A lot of shows are ending at this point and I must say, we’ve been spoiled with some pretty good titles – one of which would be Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku. The series is a rather different approach to the rom-com genre with the office setting and it has been a blast watching it.
Miandro’s Spotlight is a weekly blog update rounding up what has been happening to the blog such as the latest posts, what’s caught my eye, and what I plan for the near future.
Earlier today, the indie developer for To The Moon, Kan Gao, has released a two-minute trailer for the game’s sequel, Finding Paradise.
To The Moon is an indie adventure game focusing mainly on its story and puzzle-solving gameplay centered around two doctors, Neil and Eva, as they traverse the memories of their client, Johnny Wyles, in order to fulfill his childhood dreams of becoming an astronaut.
The game’s sequel, Finding Paradise, promises the same focus on story, music and puzzle-solving as the doctors, Neil and Eva, traverse through a dying patient’s memories to artificially fulfill their last wish.
Granted, the first minute doesn’t start in a serious tone. However, the trailer shows that the game will be released on December 14th. It will continue where we left off from the first To The Moon game, but now, the story will be focused on two key points: a dying patient, and a repeatedly referenced island throughout the trailer.
Here’s hoping that Finding Paradise will offer the same amount of feels as it did in its predecessor, To The Moon.
To The Moon 2 Social Media:
Twitter | Facebook | Steam | Website
WEEKLY WRAP-UP – With all the new anime and gaming titles coming out, this week has been pretty material-intensive for me. Not knowing where to begin with the new anime season, or have the means to access newly released games, it has become a struggle for me to find compelling content to write about.
IN THE SPOTLIGHT – It is, indeed, a rare occasion for me to cover a video game. The majority of the stuff I write about is mostly about anime and its community. However, something as interesting as Call of Duty WW2‘s release was to good to be ignored. After binging through videos of the game’s walkthrough, I can see that it can contend with its rival, Battlefield 1.
GAMING, DISCUSSION – Ever since I first saw gameplay footage for NieR: Automata, there’s always that glorious, wonderful soundtrack accompanied with vocals that seem to be gibberish. It wasn’t long when I noticed the soundtrack that plays when you get into Pascal’s village had vocals that sounded German in pronunciation.
What was up with that?
GAMING, DISCUSSION – Throughout the first few weeks of this month, I spent most of my downtime watching playthroughs of the Nier: Automata game from different Youtube gaming personalities. As I watched, the idea of androids came up to me and how they were portrayed differently from what professionals in the real world think of it.
FIRST LOOK – Long Gone Days is a character-driven RPG inspired by dystopian literature, but set in our present timeline, showing real countries.
The game focuses on Rourke, a sniper from the Core, an isolated nation below the surface of the Earth. Just like his brothers, Rourke has been trained as a soldier ever since he was born and his knowledge is strictly relating to his job – nothing else.
As he executes his first operation, he realizes that there is something a-miss with his superiors’ objectives. He takes the decision to desert from the operation, not realizing the consequences of his actions.
Upon playing the demo version of this game, I must say that it was really something. The game shows a new focus on RPG – rather than leveling up, doing quests, collecting loot and the like, it focuses on the characters and their interactions with the world around them.
The story may not be something new but it’s how it is carried out or shown through the gameplay that makes it something unique for the RPG genre.
It still has the usual turn-based battling system that is all too familiar for an RPG but what’s new here is we have a “sniper mode” battle. Since Rourke is a sniper in his squad, we get to control and aim our targets – shooting them from a considerably safe distance as much as a real sniper would do.
Whilst in a turn based battle, instead of picking your targets as you would in a generic RPG, you get to choose which points of the target’s body you are going to shoot at. Each portion, whether it’d be the torso, head, legs, allows you to deal damage and accuracy depending on where you shoot.
Unlike most RPGs, there are no levels so no need to grind XP or something of the sort. Instead of levels, you will be customizing your party member’s weapons, skills, and adding new items for them to use.
Here’s another great and unique feature – morale. In order to make sure your party members fight to their highest abilities, you have to interact with them to keep their morale up so choose your words carefully. Whatever you say to your party members in battle may affect their performance.
Another interesting and unique feature is the NPCs. In order to interact with some of the NPCs, you have to gain the acquaintance of a party member who speaks the NPC’s native language. If the NPC is speaking Russian, then you’re going to need a party member to interact with said NPC. It brings the whole scenario real as being a soldier who’s just deserted in the middle of a war and you’ve got to use every asset you get.
The language barriers are a great and unique challenge for the player as they complete objectives and gain new items.
Also, every skill uses technology and science. No magic here, folks, we are set in a war where your skills will be throwing a grenade, an incendiary round or something similar.
The art style is very different from usual RPGs. Although it still uses pixel art, the textures are very detailed, an excellent use of color. The cut scenes are smooth and look almost like it came from an anime film. The character sprites are well done, as well.
The game, Long Gone Days, is being developed by two people: Camila Gormaz (Director, Artist, Dev) and Paolo Videla (Writer, Game Design).
It is expected to release on the first quarter of 2018.
A demo version is available on Steam, in case you wanted to have a look on this interesting, upcoming RPG game.
If you want more updates and information on this game, visit their site. You can also check our their twitter account, if that’s better for you.
Despite their Indiegogo funding campaign ended on August 2016, the InDemand feature is on, meaning that you can still keep backing the development by pledging. Besides that, you can show your support to this game by sharing related articles, Facebook posts and tweets.
[images from Long Gone Days site]
NEWS – On the 26th of March, Blizzard Entertainment announced the upcoming released of a remastered version for their old RTS classic, Starcraft, and its expansion, Starcraft: Brood War.
Starcraft was released back in 1998 and it was received quite well.
Blizzard Entertainment re-defined the modern real-time strategy with Starcraft, and its expansion, Brood War. It became the standard of all modern real-time strategy games that we are currently playing now.
The game showed off a wonderful and exciting story-line through its single-player campaign in the stories of the Terrans, the Zerg, and the Protoss. It was basically an epic space opera filled with action, fantasy and drama. A story that was so complex and defined, two main games and a expansion pack was not enough to cover the entirety of its universe to the fullest.
It also paved the way for eSports. Without this game, the culture of online competitive gaming and eSports itself would not have been properly recognized and defined by the entire world.
Now, Blizzard Entertainment relives the glory of this RTS classic by giving it a remaster.
In this remastered version, Starcraft will have improvements to its graphics – an high definition remaster. Each unit has been improved to look even more detailed. Those tiny pixels we see in the original classic will be much more defined and detailed in this remaster.
The briefing scenes we usually see before we start a new single-player campaign mission has been improved.
The original Starcraft soundtrack and dialogue has been remastered and rejuvenated.
To top it all off, Starcraft: Remastered will be free-to-play, and that includes single-player and multiplayer.
The gameplay will still be the same: derpy Dragoons, terrible A.I. pathing – you name it. Blizzard Entertainment will only be tweaking the graphics and audio.
Rejoice, Starcraft fans!
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