Gaming
Fire Emblem if: all you need to know
Fire Emblem: Awakening is lauded for saving a series from cancellation, and the upcoming Fire Emblem If aims to breathe more life into the franchise. Fire Emblem: Awakening sold nearly 2 million copies internationally, so it’s a no-brainer Nintendo wants another installment out in the west.
I’m a fan of the linear gameplay of Fire Emblem GBA (the first title to reach the U.S.), love the customizability of Fire Emblem: Awakening, and can’t wait to pop Fire Emblem If into my Nintendo 3DS. Why? Because its revolutionizing the franchise.
Two (wait, four?!) versions. Taking a hint from Pokémon, the newest Fire Emblem will be released as two separate versions called Fire Emblem if: Black Kingdom and Fire Emblem if: White Kingdom.
Don’t like either version? Nintendo announced a third downloadable rendition, with a unique plot, is on its way. The DLC will be released after the first two games are out for an undisclosed period. Additionally, Fire Emblem if: Special Edition (a cartridge with all three storylines) is available for pre-order in Japan, and hopefully will reach the U.S. market.
Three paths. With different versions, and different sides to choose, comes different endings. Fire Emblem normally starts out with the player commanding the army of a peaceful nation against an aggressor bent on conquest. But in the new game, the player will have the choice, depending on the version you buy, to be the goody Hoshido (White Kingdom) or the big bad Nohr (Black Kingdom).
If you go with the bad guys, the game is supposedly more difficult. For instance, you won’t have as many opportunities to level up your characters outside the chapters. And don’t forget, there’ll be the eventual release of a neutral storyline that represents neither side. Multiple endings have grown into a popular fad in gaming, and it’s smart for Fire Emblem If to follow suit.
But no matter your choice, you’ll still have to face off against the mysterious evil that’s really behind everything. Be warned though: The characters you get will be affected by the storyline.
New weapons and classes. What’s a new Fire Emblem without introducing never-before-seen character classes and weapons? Here’re the new classes: Songstress, revenant knight, rod knight, bowman, pegasus warrior, oni (means demon in Japanese), ninja, priestess, maid, and butler. The new weapons are: katanas (a curved sword), naginatas (a sword on a pole), kanabōs (elongated Japanese mace), ofuda (Shinto amulet), and shuriken (throwing stars). Also, weapons will now modify character stats, like defense or luck. Fire Emblem if appears to be bringing in more Japanese culture, considering the series has been known for predominantly European weaponry.
The infamous weapon triangle, which decides who has the combat advantage, has also been changed. It now goes like this: Sword and magic > axe and bow > lance and hidden weapons > sword and magic.
Release date, please. We bet you’re wondering when Fire Emblem If will be available for us English speakers. If you can read Japanese (and have a Japanese 3DS) you’ll want to order it June 25. If you’re an English speaker — like most of us — you’ll have to wait for the (hopefully) soon-to-be-revealed 2016 release date.
Watch the U.S. teaser trailer below.
Gaming
Ubisoft says that future Assassin’s Creed games will need more time to be made
As Assassin’s Creed Shadows is about to sneak up on people in November, Ubisoft says that the time between developing games needs to be longer to find the “right balance.” Shadows has been in development for four years, longer than any other game in the series up to this point. That includes the huge open-world epics Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Shadows lead producer Karl Onnée (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz) says that the latest AC game took 25% longer to make than Valhalla. He says this is necessary to keep the quality of the series that it is known for: “It’s always a balance between time and costs, but the more time you have, the more you can iterate.” You can speed up a project by adding more people to it, but that doesn’t give you more time to make changes.
Onnée says this has as much to do with immersion and aesthetics as it does with fixing bugs and smoothing out pixels. This is because the development team needs time to learn about each new historical setting: “We are trying to make a game that is as real as possible.” We’re proud of it, and the process took a long time. In feudal Japan, building a house is very different from building a house in France or England in the Middle Ages. As an artist, you need to learn where to put things in a feudal Japanese home. For example, food might not belong there. Get all the information you need and learn it. That process takes a long time.”
You’ll have to wait a little longer for Ubisoft to work on each game. Are you okay with that? In what part of Shadows are you now? Is it interesting to you? Leave a comment below and let us know.
Gaming
You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP on PS5
You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, a remaster that Dragami Games and Capcom both created. You can now pre-order the PS5 game on the PS Store for $44.99 or £39.99. If you have PS Plus, you can get an extra 10% off the price.
The company put out a new trailer with about three minutes of gameplay to mark the start of the pre-order period. Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP is a remaster of Grasshopper Manufacture’s crazy action game from 2012. You play as Juliet, a high school student who fights off waves of zombies.
The remaster adds RePOP mode, an alternative mode that swaps out the blood and gore for fun visual effects. It also adds a bunch of other features and improvements that make the game better overall. You can expect the graphics and sound to be better as well.
The game will now come out on September 12, 2024, instead of September 12, 2024. Are you excited to get back to this? Please cheer us on in the section below.
Gaming
This Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 zombies trailer is way too expensive
Is there really anyone who is following the story of Call of Duty’s zombie mode? We’ve known about the story in a vague way for a while, but we couldn’t tell you anything about it. It looks like the “Dark Aether” story will continue in Black Ops 6, but we don’t really know what that means.
For those of you who care, here is the official blurb with some background: “Requiem, led by the CIA, finally closed the last-dimensional portal, sending its inhabitants back to the nightmare world known as the Dark Aether, after two years of fighting zombie outbreaks around the world during the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War timeline.”
Wait, there’s more! “Agent Samantha Maxis gave her life to seal this weird dimension from the inside out.” Even worse things were to come: senior staff members of Requiem were arrested without a reason by the Project Director, who turned out to be Edward Richtofen.
Black Ops 6 will take place about five years later, and it looks like it will show more about Richtofen’s goals and motivations. The most important thing is that you will probably be shooting an unimaginable number of zombies in the head. This week, on August 8, there will be a full reveal of the gameplay, so keep an eye out for that.
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