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Two Metroid Games Announced at E3 2017
June 13, 2017 Zyloc	1 Comment
Since the begging of the Nintendo Spotlight at E3 2017, Nintendo has blown the doors off the whole event. From the relatively short, but dense with announcements conference spotlight to their post conference Treehouse event, Nintendo has proven that they have a lot of games in the pipeline for fans to look forward to. While I'm always hopeful that a new Metroid game will be announced, the series has been basically dormant for the last 7-10 years depending upon your outlook on the series as a whole.
Well no more! During the conference a short teaser trailer for Metroid Prime 4 was on display that showed off a logo and a message stating it is currently in development for the Nintendo Switch. Seems a fitting time as any to announce a new game in the wildly popular series no less then 10 years after the release of Metroid Prime Corruption. No release date was mentioned, but its just good to know that Nintendo is finally giving this wonderful IP some attention that it sorely deserves.
An announcement for a new installment of the Prime series was enough to get people talking, but Nintendo doesn't seem to be resting on their laurels this year and also announced Metroid: Samus Returns, a remake of the GameBoy game of the same moniker, for the 3DS during their post-conference Treehouse event. Samus Returns looks to be a 2.5D take on classic Metroid gameplay and will find Samus hunting down Metroids with familiar and new moves alike. The best part is that this game is going to be playable on September 15th of this year. Thats only 3 months away and it's clear that Nintendo has put a lot of love into the project as the combat, enemies, and environments look amazing on the 3DS.
Nintendo really stepped up at this year's E3 and honestly blew everyone else out of the water. The conference was all about games and Nintendo had some seriously great ones to announce. I'll continue to keep you informed of future updates from Nintendo on these titles and check back for my analysis of the Metroid: Samus Returns trailer at some point this week.
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Bloodstained E3 2017 Demo Gameplay Analysis
June 12, 2017 Zyloc	Leave a comment
Thanks to Gematsu's Youtube channel the community has access to 12 minutes of gameplay from this year's playable demo at E3. There's a lot to take in, but it looks like the development team has brought back many more staple weapons and abilities that should make fans feel right at home.
As mentioned in my previous post on the E3 Trailer, the level on showcase for the demo is a combination of a church and clock tower. Much of the platforming is far more vertically focused than last year's demo and is the perfect environment to empower players with a double jump.
A handful of new skills were seen in action, including a familiar and some old favorites. Miriam can be seen leveraging returning staples such as bones and spears from range, as well as summoning speedy canine and hopping ape companions. These abilities are by no means game-changers, but they certainly provide interesting additions to a player's toolkit.
The most interesting was the unveiling of the first summon-able familiar, the Dullahammer Head. A common enemy found throughout the church, the Dullahammer Head doesn't operate too differently then your average Medusa Head, but if the player is lucky they can bring one along on their journey. Familiars have existed in the Castlevania series since Symphony of the Night, but haven't seen much use since as they are rarely powerful enough to consider. From the gameplay we can see that this might still be the case, as Miriam's new friend rarely attacks and dishes out fairly poor numbers.
This bothered me at first, but there are a couple of things to consider. Outside of Symphony of the Night, familiars always took up the slot of a potentially more useful skill, but in Bloodstained they have their own dedicated slot. One could simply just consider them a bit of free extra damage and cosmetic flair. The developers also haven't stated whether skills will be able to be powered up via farming or experience gain. If so, familiars may have the opportunity to evolve and become more aggressive and provide unique boons to the player. Time will tell, but they are certainly one of the features of Bloodstained that has me most curious.
All of the new weapons showcased in the E3 trailer had me excited enough, but there are several others that didn't make the cut. Obviously the leather whip stole the show and appeared to have some of the best range, speed, and attack area of all the weapons. The remaining weapons seem to act much like you would expect. The claymore is slow, but powerful and can attack enemies directly above Miriam. Spears provide superior range and the rapier provides quick, close range bursts of damage. The demo does a great job at balancing the weapons so that players are encouraged to try them all out as apposed to replacing previously attained armaments quickly.
(Confirmed weapons thus far)
Leather Whip
Rapier
The final boss, Bloodless, challenges Miriam as she rudely interrupts bath time. Bloodless has a plethora of blood based magical attack at her disposal along with the telekinetic control of two umbrellas that dance around the room.The combination of the two give the player plenty to consider while trying to get in a few hits after each casting. Of most interest is her ability to evoke a blood rain that covers half the room and deals heavy damage to the player if they are unwise enough to stick around and enjoy the drizzle. Vacating the area is one option, but the more noteworthy strategy is to take cover under an umbrella and get in a few free strikes in the process. This battle is more technically challenging on the player then the sea monster from last year's demo and is a fitting testing ground for all that the player has learned.
It's safe to say that I can't wait to get my hands on this demo and more fully explore all it has to offer, assuming the studio provides this to backers of the project after E3 has finished. A release date can't come soon enough, but I'm willing to wait for a game that hopefully surpasses even the best that Castlevania had to offer in its prime. Follow me on Facebook and Twitter get to get updates on the status of development throughout E3 and up till release.
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Bloodstained E3 2017 Trailer Analysis
E3 2017 is well underway and there has been a handful of surprises already, but my most anticipated game of 2018 recently had a new trailer drop and thought I'd take some time to do a bit of analysis on some of the details. Checkout the trailer below.
The most promising aspect of the trailer has to be the preview of many new environments, hopefully meaning that Igarashi and his team are now working on vastly expanding the scope of playable game areas. Each area has a lot of depth and surprising amounts of detail considering environmental backgrounds are designed to be somewhat randomly generated. Most of the trailer shows off snippets of gameplay from the E3 demo this year that showcases what appears to be a church and clock tower of sorts. A must for a spiritual successor to Castlevania.
More interesting then even the new environments is a short showcase of a few new weapons and abilities. First and foremost, that was a whip in the trailer and it appears to work much like any other weapon at this time. There is no indication in the gameplay of being able to flail around the whip after an attack, but I can't imagine the developers not adding that feature down the line. Katana and rapier weapons were also shown off and allow for more graceful and rapid attacks.
No shortage of new abilities were shown and the most interesting was our first introduction to familiars. Familiars are their own spell slot in the players inventory and there were none available to play around with in the 2016 demo, but early on in the trailer we can see our heroine being followed by a strange looking creature that would appear to be exactly that. Not much else was seen, but we can expect that the familiar either boosts our characters stats or performs occasional attacks as seen from familiars in the Castlevania series. Other standard skills like the ever useful double-jump and several varieties of projectiles made the cut as well. The skills shown in the trailer are less interesting then what was available in last year's demo, but I'm glad to see the return of several fan favorites and some familiar faces to use them on.
Rounding out the trailer was a glimpse at a new boss and it certainly doesn't disappoint. After intruding on a relaxing blood bath, our heroine is faced with what appears to be a vampire evoking deadly blood magic. While appearing to be a fairly standard boss encounter, there does seem to be an interesting interaction between the boss's magic and floating parasols, allowing for the player to take cover during certain segments of the battle. The animation of various attacks is also quite impressive.
This year's trailer thankfully proves to me that the Bloodstained team is making great strides toward building the game we were promised and that the fans have been craving. For one I'd rather Bloodstained continue to be delayed and give Igarashi and his team the time to polish and expand upon what they've already shared with the community. Check back tomorrow for further analysis as I cover some E3 demo gameplay in more detail and continue to cover up coming news on more announced Metroidvanias and related games.
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