Shin Megami Tensei – Its end as a Nintendo exclusive and the implications for the future (opinion)

Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance was officially announced during the Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase, February 2024. The game features a number of quality of life improvements but more importantly: a brand new route that takes place in the same world. It’s an alternative story called «The Canon of Vengeance» which includes brand new characters and drastic changes to game scenario during the middle and late parts of the journey.

But the surprise didn’t end there…. this is the first non remaster mainline game releasing on all systems: Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Windows/Steam. This is true after they released the base (or vanilla) version only on Switch.
I’ll first explain how and why this may become a trend in the future for SMT, and then I’ll point out why this is a benefit for the franchise, the business, and, of course, the players.

Today, there is a clear, global trend where most studios release their games on multiple systems for the purpose of making their works playable and reachable for most people. Atlus already jumped into this bandwagon since they first decided to end the era of Persona as a Sony exclusive; and instead, they released P3P, P4G and P5R remasters on every platform. The market’s response was quick and straightforward: players from different systems wanted to play Persona games. A follow up to these events was the release of the remake called Persona 3 Reload on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Steam. The outcome was even better: the game sold 1 million of copies in its first week and it made it into the top 5 Steam games during February.
Nowadays, Microsoft owns the advertising copyrights for all new Persona games. There is no way to walk backwards: Persona is a franchise that will remain available on multiple systems. Soon we’ll see this is not only the case for Persona.

Back to SMT, let’s compare some facts: SMT V sold 1 million of copies after 6 months passed, the same milestone P3R reached in just a week. Popularity of SMT has never been nowhere near as Persona’s but it doesn’t help to keep the games in just a system. They are missing profit.
Having SMT as a Nintendo exclusive benefits no one except Nintendo themselves. Atlus and Sega are the legal owners of their products and they already know there is a potential market waiting for SMT on systems like PS5, Series X/S and PC. Of course they know what they are doing and the only thing they need is confirmation: to see responsive feedback from Vengeance’s sales on different platforms. If this happens (and I know it will), then it’s easy and straightforward to see SMT is not walking backwards either and the next games will be widely available for most people, on every system.

But.. why is this desired in the first place? Because:

It is very likely the game is going to easily outsell SMT V (vanilla) which means big profit for Sega and Atlus ($$$$).
I already said the franchise will reach thousands of more players, not contrained to switch owners only like in the past.
More importantly: because SMT deserves to run and to look great, just like Persona. It is a fact that SMT V has a lot of issues related to FPS drops, slow rendering, lack of detail and the list goes on. Not to mention the previous SMT IV and SMT IV Apocalypse were both harmed by a poor production, which held back all those amazing games potential. This could have been very different if they were all released on multi systems, but they were all contrained to Nintendo and its hardware limitations.
Solving V’s technical problems on Vengeance possibly means better media reception which in turn boosts the franchise’s reputation and popularity.

Conclusions

Releasing games on most systems is a global industry trend and Atlus already joined it recently.
There are high chances SMT V Vengeance is going to be a rule instead of an exception: the next SMT games may be released on every system and not just Nintendo. And this is a massive advantage to the business, the franchise and the players.

Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes – Reasons why I’m not buying it

It’s not a secret that I’m a huge Fire Emblem fan, it’s my favorite franchise of all time. I’ve beaten each and every game from the 16 main entries, and I did beat all 3 existing spin-offs too.
So, It’s been a great ride to enjoy all of this for years; I’ve become a witness of how Awakening and Fates rescued the franchise, or how SoV gave stuff for the all the veteran players.

And then there was Three Houses, the 16th entry, released on switch on 2019. Back then everyone had high expectations, and when the game came out, it instantly became a favorite of many seasoned players. And yet, it also caught the attention of a huge new wave of tacticians, rookies who never experienced the franchise before but enjoyed the game as well.

Gameplay-wise, it approached with sets of cool ideas from the past (equiping items like shields/rings, skills, combat arts, weapon refines, paralogues) and it provided new means for strategy as well (gambits, combat VS giant monsters, new combat classes, teaching system, monastery exploration). It went further with the dating sim aspect too, so it pleased a lot of new players who wanted some peace after clearing some hard maps/challenges.
But the key and core for the game’s success was not the gameplay by itself, it was actually the story, deep character writing who got everyone’s praise. Like never before, units became more alive than ever, characters had a full background, personalities and growth.

