With Akuma in the Tekken 7 roster, anticipation grew for additional character crossing over from other franchises. In the upcoming DLC for the recently released fighting game, developers Bandai Namco is giving us one SNK's iconic fighters in Geese Howard, who is featured in the Fatal Fury and King of Fighters series. We got hands-on time with an early version of Geese Howard to get a feel for his move set and how he matches up with other Tekken characters.
Fans of SNK fighting games will recognize Geese's stage and music, which was specifically made for this DLC. We spoke with Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada and game designer/translator Michael Murray, who said "All of it is kind of like a tribute to the Fatal Fury series, and so we really recreated the feeling of the character. But at the same time arranging him to make him have that Tekken flair to him." When asked how the team landed of Geese Howard for the game's roster, Harada-san and Murray told us the story:
"In a past interview when we were still creating Tekken 7, we were often asked characters we like from other franchises. We all often answered that we love Samurai Shodown, and also Geese [from Fatal Fury]. He's just an incredible villain that both of us really love, and the fans caught on to that interview, and they were like, 'Wow, I love Geese, too. He would be so cool in a Tekken game!' And it turns out that the SNK team actually saw that, and they approached us and said, 'Hey, you know the Geese thing? Is there anyway that we could make this happen?' So they actually approached us, which made it a lot easier, and so it was quite smooth.
Seems like Geese Howard wants to destroy us all in the upcoming Tekken 7 DLC.
Stay tuned for our full interview with Harada-san and Murray later this week where we talk Tekken World Tour, how characters are created for the series, and whether or not they've been thinking of a Nintendo Switch version. The Tekken World Finals are happening today, November 12, for the first time outside of Japan, in San Francisco, CA; the top 16 Tekken players battle for $50,000 prize and the competition is streaming on the official Tekken Twitch channel.
Tekken 7 is out now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC and the Geese Howard DLC is set to release sometime in December 2017. Be sure to read our Tekken 7 review in which GameSpot's own Peter Brown awarded it an 8/10 and stated, "While some of this depth will be lost or out of reach for newcomers, there's enough fun to be had outside of hardcore competition to keep players from all walks of gaming thoroughly entertained."
Injustice 2, NetherRealm's superhero-filled fighting game, is set to receive its most surprising DLC additions yet. A new trailer for the game's Fighter Pack 3 DLC has revealed the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will join the fray, alongside Enchantress and Atom.
While the latter two characters mentioned above are exciting new arrivals in their own right, they're somewhat overshadowed by the Ninja Turtles. Interestingly, all four of the heroes in a half shell will join the Injustice 2 roster, which will have cool gameplay implications.
In the trailer, which you can see above, the Ninja Turtles interrupt a battle between Enchantress and Atom, and when Michelangelo calls dibs on fighting the "magic lady" he's told that they "fight as a team" by Leonardo. More than just a cool cinematic moment, this could be a tease of how the squad will fight.
Although there hasn't been any gameplay of them in action yet, we're guessing that one of the Ninja Turtles will be the main on-screen character, with the others jumping in and out of battle to execute special moves or lend a hand in combos. From the way the trailer ends, it looks like Leonardo--leader of the Ninja Turtles--will be the primary character and his brothers will back him up. Of course, this is all speculation on our part, and NetherRealm could surprise us by introducing a unique tag-mechanic for them.
These DLC characters, and the ones that came before them, are included as part of the Ultimate Edition of Injustice 2 or can be purchased in the upcoming Fighter Pack 3 DLC. Atom will be available for early access on December 12, but specific release dates for the other characters haven't been confirmed yet.
When a game series runs as long as Etrian Odyssey has, you usually start to see some sweeping changes and reinventions to its formula. But Etrian Odyssey has never really been about keeping with the latest gaming trends--after all, its core conceit of exploring a 3D labyrinth that you must carefully map out harkens back to the very earliest days of PC role-playing games. Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth continues in that tradition: It offers a big, challenging old-school-style adventure that has been carefully iterated on and improved over the past decade, with various enhancements and refinements bolstering a formula that doesn't need any dramatic changes to stay relevant.
