Month: July 2019

On PS4 and PC, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a lovely homage to classic Castlevania with a collection of smart quality-of-life improvements and impeccable craftsmanship. Koji Igarashi has been hailed as a visionary who helped define the “Metroidvania” genre, and his return to it is worth celebrating. Unfortunately, the Nintendo Switch version of Bloodstained suffers from significant technical problems, and it’s difficult to recommend over other platforms.

Symphony of the Night may be the most famous of Igarashi’s works, but the series of micro-sized follow-ups he produced on the Game Boy Advance showed portability was a boon to its newfound RPG-like mechanics. Games like Harmony of Dissonance squeezed much of what was wonderful about those games into a form factor that allowed picking up and playing wherever you might go. Bloodstained appeared primed to offer this again for a modern age, with one contiguous experience between the console and portable forms. However, the Nintendo Switch version of Bloodstained struggles to deliver an experience on par with other platforms.

Switch ports often get visual downgrades compared to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions, but Bloodstained fares especially poorly in the transition to Switch. The backgrounds are muddy and the character models lack crisp edges and flourishes on their accessories. Textures like clothing often appear flat. The style of the game on more powerful platforms–which is often a visual treat with lots of subtle detail on the environments and enemy designs–doesn’t lend itself to being compromised in this way.

Performance issues are even more difficult to overlook. A combination of uneven frame rate and high input latency makes it feel sluggish and unresponsive. After experiencing the game as intended, it can feel like the hero, Miriam, is struggling to move through molasses, as if the air itself is thick. This diminishes the normally fast-paced action and makes dangerous enemies even more difficult than they should be. Bloodstained is finely-tuned to feel challenging without veering into frustration, and the unresponsiveness on Switch compromises this careful balance. Long load times only add to the annoyance, breaking the flow of action further.

Those compromises distract from what is otherwise an expertly modernized Metroidvania. Quality-of-life changes like loadouts slots and weapon-specific techniques make combat feel more versatile. Shards collected from monsters both supply a different kind of loot to collect and imbue you with a variety of powers that let you customize the game to your playstyle. Crafting weapons, enhancing shards, and cooking all give you multiple avenues to power up and suit your equipment to the challenges you face. It’s a very satisfying progression from the feeling of total helplessness that envelops you, regardless of platform.

Best of all, the castle design itself unfolds beautifully throughout the experience. The layout of the environments inspires curiosity and a sense of adventure as you slowly unlock more tools to access additional areas. The mystery of the castle itself and the puzzle that brings about the true end-game merges the game’s lore and mechanics wonderfully. And the monster design and dialogue show a playful sensibility that contrasts with the dark and dour tone of the story. [Read our PS4 and PC review for our full thoughts.]

All of Bloodstained’s excellent qualities make the Nintendo Switch version even more disappointing. Though 505 Games has acknowledged its technical shortcomings and committed to issuing updates, at launch it is simply too compromised for its own good. If you have no choice but to play on Nintendo Switch, it may still be worth overlooking the weak spots and taking in the experience. If you have other options, though, play on a different platform. The portability of the Nintendo Switch could have made it the absolute best version for a retro-inspired game like Bloodstained. Instead, it’s the worst.

Bugbear Entertainment’s Wreckfest, which first launched on PC in June 2018 to favorable reviews, is making its way to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on August 27, publisher THQ Nordic announced. The high-speed demolition racing game will come in standard and deluxe editions and includes a Bandit Ripper V8 racer for those who pre-order digitally or physically.

Cashing out for the deluxe edition grants one-day-early access to the game and the Season Pass, which includes 20 new cars, 20 special roof decorations, and extra customization options like armor, rims, and more. This additional content will roll out periodically after release, alongside more free content updates. The standard edition retails for $40 USD / $57 AUD / £32 GBP, while the digital deluxe edition sets you back $60 USD / $85 AUD / £48 GBP.

Check out the announcement trailer below.

PC players won’t be left behind, as the PC version of Wreckfest will receive a massive update on August 27. The free update will include three new race tracks and one new derby arena; three new challenge cars; a new reward for completing career mode; new and improved career mode events; new paint jobs for existing cars; more daytimes for all tracks; and more.

Finnish developer Bugbear is best known for the FlatOut action derby racing game series. The studio also developed Sega Rally Revo (with Sega) in September 2007 and Ridge Racer Unbounded (with Bandai Namco Entertainment) in March 2012 before working with THQ Nordic on Wreckfest.

In our Wreckfest review, we said, “Minor issues with menus and its soundtrack aside, [Wreckfest] wows with a gorgeous look and wonderful driving feel, along with a damage system that satisfies in the most brutal of fashions. With its array of different cars, tracks, and event types, Wreckfest is a brilliantly fun and frenetic racing game that can be thoroughly enjoyed by anyone, not just racing game fans.”

It appears another crossover event is coming to Fortnite. Following the game’s second 9.30 content update, the portals from Netflix’s popular Stranger Things series have begun appearing in the game, conveniently in time for the launch of the series’ third season (you can read our Stranger Things Season 3 review here).