And all of the previous formula became the asset for the game’s huge success, it sold 3.40 millions of copies (at the time of this writing), easily beating what Awaking or Fates did before. Then, it was just natural that the game deserved some representation with Byleth on Super Smash Bros Ultimate (released as DLC fighter on early 2020). And no surprises when the main cast showed up on Fire Emblem Heroes either, it was just predictable as it was obvious.

At that point, Three Houses became more than just a game: it became a brand, just like Awakening/Fates did before. And, as any brand, it’s just logical that the company behind it will leverage it, milk it to the fullest.

This, inevitably, led us to the development of FEW: Three Hopes, a spin-off, a mousou, hack and slash fast paced game, including, of course, most of the Three Houses cast and the Three Houses setting.

And this is where the problem began. I wrote 3 Houses was released on July 2019, so it was almost 3 years with no news for the next main entry. So, when FEW 3 Hopes was announced on Nintendo’s Direct 2022 (1st), it was just a big letdown, but not a surprise by any means.

But why is it a letdown? Because:

-The first Fire Emblem Warriors was fully dissapointing, a product of a succesuful brand called Fateswakening. And it was a forgetable game because it almost left out the emblem of Fire Emblem: the strategy. Weapon triangle exist, but the focus is just about executing some combos to endlessly fight groups of enemies. And while some little unit customization exists, the battle system gets old quite quickly, it gets repetitive everytime, it becomes a generic hack and slash product instead of an actual Fire Emblem.

-Fire Emblem Warriors not only failed at the gameplay, it was a huge mess when it came to plot/new written characters. So, unlike main entries, Warriors provided zero motivation to continue progressing with a messed plot.

-I’m not a Three Houses fan and will never be. The game actually has huge flaws and the fans just ignore it because the plot/cast are very good, carefully executed. But doing great at this aspect doesn’t mean we can accept failures on the gameplay. I’m talking about the most obvious weaknesses: repeating time and again White Clouds, each time we want to play a different route. And yet, we are going to repeat a lot of maps, most of them actually, while playing completely different paths.

-I’ll always believe Three Houses is overrated, it is not the best game the franchise has provided by any means, and not just because of the reasons given here. It’s because it doesn’t represent real challenge and many players have already discovered how to quickly beat even the toughest maps. And it’s because IS has proved they can’t handle route splitting correctly when it comes to gameplay.

-After almost 3 years, we deserve a main entry already: FE17, not a spin-off to make easy bucks through the brand called FE3H.

-Even if I loved Thee Houses, there is no guarantee that the gameplay will be fully improved on FEW3H, compared to the previous iteration.

Xenoblade Chronicles – My expectations about Xenoblade 3 [POST CONTAINS SPOILERS ABOUT THE FIRST GAMES]

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a game I’ve been waiting for even before it was officially announced on the last Nintendo Direct. And after the first trailer was revealed and we got more info about the characters and gameplay, my expectations went really high.

So, I just thought it might be interesting to analyze and imagine how good this game can be, because, I’ll return here to post a mandatory review after I beat it. When that time comes, we’ll see if it surpassed, matched my expectations, or just couldn’t live up to them.

As a huge Xenoblade fan, I have to admit there are big flaws on both Xeno DE and Xeno 2. So, the least they can do is learn from that flaws, enhance the gameplay, develop more serious and convincing plots. I’ll go into details here.

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Xenoblade Chronicles 1

While this game was a huge success when it comes to storytelling, world building and character writing, some big issues still harm the overall outcome.
I mean, I believe Shulk should have killed both Mumkar and Egil without hesitation, because people like that doesn’t deserve second chances at all. But he didn’t, in the end he lacked the determination and I’ll always think they just ruined this part of the story.

And when it comes to gameplay, most of us players think it’s quite the challenge to understand and master even the very basic mechanics at first. This process has some learning curve and it goes complex after progressing. Besides, all the game is always about doing some huge grinding in order to defeat the next tough bosses.

The good news is that Xenoblade 2 learned from this last issue, and the game kept grinding to a minimum, which translates to more hours of fun and story progressing, and less time beating the same enemies time and again.
The bad news is that Xenoblade 2 has so much more plot problems….

