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FFV late impressions: the job centre

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The further back we go, the less I know. I was one of those casual types who barely knew what Final Fantasy was before VII, and ever since then I’ve jumped around the series to see if there was anything else that I missed when I was interested in other games. At least when I think of publishing FFV late impressions, I realise that I kind of had an excuse at the time. It was first released on the SNES (sorry, Super Famicom) in 1992 in Japan, and Europe didn’t get to see it until the 00s and (in the case of PSN and mobile) the 10s. I got around to playing the Game Boy Advance release earlier this year – honestly, it’s not a game that I knew a lot about and so it’s not like I was choosing to play it based on its reputation (unlike my FFVI and Chrono Trigger playthroughs), but I had heard a few good things about it. The game centres around our heroes vowing to restore order after the villain Exdeath shatters the elemental crystals in a bid for power. It’s your typical JRPG format of going from new town to new dungeon, obtaining more abilities and encountering new opponents, culminating in a showdown with the antagonist. Dungeons have some light puzzling and locked-door scenarios, as well as hidden routes to rare treasures – generally, it’s a comfortable RPG template that you can quickly enjoy without being bombarded with too many strange gameplay systems.

FFV late impressions – jobs and abilities

That said, one thing I took away in my FFV late impressions was that the implementation of the job system was more flexible than I expected. I don’t always like job systems in RPGs, because they put a lot of pressure on me to create a sensible range of skills and abilities across my party. I’m not that guy who sets up a team of four white mages, admittedly, but I do feel a certain amount of artificial pressure to “get things right” and not screw myself over in the late game. With FFV’s job system, each job allows a party member to equip certain gear and use special abilities in the battle menu – a thief can steal items from enemies, black and white mages use spells that cause elemental damage or support the party, and so on. However, each party member has a “job” slot and an “ability” slot; after using a job for long enough, the skills associated with that job are unlocked as abilities. This means that you can assign a skill as an ability and then start learning something else in the job slot – creating a summoner who has the thief’s stealing command, or a monk with magic capabilities.

It may seem like a small thing, but it blows open your tactical options – your four party members have their two slots to play with, and at the end of my playthrough I had 21 jobs available as well as the Freelancer (who has two “ability” slots and can wield any gear.) It’s a very different vibe from FFVI (where nearly every character had one “job” throughout the game) and FFVII (where “jobs” are essentially materia and anything goes), but FFV’s own freedoms and restrictions make it satisfying to try different combinations of skills to see what works. By the end of the game (for those curious about the commitment: 38hrs on the clock, with all party members around Lv50), my party was using four different types of magic (blue, black, white, time), controlling enemies (beastmaster), defending against attacks (knight), using summons (summoner) and dealing huge physical damage (with the monk’s “barehanded” ability.) It’s like working with eight party members, but it adds a tactical edge because you still only have four “actions” in your turn.

The grind

The jobs don’t save the game from the usual RPG hurdles, however. I can’t summarise my FFV late impressions without saying that there is still grinding, there are still plenty of random battles, and there are some miserable encounters if you’re not suitably prepared. Towards the end of the game I was being battered by more status ailments than I could deal with in my turns, and so I had to train up someone with time magic to help myself. Also, the random battles can be a nuisance when you’re also finding your way around a dungeon (although gear such as the Chicken Knife – which makes the party auto-flee an encounter and will discharge powerful attacks after fleeing enough battles – make navigation a bit smoother.) As much as I like this game’s jobs and abilities, the later games excel in the moment-to-moment business of dungeon exploration.

FFV late impressions – where to go

FFV late impressions

In late 2021 Square Enix released the “Pixel Remaster” of Final Fantasy V – I don’t know if it’s a particularly good remaster, but there should at least be options if you’re keen to play this but only have modern hardware. I played the GBA game and it was generally fine, but I have no knowledge of the other versions to compare it against. I don’t know if I’ll look even further back through the series history another time, but I’ve enjoyed this entry. If you have any fond memories of Final Fantasy V, don’t forget to leave a comment below.

FFVI late impressions: notes from a newbie

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This article has been some time in the making. In the 16-bit era, I grew up with the Sega Mega Drive and missed out on a lot of SNES classics. Of course, that didn’t stop me from trying to emulate Final Fantasy VI and attempt to play it on PC, but a busy gaming schedule and a short attention span meant that I never gave it the time it deserved. I did “buy the game” years later via the SNES Classic Mini, but even after making a spirited effort to play it on that machine, I only ended up saving myself into a corner – stranded on the floating continent with an underlevelled party who wouldn’t be able to make it back to the world map. (In hindsight, I may have had a Warp command or item available and didn’t realise, but I’d have to check the save…) Honestly, I didn’t intend to write an FFVI late impressions article in early October because I didn’t know I’d be playing the game; however, I’ve had a pretty quiet gaming schedule and so it’s been a fun way to pass the time.

