Yearly Archives: 2020
Cyberpunk 2077: New Figure of Keanu Reeves’ Johnny Silverhand Revealed
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity – Breath of the Wild Bonus Item, Special Editions Revealed
After revealing live gameplay footage of the upcoming Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity for Nintendo Switch, Koei Tecmo producer Yosuke Hayashi, director Ryota Matsushita and producer Masaki Furusawa showed off a number of goods, both physical and virtual, that fans can get their hands on along with the game when it is released on November 20.
For players with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild save data on their Switch, Link will receive a special wooden training sword (below) which, when paired with a pot lid shield, will sometimes auto-guard enemy attacks.
As a pre-order bonus for the downloadable version of Hyrule Warriors, Link will receive a soup ladle. Paired with a pot lid, it serves as a weapon but it can also be used to enhance other weapons as a "boost item". The fine print below the announcement stated that these items "might be sold as DLC after release."
For those interested in actual merchandise, Hyrule Warriors in Japan has a special Treasure Box edition, an exclusive for the My Nintendo store, Gamecity, Geo, and Amazon Japan. This package will retail for 16,720 yen (about $158) – more than double the regular edition's MSRP of 7,920 yen. The special SKU includes an acrylic art print of the game's cover illustration, a small metal charm of a mysterious white robot seen in the gameplay footage, and what appears to be a full-size "parasail blanket" as first seen in Breath of the Wild. The development staff were quick to warn "don't go flying with this".
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/hyrule-warriors-age-of-calamity-13-minutes-of-gameplay-japanese-vo-tgs-2020"]
Lastly, 15 different retail chains in Japan will offer 15 different exclusive bonus items to customers who buy the game at retail (physical version only, not a download code). Most of these are recreations of the game's cover art on a postcard, cloth, clear file or magnet, but a few exceptions include cloth images of Mipha or Link, a poster of Link or Zelda, and a calendar featuring Link, Zelda, all four Champions and the game's cover art. It's not clear if any of these physical items will get an equivalent western release.
A full list of all these items is available in Japanese on Koei Tecmo's official page.
[poilib element="accentDivider"]Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity – Breath of the Wild Bonus Item, Special Editions Revealed
After revealing live gameplay footage of the upcoming Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity for Nintendo Switch, Koei Tecmo producer Yosuke Hayashi, director Ryota Matsushita and producer Masaki Furusawa showed off a number of goods, both physical and virtual, that fans can get their hands on along with the game when it is released on November 20.
For players with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild save data on their Switch, Link will receive a special wooden training sword (below) which, when paired with a pot lid shield, will sometimes auto-guard enemy attacks.
As a pre-order bonus for the downloadable version of Hyrule Warriors, Link will receive a soup ladle. Paired with a pot lid, it serves as a weapon but it can also be used to enhance other weapons as a "boost item". The fine print below the announcement stated that these items "might be sold as DLC after release."
For those interested in actual merchandise, Hyrule Warriors in Japan has a special Treasure Box edition, an exclusive for the My Nintendo store, Gamecity, Geo, and Amazon Japan. This package will retail for 16,720 yen (about $158) – more than double the regular edition's MSRP of 7,920 yen. The special SKU includes an acrylic art print of the game's cover illustration, a small metal charm of a mysterious white robot seen in the gameplay footage, and what appears to be a full-size "parasail blanket" as first seen in Breath of the Wild. The development staff were quick to warn "don't go flying with this".
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/hyrule-warriors-age-of-calamity-13-minutes-of-gameplay-japanese-vo-tgs-2020"]
Lastly, 15 different retail chains in Japan will offer 15 different exclusive bonus items to customers who buy the game at retail (physical version only, not a download code). Most of these are recreations of the game's cover art on a postcard, cloth, clear file or magnet, but a few exceptions include cloth images of Mipha or Link, a poster of Link or Zelda, and a calendar featuring Link, Zelda, all four Champions and the game's cover art. It's not clear if any of these physical items will get an equivalent western release.
A full list of all these items is available in Japanese on Koei Tecmo's official page.