There are several portals in the game right now, and they can be found, fittingly, inside the Mega Mall, one of the new areas introduced to the game at the start of Season 9. It’s unclear what the purpose of the portals is–at present, they’ll simply teleport you to other areas of the mall if you walk inside one–but it could signal some more Stranger Things content coming to the game. Netflix had previously hinted at a Fortnite/Stranger Things collaboration around the launch of Season 3 (and the Scoops Ahoy ice cream parlor from Stranger Things 3 was even added to Mega Mall recently), so this could just be the beginning.

This certainly isn’t the first crossover to happen in Fortnite. Epic has previously collaborated with a number of blockbuster films. Earlier this year, Fortnite hosted an Avengers: Endgame crossover event that allowed players to wield some of the Avengers’ iconic weapons. After that, the game held a John Wick crossover event to coincide with the release of John Wick 3. Epic Games boss Donald Mustard even appeared in the Avengers: Endgame re-release.

Fortnite is still in the midst of its 14 Days of Summer event. Until July 16, you’ll be able to complete new challenges and unlock some special summer-themed rewards. There will be 14 challenges in total, and if you manage to clear all of them by the end of the event, you’ll unlock the Smoothie back bling. Epic is also unvaulting a weapon and hosting a different limited-time mode each day of the event.

The aforementioned 9.30 content update went live on PS4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, and mobile devices on July 2, and it was a fairly minor one as far as Fortnite updates go, only adding a single new weapon to Battle Royale mode: the Drum Shotgun. Fortnite’s premium Save the World mode, on the other hand, has brought back a handful of festive heroes to celebrate the Fourth of July, while Fortnite Creative has received a handful of new prefabs and galleries.

A free demo of Daemon X Machina launched in February prior to the release date announcement made during Nintendo’s E3 2019 Direct. Though the company pulled the demo off the Eshop in Mach, we’re getting another look at the mech action game in the form of a new feedback trailer, highlighting the various improvements coming to Daemon X Machina when it releases this September.

The two-minute trailer goes through a flurry of adjustments and improvements made to both quality of life and game feel. Some changes include new equipment that locks on to enemies, the ability to see enemy health bars, indicators showing the direction of enemy fire, slight alterations to default button configurations, and more. Developers Marvelous First Studio is also making use of the Nintendo Switch’s motion controls, implementing a new Gyro aiming system that can be toggled on and off.

Rock out to the trailer and the blistering metal music below.

Daemon X Machina is a third-person action game where you pilot giant mechs called Arsenals to fight other giant mechs. It features character and mech customization and modification. The demo, called “Prototype Missions,” launched with four separate missions showing off the basic controls and combat scenarios, as well as a boss battle with a humongous mech.

Daemon X Machina will launch exclusively for Nintendo Switch on September 13.

It’s no secret that Avengers: Endgame left some pretty major questions unanswered as we headed into Spider-Man: Far From Home–and no, we don’t mean questions like, “Wait, so is Captain America just a huge selfish jerk? Or did he kiss his own niece?” We mean questions like, “So what actually happened when Bruce “reversed’ Thanos’ snap?”

Though, seriously, did Captain America kiss his own niece? Will we ever get an answer for that?

Anyway–the lingering questions about the MCU’s worldbuilding and shared universe were largely swept away or skirted around during Endgame proper. We’re only given very, very brief looks at the devastation the snap caused through a handful of establishing shots which show an almost post-apocalyptic New York City and San Francisco. We never actually see anyone come back from being dusted–they all swoop in from magic portals during the fight. What actually happened to the world at large when half of the population suddenly rematerialized is left completely up to our imaginations.

Until now, that is. Spider-Man: Far From Home may not be as dire or as serious as Endgame, but as the final chapter of Phase 3, it was put in the unique position to try and pick up some of Endgame’s pieces–sort of, at least.

Spider-Man: Far From Home spoilers from here on out!

Snap no more

We may be calling it the “reverse-snap” here in the real world, but the characters themselves know it as “the Blip.” As in, people weren’t “snapped away,” they “blipped,” and so forth. It sounds silly, sure, but it actually does make some sense. After all, the only people who knew it was a snapping hand-motion that caused everything would be the Avengers who were there on the scene when it happened. And, technically, the snap itself was really just a meme–after all, nothing about the Infinity Gauntlet suggests that a snap is required to activate all the stones, Thanos was just being dramatic and it stuck in everyone’s heads. Ergo, “the Blip” for everyone who isn’t us, the viewers, or the Avengers themselves.

We get a first-hand look at what, exactly, happened the moment Bruce undid the Blip, thanks to someone’s cell phone video of a high school basketball game. The players are in the middle of their game when, suddenly, members of the marching band re-materialize mid-song in the middle of the court, causing all sorts of wacky chaos. It’s funny, here at this moment, but what we can assume from this scene is actually pretty bleak–everyone who vanished in the snap was returned exactly to the place they vanished from, no matter what.

So, people who vanished from say, cruise ships or boats in the middle of the ocean? They’d just be dropped into the water to drown since, obviously, no boat would be there for them to stand on five years later. People who vanished from planes would be falling out of the sky. People who vanished from hospitals say, mid-surgery, would be–well, let’s just say extremely worse for wear when they reappeared.