FFVI late impressions – the old

FFVI late impressions

Final Fantasy VI has some novel and inventive moments, but its foundations are quite old-fashioned. You travel the overworld between towns and dungeons engaging in random battles until you’ve levelled up enough to take out the next thing that’s in your path. Random battles are frequent, and blasting through so much fodder might seem chorelike if I wasn’t already familiar with old-fashioned RPGs. To its credit, the character variety allows battles to remain interesting – each new party member that joins the cause has a unique skill that opens up more tactical options when they’re battling with your party. Early on in the game you might find that a few allies are struggling, but you’ll press on because you’re confident in nailing Sabin’s Blitz techniques, and so he can do a lot of the heavy lifting. Later on you’ll see Setzer’s slot-machine ability (which Cait Sith would later pinch in FFVII) and train yourself in reading the reels and making the most of their benefits. Elsewhere, Cyan has multiple special attacks available if you’re willing to wait before taking action – it’s not the most exciting tactic… but since enemies are still active as you wait, there’s an element of risk. However, not all of the techniques are that amazing – I got a few abilities for Gau on the Veldt but the ones I obtained stopped feeling useful in the later areas. Meanwhile, I think I got all of Mog’s “Dance” techniques, but he was in my tertiary party at the end and so he never got a look in – apologies to Mog fans reading this.

Setbacks

FFVI late impressions

The battles themselves aren’t too bad, but the setbacks can be offputting. After revisiting content that I knew from earlier playthrough attempts, I was playing pretty blind – and so I wasn’t always sure when I’d be underlevelled or overlevelled. I actually ended up using the three available save slots so that I wouldn’t have to go back too far if I was underlevelled. (Although once again, I could have used things like the Warp technique – or the equivalent item – a little more during my playthrough; it essentially whisks the party out of a dungeon safely, and I only really started using it in the final tower area.) One element of modern RPGs that I did miss was the concept of “passive” levelling; where the characters who aren’t in your active party still gain a fair amount of experience. I’ve heard that certain events allow party levels to become “averaged” so that nobody falls behind too much, but I still ended up with a few alarmingly under-levelled characters late in the game, and this became a bit of a problem during certain sequences in the final dungeon that involve your entire party. That said, this is still something that I’m guilty of in modern RPGs – many playthroughs of Persona 4 leave the likes of Kanji and Yosuke laughably underpowered. So whilst I enjoy passive levelling, I’m willing to accept that I could have made better decisions.

FFVI late impressions – perks

FFVI late impressions

Outside of the unique skills, some other fun events can come together that make things more manageable. One particular game changer in this playthrough came from the Economizer relic – I found this as a rare drop from a battle in a north-eastern region of the world map (I think online resources give it the nickname “Dinosaur Forest” or “Dinosaur Island”), and it reduced magic cost to 1MP for one ally. No big deal in the early game… but when used in conjunction with more expensive skills such as Ultima, it made certain encounters a pushover. (Another relic, the Gem Box, allows an ally to perform their action twice during the turn, so they’d spend 2MP and unload Ultima twice. As you can imagine, it got kind of silly.) When modern games are so determined to gate so much of the fun behind busywork and marketplaces, it’s refreshing to find overpowered nonsense that’s fun to use in a game such as this. And of course, this wouldn’t be a series of FFVI late impressions if I didn’t mention the Espers – powerhouses that can be summoned to provide invaluable abilities that help your party in battle… if you’re willing to spend the MP. To be honest, I spent a lot of the endgame using character-specific special techniques and basic magic attacks because Esper abilities always seemed pretty expensive, but I still took the time to unlock skills for the ones I had (The discovery of Ragnarok led to my cheap Ultima double-casting – I also found a shield that granted the same skill to another ally, but it seemed a waste when the Economizer, Gem Box and Ragnarok were so much more efficient) Again, that unlocking could sometimes lead to a bit of a grind, but at least there were world map areas that would make progress a little quicker.

Consequence and character

During my first draft of this article I didn’t really think about mentioning the story or characters too much because it’s all so well-known, but I was impressed by how compelling it all remained. Yes, some of the character traits can feel slightly one-dimensional, and since the post-FFVII explosion of games and spin-offs it’s easy to think that the story might just feel like another Final Fantasy story, but I can appreciate how interesting it would have been at the time. Themes of darkness and chaos exist, but there are still moments of levity and humour that don’t feel too jarring – small-scale silliness such as the recurring encounters with Ultros, and more infamous moments such as the Opera House scene, which manages to be charming, engrossing and funny without feeling like a mess. Also, despite the attention placed on Terra, it doesn’t feel like it’s forcing any one character to be the hero in the way that FFVII pushes Cloud. There’s always the possibility that people will have their favourite party members as the game goes on – whether for story or gameplay reasons – but most of the allies recruited to the cause are likeable enough.

FFVI late impressions – high scores

So where did my party end up during the finale? Most of the characters had levels in the low to mid-50s, with two in the high 50s, two in the 60s and one level 82 character (the Ultima double-caster who was involved in most of the damage-dealing late in the game.) My last save before finishing the game showed a playtime of 42 hours and 49 minutes, which apparently isn’t too bad: the time for “All Styles” on the website HowLongToBeat suggests that a typical playthrough is around 41.5 hours long. (As an aside, I also tweeted my progress when I reached the World of Ruin – back then, most of my party was level 29 or 30, and I had 20.5 hours on the clock… so the two worlds split the game length fairly equally.) I did find the final stretch a bit of a drag even without the perils of under-levelled allies – there’s a lot to do for what often feels like the smallest amount of progress, and whilst random battles quickly become a formality, the party management and navigation of the environment (coupled with occasional long stretches between save points, or long treks back and forth when I wanted to warp to the world map) slowed things down for a while.