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Xenoblade Chronicles 2

I already said this game improved the gameplay, but not just because it critically reduced grinding, but it also improved all the UI, controls, combat system. However, even If we had some experience with the first game, this one is still difficult to learn and master, and the blade system is not intuitive at a first glance.
More gameplay issues include mechanics to unlock areas, because the blades need to develop some skills before they can open up a new terrain to explore. And this can be really time consuming.

And now let’s talk about the story. I’ll be fully honest: I wouldn’t dare to write about these games If I didn’t love them in the first place. So, in the next paragraphs I’m not actually attacking a game I love, I’m trying to analyze and be objective, because some specific instances are not fully convincing, and they do harm the plot quality.
And there are many cases, but I’ll point out these ones:

– The party succesfully beat a boss, but in the next cutscenes it’s actually just the other way around. And while this does happens on Xeno 1 too, it is more over used on this game. Examples include the last battle in Uraya and Tantal too.

-The game just loves the open interpretation style, to the point nothing makes sense, we have to guess everything or imagine everything. And this is repeated time and again and gets old quickly. From the very first moment Azurda dies and then he is just magically brought back to life as a little different being, this is not explained at all. We have to guess or imagine the how and why. Nonsense. But the game continues with this style: I truly hated all the Spirit Crucile Elpis quest, because it was all for nothing, the sword just gets destroyed. In the same place, Nia reveals she is actually a blade, but surprisingly, she is also the only Flesh Eater who freely transforms from driver-to-blade form and vicevesa, the game never explains how and why, and it’s just a contradiction. But the very fact she is a Flesh Eater breaks the game’s rules too: that technology was only known in Judicium, and she always lived in Gormot. Nonsense and open interpretation again.

-Plot devices, here, there and everywhere. From the very moment in Gormoth where Tora decides to help a completely unknown people, this is already a plot device.
More examples?
The last battle at Tantal, Malos and Jin had no real reason to let everyone alive, the just could have killed all of them and become unstopabble with their plans, which would undoudebtly guide us towards a game over for the heroes. But the plot device says they just couldn’t, nonsense.
Another quite good example: Rex and his team shouldn’t have saved Jin nor work with him on the Land Of Morytha. I mean, after all that had happend up until that point, it’s full nonsense to trust him, he is a real and dangerous enemy, and can’t be trusted at all. Enemies like him don’t care about honor or things like that, and he just could have backstabbed everyone.
But the worst plot device is actually the endgame itself: Pneuma dies because of the heavy explosion, but then she is just brought back to life for no reason at all. Open interpretation/rule breaking all over again.

–Plot armors: Pyra was effectively defeated and died after the Tantal encounter, but when Rex fights Jin and Malos and wins the battle on Cliffs of Morytha, she gets revived and at full power, she moves at light speed and counters Jin, just because Yes.
Another plot armor: Nia apparently defeats Malos on her blade form, using a power she never revealed before.

–Anime tropes/cliche: Mythra and Nia are actually tsunderes and the game shows some cutscenes influenced by the anime cliche. The most obvious example is at the Argentum Trade Guild, when Rex surprisingly sleeps with Mythra.

And I can go on and on, all day If I wanted to. But I won’t. I do said I love Xenoblade 2, its cast, story, world, gameplay, but I do admit it has a lot of big flaws that inflict serious damage on the final script.

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All the previous analysis was necessary to explain which features I wouldn’t like to be included on Xenoblade 3. I expect they learned from all the flaws I mentioned on the previous paragraphs. I, concretely, have this expectations:

– The plot is actually better than both previous games. All the story makes sense, and there are no more plot armors/devices/cliches. I want that all the characters act reasonably, according to their backgrounds but also according to the situations, following logical flow of actions.

– The gameplay continues to keep grinding to a minimum.

– Improved mechanics to discover new areas.

-Better controls / UI / tutorials / than DE and 2, easy to learn, straightforward and yet with deep combat system.

-Amazing world design, like they did on the previous games.

-Excellent music like the previous games.

-Better VA than 2.

-Improvements and significative innovations to the gameplay, specially battle system, no one wants a rehash.

-Cool and nice looking cutscenes like before.

-Connections to the previous games is given near the endgame.

