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| Nintendo's Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes at Gamescom |
This was the best game I played on the 3DS at the show, but it's also the one that could fail the most.
It’s a co-operative Zelda game influenced by The Wind Waker and A Link Between Worlds.
Three players team up– each as Link – to cooperatively make their way through a Zelda world of puzzles, dungeons and Bosses. This can be done via local wireless connection, online and with download play. All three players share hearts, so YOU must work together to defeat enemies and solve puzzles.
This is a concern for me as there will always be the occasional player who just wants to watch the world burn. There appears to be no voice chat in the game, instead players communicate from a set of messages from the touch screen.
There is a single player mode as well if the multiplayer aspect isn’t your thing.
There's a new new Totem mechanic to stack three Links on top of each other to reach higher grounds and solve puzzles. Dressing your Link with different outfits will be a big part of this game as it will give you boosts or abilities.
The game was really a lot of fun to play, with the 3D display being effective in its subtle design. I played this with two other players opposite me and we didn’t use the messages or talk as we were all veteran Zelda players so could read the forumaleric demo.
The last time nintendo released a cooperative Zelda game was The Four Swords Adventure on gamecube in 2005. A very good game but that didn’t translate into sales.
This is the latest entry into the Chibi-Robo franchise and stepping away from its servant gameplay to a full on adventure. Zip Lash is a side-scrolling action platformer on the 3DS. You control a small robot who can use his power cords to whip enemies and grapple hook around levels.
The gameplay was fun with controls being responsive and fluid for the most part. The grapple hook mechanic is a bit trickier as you have to line up at the exact spot to hit your target. I found that the analogue stick couldn't accomplish this as well as the directional pad for precise shots
Chibi-Robo!: Zip Lash will also include amiibo support that powers Chibi-Robo into Super Chibi-Robo. The figure will be available as part of a bundle for Zip Lash.
This game has been out in Japan since 2013 and is finally getting a western release Q4 2015. The franchise if a cultural phenomenon in Japan with Books, Films, Games and a TV series. The creature-collecting phenomenon has sold more than 7 million copies, including digital downloads. The anime is surpassing Pokémon in its weekly viewership and the Yo-Kai Watch movie made more than 7.6 billion yen.
This could be the new pokemon for nintendo.
The feature list published by Nintendo shows the influence that Pokemon has had on this franchise
- With the power of the Yo-kai watch, find and befriend more than 200 hidden Yo-kai, found everywhere in the world, and call upon their powers when you need their help.
- Assemble a team of six Yo-kai in your watch to defeat evil and help people.
- Each Yo-kai has its own unique skills and strengths, so use strategy to assemble your team to address different problems and fight different evil Yo-kai.
- Make your Yo-kai Watch more powerful and upgrade your Yo-kai as you play through the story.
It takes the unusual approach from most 3DS games and utilises the stylus for battles in a series of mini-game in which your Yo-Kai will perform abilities to help you win. You can trace, pick-up or spin the bottom screen in order to do this and it relies on good reflects and make informed decisions quickly. Using the stylus, you can have your Yo-Kai perform abilities that will help you win your battles.
The story revolves around a boy named Nathan or a girl named Katie who comes across a toy capsule machine next to a sacred tree. When he opens one of the capsules up, it brings forth a Yo-kai, a supernatural monster in Japanese folklore, named Whisper, who gives the player a device known as the Yo-kai Watch. Using this you are able to identify and see various different Yo-kai that are haunting people and causing mischief that you can become friends with. You can then summon them to battle against more ill-intentioned Yo-kai.
The game however is not simply a Pokemon rip-off. It is developed by Level-5, a highly regarded studio critically for the Professor Layton and later Dragon Quest series.
The graphical style of Yo Kai watch is an evolution of the Level-5 anime aesthetic they have been working on for the last 10 years.
This looks to be a great game for children in playgrounds and adults on public transport.
This game is a cross-over of the Mario & Luigi RPG series and the Paper Mario RPG series with Luigi opening a book that merges the two worlds.
Both the franchises have always contained a meta-comedy commentary on the state of gaming.
The gameplay in the demo is more similar to the Mario & Luigi series with elements of the Paper Mario system in being able to change to a 2D plane to move through tight cracks.
The turn based battle system, is fun and easy to use and contains a dynamic timing reaction system in which you can dodge enemy attacks and improve your damage on attacks.
The battles become not a passive experience and keeps you invested in the action.
In the overworld you control Mario, Luigi and Paper Mario all at the same time. This can be a bit difficult to control at first, but you can easily get use to it. There are seven Paper Toads to collect which was a mix of puzzles and running and dashing around the map.
The game was fun to play and looks to be a good purchase in the future.
Metroid Prime: Federation Force was one of the most negatively received games at E3.
The game is a spin-off to the Metroid Prime series where you play as the Federation Force, a space-police-army group and will not feature Samus Aran. It will be similar to Metroid Prime Hunters with a focus on FPS combat and not exploration. Up to four players can work cooperatively together across 60 levels from the Metroid universe, with no single player campaign.
Unfortunately a demo of the Metroid Prime Federation Force campaign was not available to play.
Instead they had Blast Ball which is a multiplayer mode in the full game. It’s a 3v3 match where each player is in a mech suit and shoots at a giant ball, trying to score into their opponent's goal.
You can attack other mechs, charge up your shot for a stronger attack, and jump in the way of the ball and sacrifice yourself to prevent the other team from scoring. The goal gets smaller every time you score making the difficulty increased.
I played this with five other players and it was a fun experience with all of us sitting opposite each other.
The controls were difficult to use at first and continued that way throughout the game. Thankfully there's a way to lock onto the ball to ensure that you can always see and shoot it around the field.
It was very unimpressive graphically and I hope this is due to it being a Alpha or Beta, but furthermore it lacked any substance. I spent five minutes shooting at a giant ball while someone else was on the other side shooting it. Occasionally the ball would become free and fly around a bit, but it didn’t seem like there was an amazing physics engine behind it.
This mode could be to further Nintendo’s entry into eSports as there is a potential for tactical play. I watched a group of the presenters play the game who had spent days on it and they played it completely different, working as a team focusing not only on the ball but on what the opposing players were doing and systematically taking them out before shooting for a goal.
Overall however it was more like a tech demo or mini game then a fully fleshed out mode. If this is an example of what to expect for the full game then I’m not pre-ordering this anytime soon.
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