Despite all of this, I’ve enjoyed my time with the game, and wouldn’t be averse to revisiting it in the future. If the unique abilities and techniques were all equally interesting, and there was a generous form of “passive” levelling (in addition to the averaging) for other characters, I’d have no trouble recommending it, but even with the caveats it’s not too bad. Outside of my general gameplay impressions, I think that the main characters are all likeable… and there are some fantastic pieces of music throughout the game, from the epic “Decisive Battle” tune that plays during boss encounters, to the moody “Awakening” theme that offers a slower and more intimate variation of the world map music. Since I personally have more history with FFVII, the adventures of Cloud and co. may still mean more to me, but I can definitely see why this is held in such high regard.

Final Fantasy VI was originally released for the Super Nintendo in 1994 – however, ports exist on PS1, GBA, Steam and mobile. You can also find the game on the SNES Classic Mini.

The new SF 30th lobbies are the best bit of the collection’s update

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It’s fair to say that the SF 30th lobbies turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments when I first tried Capcom’s most recent collection of fightjng games. You can talk about how the product is just a lazy collection of roms with a few token extras, how the museum could have had more content, how the display filters seem limited, and so on… but online play has the potential to inject new life into those old classics. That potential, however, was not shown in the initial release – attempting to set up SF 30th lobbies on launch day only resulted in a bizarre situation where the game would never register your opponent readying up at the lobby – and when your opponent had the same issue on their end, it led to some amusing exchanges. Happily, a patch was released this week that addressed the SF 30th lobbies (as well as fixing sound issues in the SFIII games, adding a connection-based matchmaking filter and banning Akuma from ranked Super Turbo games), and I was able to play a few games of Street Fighter II recently.

(Note: as I was joining a friend’s lobby I didn’t check to see if the previous issues with filtering by game were resolved, but the next day I tested some filtered searches myself and they still seem as bizarre as before, with search results ignoring the deselections you make – once again, if you only tick Super Turbo in the filter, you’ll see lobbies that only host Super Turbo, lobbies that host ST and Hyper Fighting, lobbies with all four games available, etc. So this is still a curious oversight.)

SF 30th lobbies – the stutter

SF 30th lobbies
Embarrassingly, the biggest issue I faced during my matches was probably a result of my own connection – I noticed a few momentary split-second pauses in a few matches as the netcode and my own connection tried their best to keep up with the action. These micro-pauses weren’t really an issue with a game as slow as Street Fighter II, but I think they may have had a worse impact if we were playing Street Fighter Alpha 3 or Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. Like I said, I’m willing to take part of the blame here as I don’t know how much other network activity might have been going on at the time, but in casual friendly games where I don’t care about frame-perfect actions I think that these momentary stutters can be overlooked a little.

SF 30th lobbies – the spectators

SF 30th lobbies
When not in the middle of a match, waiting players can pass time in one of two ways. If they hit the Spectate button before the next match is underway, they can spectate the next match in the way we’ve become used to in SFIV, SFV and SFIII 3rd Strike Online Edition. If they don’t push the button, the lobby’s player list updates to show not only the active combatants, but also a crude graphical representation of their lifebars, a basic indication of round wins and the characters selected by the players. It’s a cute way to keep the spectating player engaged in the lobby activity even if they missed the button prompt, but it probably would have been better to assume players would want to spectate, and instead offer a button press if players want those basic lifebar and round win indicators. (As an aside, I didn’t look into voice chat that much, but I would assume it’s perfectly fine to use something like PSN’s Party feature – making sure that you have a headset that slots into your fighting game controller or a USB port, of course!)

SF 30th lobbies – getting there

SF 30th lobbies
Like a lot of aspects of the collection, online play doesn’t feel revelatory but at the same time you can still play it without wishing you were in the middle of another Fighter with seemingly solid netcode. Online play in this game is neither flawless nor a disaster, but it is “good enough” and perhaps makes up for the lack of substance elsewhere in the collection. I still have to give the other online-enabled games more lobby time, but if you’re keen on killing a few hours with online friends, SF 30th lobbies might tick that box for you.

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is available now for PS4, Switch, Xbox One and PC.

Samurai, gods, big rosters – notes from my E3 2018

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Stepping out into the mid-June sunshine, away from the hype and noise that follows any series of E3 press conferences, I couldn’t deny that some of that hype may be rubbing off on me. Before we even get to my E3 2018, let’s remember that we’re already in the middle of what people are claiming to be a new golden era of gaming – one where modern classics are being released with uncommon frequency. Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Nier: Automata, Persona 5, Cuphead, Sonic Mania, Celeste – the list just keeps going, and it looks like the list will grow even more if my E3 2018 was anything to go by. Rather than one platform holder emerging as a clear winner or loser (and let’s not pretend that there haven’t been clear winners and losers in the past), my E3 2018 had Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo revealing exciting and interesting new games.

Microsoft favourites from my E3 2018

my E3 2018

The biggest reveal of Microsoft’s show was undoubtedly Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. A new IP from revered developer From Software, it promises polished third-person action with a samurai flavour. The trailer was only about two or three minutes long but showed the mechanical arm first seen in the “Shadows Die Twice” trailer, and its owner – a character who can go toe-to-toe with swordsmen, use said arm in a grappling-hook fashion to ascend to higher positions or cross chasms, and supposedly rise to his feet after being “killed”, which seems appropriate given the subtitle. Elsewhere, it was revealed that the once PS4 and PC exclusive Nier Automata would receive an Xbox port with the release of Nier Automata: Become as Gods Edition (perhaps to make up for Scalebound’s demise), so hopefully more people can enjoy the weird and wonderful combination of slick Platinum gameplay and distinct Nier quirkiness. Also of note was the first true reveal of Cyberpunk 2077 and news that Devil May Cry would be getting a new numbered sequel, but the lack of substantial gameplay footage for either game suggests that these are very early announcements.

