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Inzoreno

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  1. Inzoreno

    #008: Advent Shadow

    By Inzoreno,


    Cancelled Game
    Advent Shadow
    Full Fat
    Majesco
    PSP
    2004-2006
    As an industry that pulls in billions of dollars annually, video games is a significant force in the word of entertainment and in many cases outperforms classic forms of media such as movies, television and literature. Yet, despite how profitable the industry has become, you still do not see much in the way of collaboration with significant figures from other forms of entertainment. Sure, every year we receive a new game plastered with Tom Clancy's name on it, but setting aside the fact that the author had passed a number of years ago, he basically had no involvement in the games bearing his name. We have a high-profile collaboration with famed author of A Song if Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin, releasing in 2022. But by far such collaborations are rare. One of these collaborations was the game Advent Rising, which involved famed science fiction author Orson Scott Card working on the screenplay and dialog for the game. Regardless of Card's political and moral views, he is still a talented author, with Ender's Game his most famous. Advent Rising showed some promise with it's interstellar sci-fi story, and was planned to be the first part of a trilogy. Due to misfortunes that we will discuss shortly, the trilogy never came to be. While little is known about any of the planned Advent Rising sequels, there was also a spin-off game planned that was caught in the fallout. Planned for Sony's PlayStation Portable, Advent Shadow unfortunately was dragged into the recycle bin due to no fault of it's own. 
    Advent Shadow was first announced in late 2004, with a planned release date sometime in 2005, potentially as a launch-day or window for the North American release of the PSP. Based in an article from IGN about the game, it appears that when the game was announced in 2004, it had already been under development for some time, thus the suggestion that the game would release sometime around the launch of the PSP in early 2005. Interestingly, had it actually been a launch window game for the handheld, it would have actually landed before the arrival of Advent Rising on the XBOX, as that game released in May of 2005. The game was to be set within the same universe as the console game, but there would have been very little direct connection between the two games. The focus of the game would have been Marin Steel, a female mercenary pilot who does make an appearance in the console game. Although you would have the opportunity to cross paths with the main character of Advent Rising, Gideon Wyeth, the story would be a separate tangent from the console game. It would, however, follow some of the same themes and sub-plots introduced in the console game. The game would also cover many of the same beats as the console counterpart, including stealth gameplay and the use of vehicles, though of course scaled down to work on the less-powerful PSP. Little else about the game was made public, though we do have access to very early gameplay footage that has been included. 
    Unfortunately, the failures of Advent Rising would draw down the rest of the franchise. Upon it's release, Advent Rising only received middling reviews, a disappointment considering how much hype had been built up by Majesco for the game. While not a terrible game by any means, it released with a significant amount of bugs that, at it's worse, could cause the game to freeze up. A PC version released shortly after the XBOX debut received higher praise due to a number of fixes that reduced the amount of bugs in the game, providing a better experience overall. The XBOX game also released with the ill-advised 'Race to Save Humanity' contest that asked players to locate a series of hidden symbols across multiple levels in the game in order to win 1 million dollars. The contest was cancelled in August of 2005, with Majesco claiming the reason was "no technically feasible solution that would allow the contest to continue in a fair and secure manner". At the time, I remember rumors circulating that the real reason the contest was cancelled was that Majesco lacked the cash to back up the promised reward. It is certainly possible, though there is no way to prove that hypothesis. Majesco did end up in a financial hole following the commercial failure of Advent Rising and the cult-classic Psyconauts. Although the company was able to survive this, they turned their back on big-budget games and instead turned to the casual and handheld market, where successful games didn't require a huge budget. Advent Shadow would be one of the game cut by this ordeal, which also saw the death of Demonik, a game based on the Martin Scorsese film Taxi Driver, and a PSP BloodRayne game. Unfortuantely, since Majesco still owns the rights to the Advent franchise, there is very little chance Advent Shadow, or any other game in the series will ever see the light of day.
     
    Sources:
    https://web.archive.org/web/20051013071103/http://www.xbox.com/en-US/promotions/adventrising.htm
    https://web.archive.org/web/20090827152816/http://chairentertainment.com/community/forums/viewtopic.php?t=28/
    https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/11/23/advent-shadow
    https://www.ign.com/articles/2006/01/19/majesco-sees-red-titles-dead-4
    http://psp.gamespy.com/playstation-portable/advent-shadow/568153p1.html
  2. Inzoreno