Beyond the Myth plops you down in the continent of Arcania, which is home to a Yggdrasil tree whose mighty branches grow all the way up into the heavens. Surrounding (and within) this great tree is a sprawling labyrinth, with many a myth spun about what lies at the top. Adventurers from across the land come to the kingdom of Iorys, which has just recently permitted exploration of the great tree for the first time. You construct and take control of a guild of adventurers. But many hazards await you on your climb--twisting mazes, unexpected surprises, and myriad monsters, including especially bloodthirsty beasts known as FOEs.
Like previous Etrian Odyssey games, Beyond the Myth focuses on exploration and atmosphere over storytelling. It lets you create a team of adventurers to your liking before setting you free to explore the gigantic labyrinth, with little in the way of extraneous banter (beyond some expository text and events every so often). Your characters don't have much in the way of personality besides what you imagine, and the handful of non-player characters that you encounter outside of town aren't terribly chatty.
In a lot of ways, it feels like a tabletop RPG campaign, with a game master chiming in every so often to describe a character or elaborate on lore, while leaving much to your own interpretation. But Beyond the Myth has a fair bit of voice acting for NPCs and the narrator, as well as battle cries for your created characters. While this sounds like a potentially good thing, the voice acting at large ranges from forgettable to aggravating, ultimately doing more harm than good. Sometimes things are better left to the imagination.
Before you begin your long, treacherous climb, you must assemble a guild from several different classes of characters, ranging from variations on standard RPG classes like Fencer, Pugilist, and Warlock to more esoteric classes like the Necromancer (who can conjure up wraiths as additional party members on a whim) and the Shaman (who wields dual buffing/healing abilities). As you level up, you can put points into character skills as you see fit, to create a truly customized party. Once you get some ways into the game, you'll be able to hyper-specialize characters using Legendary Titles--a new system that effectively replaces the dual-classing system of previous games by allowing you to hyper-focus characters into a particular role (for example, your Dragoons can be unmovable, party-protecting tanks or hard-to-kill damage dealers). The option to hyper-specialize and micromanage your party to your heart's content has always been a strong point of the series, and Beyond the Myth continues that tradition.
A brand-new element added to the character management mix is the choice of races. There are four races of characters, each with distinct stat growth patterns and unique skills: the humanoid Earthlians, rabbit-eared Therians, elf-like Celestrians, and cute-and-tiny Brouni. Each race has unique skills (also powered with skill points), such as elemental resistance debuffs, and passive restoration skills. While this opens up some neat possibilities for additional min-maxing of stats to create superpowered adventurers, it's also kind of a pain to manage at times; not only do you want a nice, balanced mix of party members that work well together, you also want to make sure you have the correct race skills to make your crew run like a well-oiled machine in combat. Sometimes remembering who has which race skills available can get messy.
Once you've made a party, it's time to start the long, arduous hike up that big tree. A common element across Etrian Odyssey games are the grid-based, first-person 3D dungeons that you need to thoroughly explore and manually map out using the 3DS's bottom screen. This isn't an optional thing; you will need to make maps, or else find yourself terribly lost in a sprawling labyrinth of flora and fauna. Fortunately, you have a lot of mapping tools and markers available to you and a new automap feature that will save you from having to manually draw walls (a tremendous time-saver that I recommend turning on immediately). Don't expect automap to do everything for you, though; you'll still want to mark points of interest, hidden passages, and other potential hazards.
Speaking of hazards, the labyrinth houses plenty of them, mostly in the form of monsters that inhabit each successively more demanding floor. From the moment a member of your fledgling party gets one-shotted by a rabid flying squirrel on the first floor in your starting expedition, you know you're in for some grueling fights.
The combination of careful, quiet exploration punctuated by fierce combat is what makes Beyond the Myth so much fun.