Sony familiarity in my E3 2018

my E3 2018

By comparison, many people criticised the lack of new reveals in Sony’s conference; there were many games we already knew about from previous shows (such as Spider-Man, The Last of Us Part 2 and Death Stranding), and with the remake of Final Fantasy VII still early in development, there was little hope of seeing anything new from that game. Despite this, we did get confirmation of an exciting new PSVR title with From Software’s Deracine, reaffirmation that Mizuguchi’s The Tetris Effect still looks superb, and more gorgeous footage of Sucker Punch‘s Ghost of Tsushima. (As an aside, it seems that samurai games were the general theme of this year’s E3, with Tsushima, Sekiro and a trailer of Nioh 2 all making appearances somewhere amongst the conferences.) Another notable surprise was Remedy’s Control, a game that seems to combine shifting geometry with conventional gunplay and creative mind control mechanics. It was a fun looking title, even if it did make me wish for a sequel to Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy…

Nintendo’s contribution to my E3 2018

my E3 2018

As is to be expected these days, Nintendo combined the bizarre with the exciting, from making me question the need for a Pokéball peripheral used in conjuction with Pokémon Go (which will transfer Pokémon data from the mobile game to a new console game) when you already have wireless communication technology in your primary gaming devices… to the surprise reveal of Daemon X Machina, an exciting action game from Marvelous Entertainment that boasts bright and colourful visuals and shows off the kind of gameplay that brings to mind games such as Omega Boost and Transformers Devastation. Elsewhere in the show, the unveiling of a new Mario Party was hardly a massive surprise – at the same time, the immediacy and social nature of the series is an obvious fit for the Switch hardware – and the new Super Smash Bros seemed hell-bent on including every character from previous games in its roster, to the delight of series fans. It was also revealed that these characters will all be tweaked slightly, hopefully resulting in a balanced game and some exciting re-learning of old favourites.

The highlight of my E3 2018

my E3 2018

All of the three main shows succeeded in giving fans something to look forward to, but the reveal that interested me the most was Babylon’s Fall. This was one of the new announcements from a very short Square Enix showcase scheduled separately from the three main conferences – a new IP being developed by Platinum Games, Babylon’s Fall only revealed a glimpse of CG at the end of its trailer, but was introduced with text-heavy stills that promised a tale of clashing ideologies, of gods striking down against mankind, and of huge armoured characters and electric (or perhaps arcane) powers. It was perhaps the only trailer I went through frame by frame as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing, and it’s definitely something I intend to keep an eye on between now and its 2019 release.

Obviously, I saw some criticism levelled at the three main conferences as people collected their own thoughts on discussion boards and in social media – people claimed that Sony’s show repeated the same announcements as last year and didn’t have enough new reveals, or that Nintendo’s show needed to give fans more details about known games in development (precious little was seen of Metroid Prime 4, Yoshi, or Starfox Grand Prix)… Microsoft’s show was perhaps the most refreshing, but I noticed people claiming that their conference pushed 4K and the Xbox One X a little too much for owners of older Xbox models. Despite all of this, I’m remaining optimistic about the future of all three platform holders – there’s something for everyone to look forward to in the near future, and the absence of any big new hardware reveals (certain optimistic individuals expected the unveiling of a PlayStation 5 before the show commenced) suggests that the current generation still has some life left in it for the time being. As ever, let us know if there were any reveals that stood out for you in the comments below.

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection review

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Never underestimate the strength of “convenience” as a selling point. A new compilation of games from your favourite series has been released – that’s great! Oh, but what about when you move on to the new generation of hardware, or when more games from the series have been released? You’d better make sure that you pick up the next compilation as well. And so it goes on. I’m bringing this up because when I saw the amount of games listed as part of the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, I felt relieved that I didn’t have to dust off my Xbox 360 to play 3rd Strike or the SFII series – similarly, I thought it would be nice not to be left digging out the PS2 every time I wanted to play the SF Alpha games on the Anthology. And sure, there’s nothing on this collection that you couldn’t emulate on PC, but even that would involve BIOS hunting, controller configuration, hooking the PC up to the TV and more bits and pieces that feel… well, inconvenient. Let’s take a closer look at those listed games – the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection has the original Street Fighter (itself something that I haven’t seen since maybe the Capcom Classics compilations on PSP), all major SFII games (with the exception of the Switch-exclusive Ultra SFII), all three SF Alpha games and all three SFIII games. It’s the most generous and convenient collection of Street Fighter games I’ve seen in a while, and you can play it on the same system you use for SFIV and SFV matches. Well, if you own a PS4 or PC.

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection – curious lobbies

Street Fighter 30th

Unfortunately, some people may be disappointed if the best thing to say about the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is “well, all of the games are there”. Training modes are stuck in the past as you practice against a dummy – there are no trial modes or combo examples that help you learn. Online lobbies are a welcome feature, but searching is unusual – first, you toggle the games you wish to find lobbies for, and then it shows results based on those toggles. You’d think this would be useful if you’re never going to play Alpha 3, but instead the results ignore the games you’ve deselected. If you just want to play 3rd Strike, you’ll see results for purely 3S lobbies, but also lobbies for combinations of games that include 3S. I’m not too bothered because most of my online play will probably come from invites to private lobbies from friends, but it’s still peculiar.