    #002: Frame City Killer

    By Inzoreno,


    Cancelled Game
    Frame City Killer
    Namco
    Namco
    XBOX 360
    2005-2006
    My first blog post was devoted to the first game I was aware of that got cancelled. For the second post, we are going to look at the first game I lamented the cancellation of. The transition from the original XBOX to the XBOX 360 was the first generation leap that I was paying attention to and I remember how much enthusiasm and potential the new console held. The months leading up to the launch of the console saw a slew of games announced for the new system. Some would come out at the launch of the console, some would be a bit farther down the timetable. Frame City Killer was one of these games who would sadly become the first game to be officially cancelled for the new console, only about six months after the 360 had launched and after only being announced the year prior. 
    Frame City Killer made it's grand debut at E3 2005, though it was a bit of a muted introduction. While it did get to appear during Microsoft's press conference, it's showing amounted to a short clip during a montage of upcoming titles. For further information, journalists and attendees had to visit the Namco booth, where a longer cinematic trailer was played to provide a tad bit more information. The game takes place in the year 2047, where you play as a secret agent named Crow, who spends the length of the game working to take down a drug lord named Khan. As an undercover agent, your goal is to take out Khan while minimizing the amount of attention you draw to yourself. In some ways, it appears it would have played similar to Assassin's Creed, as you would spend time observing your targets in order to determine the most opportune time to eliminate them while minimizing how much attention you draw from the assassination. The targets would have had specific daily routines they would follow, so once you had an idea where they would be at a particular time, you can create a plan to eliminate them with the minimal amount of witnesses. Assisting you in this task was an in-world tech known as Visual Frame, which would aid you in collecting information about your targets. All-in-all, the main selling point was the idea that you had a significant amount of freedom to accomplish your missions in whatever way you saw fit. 
    While it was never show off, Frame City Killer was planned to have some form of online play, though the only discussed feature was more akin to a leaderboard ranking rather than true online play. A mini-game mode called Criminal Killer would see the player try to kill as many enemies as they could within a given time limit, with your final score then posted as part of a ranking tournament. You would earn coins based on your performance that would allow you to unlock collectible figurines of the various in-game characters. New maps for this mode were to be available for download each week. By the time that the game was cancelled, this was the only form of online play that had been detailed to any degree. 
    Frame City Killer was also notable for the fact that, at the time, it was the first game developed by Namco that would use the Unreal 3 engine. Given this was their first time working with the tech, it does appear that Namco hit some snags along the way. For example, shortly before the Japanese release of the game, Namco received flak from the gaming public after some terrible screenshots were released to the Japanese press. This occurred after the game had already missed the launch of the XBOX 360 and pushed it's release date past it's new February 23rd date into the spring of 2006, with no specific date. Up until it's final cancellation, Frame City Killer would never again have a specific release date, instead only stuck with vague Spring 2006 or TBA 2006 dates. After missing E3 2006, Namco published a message on the official fan page stating that the game had been cancelled, though no specific reason was given. 
    I remember first reading about the game in Official XBOX Magazine and while at the time the details were vague, they did sound quite promising as the next generation loomed ahead. The idea that you had almost complete control over how you would pursue your targets was something I hadn't encountered in any games at that point. Of course, then everything went off track. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion gave us a taste of what might have been, as the NPCs in those games had their own schedules to adhere to, requiring some planning when playing through particular quests. Had the game actually come out when it was supposed to, at the launch of the 360 or shortly afterwards, it could have been praised in the same ways that Dead Rising and Oblivion were, games that truly felt like the next generation had arrived. The 360 arrived with only a few titles during the launch window that actually felt like real steps forward for the video game industry, so Frame City Killer certainly would have had the opportunity to stand out. But it was not meant to be and Crow would never have the chance to put Khan down once and for all. 
    Sources:
    https://www.ign.com/articles/games/frame-city-killer/xbox-360-747906
    https://www.gamespot.com/articles/frame-city-killer-e3-2005-impressions/1100-6125673/
    https://www.neoseeker.com/frame-city-killer/
  3. Inzoreno

    #003: Sadness

    By Inzoreno,


    Cancelled Game
    Sadness
    Nibris, Digital Amigos and Frontline Studios
    Wii
    2006-2010
    Nintendo's devotion to motion-based gameplay during the seventh generation of video games brought them a lot of success, though it did come at the cost of it's hardcore following. The system appealed to many who had either never played video games previously, or had long ago abandoned them as a pastime. The motion-based controls were intuitive enough that almost anyone could pick up and understand how to control what was happening on screen. The control scheme didn't end up changing the world as many thought it would, but in the lead-up to the release of the Wii, the possibilities of what one could do with those controls seemed endless. Nibris was a small developer based in Poland that had dreams of their own and they would be one of the first companies to announce a title in early-2006 for the upcoming console, at the time still only known as the Revolution. Sadness would, unfortunately, never see the light of day and the continued lack of progress over it's four years of supposed development has made people ask, was Sadness at any point a real game?
    Sadness was first announced in March of 2006 with a live-action trailer released shortly afterwards that gave a small glimpse into what players would be doing in the game and how the Wii Remote would be utilized. The most immediately striking feature of the game was the black-and-white nature of the graphics, which tied into the Gothic horror feel the game was trying to invoke. The game centered on an aristocrat woman named Maria Lengyel and her son Alexander set in the Russian Empire prior to World War I. The game followed Maria after a train she and her son were on is derailed, resulting in the two of them having to survive against supernatural threats inspired by Slavic folklore out to get them. As a result of the accident, Alexander is struck blind and would exhibit unusual behavior over the course of the game. The game would have had a branching story or some sort that would lead to ten different outcomes for the characters. The developers suggested that the game would run around 15 hours.
    As the game was never shown in a playable state, firm details on the gameplay are a bit sparse. The single trailer released shows a player swinging the Wii Remote to do things such as scare off rats using a torch, tossing a rope, and to knock over boxes while running. The developers also said that players would be able to use any of the interactive objects in the game as a weapon and there would be neither a HUD or any in-game menus in order to increase the sense of immersion for players. 
    Initially development of the game was split up among three companies: in addition to Nibris, Frontline Studios was taking care of the programming and Digital Amigos was in charge of the visuals. This partnership didn't last, however, as Frontline was eventually pulled off the game due to 'artistic differences'. It was first aiming to release in 2007, but later had to be pushed into 2009. During this period of time, nothing else was ever shown off from the game, despite Nibris announcing a new trailer would be released in 2007 and that the game would show up at the Game Developer's Conference in 2008. The failure of the company to show off ANYTHING from the game beyond that initial trailer led some in the press to assume the game was vaporware. This assumption was only strengthened by their failure to show up at E3 2009 despite making an announcement they would do so and it goes without saying that they missed their 2009 release date. Nibris never officially cancelled the game, but when the website for the company went offline in 2010, it was clear that the game was truly dead. 
    In 2009, an ex-Nibris employee named Adam Artur Antolski was interviewed by the website N-Europe and provided a bit of background information over Sadness' failure. There were apparently some severe issues between Nibris and Frontline Studios that kept the project from getting past the concept phase. Apparently there had been no consensus on the particulars of the game beyond what had been completed in the concept stage, resulting in a series of missed deadlines that put a strain on the development. According to Antolski, the only actual 3D asset that had been created was a minecart of some sort. Apparently, at the time he was working for Nibris, the company may have had at most ten employees and didn't even have any development kits for the Wii on hand, just dev kits for the Gamecube. Unfortunately, by the time that Nibris cut ties with Frontline, it may have been too late to save the game. Nibris only ever successfully finished one game, a DSiWare game called Double Bloob, and ceased game development shortly after the website went down. It seems that, simply put, there was no one in charge of the overall vision of the game, no one to pull to two teams together and define a coherent vision for what Sadness would be. Without a unified vision for all companies to get behind, the development just floundered for years until, finally, the game drowned. 
    While we were never able to see the game in any playable state, I can't help but think there was some potential in the title. Certainly the story sounded, at lease on paper, to be compelling. I think it's great they were attempting to explore Slavic folklore; most games that use real-world mythologies tend to use the tried-and-true Greek myths for their basis, so it's always great to see someone explore something much more obscure. But we can't ever know how the game would have felt in action and whether it would had suffered from the less-than-precise motion detection from the original Wii Remote. Strangely enough, in 2014 Sadness briefly returned to news headlines when it was announced that HullBreach Studios was working with Cthulhi Games in order to bring the game to the Wii U. Unfortunately, just as quickly as hopes were raised, they were again dashed when it was revealed that the two companies didn't actually have the rights to the Sadness IP and that for the time being the rights were being fought over by four different studios. As of 2020 that seems to have been that last word on Sadness, a vision that offered some unique prospects, but failed to ever materialize as anything remotely close to a real game. 