Fortunately, a variety of improvements makes combat a lot more enjoyable. For starters, the "enemy radar" in the dungeons is more accurate, allowing you to know almost exactly when you can expect an encounter to pop up (and prepare if you need to). It's also possible to check enemy data mid-fight, meaning that you don't have to memorize a bunch of weaknesses and details over the course of the game. Finally, a "Basic" difficulty setting makes the game slightly more merciful, altering stats and damage by a small amount in your favor and increasing experience gains. Thankfully, you can turn it on and off at a whim.
The combination of careful, quiet exploration punctuated by fierce combat is what makes Beyond the Myth so much fun. Seeing your meticulously planned party finally take down a fearsome FOE that's been giving you trouble for hours is immensely satisfying, while little text-based side events that litter the dungeons as you explore are enjoyable in a different but no-less-engaging way. By focusing instead on small improvements to systems and ideas that already worked well, Etrian Odyssey 5 is a long and challenging RPG that sucks you in and leaves you determined to see what lies above.
Two (2) winners will be chosen after the competition ends Sunday, November 12th, 2017 at 5:00PM PT. Entry is open to US residents only, void where prohibited.
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In their continuing quest to play every numbered Resident Evil game, Mike and former GameSpot producer Mary Kish have finally stumbled upon Resident Evil 7: biohazard.
In the video above, you can watch the duo's first few steps into the Baker household from Capcom's 2017 comeback hit. In it, Mary sits down to dinner with her gracious hosts, helps Jack clean up the garage, and definitely doesn't scream way too much. Definitely.
For previous episodes of Resident Kinevil, you can visit the show's YouTube page, where Mike and Mary have valiantly waded through Resident Evil ReMake through Resident Evil 6. Now, you can catch up and join in the journey with them, and watch the duo's friendship disappear.
Well, we've had a good time with you this week at GameSpot News (with Jess McDonell and Dan Crowd) and we'd like to wrap it up by discussing some of this week's big-impact topics. JOIN US.
Red Dead Redemption 2 Will Have Microtransactions
By now I think we all know that microtransactions are very much making companies like Rockstar Games and parent company Take Two a crapload of money. Now, Strauss Zelnick has made another comment that very strongly suggests that we'll see them in some form in Red Dead Redemption 2. We chat about all the controversial details in today's episode.
Destiny 2 Faction Rally Has Effective Exploit
The newest Faction Rally event is live in Destiny 2, which makes player pick one of three different organisations to pledge loyalty to, and work to earn the most tokens for that organisation within a week in order to get a sweet new weapon at the end of it. But this second round of the event had some changes, and unfortunately, these changes created a new exploit that many are taking advantage of. Find out what it is!
PlayStation 5 And The Next Xbox Are At Least Two Years Away
We talked about Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot's comments about this earlier in the week, but we dive a little deeper into what his comments might feasibly mean for the upcoming console landscape. When are we going to see the next big hardware release?
That's all for GameSpot News today, what got you most excited? Let us know in the comments below!
North America's next Splatfest in Splatoon 2 is quickly approaching. This Friday, November 17 at 9 pm PST, get ready to spar for your favorite genre in Turf Wars.
This Splatfest's theme aims to settle the rift between the futuristic possibilities of science fiction and whimsical charms of fantasy. To pick your coat of arms (we mean side), head on over to the poll in Inkopolis Square when it appears this week, and cast your vote.
As with other Splatfests, this one will work the same. The side that has the most votes and higher percentage of solo turf war victories or team turf war victories will be named the victor. Nintendo hasn't named the next Splatfest themes for Japan or Europe, but they should be coming soon.
Doom was one of 2016's surprise gaming hits and the thought of being able to take the fast-paced, demon-demolishing title on the go was unheard of. But it's 2017, and Doom on Nintendo's hybrid console, the Switch, is finally here.
You can read our verdict on the game in our full Doom review, but for a wider look at its reception we've taken the time to collect some other reviews from around the web. If you'd like to read some more critic or community reviews, head on over to Metacritic.
