes, please and thank you.
I also picked up Alone in the Dark on Dreamcast, though the second disc looks a bit rough. I think it should be okay, though. For $6, I added Buster Busts Loose complete in box for SNES as well. Super Scope 6 was in clearance for $2 with the receiver in clearance for $3, so I just need a Super Scope now. Finally, Okage was $15, which is sliiightly higher than Pricecharting, but I’ve been looking for it and the couple bucks would be taken up by shipping most likely, so I added that.
There were a couple others I was considering, but ultimately put them back due to their high price. While Phil was checking out, I ran over to the actual clearance section for a final check. To my surprise, there were a lot of games there. Checking them in Pricecharting, I started adding more to my pile. These would all be sell/trade bait, but I couldn’t pass them up at $2 each.
Carve, Adrenaline Misfits, 187 Ride or Die, NCAA 07 Football, Quantum Redshift, Max Payne 2, College Hoops 2K7 all on 360 for $2 each….but did I mention they were also factory sealed?
A few $10 value PS2 and GameCube games at $2 each were tossed in because why not? Their main guy that keeps the game area organized, prices their games, and sort of owns the section told us he had a lot more games he hadn’t managed to go through and price yet, but if we came back the next day he’d let us go through them and he’d price what we wanted. Essentially we’d have first crack at whatever was left. Final grab, I asked him to quickly price Punisher on Xbox, which was $10 and also factory sealed. I added that to the pile as well.
With that, I headed to check out as the store was nearing closing time. We had plans for Thursday night, our weekly night that all my friends on Final Fantasy XIV do something as a group, so I wasn’t sure we could make it back.
As the night came to a close, I headed home and Phil returned to his, both of us pleased with our finds for the day. However, the thought of going back kept gnawing at me. I popped open Google hangouts.
“Hey Phil…FC night is usually around 7. I’m off work at 4. We could meet back at the store at 4:30 and see what he has and still make it back in time to meet up with everyone on XIV.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll see you there.”
The plans were set.
Title
Purchased
Est. Value
Whacked
$0
$7
Destroy All Humans
$1
$7
Call of Duty 2
$1
$3
Red Dead Redemption GotY
$5
$12
Injustice
$5
$10
NBA 2K17
$5
$20
GTA V
$5
$12
Carve sealed
$2
$6
Adrenalin Misfits sealed
$2
$5
187 Ride to Die sealed
$2
$10
Mario Aniversary CD sealed
$2
$5
Nascar Dirt to Daytona
$2
$11
Max Payne 2 sealed
$2
$10
Quantum Redshift sealed
$2
$10
The Punisher sealed
$10
$35
NCAA 07 sealed
$2
$10
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4
$2
$6
Playstation Mega Mem Card
$2
$5
SNES Dust covers x 2
$1
–
GBA SP Platinum
$15
$50
Alone in the Dark
$10
$20
Buster Busts Loose
$10
$25
Link’s Awakening DX
$50
$67
Tony Hawk’s Underground
$2
$7
Scooby Doo Night of 100 Frights
$2
$10
College Hoops 2k7
$2
$19
Legaia 2
$2
$10
Lost Kingdoms
$10
$16
Alundra
$50
$60
Shadow Hearts sealed
$40
$80
Atelier Iris 3
$20
$20
Okage
$15
$15
Super Scope 6
$5
$5
Total
$286
$588
Return to Half Price Books – GOLDMINE!
We returned to the Half Price Books and sure enough, the guy started bring out stacks and stacks and stacks of games. And of these stacks of Playstation 2 and Xbox games… almost every one was factory sealed. Silent Hill 4 The Room. The Warriors. TMNT 2 Battle Nexus….. Haunting Ground. As I started picking what I was interested and building a maybe pile, he would come and go through and price them. It quickly became clear that we were going to get the option of getting these at their complete price, not sealed price. $100 for Haunting Ground is good, but factory sealed? Unbelievable.
In the end I walked away with 30 games. Some open ones I’m keeping. Some NES CIB games are for a guy I know that’s going for a complete NES CIB collection. The sealed ones I planned to sell/trade for things I want. I’m not a sealed collector, I want to play these games one day, but I know some do collect sealed copies.
That said, TMNT 2, MGS 3, and Haunting Ground might be staying with me for a while. It’s just pretty cool to have factory sealed games of IPs that you love, or in the case of Haunting Ground, a sealed game that’s not only rare, but has a really cool story of finding it.
NinjaFox Games & Geekery 