Well yesterday we got the announcement of both a new Nintendo Direct (the first big one since early February) and, a bit later, a new State of Play. Because both are on the same day, I figure… let’s make them fight.

So here I’m going to do my usual for gaming presentations. I’ll give a bit of an intro, then for each I will post my LIVE reactions with my overall thoughts afterwards… and then we’ll make them fight, see which one was better.

I’m writing this intro and the next segment before the Nintendo Direct starts, that way I currently have no idea how well either of them did.

So let’s go!
Skip to Nintendo Direct
Skip to State of Play

Well this was probably one of the most hyped games this year. It was meant to come out later, but I guess they finished it early so… Yeah. July it is. I actually had time off work, so this worked out.

I enjoyed the other Xenoblades, except for X which… I dunno, maybe I’d need to give it another chance. 2 is the one I prefered, didn’t actually find the gacha-like system to be all that bad even though I never did get KOS-MOS.

So let’s go, see if the series continues being good!

No.

I like Warriors games. I don’t get all the ones that came out because there’s too much, but one every year or two is pretty nice. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes is the latest one. I finished one of the (at least) 3 storylines. And I just don’t really feel like reviewing it. Because, in my time reviewing, I’ve reviewed many a Warriors game. And those reviews all describe the exact same base game, with pretty minor alterations. And those minor alterations… I don’t know if they’re worth reviewing.

Three Hopes is a standard Warriors game, but with the FE: Three Houses class system, a similar version of the relationship system (though the payoff isn’t quite as good as in Three Houses), and otherwise the gameplay is fairly standard Warriors with the order system FE Warriors had so your teammates can be semi-useful. The performance is definitely better than Age of Calamity though, so that’s nice. And this one doesn’t have a substantial post-game like some of the other Warriors games on Switch, instead focusing on restarting from the beginning and doing alternate stories, so it might be for you content-wise if you’re a completionist.

I think Three Hopes is a top-tier Warriors game, though objectively some of the others are probably a bit better (namely Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition has way more stuff in it).

But Musou is Musou. You don’t need reviews to know if you’ll like Musou games. If you liked previous Warriors, you’ll like this. If you didn’t, this won’t convince you otherwise. If you’re not familiar with Musou… Just get one that is licensed to something you like and try it out.

GPU prices are down! I bought one! I built a new PC to put it in! It’s not fully done because Amazon is fucking stupid! But I can still talk about it quickly.

I never really talk about PC even though a lot of my reviews are for PC versions, and I tend to only talk about performance when there’s some weird things to note. Of course one thing this means for future reviews is that, well, anything I review will be on even better hardware… so if I notice anything bad, it means that lower-end systems will be VERY bad at running them.

So I want to talk about this quickly. Talk about the PC I got previously, about the PC I built now with how I decided on each component and such.

I did get a bunch of posts out in June, but I still have at least 2 reviews I was hoping to have out earlier, and I’m late on this post as well. Blah. But I will try to get the TMNT and Neon White reviews out very soon. And I’m playing a couple of other things, and this month isn’t empty, so there’s plenty for me to post still.

July does seem to have a decent amount of games. Actually less than June when it comes to sheer numbers, but there’s some good stuff here. Here I’m highlighting: 10 Multiplats, 4 Switch games, and 2 PC games. I’m probably getting 7 of these (and putting some in the maybe list).

Let’s go!

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, small interesting ones 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.

Okay well I did say in the not-E3 posts that I would post a reaction for the Direct Nintendo would put out. I ignored the Xenoblade one because it’s dumb to spoil yourself too much on a game, but this is a bit closer to a normal Direct so… there you go.

Nintendo isn’t saving E3 this year, but hey, this might have… stuff.

I expect Dragon Quest Treasures to be shown (to what extent, who knows) since that is meant to get new info this month and there’s only a few days left, Mario + Rabbids 2 needs a release date (which got leaked by Ubisoft yesterday lol), and Bayonetta 3 has been very quiet since the trailer last year and it’s meant to be out this year still… That’s my only real predictions. The rumor mill has been going, but it always does, and it’s always wrong (even when it’s right, it’s just lucky guesses).

AS PER USUAL I am writing this intro before watching the Direct, and my reactions are written live as I’m watching it.

Let’s go I guess.

I’m super happy E3 was not a thing this year. The ESA sucks and E3 has been very pointless for a while, providing nothing good for the consumer. With the internet being a thing for a long time now, we should have evolved beyond E3 LOOOOOOOOOOONG ago. Nintendo, with their Directs, set the stage to how game announcements should happen. Sony badly copied Nintendo with their State of Play presentations (there’s been only ONE of them that has been any good so far (the March 2022 one)), but went a step further by dissociating from E3 pre-pandemic. That’s good. All companies need to dissociate from E3.

With E3 gone in 2022, people thought there’d be nothing, because people are idiots who thing the gaming industry revolves around E3 for some reason. But the presentations came just the same. Of course they would, game companies don’t just… stop announcing games because there isn’t an expo for journalists.

So let’s talk about this year’s not-E3 and see if any of the presentations were any good! Hint: no.

Well, so far not-E3 2022 has been pretty terrible. Very few highlights, very boring, games kinda melting into each other because everything is so similar to other things that are also being shown. I hope Microsoft can finally break us out of this funk. I am writing this short intro before the show, so my current expectations? Basically nothing. Lots going around about Goldeneye, but that’s about it. I’m sure we’ll see another new Forza too because it’s Xbox and apparently we need one same-y car game every year from them.

I don’t know if I’ll post this, but either way, I will have an overall not-E3 post once all this shit is done. I am waiting a bit to post that until we see when/if Nintendo does something.

Well, the countdown is about to be done.

I probably won’t post this. Sony’s State of Play presentations are always a bit lame. The last State of Play actually had several interesting announcements, with the problem on Sony’s side being that there was nothing exclusive, so all the cool announcements were PC and Switch games. Good job Sony.

So if I feel like this will probably also sucks, but I could be surprised. Maybe a PC game or two will pop up!