Grave Gamer News & Views — rpg

Final Fantasy XV - TGS Trailer

Does returning Final Fantasy to its former throne mean ditching its turn-based legacy? The few glimpses we’ve gotten into the reformulated Versus XIII – now promoted to a main series title – has been stupidly impressive.

Final Fantasyalways had a breathtaking scope about it, but the view just went panoramic. It’s like Square Enix finally decided to let the player...

Capcom Goes Deep Down on TGS

It’s doubtful I could be more proud of a headline. Thank you, Capcom, for enriching my day.

The questionably named role-playing action game, Deep Down, first unveiled all the way back in February has resurfaced at Sony’s pre-Tokyo Game Show presentation (doing pre-shows is the new black in industry eyes, dontchaknow?).

We were served new gameplay footage, hosted by the one and only Ono – I hope you understand Japanese because the translation overlayed in the video is the kind of gibberish you’d expect from smashing keyboards together, except spoken aloud – along with our first concrete details on the game.

Deep Down, developed on Capcom’s new Panta Rhei engine, is first and foremost a PS4 exclusive. Unlike Dragon’s Dogma – which is unrelated despite also being a Capcom developed role-playing game with the initials D.D. (thems the makings for a conspiracy) – Deep Down is an online RPG. A brief segment at the end of the stage demo shows two knights on separate screens duking it out with a dragon.

The most curious fact about the game comes in its setting which depicts New York circa 2094. Before you Reign of Fire fans both combust with excitement and start existing (not in that order), the game’s trailer alludes to a character being able to relive others’ memories, meaning the medieval action could be period-specific instead of evidence of a post-apocalyptic drag-geddon.

With generation-hopping storytelling, online multiplayer, particle effects beautiful enough to warrant a next-gen, and screen-filling, fire-belching dragons, Deep Down, only two public showings in, is already making a name for itself. Even if that name is depraved.

Bethesda Gearing Up for Next Game; Skyrim DLC Comes to an End

The saga of Skyrim – the fifth and most successful entry into The Elder Scrolls series – is at its end.  After more than a year of supporting their fantasy RPG with updates and content (including a healthy dosage of story DLC), Bethesda is moving away from their “labor of love” and is ratcheting up production on a new, unannounced title.

In an open letter to fans on the Bethesda Blog, the studio revealed segments of their development team have been in pre-production on this project but now “that game is at the point where it requires the studio’s full attention to make it our biggest and best work yet.”

Despite its resounding financial and critical success, this next project is unlikely to be Skyrim’s follow up, given the team’s track record.  Instead, RPG fans may be plunged back into the Wasteland, if these rumors are to be taken at face value.  Be it Fallout 4 or, maybe just possibly, a brand new IP, the only sure bet is that we’ll be well into the next-generation of gaming before we once again get to feverishly dedicate a hundred-plus hours into Bethesda’s next immersive world.

Cyberpunk 2077 Features Multiplayer; The Witcher 3…Might

Polish studio CD Projekt Red is working on an element as of now unknown to The Witcher – the fantasy RPG saga that pinned them on the map.  Cyberpunk 2077, their love letter to the genre written in the form of an open-world RPG, will include some degree of multiplayer.

I’d describe more, but a lot of Cyberpunk 2077 remains confined to a drawing board overseen by a small group of busy bodies still pooling and distilling ideas for the next-gen title.  In fact, the majority of Projekt Red is committed to banging out The Witcher 3 for a 2014 release, while Cyberpunk is being aimed at 2015.

That tantalizing CG trailer posted a little while back wasn’t just to give cyberpunk fans a collective stiffy – it was poised to attract prospective talent keen on realizing CDPR’s oppressed future metropolis of Night City.  Once The Witcher 3 has gold status in reach and the tiny, separate brainstorming team has congealed its best ideas, production on 2077 will ramp up.

Unlike The Witcher’s focus on a preset hero, Cyberpunk 2077 allows freedom of choice in your character and their class (as well as the havoc you can wreak on Night City – adhering to the hero persona is not a must this time out).  “It will be a story-based RPG experience with amazing single-player playthroughs, but we’re going to add multiplayer features,” said CDPR’s manager director, Adam Badowski, to Eurogamer.

That, in particular, strikes my ears as “Multiplayer comes second."  But, with any open-world game teasing the addition of multiple players, I can only dream of teaming with comrades, going anywhere, doing anything, and freely plundering the environment – for good or ill (probably ill; shit tons of ill).  Grant me this, CD Projekt Red, and I swear I’ll adopt ”Deus What?“ as my new catchphrase…right next to "Shit tons of ill.”

As for The Witcher 3 entering the multiplayer domain?  “We’re thinking about something,” is all Badowski would say, which is just damned assuring, but do your lungs a favor and don’t hold your breath.

Lightning Returns “Unique Enough” to Drop the XIII-3 Name

A branching of stories within the Final Fantasy games – referred to as the ‘Lightning Saga’ – comes to a close next year, forming the franchise’s first full-fledged trilogy.  Despite beginning with Final Fantasy XIII and carrying on to, naturally, Final Fantasy XIII-2, the final chapter shutting the curtains on this saga forgoes the logical, if unimaginative, next step numbering of XIII-3.

Given that Final Fantasy: Lightning Returns is projected for the tail end of 2013, I’d expect even the shittiest basement dwelling ad agency to go nuts with the coincidence and drill XIII-3 in '13 squarely into gamer’s heads.  But in explaining why Lightning Returns shirks the numbering scheme in an interview with 4gamer, the game’s creators have shared insights on just how different of a beast this finale is from previous entries.

Yoshinori Kitase, the game’s producer, says the game is, put simply, a “new experience."  Calling it XIII-3 would already put the incorrect suggestion into fans’ minds that this sequel’s gameplay launches off of XIII-2’s conceits.  Motomu Toriyama, tasked with directorial duties, breaks down each installment as such: the original XIII, at its foundation, was story driven, while XIII-2 opted for a more player driven approach.  Lightning Returns revolves around the notion that the game is "world driven,” where the world environment runs in real-time, “24 hours a day” and is dramatically “changing and shifting” whether the player is there to experience it or not.

This design element both instills a sense of urgency in players to seek out events and happenings before they play out without them while also promoting serious amounts of replay value, where going about subsequent playthroughs differently rewards you with new content each time.  Slaying monsters or performing miracles (whatever the hell that means; slaying monsters sounds tiring as it is) impacts the flow of time – which is constantly ticking down till doomsday – by either speeding it up or slowing it down.  This mechanic plays into the “risk versus reward” nature of the game.

Every little shred of information I hear about this game – and we’re talking very little shreds considering the game’s August announcement – absolutely fascinates me.  There was a time in my gaming life when a Final Fantasy release meant that nothing besides a Squaresoft emblazoned disc would be spinning in my drive for weeks straight.  XIII brought with it a decidedly mixed era for the franchise, but from what I’m hearing, Lightning’s Saga is attempting to end on a high note.