Well being quiet on the blog is nice. I’m not playing as many games recently, though I did have some obsession with TotK so there’s that. And I’m playing a couple other things, some I might even review.
So June 2023… Weirdly empty month. But hey there’s a game on PS5 that other platforms will get later, 9 multiplats of dubious quality and a Switch game that looks pretty okay… Yeah it’s a pretty quiet month, I have a maybe or two and that’s it.
Note: There is a copious amount of “man this series used to be great but it’s lame now” in this post. I’m old leave me alone!
Disclaimer: I only list games that I think are worth mentioning. This includes games I’m personally interested in, games that will likely be popular, highly advertised games, some more niche stuff I may notice, and such. Not just games I care about myself, I highlight as much as I think makes sense. And of course, I can’t see the future, so I may be missing games and I may be listing games that may get delayed.
PLAYSTATION 5 RELEASE
Final Fantasy XVI 06/22
This being temporarily exclusive is fucking stupid. Game companies are dumb, but Squeenix especially. This game was announced for PC before any other platform (the first words in the first trailer note that the footage was played on a PC with settings brought down to PS5 level), and should’ve just been multiplat from the start instead of being shitty to gamers. Them pretending it won’t be multiplat is not good optics either. They did that with the FF7 remake, now that’s multiplat and there’s people that wasted a money on a PS4 just for that game when they could’ve just waited, all because Squeenix lied. Don’t make that mistake again, just wait for the PC/Xbox versions.
THAT said… I mean, FF has not been really good in a LOOOOOONG time. Like, the last proper good one was 10 (10-2 is kinda fun but a bit stupid, and 13-2 was an improvement over 13 but still not amazing), and while World of FF was decent, I don’t count spin-offs. After how tremendously bad FF15 was, why the fuck are we supposed to be excited for this one? Like, do people forget games the second they come out? Do people not realize that FF has been crap for a while? This game looks pretty cool visually, but looking into what was shown of the gameplay, I’m not really sure what to think about this, nothing is really standing out to me (and enemies look massively bullet-spongy in what was shown). I need to see more, and I guess what I’ll see is overall customer reaction to the game.
I will buy this game, when it comes out on PC. Probably. If it’s not obviously shit once people actually get their hands on it. That’s one advantage of it being a timed-exclusive, I guess, if the game’s bad I save money.
MULTIPLATFORM RELEASES
Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection 06/01 (Switch, PC)
Etrian Odyssey is great. I’m sure this collection will be fine. But it’s rather expensive. I’d personally recommend getting just one of the games in it. Either of them is fine, they’re all really good. Unfortunate that the series has been kinda dead for a bit, but this might be a first step towards a new sequel… Which I hate, companies should just make sequels instead of “well if people rebuy these old games they already bought years ago we might make a new one”.
Street Fighter 6 06/02 (PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox X/S)
Fighting games should have as many characters at launch as the previous game had at the end of its life. Less than half is pretty bad, clearly they’re just continuing the tradition of scamming with endless DLC/versions (something that should’ve been abandoned after the arcade days). Otherwise… I mean, this just seems to be SFV again, from the little I’ve seen. Which was essentially the same as SF4. Which is… fine. I still think SF peaked at 2 and I have no excitement for this one. If I still watched fighting game tournaments maybe I’d be more excited, but eh.
We Love Katamari Reroll+ Royal Reverie 06/02 (Switch, PC, PS4, Xbone, PS5, Xbox X/S)
It’s Katamari. I was never a fan. I don’t know anything about this.
Diablo 4 06/06 (PC, PS4, Xbone, PS5, Xbox X/S)
Well I played the beta for this. It wasn’t very good. It was an improvement over Diablo 3 IMO, but it’s still lacking.
And it’s a season-driven game which is bullshit. Games that are meant to be the one game you play over and over and nothing else are kinda bullshit. And Diablo, of course, has not been good since 2. Diablo 3 felt dumbed down as shit, Immortal is one of the worst things ever made (and unfortunately idiots are enabling the badness)… I’d kinda rather not touch this… I probably will in the end.
Loop8: Summer of Gods 06/06 (Switch, PC, PS4, Xbone)
This is… I think a visual novel with RPG elements. I watched a bit of the first 50-ish minutes of the game and it had none of the RPG stuff, so I don’t know how much RPGing there is in it… Also the graphics do this weird thing where the framerate for everything is shit on purpose, kinda weird. This is still a “maybe” for me.
Crash Team Rumble 06/20 (PS4, Xbone, PS5, Xbox X/S)
This is a 3D platforming Crash Bandicoot multiplayer team-based arena… thing? I saw one full match and thought it looked tremendously boring. My excitement is at a straight zero.
Aliens: Dark Descent 06/20 (PC, PS4, Xbone, PS5, Xbox X/S)
Surprisingly, at least conceptually, this looks pretty cool. It’s a top-down real-time tactical squad-based game where, of course, you have to deal with xenomorphs and other enemies with permadeath and morale systems and stuff. There’s the possibility to slow down time to focus more on tactics which is nice. No idea if this will be good, but it seems like an interesting one.
Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life 06/27 (Switch, PC, PS5, Xbox X/S)
This is the Harvest Moon game from the gamecube, though somewhat improved graphically. I’d you’re into farming games, this is probably one of the better ones.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 06/30 (Switch, PC, PS4, Xbone)
Ghost Trick is a classic DS game with a fantastic story and pretty cool puzzle-solving gameplay. Definitely worth playing if you missed it on DS.
SWITCH RELEASES
Master Detective Archives: Rain Code 06/30
This is from the creator of Danganronpa, very clearly if you look at the character design. It’s a mystery story with ghosts and stuff, and the gameplay is a combination of investigation and some minigames in what look like alternate worlds. Some trailers gave me the impression it might be an RPG, but looking again, I don’t think so. Still looks fun, probably gonna be one worth checking out especially for Danganronpa fans.
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