Author: Trafficblast

After a lackluster Raw After Mania, WWE’s Monday night programming got back on track with the first night of the Superstar Shakeup. During the two-night event, superstars could be shifted from their shows. What was once a Smackdown superstar could have a new life on Raw, and vice versa.

There were plenty of changes during the evening, including three major tag teams headed to WWE’s Monday night programming, and two major NXT additions, but the thing that had everyone talking about wasn’t AJ Styles crossing over. It was the dumbest name change in WWE yet. And this just wasn’t another case of WWE dropping a first or last name.

The Viking Experience

Before we get into this debacle, that is the first and only time I’ll be writing that team name. I feel the same way about it that I do about Sasha Banks and Bayley’s tag team name. Yes, I’m being a dumb, stubborn wrestling fan. I’m aware of my own idiocy here. However, there is a lot going on, and we’re going to break it down. War Machine became War Raiders when Hanson and Rowe were signed to NXT. When War Raiders was called up for the Superstar Shakeup, not only was their tag team name changed to the aforementioned title which sounds like a ride at Disney World’s Epcot, but their individual names were as well. Hanson is now Ivar and Rowe is now Erik.

According to Mick Foley, who doesn’t work with WWE currently but has for decades in the past and understands the company’s inner-workings, he said in a tweet, “Anything with the word ‘war’ in it is just not going to fly in WWE in 2019.” By that logic, which is fair, why not just go with The Raiders? Yeah, it’s not great either, but it still acknowledges the past without completely turning them into a 1993 gimmick. The two built a bigger fanbase and made a name for themselves in NXT under the name War Raiders. If we really want to get to the root of this, WWE may have changed the tag team name and individual names to sever ties with their past in Ring of Honor and New Japan. However, the name change is silly. It’s like calling The Bar “The Foreign Villain Experience,” The Shield “The Walking Through The Crowd Experience,” or Shinsuke Nakamura and Rusev “Pot Luck Dinner.” I could do this all day.

Sanity Is Dead

Smackdown never gave Sanity a chance, and now, the stable is all but gone after Eric Young was moved to Raw this week. He didn’t get a match, though. He was briefly mentioned by the commentary team as part of the Superstar Shakeup. Everything about this points to Sanity being over with, as it was yet another NXT callup that was dead when it hit the water on the main roster.

Former NXT Call-Ups Have A Home

Remember when WWE had a bunch of NXT superstars get called up but they were just jumping between shows randomly? Well, they all seem to have a home now, on Raw. Lars Sullivan, Lacey Evans, EC3, Aleister Black, and Ricochet were all officially added to the Monday night show on April 15. At least Smackdown will get Johnny Gargano, and hopefully Tommaso Ciampa when he’s healed up.

Smackdown’s Tag Division Is Gutted

Currently, there are 10 tag teams on Raw. I could actually say 11, but I’m not sure if Fandango is still out because of surgery. Smackdown is left with three very solid teams (New Day, Hardy Boyz, and The Bar), three that never appear on television (The Good Brothers, The Colons, and Sanity), and one comedy act (Nakamura & Rusev). The Usos are the heart and soul of that show–no offense to New Day, whom I love. Smackdown has to start elevating their underutilized teams that already exist rather than overwork whoever they get during the Superstar Shakeup tomorrow, which will more than likely be The Fashion Police (my dream) and The Revival.

Those Weird Puppet Vignettes Are Still Happening

What is going on here? Everything about this screams Bray Wyatt, but a weird, watered-down, almost comedic version of that. It’s a vulture puppet in a box. Well, we got a new one this week, and it’s a bunch of dolls on a dark soundstage, and one of them is in a rocking chair. Does WWE need another wrestler on the roster? If this is Bray Wyatt, then what point is this trying to get across?

While there are a ton of whiny complaints in here, I am excited to see how all of this plays out. However, the first day of this can be hard to watch, as Smackdown is my preferred WWE show, and having to wait to see what happens while Raw’s roster is stuffed to the gills can be tough. Below, you’ll find the full list for wrestlers who were moved to Raw. Another surprise we haven’t discussed is Cedric Alexander coming over from 205 Live. Does this mean WWE is slowly going to get rid of the show?

Full Superstar Shakeup List

• The Miz
• Jimmy Uso
• Jey Uso
• Eric Young
• Andrade
• Zelina Vega
• Lars Sullivan
• Naomi
• Lacey Evans
• EC3
• Cedric Alexander
• Aleister Black
• Ricochet
• Rey Mysterio
• Erik (Rowe)
• Ivar (Hanson)
• AJ Styles

Come back tomorrow for a full recap of Smackdown’s Superstar Shakeup.

Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata left Square Enix last year and announced a new studio, JP Games, in December. Now he’s revealed the studio’s first project.

JP Games is starting in high-profile fashion. The studio is developing The Pegasus Dream Tour, which is the official video game for the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo. JP Games is developing the game with the International Paralympic Committee.

“I wish to thank everyone involved, who helped me up to this point and make this announcement today. You’ll be able to enjoy the game when the timing’s right in 2020. So stay tuned,” Tabata said in a post on Facebook.

The Pegasus Dream Tour is officially described as a “completely new sports role-playing game where players participate in a virtual Paralympic Games that takes place inside a fantasy metropolis known as Pegasus City.”

Players control characters who have special abilities known as “Xtra power.” The game is being made for “various platforms,” including smartphones.

International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons said in a statement, “We are eager to explore innovative ways to engage with new and younger global audiences. We believe this game will help boost interest in the Paralympic Games and make it easier for people all over the world to enjoy and experience the heated atmosphere, passion, and excitement of the event.”