E3 2021 – Which games would we like to be announced?

E3 2021 is aproaching fast and it will take place from June 12 – June 15. So far they announced the event will be completely digital, and featuring some important developers like Nintendo, Microsoft, Konami and Capcom. Nintendo declared they will give a showcase with a full heavy Direct, so we can expect a lot from that.
It’s likely they’ll give further details about Pokémon Shining Pearl and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond, including the release date. But there are more highlights as well, considering the 25th TLOZ anniversay, there’s a chance we’ll finally get some progress about the long-awaited BOTW2.
And it’s been a while since they last spoke about Metroid Prime 4, so maybe it’s already time for a new announcement with a trailer.
And for me, what I really hope to see in this E3, is a Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War remake. The fourth entry is a masterpiece and so far it’s still Japan-only, so it’s really worth the effort of reviving this awesome classic. I would like if they call it Fire Emblem Echoes: Inheritors Of Light, keeping the good plot, OST and characters, but bringing some recent game mechanics as well. More importantly, I’d love if they keep the «seize all castles» map objective.

Finally, it may be obvious they’ll display one or even both of the remaining 2 DLC characters for Super Smash Bros Ultimate, completing the roster.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate – Quedan dos slots ¿quienés llegarán o quiénes lo merecen?

Quedan dos slots

Está llegando a su fin la segunda ola de DLC para Super Smash Bros Ultimate, y con ello se cerraría el roster final del juego. Hasta ahora se ha visto de todo, una mezcla de personajes propios de Nintendo y otros de terceros. Quizás la única tendencia real sea a la inclusión de personajes de juegos recientes (1) o con cierta vigencia, tomando en cuenta las posibilidades y las preferencias del fanbase y de la misma empresa. No han sido predecibles pero sí diversos, al menos dentro de sus limitaciones.

Quedan dos slots y lo lógico es que hayan dejado lo mejor o más sorprendente para el final. Puede asumirse que la mayoría de las franquicias más importantes de la empresa nipona ya tienen representación suficiente conforme a su popularidad y ventas (2). Esto me lleva a especular que es altamente probable que esos dos slots pertenezcan a personajes prestados, y de ser posible, famosos entre el fanbase.

Por último y preferiblemente, los dos personajes remanentes deben facilitar un moveset original para que la gente les ponga atención y el DLC se venda, lo mismo que para asegurar aún más ventas del mismo juego (3).

Luego de enumerar los puntos número 1, 2 y 3, los cuales considero que son lógicos, mi predicción y preferencia se decanta por dos personajes de terceros vigentes, que cumplen con las citadas características.

Leon S Kennedy

RE4 es un best seller que hoy en día se sigue vendiendo en las consolas recientes, gracias a los ports que sacaron del mismo. El juego ha estado en infinidad de plataformas y siempre se vendió bien. La fama de Leon y su reputación no han hecho más que crecer en todos estos años, y todavía subió más con el buen remake de RE2. No creo ser el único que ha estado esperando a este agente desde la época de Brawl. Motivos sobran: el moveset podría ser tan diverso y original como su arsenal de armas y combos de combate directo, el personaje es tan vigente como siempre y recordemos que RE4 se estrenó por primera vez en GC. Además ya existe el lazo sólido Nintendo-Capcom que permitió tener a 3 personajes de dicho third party, por lo que incluir a Leon podría ser altamente probable.

Travis Touchdown

Los juegos de No More Heroes comenzaron por primera vez en Nintendo Wii hace muchos años, y en aquella época contar con esa exclusividad representaba para la entonces consola de sobre-mesa, tener un título tan adulto como violento, contrastando con un catálogo que se decantaba por juegos casuales. El título se vendió decentemente y le alcanzó para tener dos secuelas y ser porteado a otras consolas, continuando con las aventuras del protagonista Travis Touchdown. Travis es ante todo, un personaje de combate, y sus juegos se enfocan por completo en la acción. Este asesino badass utiliza como arma favorita, una katana, de la cual libera buena cantidad de combos. Como se ha visto, el uso de espadas es justamente un tipo de combatiente en smash, y con algo de creatividad Travis podría ser incluido teniendo un moveset original. El personaje es tan vigente como conocido y podría valerle la carta de Samurai para llegar al roster.