There’s also a Museum segment with a series timeline and zoomable art, character details (including bio details and a neat sprite viewer), a “Making of SF” segment and – my favourite inclusion – a Music menu with playlists from all twelve games. There are even shuffle and repeat modes for when I want to listen to Jazzy NYC all day. The repeat function won’t go as far as making clean loops from the songs, but it’s a fun distraction.

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection – memory lane

Street Fighter 30th

As for the games themselves? They mostly play how you remember – SF1 is still a nightmare to control, Alpha is all about daft custom combos and neglected ISMs, and 3rd Strike isn’t the labour of love that Iron Galaxy released last gen, but it’s still lots of fun. The online play seems smooth enough – I’ve had hardly any issues jumping around with my SFII Honda, getting guard crushed in Alpha or dashing through opponents with my Ibuki in 3S. After a win or loss there’s the option to rematch, but again, there aren’t the bells and whistles seen in 3rd Strike Online Edition such as visible ping or disconnect rates. Of greater concern is the weird nature of joining friends’ games – right now people are running into situations where both players will try to ready up for a match, but they can only toggle what looks like the ready status of the opponent, and even if both players try this it still looks like only one player is ready. Cue a lot of “why haven’t you hit the button” confusion until both players realise that the game can’t communicate the ready status correctly. Hopefully this gets fixed soon.

For the time being – especially in terms of local play, where a lot of my time will disappear – I’m satisfied with the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection. Again – it’s hard to think of another Street Fighter collection that’s this generous in terms of games offered, and whilst more could have been done in terms of training/challenges, better lobby filters, more display options (there are screen size and filter toggles but they seem more like a token gesture) or even dipswitches (something I appreciated in 3S: Online Edition)… if you just want to play the games without swapping consoles or configuring emulators, it might be worth a look.

Street Fighter 30th

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is available now for PS4, Switch, Xbox One and PC. The official website can be found here.

Capcom announces a new SFAC for consoles and Steam

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Just as I was about to tune out for the night, I recently heard news on Twitter that there would be a brand new Street Fighter Anniversary Collection on the way. This new SFAC seems like one of the most well-rounded packages yet, although of course as the news has only just emerged we may need to wait and find out what kind of other details will be made available. The announcement of the new SFAC comes more than a decade after the release of Street Fighter Anniversary Collection for the original Xbox – a collection which contained Hyper Street Fighter II, Street FIghter III: 3rd Strike, online play and the (censored) Street Fighter II animated movie.

A new SFAC – lots of games

new SFAC

This new SFAC sounds almost too good to be true – the trailer posted by the official Street Fighter Twitter account reveals that the new SFAC will feature twelve games. These are: Street Fighter, Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II CE, Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting, Super Street Fighter II, Super SF2 Turbo, Street Fighter Alphas 1 to 3, and the three Street Fighter III games. Also, there will be various galleries with art and music… however, most notably, there will be online play for a select few titles, with Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Street Fighter Alpha 3 and SFIII: Third Strike supporting ranked and casual play, lobbies and leaderboards.

A new SFAC – will it meet expectations?

new SFAC

It all sounds remarkably generous – I would have been happy enough with a current-gen port of Street Fighter III: Third Strike – Online Edition, but this is so much more. I have to wonder if the netcode used will be good enough, and if the price is right. That said, for the amount of content promised in the package I’d expect them to charge accordingly. In the meantime, I may have to reconsider shelving Street Fighter; I expected one of the many other new fighters in 2018 to vie for my attention, but the new SFAC could keep fighting fans occupied for weeks if not months.

The Street Fighter Anniversary Collection will be released on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Steam in May 2018.

Impressive New PlayStation Anthology Book Covers Console History

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When it launched in 1994, the Sony PlayStation significantly changed the home video game console market. It eventually became the first machine to ship more than 100 million units, launched a number of new game titles, and started a revolution in the way gaming was perceived and marketed. So the new PlayStation Anthology book from publisher Geeks-Line has a fair bit of ground to cover.

PlayStation Anthology Book Cover

Obviously we can’t judge it by the cover alone. But it’s an attractive hardback which starts from the creation of Sony following World War 2. And it runs until the PlayStation was discontinued (The PS one officially  stopped in 2006).

So the PlayStation Anthology Book gets you the full history, including the creation, successes and fame. And that includes the notable official and unofficial games throughout the life of the console.

PlayStation Anthology Book Sony Miracle Excerpt

It also features the shared concepts between Nintendo and Sony which led to the idea of the PlayStation, and the official games which were cancelled before release. So plenty of information on the Super NES CD-Rom and more. And apparently some of the information might not have been seen before – and certainly hasn’t been collected in a hardback book.

PlayStation Anthology Book Sony and Nintendo Excerpt

Then there are also 26 exclusive interviews with important figures from the whole PlayStation era. So that gives an insight not only into the official history, but also an honest picture of what it was like to work on the platform, and with individuals like Ken Kutaragi. Interviewees include Rodney Alan Greenblat (PaRappa the Rapper), Osamu Sato (LSD), composer Hitoshi Sakimoto (Final Fantasy Tactics, Gradius V and many more), and Hideaki Itsuno (Capcom, including the first Streetfighter Alpha).