He added: “The sport at the Paralympics is outstanding and helps transform attitudes towards persons with disabilities like no other event. I am really excited to see and play this game and see how the outstanding abilities of Para athletes are represented.”

As for Tabata, he said, “This is not just an ordinary video game about sports. JP Games is going to represent fully the wonders that are unique to Paralympic sports in this brand-new role-playing game–a genre we excel in. With this video game, we want to contribute to the future growth of the Paralympic Games, not just as a sporting event, but as entertainment as well, with contents that we hope will have lasting value in the future.”

My Time at Portia starts off predictably when you disembark into its expanse of rolling hills and curious ruins. Like the Marvelous Interactive titles it clearly draws inspiration from (namely Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons), it sets you up with the holy trinity of prologues: a father, a child, and a ripe plot of land. No time passes at all until you’re welcomed by a well-meaning public servant who tells you that your absent parent left a legacy of building and being a Home Depot whiz before disappearing like the evening tide. Now, fresh off the boat, you’re tasked with taking over for your old man and making yourself invaluable to the people whose lives he enriched, which suggests My Time at Portia will be a more fulfilling adventure than it actually ends up being.

Portia has a distinctly post-apocalyptic feel, which lends a sense of intrigue to what would otherwise have been a familiar traversal of yet another sleepy town to be spiced up by the voiceless city-slicker of a player-character. The game paints a tidy, watercolor-inspired picture that wouldn’t be out of place on a postcard; a “wish you were here” would fit nicely against the giant, scraped-out husks of metal that loom over lush fields and quaint cottages like relics from a bygone age. In fact, they are: Humanity in My Time at Portia is said to have gotten too ambitious in the past by exploiting technology and science to reach lofty heights that it was struck down for. Now, it’s back to the Agrarian Age for the foreseeable future, and you’re the closest they’ve got to Noah and the Ark.

These monolithic reminders dot the various landscapes of My Time at Portia, and they’re an effective and unintrusive way to ensure you’re clued into the broader message around hubris leading to the apocalypse. It makes for an interesting plot device, which would be well-utilized if it went beyond making the world more visually interesting, or even beyond the inclusion of one faction of NPCs dedicated to keeping the town of Portia back in the comparative Dark Ages. But that’s about as far as it goes: aesthetic as opposed to substance. No storylines really pursue it, nor do the townsfolk seem to care. You’re not provided with the opportunity to engage meaningfully with the setpiece of the world’s past, which is a shame given how interesting it seems.

Instead, the majority of the experience remains relatively familiar and unbroken by a loop of crafting, fighting, and gathering missions. The crafting system is the game’s real treat, though. As the child of a master-builder, you’re given access very early on to plans created by your father. These plans function like crafting blueprints; they stay on your person as you romp around the world in search of materials, and you can easily refer to them and check exactly how much tin ore you need to convert into whatever arbitrary amount of bronze bars you need to prop a bridge up.

You’re also given the ability to use a crafting station back at your house which tells you exactly what you’re missing to build a particular item. There’s no need for guesswork, and you also get to visually appreciate the nitty-gritty of what you’re building as completing various parts of items sees them come to life before your eyes on the workbench. This wonderfully intuitive approach ties neatly into what you’re told is the protagonist’s innate skill as a crafter, which means that you spend less time wondering how many rocks you have to crack open and more time thinking about the next great creation taking shape in your backyard.

Crafting is also the only aspect of the game that feels integral to actually getting anywhere with the story–everything is expensive, and the most effective way to make money is to grind out crafting items to sell. But while the reliance on grinding isn’t a surprise if you’re a genre fan, the combination of quick day-night cycles in the game, timed quests, and the time commitment needed to actually get anything crafted is a recipe for dissatisfaction. Time feels like it crawls by unless you’re occupying yourself with busywork, which unfortunately ends up detracting from the charm of the lively hustle and bustle of the town of Portia.

However, while the crafting is robust and an essential part of your experience with My Time at Portia, the other integrated systems–relationship management, dungeoneering, animal husbandry, and farming–aren’t as engaging, fleshed out, or vital by comparison. Being able to gift your way to a perfect marriage does a disservice to some of the unique personalities that you can court, and you feel discouraged from spending time on farming because of how time-consuming and expensive it is to acquire enough land to turn those parsnips into a profit. The main story forces you to invest heavily in crafting and once you’ve tried your hand at the carpentry trade, it can be hard to look elsewhere when the demands of time and money limit your ability to engage in the other systems.

Among the cacophony of mechanics, there’s a wistfulness for depth. An upgrade system has you picking various skills, ranging from increased experience gain to a higher chance of getting more items, each time you level up. But it’s hard to actually feel the effect of these perks, and there isn’t one clear build which gives you a significantly better performance over the rest. Min-maxing attributes is rarely the point of lifestyle sims, so it makes sense that rewards seem more like a little bit of gas in the tank rather than a whole new engine. But failing to actually use your skill points on anything is unlikely to disadvantage you at all, which cheapens the purpose behind giving you a mountain of options in the first place. Being a little bit more efficient at carrying out objectives in a game that’s all about repetitive grinding isn’t a bad thing, but you find yourself wishing that the improvements afforded to you were more significant for the time invested.

Your time at Portia is likely going to be an idyllic one, interspersed with chores and chatter and putting household items together for your neighbors. You’ll spend your time idly dangling your legs off the edge of the pier, participating in fishing tourneys, ushering in holidays with your partner, and fending off local wildlife. However, the ruins of a time long forgotten will always darken the horizon, and there’ll be a part of you that wonders what more there could have been before you find yourself shunted to the next life goal in a long series of life goals. That feeling is unfortunately hard to shake, and it’s a shame that there’s not as much to the world of Portia as first appears.