Game: Doom
Developer / Publisher: iD Software / Bethesda Softworks
"If you can stand to look at a lesser version of Doom's once captivating world, you'll find that the game plays well enough on Switch so long as you've got a TV in front of you and a Pro Controller in hand. There's nothing else like it on a portable system, but be prepared to face a handful of compromises, especially if you're used to playing on other platforms. It's an impressive port that begs you to consider gameplay over graphics, and it succeeds more often than not." - Peter Brown [Full Review]
The Verge -- No Score
"Doom is an important release for the Switch. On a technical level, it should expand the general perception of what's possible to produce on the system. The original version's 60 fps first design no doubt made it easier to create the Switch port, since halving the frame rate to free up system resources could still produce acceptable results, but it still serves as a useful example of how high-end AAA games could work on Nintendo's low-power console." - Sam Byford [Full Review]
IGN -- 8.5/10
"Doom for Nintendo Switch is a straightforward port that runs well and looks pretty good. Which ultimately, is everything it needed to be. Even though it's a little fuzzy, smashing through a legion of demons with a fun set of weapons and upgrades feels great, and especially when you throw in arcade mode and the much-improved multiplayer arena battles, this is the best mature-themed shooter you can currently get on the Switch." - Filip Muigin [Full Review]
Destructoid -- 8/10
"Bethesda did it -- they ported Doomto a Nintendo console. It might not be the prettiest version, but it works, and it was enough to get me to play it all over again. Nintendo learned a lot from its failure on the Wii U, and its ability to welcome in more mature games on the system is something it hasn't done in quite a while. It's a message for all the prospective first and third parties alike -- keep doing it." - Chris Carter [Full Review]
Hardcore Gamer -- 4/5
"It's clear, beyond the obvious limitation with resolution and frame-rate, that Doom for Switch has had to make some restrictions. Even so, for those who haven't yet experienced one of last year's finest, most surprising releases, Doom even now represents one of the genre's finest moments for some time. Clearly those who already own the game on another platform will have to think long and hard over the novel value of having a game of this caliber on the go. And while the visual blemishes and rough edges do detract on occasion and are clear to spot, playing Doom on the Nintendo Switch still conjures that same jubilant energy that id Software's behemoth has long been praised for. Tainted in its visuals it might be, the heart, soul and demon-crushing ferocity of its gameplay, in the end, shines through regardless." - Jordan Helm [Full Review]
NintendoLife -- 8.8/10
"Doom is an incredible game, flaws and all. Audio issues and frame rate drops were annoying at times, but weren't dramatic enough to deter us from a beautiful, pulse-raising good time - and we imagine that future updates will at least partly solve these problems. Doom is one of the best first-person shooters we've ever played, and is certainly the best in its class on Switch. There's a certain magical quality about having a game this good on the go. Its brilliant campaign is reason enough to pick it up, but Doom's multiplayer will keep you coming back for more for months to come. While it's perhaps not as polished as it is on other formats, having Doom in portable form is a revelation, and developer Panic Button deserves high praise for porting over id Software's classic title so brilliantly." - Steve Bowling [Full Review]
While Kalypso is best known for publishing the Tropico series, the company works with a wide-array of strategy and adventure-focused games. And one of its upcoming titles has an interesting distinction. It's the first train simulation on current-gen consoles.
Railway Empire, a "tycoon simulation game" according to the game's press release, covers the Westward expansion period from 1830-1930 in the North America Frontier era. While the game will not have multiplayer support, mods will be available through Steam Workshop that, according to a press release, "change existing scenarios and stats from trains, techs and economy system." It wasn't stated whether these mods will also be available on console.
Railway Empire
Railway Empire is set to launch on January 26 next year for Xbox One, PC, and PS4, and access to the game's closed beta will come with pre-purchase.
You can also check out some gameplay for a few other Kalypso games below that GameSpot demoed recently.
The real-time tactical RPG Shadows: Awakening, which is set to release in 2018:
And the humorous strategy game Dungeons 3, which released this October:
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