    Sources:
    https://web.archive.org/web/20110711110619/https://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=1315
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadness_(video_game)
    https://archive.is/20100211105622/http://n-europe.com/news.php?nid=13183
    https://web.archive.org/web/20070218084403/http://www.joystiq.com/2007/02/16/mysterious-wii-sadness-explained/
    http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/05/exclusive_lost_wii_game_sadness_to_be_revived_as_wii_u_exclusive
  4. Inzoreno

    #004: Dead Phoenix

    By Inzoreno,


    Cancelled Game
    Dead Phoenix
    Capcom 
    Capcom
    Gamecube
    2002-2003
    Released the prior holiday season in Japan and North America, the Nintendo GameCube had found itself struggling in 2002 to grab market share from the juggernaut PlayStation 2 and the new kid in the market, Microsoft's XBOX. Although the console launched with a solid lineup during it's first few months, delivering fantastic titles like Luigi's Mansion and Super Smash Bros. Melee, these titles were seemingly not enough to propel the GameCube into homes at the same pace as the PlayStation 2 was. Third-party support was a particular concern for the platform, as the previous generation had seen a number of significant companies either completely abandon the Nintendo 64 for Sony's PlayStation, or provide only tepid support for Nintendo's machine, a far cry from the NES and SNES days when Nintendo was the system to be on. So at the end of 2002, Capcom swooped in to provide shot of adrenaline into the system, unveiling what is known as the Capcom Five. Five brand-new games announced for the system and, at the time, stated to be exclusive to the GameCube, though this would turn out to be the result of miscommunication from Capcom, as nearly all the games that were released later found their way to the PlayStation 2. Of the five, only one never actually came out. That is the topic of discussion today, Dead Phoenix. 
    As with the other games that make up the Capcom Five, Dead Phoenix was announced during a surprise press conference that Capcom gave in Japan in November of 2002 with a tentative release date of Spring 2003 for Japan. Not a significant amount of information was provided by Capcom at this point, beyond a general outline. You would take control of a character named Phoenix who belonged to the WInged Clan which means, as the name implies, he is able to fly using a pair of wings sprouting out of his back. The game would play as a third-person shooter where you would fly Phoenix around and shoot at enemies, in a similar manner to the Panzer Dragoon series. It took place on a floating city fully of all sorts of monsters to fight that was said to be constantly changing, possibly in response to the actions taken by the character during the story. That pretty much sums up what is known of the game, for Dead Phoenix simply vanished shortly after being announced. 
    The first update of any kind the game received was a simple clarification in January that Dead Phoenix, alongside Viewtiful Joe, P.N.03 and Killer 7 were not actually contractually obligated to be GameCube exclusives, only Resident Evil 4 was. While they did not confirm that there were plans to release the game on the PlayStation 2, it's likely that Capcom would have waited until after it had first released on the GameCube to gauge if it was worth the time and effort to port, as this happened with both Killer 7 and Viewtiful Joe (and Resident Evil 4), but not P.N.03. Critical reception likely would have determined if Dead Phoenix received a port or not. 
    Dead Phoenix easily passed it's original expected release window and was notable absent from Capcom's 2003 E3 presentation, where even Suda51's illusive Killer 7 made an appearance. inquiries made to Capcom on the status of the game were met with the generic 'nothing new to show', indicating that there was the possibility that at this point the game was still in development in some capacity, even though we would never see anything new from the game. It wasn't a long wait for us to receive confirmation of the game's fate, however. Only a few months later, in August, Capcom officially confirmed that Dead Phoenix had been cancelled, after the game had been deleted from Capcom's website. They would never give a reason behind the cancellation of the project.
    So, was Dead Phoenix as big loss? Well, when one considers the quality of the other Capcom Five games, there is at least potential that, given enough time, it would have resulted in a good game. Of the four games that actually did come out, only P.N.03 could be considered a disappointment. The game was also being headed by Atsui Inaba, who produced both Viewtiful Joe and Resident Evil Code: Veronica, and Hiroki Katou, who was the director for Resident Evil Code: Veronica. Given their experience, the game was at least in good hands. The prototype gameplay doesn't look too bad, but given the seemingly free nature of the flying, camera control would have definitely been a potential issue, as completely 3D flying can be a mess for a camera to follow correctly. However, given the lack of any substantial details behind the game, there's only so far we can get with speculation and evidently something did go wrong for Capcom during development. Unfortunately, this was one phoenix that couldn't rise from the ashes.  
     