[poilib element="accentDivider"]Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity – First Gameplay Shows Young Impa, Combat and More
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity – First Gameplay Shows Young Impa, Combat and More
Destro, Roadblock, and Scarlett Join the G.I. Joe Retro Collection
Destro, Roadblock, and Scarlett Join the G.I. Joe Retro Collection
Monster Hunter Rise: Gameplay Shows Off New Abilities, Combat and More
Monster Hunter Rise: Gameplay Shows Off New Abilities, Combat and More
Level-5 Shows First Gameplay of Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds
At a special online presentation during Tokyo Game Show 2020 today, publisher Level-5 and developer Netmarble showed a few minutes of gameplay of their upcoming mobile RPG Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds. The entire presentation was later uploaded to YouTube with English subtitles ("for a limited time" according to the official Twitter account).
Cross Worlds is a departure from the previous Ni no Kuni games, which used a traditional fantasy setting. Instead, Cross Worlds has a science-fiction twist: the player is a regular person in the "real" world of Ichi no Kuni (literally "one country") who is beta-testing a new virtual reality game called Soul Diver, which takes them into the world of Ni no Kuni. Five player classes have been revealed for Ni no Kuni Cross Worlds: Swordsman, Witch, Rogue, Destroyer and Engineer. In today's online presentation, popular Japanese YouTuber Masuo was able to begin a game as the Swordsman, although his in-game character looked different than the default version, suggesting there will be character customization options (but none were shown). In the game inside the game, his character was greeted by an AI character called Rania. A sudden glitch in the system replaces Rania with a "real" version of the same woman, but before they can explain the situation everything goes dark. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/09/26/ni-no-kuni-cross-worlds-15-minutes-of-gameplay-japanese-vo-tgs-2020"] The Swordsman awakes in a burning city greeted by a small imp-like creature called Cluu, but the action starts immediately as the player must swipe the screen to avoid a falling tower. After a brief encounter with a dragon wearing a giant amulet, Cluu directs the player to head towards the castle to aid the Queen. This gives us a glimpse at the control interface for Cross Worlds: A virtual slide pad on the left of the screen moves the player, while the camera can be adjusted by swiping the screen. The Swordsman enters combat, which is controlled with a circle of buttons on the right side of the screen; a big "attack" button is in the center, and Masuo was hammering it to slash the monsters. Smaller buttons around the attack button were not explained but appear to be special abilities which have a cooldown timer before becoming active again. Debris blocks the way to the Queen and the only way through is to pick up a bomb and throw it through contextual button presses and swipes. Once he reaches the Queen and interrupts her death at the hands of a towering villain, the player discovers she is the woman he met when he first entered Ni no Kuni. At this point the demo cut off, but other trailers have shown the player travelling to Evermore on a quest to save the kingdom. It should be said that unlike previous Ni no Kuni mobile titles, Cross Worlds looks on par with the console releases of the past: Despite being entirely 3D creations, the characters resemble 2D drawings from famed Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli, which was a collaborator on the first Ni no Kuni; indeed, during the presentation, Netmarble Japan CEO Yuji Endo said that the new game recreates Ghibli's world from the original. In footage during today's presentation, a variety of lush environments were shown, from forests to deserts and fields to cities. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=ni-no-kuni-cross-worlds-screenshots&captions=true"] Two other gameplay modes were featured in today's presentation, Kingdom and Team Arena. Kingdom Mode is a cooperative multiplayer mode where players can explore the city and countryside together. Players also have a familiar who trails behind them and can "help them on their journey" though no skills were shown; one touch of a button beneath them can swap the familiar for another. During today's video, the on-air hosts were shown chasing wild animals and capturing them, though earlier footage showed competitive games like soccer or dice. In Team Arena, six players were able to compete in a 3-on-3 combat mini-game. Rather than a test of strength, the actual goal is to collect creatures called "higgledies" inside the arena. Players can attack each other and throw items to make their opponents lose their higgledies, but even if they are knocked out they will come back in a few seconds. The only way to win is to collect the most higgledies and evade the other players for 10 seconds. Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds has no formal release date, but previous announcements suggest it will be out in Japan before the year ends. No foreign releases or localization have yet been confirmed either, but the presence of fully subtitled English and Chinese videos on the official Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds channel suggests international versions may be released later. [poilib element="accentDivider"]