PlayStation Anthology Book Interview List:

  • Lorne Lanning (Oddworld Inhabitants – Abe’s Oddysee, Abe’s Exoddus)
  • Charles Cecil (Revolution Software – Broken Sword)
  • Yūji Horii (Enix – Dragon Quest)
  • Rodney Greenblat (PaRappa the Rapper)
  • Osamu Sato (Asmik – LSD)
  • Kanta Watanabe (Fill-in-Café – Panzer Bandit, Rakugaki Showtime)
  • Hitoshi Sakimoto (Square Enix – Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy Tactics)
  • Martin Edmondson (Reflections – Destruction Derby, Driver)
  • Hiromasa Iwasaki (Denkegi PlayStation)
  • Masaya Matsuura (Composer – PaRappa the Rapper)
  • Denis Friedman (Psygnosis – Adidas Power Soccer, The City of Lost Children)
  • Jason Rubin (Naughty Dog – Crash Bandicoot, Jak and Daxter)
  • Carlo Perconti (Toka – Burning Road)
  • Michiru Yamane (Composer– Castlevania)
  • Pascal Jarry (SCEE – Porsche Challenge, Rapid Racer)
  • Naosuke Arai (Technosoft – Thunder Storm)
  • Yokoyama Hideyuki (Atlus – Thousand Arms, Legend of Kartia)
  • Julien Merceron (Ubisoft – Rayman 2)
  • Yoshinori Kitase (Square Enix – Final Fantasy)
  • Tommy Tallarico (Composer – Time Crisis, Earthworm Jim)
  • Harada Katsuhiro (Namco – Tekken)
  • Minoru Kidooka (Arc – Guilty Gear)
  • Suda51 (Grasshopper – Silver Case)
  • Akitoshi Kawazu (Square Enix – Final Fantasy, SaGa Frontier)
  • Ian Livingstone (Eidos – Tomb Raider)
  • Hideaki Itsuno (Capcom – Street Fighter Alpha, Star Gladiator)

 

PlayStation Anthology Book Hideaki Itsuno Excerpt

Of course, no look back at a vintage games console would be complete without listing all of the accessories and perippherals that were available. And also running through the list of the rarest and most collectible games. And although that information can be found online, there’s nothing like sitting down with a good book and flicking through the pages while daydreaming about what you’d like to find hidden in a local secondhand shop.

PlayStation Anthology Book Special Edition Games

So the 386 page PlayStation Anthology book is interesting for retro gamers and anyone else who remembers the iconic console. In fact, the release of the PlayStation wasn’t long before I went to university, so my memories of studying are mingled with the investment of part of my student loan, and long nights with friends trying to achieve everything possible in Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssey.

PlayStation Anthology Book Games and History

But maybe as a fan you want more? Well, there’s also a Collector’s Edition PlayStation Anthology book available, which runs to 458 pages, and also includes a complete guide to the total of 4,500 game titles released in every territory. Perfect if you’re still looking to finish your collection!

PlayStation Anthology Book More Collectables

It’s quite hard to look at the examples while I’m writing this, and not rush off to check prices on eBay. Fortunately the standard classic edition of the PlayStation Anthology book is more cost-effective and takes up less space, as you can order it now for £34.90 from Amazon.

The PlayStation Anthology Book Collectors Edition is only available direct from Geeks Line at the moment. It costs £41.96. Geeks Line has also produced a Nintendo 64 Anthology, available via Amazon for £25.99 or via their site.

 

Race the Sun in VR is an abstract immersive joy

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Earlier this month PS4 players were given the chance to experience Race the Sun in VR, courtesy of a free update that was released for the abstract “endless runner”. The original game tasked players with piloting a solar-powered spacecraft towards the sun whilst avoiding collisions with objects or lingering in shadow. Along the way you’d find collectibles and even face small sub-missions that tested your skills, and the game was broken up into regions, with each transition into a new area being met with a chilled collectible sequence. I never really got into the game when it was first released, but after it was given away as part of the instant game collection on PlayStation Plus I could understand how people could lose evenings to a game that takes the concept of high-score chasing and delivers a game where you’re literally chasing your previous effort to race the sun. Also worthy of note is the abstract nature of the environment, with plain 3D shapes littered around the landscape, sometimes tumbling in front of you or forming canyons or tunnels that you must enter at speed. Indeed, since you’re always hurtling along at such a velocity you can’t afford to take your eyes off the action for a moment, and it’s the kind of game where you feel like if you get in the zone you can navigate through terrifying obstacle sequences with ease.

Race the Sun in VR is pleasant and smooth

Race the Sun in VR

The update allows you to play Race the Sun in VR – if you own the PlayStation VR headset, you can apply an update to the game and when you launch the application you’ll see a new option in the main menu labelled “VR Mode” – upon selecting this option you’ll see the usual prompt to connect and turn on the headset, and then the VR-friendly main menu will initialise on the headset. Playing Race the Sun in VR is quite straightforward – the game still uses the DualShock 4 in this mode and there aren’t any special gameplay mechanics I could see – but the headset offers a more immersive view of the gameworld, wrapping the environment around you (to an extent, at least; it felt like an 180-degree cone of vision where anything “behind” that threshold was a murky grey fog) and placing you directly in the world as opposed to locking the environment within the confines of the TV. Impressively, it still looks just as good and runs and feels like it runs as smoothly with PSVR, and I didn’t come away with any nausea after playing (although my sessions with the game were fairly brief – extended periods of play with other VR games quickly became a bad idea after one night of Rez Infinite bingeing.)