    Sources:
    https://www.gamespot.com/articles/dead-phoenix-announced-for-gamecube/1100-2897566/
    https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/03/05/missing-in-action-the-lost-games-of-gamecube-dead-phoenix
    https://www.gamespot.com/dead-phoenix/
  5. Inzoreno

    #001: True Fantasy Live Online

    By Inzoreno,


    Cancelled Game
    True Fantasy Live Online
    Microsoft
    Level-5
    XBOX
    2002-2004
    What better way to start this blog but by discussing the game that introduced me to the concept of a video game being cancelled. While I have played video games for most of my life, until I purchased an original XBOX in 2003, it was only a small pastime, something I engaged with once in a while. I did not reading magazines to find out about upcoming games, I didn't track development over months or years, and at no point previously had I ever considered it possible that a game simply would never come out. When I bought an original XBOX, that all changed and gaming became my number 1 hobby. As such, I took a great interest in the industry, pouring over reviews and previews in magazines and online. True Fantasy Live Online was the first title I ever came across that was confirmed cancelled.
    An ambitious title under development by the JRPG-juggernaut Level-5, it was an attempt to create a console MMORPG to work with Microsoft's XBOX Live service that had been launched in 2002. At this point in time, there had already been several MMOs on consoles with titles such as Phantasy Star Online (which would find it's way to the XBOX in due time), so the concept wasn't entirely new. Unfortunately, at that point Level-5 was inexperienced working with networking code, which likely led to the extended and troubled development. In particular, Microsoft was adamant that the game include voice chat, as that was one of the key features of XBOX Live, but Level-5 was unable to implement it into the game. Initially announced in 2002, the game would spend two years in development only to be cancelled in 2004.
    There doesn't appear to be any significant, concrete details about the game. It had been stated that the game would support up to 3000 individual players at one time and would take place in a anime-styled fantasy setting filled with monsters, quests and other usual fantasy tropes one expects from the genre. There would have been substantial character customization, with one article even suggesting that one could take up a profession as a cook to provide other players with meals over the course of their adventure. There appeared to be a mechanic where your character's physical appearance would change based upon actions, for example if you didn't eat often enough, your character would become slim and frail, so think something similar to C.J. from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Microsoft also were committed to providing additional regions to explore via future downloadable content; initially the game would start off with four countries you could choose to start out from and the world was said to contain your typical fantasy fare like forests, deserts and cities to explore. At this point it seems that the game wasn't going to try and do anything radically new with it's setting, though that certainly could have changed had development went smoothly. 
    Ultimately, as talented as a developer Level-5 was, they simply could not produce the game to meet Microsoft's demands. It was last seen in any significant manner at the Tokyo Game Show in 2003, after which it mostly vanished from the public eye. The relationship between Level-5 and Microsoft broke down as the time spent on the game continued to grow, partially due to Microsoft's lack of experience working with Japanese developers. Microsoft was frustrated with the lack of progress made on the game and there were significant differences on the overall vision of the game between them. Level-5 wanted to pursue a more casual experience, but Microsoft wanted something more hardcore, a game that would keep players invested for months at a time. Ultimately, things never improved and Microsoft officially cancelled the game in 2004. Lucky for us, it was not a death-blow for Level-5, and the company continues to produce fantastic PRGs to this day. Microsoft, for their pair, never seemed able to pull together their own MMO, as they also ended up cancelling a Halo MMO years later and Sea of Thieves from Rare being the closest thing in their portfolio. 
    Given the early state that the game was shown in, it's hard to say what kind of legacy it may have earned had it actually released. It's quite possible it would have ushered in a new era for console RPGs had Microsoft followed-through on providing a substantial amount of post-release content. The XBOX never had a significant MMO on it's system and the XBOX 360 suffered the same fate until Final Fantasy XI hit the system, despite a number of other projects trying to establish the genre on it. Had True Fantasy Live Online actually released, it could have served as the test case to convince other companies to make a better effort towards establishing MMOs on consoles. It wasn't until Final Fantasy XIV on the PlayStation 3 where you really started to see more substantial efforts, resulting in the likes of The Elder Scrolls Online and Destiny with dedicated communities. On the other hand, the anime style and a generic fantasy setting might not have drawn the audience needed to sustain the game long-term and it's unlikely it would have managed to change Microsoft's fortunes in Japan, where the company has always struggled to be relevant. In America, it also may not have appealed to the kind of gamer that typically flocked to the XBOX for games like Halo or Forza Motorsport. Given that Microsoft would also launch the XBOX 360 only a year after the cancellation, it might not have received the support it would have required to maintain a dedicated player base. Whatever the case may have been, True Fantasy Live Online will remain a curiosity of the time when XBOX Live was just getting started and the potential for online gaming was endless. 
     
    Sources: 
    https://www.unseen64.net/2008/04/16/true-fantasy-live-online-xbox-cancelled/
    https://www.gamespot.com/articles/true-fantasy-live-online-e3-2003-preshow-report/1100-6027604/
    https://www.engadget.com/2011/06/14/the-game-archaeologist-and-the-what-ifs-true-fantasy-live-onlin/
  6. Inzoreno