Far From Home naturally doesn’t touch on any of that–but it does deal with some of the less-fun fallout by explaining that May rematerialized into her apartment, only to find that another family had started living there in her absence, leaving both her and Peter effectively homeless. They weren’t alone in that particular situation and it actually inspired May to start up a humanitarian effort to help people with similar experiences in the post-Blip world.

But beyond May’s work to help homeless Blip-victims, the world seems to have picked up the pieces shockingly quickly and with little to no trouble at all. After all, less than a year after rematerializing and destroying Thanos for good, Peter’s high school is ready to take a European vacation. There are a handful of gags about how underclassmen who weren’t blipped are now in their grade or older than them, but beyond that? Everything seems to be business as usual. Even the cities themselves don’t seem to be all that bad off, even after we saw the garbage-strewn post-apocalyptic ghost towns they’d become. Apparently, the world’s infrastructure was able to bounce back so fast that the world is just normal again, right off the bat.

What about the deaths?

People returning from the dust is only half the equation of a post-Endgame world–we also have to deal with the fact that the Avengers themselves are now no longer a thing. Sort of. Some people died, others didn’t but still decided to retire and/or ruin the past because they were bored, we guess. Either way, the landscape is pretty dramatically changed, at least for the heroes themselves.

Far From Home confirms that civilians definitely know everyone died, or is otherwise gone, but never actually digs into just how or why. The movie opens with an (admittedly very funny) “video tribute” to the fallen heroes including Cap, Black Widow, and Vision, but the world itself seems to be populated exclusively by tributes to Tony. So, despite it being obvious that people somehow know that it wasn’t just Iron Man who died, not many people seem to care about much else.

This also begs the question: How, exactly, do people know? It’s not like anyone was actually there to witness the final fight, Natasha died on an alien planet, Vision died in the middle of Wakanda, Steve didn’t die at all (unless he’s since died of old age, we guess). Did someone put together a press release or something to make sure the public was clued in? What was that process like? How did they explain what happened to a population of people who just underwent what is, undoubtedly, the most shocking and traumatic experience of their lives on a global scale?

Apparently, whatever they did worked like a charm. Because while people are definitely scared that Iron Man is no longer around, they don’t seem that thrown off by anything else. In fact, it seems to basically be business as usual for just about everyone and everything, though doubtlessly, we’ll continue to see some of the fallout unfold in slow motion as Phase 4 really gets rolling.

July is officially here, which means we’ve entered the second half of 2019. This year has already seen some great games release for PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch, and there are even more on the way as we head closer to the holiday season.

This month is packed with some notable releases, so there are plenty of games to look forward to regardless of what platform you own. Switch gets two major exclusives this month in Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, while the former PlayStation exclusive Beyond: Two Souls makes its way to PC. RPG fans can also jump into Dragon Quest Builders 2 and Final Fantasy XIV‘s latest expansion, Shadowbringers, this month.

There are a few other noteworthy titles coming in July as well. You can see all the biggest games on the way to each platform this month below. For a wider look at what’s still in store for the rest of this year, be sure to check out our complete list of game release dates in 2019.

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers (PS4, PC) — July 2

Kicking off July’s releases is Final Fantasy XIV‘s third major expansion, Shadowbringers, which is available now on PS4 and PC. The expansion introduces a ton of new content to the popular MMO, including new areas to explore, nine new dungeons to conquer, and two new raids–one of which is a crossover with Nier Automata. Shadowbringers also adds two new playable races, the Hrothgar and Viera, as well as a pair of new Jobs, and more.

Further reading:

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order (Switch) — July 19

After nearly a decade, the Marvel Ultimate Alliance series returns with a brand-new, Switch-exclusive installment. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order arrives on Nintendo’s hybrid console on July 19. This entry is set in a different universe than the previous Ultimate Alliance games, but it offers the same co-op, button-mashing gameplay that made the series so beloved. It also features an expansive roster of Marvel heroes and villains, with more to come as post-launch DLC.

Further reading:

Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch) — July 26

Nintendo’s long-running tactical RPG series makes its Switch debut on July 26 with the release of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the first home console installment since 2007’s Radiant Dawn on Wii. This time around, players are placed in the role of a professor at the Officers Academy, which is made up of three houses representing the continent of Fódlan’s three ruling nations. As a professor, you’ll be responsible for raising your students and guiding them, both in the classroom and on the battlefield.

Further reading:

Wolfenstein: Youngblood (PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch) — July 26

Arriving alongside Fire Emblem: Three Houses on July 26 is the next entry in Bethesda’s Nazi-shooting series, Wolfenstein: Youngblood. Set 20 years after the events of Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Youngblood begins with series hero BJ Blazkowicz going missing in Paris, and it’s up to his twin daughters Jess and Soph to find him. Despite the change in leads, Youngblood offers the same over-the-top Nazi-killing the series is known for (with some new RPG elements for good measure), and the entire game is playable in co-op.

Further reading:

Full July Release Schedule