Race the Sun in VR is a welcome update

Race the Sun in VR

Whilst I enjoy the PlayStation VR games and experiences I’ve tried so far, there’s still a lot of VR content that I’d like to see… however, I’m limited by my Store wallet funds (in an ideal world, everyone would be able to buy all of the games) and my “gaming schedule”, which was previously being taken up by Nier Automata‘s campaign and is currently being occupied by the mammoth Atlus JRPG Persona 5. Having the opportunity to play Race the Sun in VR is more than welcome – it’s a free update for a game that can be enjoyed in short bursts, and you won’t feel nauseous playing it. (It also helps that the game’s aesthetics have such an abstract minimalism to them – I can only wonder how such a game would fare if the landscape and colour pallete was busier…)

Race the Sun in VR

You can enjoy Race The Sun in VR if you have the game and have applied the free update. If you’re a long-term member of PlayStation Plus, Race The Sun was given away in 2015, so be sure to check your library

Spaceships, brawls and revivals – my highlights from PSX 2016

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The main conference for PSX 2016 concluded on Saturday evening, and whilst I personally didn’t find a huge amount of announcements to be earth-shattering, there was still a lot to get excited about. So much, in fact, that trying to collect my thoughts amidst so much social media gossip was an impossible task, so on Sunday morning I relocated to a quiet café, pulled out my phone and contemplated the highlights over a small espresso.

PSX 2016 – Capcom’s fighters get a strong showing

PSX 2016

After a brief bit of Uncharted, Capcom’s logo appeared on the big screen and revealed one of the worst-kept secrets of the show: more Marvel vs Capcom. Specifically, MvC Infinite. This trailer was purely cinematic and showed Ryu and Mega Man facing off against familiar comic-book heroes in 2v2 fashion – perhaps a hint of the final game’s format? Speaking of badly kept secrets, the official reveal of Akuma for Street Fighter V also made a showing, together with news that the 2017 season pass was available to preorder. I haven’t played as much SFV as I once did so I don’t know if I’ll be on board for a second season, but it might be worth keeping an eye on.

PSX 2016 – Garou returns and PSVR isn’t forgotten

PSX 2016

More good news emerged with the announcements that Ultimate MvC3, Mother Russia Bleeds and Garou Mark of the Wolves would be available to download right now – since the news I’ve purchased Garou myself as it’s one of my most-played MAME games, so there might be a review appearing on this site shortly. The PlayStation VR segment then followed – Starblood Arena with its weird choice of Psychobilly Freakout for trailer music, and a short montage devoid of game names or logos accompanying footage. Nevertheless, it at least inspires hope that Sony won’t forget about VR as quickly as they forgot about the Vita.

PSX 2016 – more Wipeout, more LocoRoco, more Knack

PSX 2016

The reveal of a Wipeout trailer initially had me wondering if we would get an original new title for PS4 or PSVR. Discovering that it appears to be a “best of” release with content from Wipeout HD, HD Fury and 2048 might have been initially disappointing, but those games were still great, and 2048 could be a lot of fun on a bigger screen. Other revived classics included releases of Crash, Patapon, LocoRoco and Parappa on PS4 – I can’t say I’ll pick them up again straight away, but revisiting LocoRoco is tempting. I was also the victim of my own foolishness when I sarcastically suggested that a Knack sequel would be revealed… and then during the show Knack 2 was revealed. Oh well.

PSX 2016 – Nier gets a date and more surprises emerge

PSX 2016

A game I was actually keen to see more of was Nier Automata, and whilst I would have liked a more substantial trailer, we at least got a release date of 7.3.17 – that’s March 7th for US readers – and reassurance that a demo was still coming. The combination of Nier’s storytelling and Platinum gameplay is still an irresistible prospect, and you can be sure of more coverage here when it’s eventually released. However, I was as interested in surprise announcements as I was about familiar names, and Nex Machina was exactly that. A new game from Resogun developer Housemarque and arcade game legend Eugene Jarvis, this has tons of colour and action and was a highlight of the show for me. Another surprise – albeit one about a familiar name – was that Suda51’s Let It Die (formerly Lily Bergamo) was available to download. More than three years have passed since the 2013 reveal, and whilst the combination of roguelike gameplay and Suda-style action is interesting, the free-to-play hooks might be offputting for casual players.

PSX 2016 – lots to enjoy

PSX 2016

There were a lot of other games I could spend time talking about here – more Resident Evil footage, a new Ace Combat, the revival of Windjammers – but I just wanted to discuss particular highlights for me. Knowing that Garou is available right now, Nier is still on the way and rumoured titles are now confirmed will give me and other fans a lot to enjoy. As ever, feel free to share your highlights and lowlights in the comments below.

Persona 5 November preview – notes from the Atlus stream

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Earlier this week Atlus USA held a stream showcasing gameplay from Persona 5. This Persona 5 November preview was exciting for me for a number of reasons – it was English-language gameplay being presented by English-speaking hosts, and it was being broadcast at a reasonable hour. It was a Persona 5 November preview that began with slightly disappointing news: after some introductions from the Atlus US Staff, the Atlus CEO Naoto Hiraoka appeared for a recorded message, thanking people for JP sales and promising a quality release for the west, but also announcing a delay to April 4. However, it was also revealed that that the western release will have Japanese voices as DLC, and that PlayStation Experience in December will have a demo. The former point was well received by numerous fans, although personally I enjoy the English voices in the Persona games I’ve played.