    #006: The City of Metronome

    By Inzoreno,


    Cancelled Game
    The City of Metronome
    Tarsier Studios
    XBOX 360, PS3, PC
    2005 - 2009
    Starting with the original XBOX, I became much more heavily investing the video game industry and was a loyal reader of several gaming magazines at the time, one of which was Official XBOX Magazine. When the XBOX 360 released, the magazine underwent a redesign as it moved to covering the new generation of games and one thing they added was a two-page game spotlight at the front of the magazine to show off screenshots of some new game they wanted to promote without writing out an entire feature. One of the very first games features was The City of Metronome. 
    The City of Metronome was formally announced shortly before E3 2005 in April that year, giving a few details and screenshots before providing the full trailer shown below at the actual show. The game took place in the titular city that is controller by the powerful Corporation, who use child labor to run a wonderous machine capable to building worlds. You control a young man in the process to training to become a steam-train engineer who, after encountering a girl on the train, starts to question the methods and goals of the Corporation. The two of you then set off to undercover what really is going on in Metronome and the true intentions of the Corporation. Beyond the unique art style of the game, probably the other most memorable thing about it was the manipulation of sound as a gameplay element. Your main character is equipped with a recording device on his back that allows him to capture sounds from the environment and manipulate them in order to deal with puzzles, other characters and various threats you come across throughout the game. Even today, it certainly sounds like a fascinating gameplay hook that certainly would have made it stand out of the crowd. 
    Sadly, after it's showing at E3 in 2005, The City of Metronome went silent and nothing more was said about the game until 2009 during an interview at GDC that year. Originally published on a now-defunct website called Primo Technology, apparently Tarsier Studios had jumped the gun a bit by revealing the game when they did in 2005. According to Mattias Nygren, who was CEO at the time, the studio wasn't very far into the production of the game and it seems that the publishers they tried to pitch the game to didn't have enough faith in the product in the early state it was in. Tarsier was also very small at the time and simply didn't have the funds to publish the game in their own right. The inability to secure the publisher for the game left Metronome adrift and eventually work was halted on the game and, 15 years later, it's safe to say it probably won't ever see a release. It was a sad state of affairs, given that Metronome had piqued the interest of many who had seen the game shown off. But that enthusiasm unfortunately never translated into the publishing deal needed to make the game a reality.
    For what it's worth, Metronome didn't sink Tarsier. Despite their inability to get Metronome off the ground, they have been able to continue operation and have developed a number of games since. They started out getting their feet wet with DLC for the first two LittleBigPlanet games and on a port of the Steam game Rag Doll Kung Fu for the PlayStation 3. Success there allowed them to help develop the PlayStation Vita version of LittleBigPlanet and the PlayStation 4 game Tearaway Unfolded. Finally, in 2017 Little Nightmares was released, the first game that Tarsier Studios developed all on their own. With a sequel planned for 2020, the future looks bright for the studio and, who knows, maybe someday their success will allow them to unearth Metronome and give it a chance to shine once again. 
    Sources:
    https://www.ign.com/games/the-city-of-metronome/
    https://www.psu.com/forums/threads/gdc-09-the-city-of-metronome-still-ticking-despite-a-troubled-past.188094/
    https://www.giantbomb.com/the-city-of-metronome/3030-21503/
  7. Inzoreno

    #005: Nightmare Creatures 3: Angel of Darkness

    By Inzoreno,


    Cancelled Game
    Nightmare Creatures 3: Angel of Darkness
    Ubisoft
    Kalisto Entertainment/Ubisoft
    PS2, XBOX, GC
    2002 - 2004
    Released for the original PlayStation console and PCs in 1997, with a Nintendo 64 port a year later, the original Nightmare Creatures was a remarkable survival-horror release for Kalisto Entertainment. Up to that point the developers hadn't put out anything particularly remarkable in the few years they had been active, but Nightmare Creatures brought them a great deal of attention. One reviewer at Entertainment Weekly compared the game with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and found the latter game to be quite dated compared to the first Nightmare Creatures. But lightening didn't strike twice. The sequel, Nightmare Creatures II, did not live up to the expectations set by the first game. Neither the version on the Dreamcast, nor the PlayStation reached the same success the first game had achieved, in either sales or critical reception. But despite this failure, Kalisto wasn't finished just yet. 
    Nightmare Creatures first surfaced in February of 2002 when it was announced that Kalisto had partnered with Ubi Soft to publish the title for the PlayStation 2, XBOX and GameCube, with a tentative release date of the second quarter in 2003. Prior to this arrangement, Kalisto had partnered with Activision on the first game and Konami the second game, making Ubi Soft the third publisher involved with the franchise. However, it seems that development ran into difficulties early on as very little ever was shown off about the game by Kalisto during the time it was working on the title. Kalisto themselves ended up declaring bankruptcy later in 2002, but Ubi Soft swooped in and purchased the entire IP rights to the Nightmare Creatures franchise, with the intention of continuing development on the third game themselves. But what should have been the saving grace for the game and the franchise as a whole instead only briefly delayed the inevitable. Ubi Soft would never provide any further details about the game and the only news surrounding the game suggested that development had started from the ground up after the acquisition, possibly scrapping everything that Kalisto had managed to produce up until that point. Ubi Soft claimed in 2004 that the game had no been cancelled, but nothing of the game would ever see the light of day and the franchise would only ever see a mobile port of the first game before joining the legions of dead franchises.  
    Almost nothing about the game was ever revealed by either Ubi Soft or Kalisto. We do know that the game would have taken place during the 19th century in Europe following a new female protagonist. The heroine was involved in solving some mystery in the city of Prague and was accompanied by a Raven that she could merge with at night in order to transform into a beast. Franchise villain Adam Crowley was set to make his return in the game as well. Beyond that, we don't know anything about the gameplay elements and can only assume they probably would have stuck to something similar to the previous games, though we cannot say if any of that was retained by Ubi Soft when development moved under their watch. In any event, it is disappointing that Nightmare Creatures never had a chance to redeem itself after the failure of the sequel. Certainly the first game proved that Kalisto had a winning concept on the hands, but for unknown reasons were not able to produce a sequel of the same standing. Maybe under the fresh eyes of Ubi Soft the game could have overcome the faults of the second game. Sadly it was never meant to be. 
    Sources:
    https://www.ign.com/games/nightmare-creatures-3-angel-of-darkness/
    https://ew.com/article/1997/10/24/pc-game-review-nightmare-creatures-and-castlevania-symphony-night/
  8. Inzoreno

    #007: Kaio: King of Pirates

    By Inzoreno,


    Cancelled Game
    Kaio: King of Pirates
    Comcept and Intercept
    Marvelous
    Nintendo 3DS
    2011-2015
    Keiji Inafune is a legend in the video game industry, known for his work on the ever-popular Mega Man series. Although the public failure of has most recent project, Mighty No. 9, has tarnished his reputation a bit, he still has a long legacy of games he has worked on spanning over twenty years. With such a pedigree behind him, you wouldn't think it would be hard for a developer of his caliber to get a project off the ground. But game development is often a tricky business and cancellations can come without warning, even to those who are renowned for their development talent. Thus is the case for one of the first games Inafune pursued after forming his own independent studios, Comcept and Intercept. Inafune founded Comcept after leaving Capcom in 2010 and their first few titles were mobiles games available on iOS and Android. Kaio: King of the Pirates would be first announced in 2011, with the intention of releasing on the Nintendo 3DS a year later in Japan. 
    Kaio was an ambitious project. It wasn't envisioned initially as a standalone project, but the starting point for at least a trilogy of games that would hopefully spawn a multi-media franchise. It was announced at Jump Festa in 2013 that the studio Pierrot would be creating an anime series and that two manga series were also in the works. The game would be a retelling of the classic Chinese epic Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which game fans would know as having spawned the Dynasty Warriors games as well as a dedicated Romance of the Three Kingdom video game series. However, the game would not be a direct retelling of the story, but would be an adaption featuring a cast of anthropomorphic animal pirates. Infaune had hoped the game could serve as a gateway for Western audiences to experience that story, much in the same way that Journey of the West had been introduced to Westerners through Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball. The main character of the game was a blue penguin named Sangokushi and would supposedly star a cast of over 300 different characters. It would have been an action role-playing game with some sort of unexplained multiplayer features. While he had put out games on mobile platforms previously, Inafune had specifically eyed the 3DS as the target platform due to his belief that people would rather player games for a longer period of time on a dedicated gaming handheld rather than on mobile devices. 
    Unfortunately, that is the bulk of what is known about the game. Only a single trailer for the game was ever released, but the trailer did not provide much in the way of hard information about the game. There is no gameplay shown, and very little about the story can be gleamed from it. After that trailer was released, the company remained tight-lipped about the game. The only significant updates being the announcement of delays. First it was pushed to 2013, then later to 2014. Marvelous finally announced the cancellation at the beginning of 2015 and it mentioned that the company had spent around $3.8 million on the project before it was canned. The only reason given by Marvelous for the cancellation is that the marketplace had shifted and so they saw no reason to continue development on the title. What exactly that means, we may never know, but if I had to wager a guess, I would say there were some underlying issues with development that ultimately preventing the game from reaching completion and this is just the 'nice' way to explain it's cancellation. After all, 2015 was still a decent year for the Nintendo 3DS and I don't think there's any reason why the game couldn't have done well on the 3DS. Given that there doesn't appear to be any evidence of a playable build of the game makes me think they just never got to that point. 
    Did we lose much from Kaio's cancellation? Difficult to say, but given the track record of Inafune after he left Capcom, there is a chance that if the game had come out, it may not have been that great. For whatever reason, he just hasn't been able to recapture the magic he had when he was working on the original Mega Man games and I cannot say with any certainty that Kaio would have done much better. Of course, being a fan of anthropomorphic animal characters, it is disappointing that the anime series never took off either. Even if the game never surfaced, it could have lived on in animated form. Given the popularity of One Piece in Japan, it could have carved out its own niche as an alternative to that long-running series. Alas, it was not meant to be, though assuming that Inafune still owns the rights to the project, maybe someday he will see fit to try and bring it to life one again. 
     
    Sources:
    https://www.nintendo-insider.com/kaio-king-of-pirates-announced-for-nintendo-3ds/
    https://www.polygon.com/2013/12/10/5195502/inafunes-3ds-game-kaio-king-of-pirates-delayed-to-2014
    https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-01-14/pierrot-animates-king-of-pirates/kaio-from-mega-man-inafune
    https://www.destructoid.com/kaio-king-of-pirates-that-long-delayed-inafune-project-is-canceled/
    https://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2015/03/14/keiji-inafune-39-s-kaio-king-of-pirates-cancelled.aspx
  9. Inzoreno