Persona 5 November preview

Persona 5 November preview – content and scene-setting

More DLC news emerged from the Persona 5 November preview when the hosts mentioned that a Persona 5 PS4 theme would be coming to people in Europe later this month, and that it would be free for 24 hours. (Disposable Media isn’t holding its breath, but should the theme appear on the store we’ll prepare some news on it.) After talking about some of the merchandise that was coming out to complement the game’s release, the hosts of the Persona 5 November preview cut to live gameplay – viewers saw scenes outside, in and around the high school, and they came complete with the usual classroom pop quiz moments you get in the earlier games. Introductory story beats were shown when clips of dialogue highlighted discussion between Ryuji and the protagonist. The two characters talked about the castle that forms the main dungeon of the game, and after unsuccessfully searching for the castle on foot, they try using a phone’s navigation app to find it. However, it’s revealed that the app has an effect on the real world that makes the castle materialise in front of Ryuji and the protagonist. There, they meet Morgana and she explains how the castle came into being and how school-goers have been held captive in the castle.

Persona 5 November preview – triggers and security

Inside the castle (well, it’s referred to more as a “Palace”, which seems to be the standard name for dungeon exploration areas), the player is given pointers on what to do in the upper-right corner of the screen (“investigate this”, “go here”, “follow Morgana”) and it isn’t long before they encounter the kind of battles already seen in plenty of previous streams and videos. The Persona 5 November preview showed that activating certain triggers around the map will open up more paths in the Palace as you’d expect, and scripted moments guide the team into one of the first safe rooms, where Morgana explains the Palace’s relationship with reality and the thoughts that created the Palace. The protagonist later gets their basic weapon in the first safe room and the party assess the situation outside and overhear talk of their next location. However, this is where the security level mechanic comes in – get spotted when going in to attack and the security level is raised, beat enemies with surprise attacks and there’s less of a negative effect. If the security level is too high you’re forced to leave the dungeon.

Persona 5 November preview

Persona 5 November preview – guns and weaknesses

Another tutorial revealed in the Persona 5 November preview explains that in each battle every character in the party has a gun – you can either fire this gun until you run out of ammunition, or back out if the shots aren’t effective against an enemy. Additionally, you can switch targets in-between shots so it may be useful for quickly picking out weaknesses to gunfire. A later tutorial explains elemental weaknesses and all-out attacks (which work as you expect if you’ve played Persona – expose weaknesses and you have the option to deal bonus damage to all enemies), and after some more exploration the party discover people imprisoned in the palace and resolve to remember the faces they see and try to make their way out. However, they ultimately run into the first scripted miniboss encounter – Morgana and the protagonist fall to the enemies in this battle, but this transitions into another dialogue scene; in other words, an intended failure. Of course, this is the cue for a persona awakening (for Ryuji) and a second round against the enemies. After some more scenes, the dungeon sequence ends and the hosts of the Persona 5 November preview call for an intermission.

Persona 5 November preview – safe rooms, Third Eye and more

When they resume, we see a different area of the game where the hosts explain how the player can warp to the safe room. Here, they can talk to other characters to refresh their memory on what they should be doing, talk to one another or heal up. This segment was only shown briefly before the hosts hurried on to the Velvet Room, where players can fuse and register personas as expected, and then the hosts returned to dungeon exploration and battling. One ability they highlighted was “Third Eye” which highlights areas of interest and shows enemy strength (kind of like the glowing “strong” enemies of earlier games?), but using this ability went awry for the hosts as they got spotted and saw the security level increase. Later, they showcased the preset cover spots that allow for ambushes that give the characters an advantage in combat, and find a locked area that they open up using Third Eye to find switches.

The locked area secretes an area map, and further exploration leads to more hidden paths. In a way, Third Eye is also like an advanced version of the Persona 3 Portable ability to highlight interactive spots in the daytime (sort of.) It certainly looks like it will be crucial in finding the right triggers to solve the key/door puzzles in the dungeons – I was initially worried when I heard news that dungeons may be more complex and labyrinthine than in previous games, but hopefully Third Eye will make things a little more straightforward. Another intermission by the hosts explains that the top-right of the HUD shows “days until expulsion” and that this is like Persona 4’s fog deadline except a lot more explicit – in my mind, this is A Good Thing. Whilst I never missed a deadline in Persona 4, the amount of time always seemed a bit ambiguous, and having a countdown visible will help make planning much more straightforward. Later on in the Persona 5 November preview the hosts also showed what happens if the enemy gets the advantage in battle – more enemies appear on the field, security is raised, and the enemies get an opening turn. Happily, it seems that winning battles will reduce the security level slightly.

There were numerous other bits and pieces covered in the Persona 5 November preview, but one other gameplay element that caught my interest was the fact that negotiations still utilise enemy personality types à la Revelations Persona. If you’ve been following Persona 5 news, you’ll know that if you strike an enemy effectively you can either go in for a large attack or negotiate with them, and here it seems like you probably won’t have 20 different interactions to choose from like in Revelations: Persona, but at the same time it might mean that certain responses are recommended against certain opponents.

Persona 5 November preview

Persona 5 November preview – will it be worth the wait?

Persona 5 has been delayed so much that it almost seems like a cruel joke – the opening trailer ended with the words “Winter 2014 for Japan”, and Japan didn’t get the game until September 15th of this year. Meanwhile, fans in the west will have to wait a few weeks beyond the last estimate of February 14th before they can get their hands on the game. Of course I’d rather have a delayed game which is good than a hurried game, but we’ll have to wait and see if this new estimated release date sticks. Will it be better than previous games in the series? All signs point to a more polished game with more intricate dungeons and new gameplay gimmicks; however, even though Persona 4 now seems slightly small-scale in comparison, that game was still immaculately designed. Hopefully Persona 5 doesn’t confuse expansion with padding.

Persona 5 November preview

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