    Songbird Symphony

    By Inzoreno,

    Songbird Symphony
    PQube
    Joysteak Studios
    July 25, 2019
    Quite regularly, after having played through a big meaty game, I like to jump to something more bite-sized rather than move onto the next big thing. It allows me the chance to dive into smaller experiences that would otherwise be overlooked while I knock out the big hitters in my backlog and I like having a break before tackling the next dozen-plus experience. Following my playthrough of FInal Fantasy VII Remake, Songbird Symphony was just the game for that. Before I had bought it, I didn’t really know anything about the game beyond it being some kind of platformer, but I’m always attracted to games that allow you to play as an animal, especially if it’s a bird. 
    Your character in Songbird Symphony is a young bird chick by the name of… Birb. Can’t deny I found some satisfaction in someone using that internet joke word in an actual video game. At the start of the game you are in the care of a peacock who gets a bit evasive when asked about Birb’s species, leading Birb to seek out the local owl for help. While the owl himself cannot help, he does possess a magical object that responds to the songs of birds, but requires the unique notes of several other species in order to fully work. The owl promises that if Birb helps him acquire the other notes, he will be able to learn the truth about Birb’s species identity. As such, Birb is sent to a number of locales to meet with other species of birds and acquire their unique notes, usually after assisting them in some manner. While it’s not the most original or complex stories in gaming, I did find it to be a touching story that touches on themes of family and identity. The majority of the game revolves around jumping and gliding through levels to either locate the next bird species to interact with, or to complete some task given to you by the other birds. You are also accompanied by the majority of the game by an unhatched bird chick named Egbert, who you can give simple commands to in order to assist in solving puzzles. There are no enemies to defeat and you cannot die, making much of the game a breeze and relaxing experience…
    Or so you think. In reality, the game is actually somewhat of a challenge because of the other gameplay mechanics. Throughout your journey you will be challenged to what amount to rhythm-based boss battles and it is at these points where the difficulty really ramps up. All these challenges are similar on the surface, requiring you to press either a direct on the D-Pad or a face button in time with the music and as the game progresses, the number of possible inputs increases. While that may not sound too challenging, when in practice it is some of the most difficult rhythm-based gameplay I have played in a long time. The trick is that there is no standard arrangement for the challenges. The first challenge involves you following along a bouncing ball, similar to old sing-along videos and is not terribly difficult. But then later you come across one that has notes falling towards a row similar to Guitar Hero or Rock Band, but the notes fade in and out as they move. In addition, in some of the later challenges, the set-up changes so you might not quite have the chance to get into a groove before having to adjust to a new set-up. Some of the arrangements also get extremely cluttered as more potential notes are added and it becomes quite difficult to keep track of what button needs to be hit next. I personally also had difficulty with the D-Pad notes; they were not easy to determine from just a glance which direction I needed to press and this makes things even more difficult when dealing with directions changing quite rapidly. The face buttons, on the other hand, were much easier to keep track of and know what was next just with a quick glance. 
    This all sounds like a bit of a nightmare, but the game is extremely forgiving in the scoring metric. As far as I can tell, as long as you make an effort, you will pass the challenge. While you can certainly try and retry the challenges to get a better ranking, as long as you can earn a ‘C’, you will pass the challenge. At no point throughout the game did I ever fail, so I can only imagine that to fail you would have to not do anything. It is, however, a bit strange that an otherwise simple and relatively relaxed game would have such a massive shift in challenge, only to then compensate by being extremely forgiving. I think maybe it would have been easier to simply tone down the difficulty of the challenges themselves. 
    As the name of the game suggests, music is a significant element of the game and while normally I don’t really have much to say about a game’s soundtrack, I will say that fact did make the music in this game memorable. Most notably, each level has its own music that starts out very basic, but as you explore the level, you can unlock additional instruments to the song and ‘build’ the theme of that area. I found it a very effective way to incentivise the player to explore the level, as I was very interested in hearing what the complete song sounded like. Unfortunately, I did find the visuals of the game to be a bit uneven and left something to be desired. The world in general was very beautiful and detailed pixel art, but the actual characters you meet and interact with I found to be strangely odd, usually looking a bit strange and lacking the detail you found in the rest of the world. I found it a little off putting exploring these beautiful pixel levels, only to come across these lacking character sprites that look like they belong in a completely different game. I also experienced some strange issues when controlling Birb, at seemingly random times he would become ‘stuck’ and would have to jiggle the thumbstick a bit before he would start moving again. There was nothing to indicate that it was something in the world causing it, so I can only assume it was some bug. While it never broke the game, it was an annoying issue that persisted throughout much of the game.
    All in all, I did enjoy my time with this game, even if it left a slightly odd feeling in my mouth. It has a fantastic soundtrack and at times can be gorgeous, but the strange jumps in difficulty and the lackluster character sprites to keep me from loving the game more than I do. I think the game could have used just a little bit more polish and a tone down in the difficulty of the rhythm challenges, but I would still recommend the game because it does try to do something new by mixing platforming with rhythm gameplay. It may not entirely succeed with what it wants to do, but I think it was a valiant effort nonetheless. Given this is the first game from a studio of only three people, I would say that overall the game is still a success and I hope they are able to continue to try new things with future titles. Maybe even giving Birb a more substantial quest in a sequel… 
    Score: 7/10
     
  10. Inzoreno
    Final Fantasy VII Remake
    Square Enix
    Square Enix
    April 10, 2020
    It has been a long and difficult wait for this. Ever since gamers were given a glimpse at a modern remake of the PlayStation 1 classic in 2005, rpg fans everywhere had hoped and dreamed that we would one day have the opportunity to control Cloud and company once again with all the flair and beauty of a modern big-budget video game. For some it seemed like it was inevitable, for others such as myself, we never thought it would be a reality. But here we are, nearly 15 years after that small teaser, stepping back into the shoes of Cloud Strife and ready to take on the Shinra Electric Power Company. 
    First and foremost, it has to be said that this is not your father’s Final Fantasy VII. Adding ‘Remake’ to the title is a bit misleading as this is not simply the PS1 game built with fancier graphics. FFVIIR is more of a reimagining of the original game. It takes many of the basic concepts established in the original, but then uses them to weave an entirely new experience that differs a great deal from the original. As such, if you go into the game expecting an exact beat-for-beat retread of the original game, you will be disappointed. But I think if you come in with an open mind and willing to be taken along this new ride, you will certainly walk away pleased. 

    Probably the biggest difference between FFVIIR and the original is that this game only covers about a third of the original. You start out at the first reactor bombing run, just like in the original, but then the game ends just as Cloud and company set out from Midgar to stop Sephiroth from destroying the world. Everything past that is set to appear in future installments. As such, in order to make sure that this game can stand up on it’s own as a fulfilling experience, much of Midgar has been expanded, with new areas, encounters, bosses and optional content to partake in. Midgar was already an extremely iconic location in the original, but the remake has fleshed the city out far beyond what we saw in the original. There is much more detail to the various slums you visit, as well as transforming the Wall Market into something akin to Vegas, where all manner of sin and vice is catered to. A much more suitable home for the insufferable Don Corneo. With many more NPCs inhabiting these areas, they feel much more like lived-in spaces than they did in the original. Add in a few new locations and Midgar is as much of a character in the game as Cloud, Barret or Tifa are. This is, of course, made possible with the impressive graphics that allowed for a massive amount of detail in the characters, monsters and the overall world. While there have been some complaints about poor textures in the game, I personally never saw anything that was any more significant than a few pop-ins. Maybe I’m simply lucky, or maybe it’s such a small thing I just never bothered to notice. Whatever the case may be, I personally found FFVIIR to be a feast for the eyes, one of the best looking games of this generation.  

    Of course, graphics are nothing without compelling gameplay. FFVIIR swaps out the original turn-based battle system for one that is more akin to Final Fantasy XV. You are given a regular attack, a short dodge and a block. These are the basic building blocks of the combat system, which are then augmented with abilities, spells, summons and Limited Breaks. The game utilizes an Active Time Battle (ATB) system similar to the original game, where you have two bars that slowly fill up and can be spent to use your abilities, items or spells once you have filled enough bars to satisfy the activation requirement for the spell or abilities you want to use. Using an item only requires one bar to be spent. Abilities can either be provided by Materia, or are initially tied to your weapon. Each weapon has a unique ability that can be unlocked for use with other weapons when you achieve mastery of the weapon. Spells are available based upon the particular Materia equipped to the character, either via their weapon or their armor and usually have several stronger versions you will unlock as you increase the level of the Materia. Summons are unfortunately only available for certain battles, so you won’t get to drop Ifrit out every single time you have to take down some random mooks. It’s not entirely clear what the requirements are, but you will pretty much always have them available for the boss fights. Just like the abilities, you have to wait for a bar to fill up before the summon can be activated, but the fights where you really need them will take long enough for it to fill. You also only get one summon per battle, when available, so choose wisely who you decide to activate. Finally, Limit Breaks work similar to the original game, a meter fills as you get hit by enemies and once full, you can unleash a devastating attack. 
    Combat isn’t a straightforward hack-and-slash, however, and trying to play it that way will make the game drag on. You are able to take control of each party member during combat and it is vital to coordinate spell and abilities to maximize the damage inflicted upon your enemies. Each monster, robot, boss and human enemy has a bar that slowly fills as they are attacked, with certain abilities able to increase it far more than a standard attack. One filled, an enemy is staggered, significantly increasing the damage they receive. In addition, enemies have weaknesses to particular elements, so it is crucial to set yourself up properly before facing off against a boss and it’s not unusual to have to restart a boss fight because you don’t have the proper Materia equipped to take advantage of their weakness. Sufficient to say, combat in FFVIIR takes a lot more thought and coordination than you might initially believe. While most of the random mooks can be taken out without much thought, bosses definitely require more tactical thinking in order to succeed without wasting too many resources. The game does include what’s called ‘Classic’ mode, which can be chosen at the start of the game. Supposedly it changes combat a bit to be more similar to the original, but I don’t have any personal experience with that mode, so I cannot say for certain how it actually works.

    Tying all of this together is the story, which is likely going to be the one thing that either makes or breaks the game for you. As I mentioned, this isn’t a simple retread of the original game and FFVIIR makes some significant changes to the story that may leave veterans angry or disappointed. You start the game as the emotionless ex-SOLDIER Clourd Strife working as a mercenary for the resistance group Avalanche and over the course of the game you are joined by Avalanche members Barret Wallace and Tifa Lockhart, as well as flower-girl Aerith Gainsborough and mysterious canine/feline creature Red XIII. Many of the initial story beats are the same as in the original and will be familiar to those who have played through the PS1 classic before, but the further you progress, the more you get a sense that something else is going on, particularly once you reach the endgame. It does things that will have a significant effect on the rest of the Remake project, which can be both an exciting and terrifying prospect. Personally, while I love the story of the original FFVII, I feel like the path that Square Enix has chosen to go with the story is a lot more exciting than if they had decided to simply follow the same story beats as the original. I honestly have no idea how the rest of the story is going to play out and that is very exciting to me. There is far more room to speculate now than if it was just a straight-up remake. As happy as I would have been if the game had been a straight up remake, it’s a lot more exciting to me that Square Enix is going beyond our expectations and crafting something new using the same building blocks from the original game. Sufficient to say, I am quite excited to see where things go from here.

    But for all of that said, I cannot deny that there do exist a few minor issues in the game that prevents me from completely loving it. While they are not significant enough to ruin the game for me, they are enough of an annoyance that it does prevent the game from reaching its full potential. First and foremost, it is extremely easy for an enemy to interrupt you when attempting to use a spell or ability. While by itself this isn’t a huge issue, it becomes one because you still spend your magic and ATB even if the moves aren’t successful and very rarely are you ever able to interrupt the abilities of your enemies. As such, it does feel like the combat is tilted slightly in the favor of the enemies, who are able to pull off their spells and abilities far more often than you are able to. It doesn’t completely ruin combat, and only once or twice did I ever completely lose a fight because an ability I activated was interrupted. But I can’t deny that it wasn’t an issue that made combat much more annoying than it could have been. My other issue is that during a few segments throughout the game, the padding out done in certain areas conflicts with the progress of the story. A good example is the train graveyard. You travel there with Aerith and Tifa after confronting Don Corneo and learning that Shinra plans to drop the Sector 7 plate to get rid of Avalanche. But despite the fact that the three of you are racing against the clock, you are forced into a diversion that doesn’t really add anything to the plot and feel extremely out of place when viewed in context with the rest of the story taking place at the time. Again, not necessarily a major issue, but it is something that you do notice a couple times across the game and can feel a bit jarring. I get what they were wanting to do, but I think it would have been better to expand some other areas of the story where the time pressure doesn’t exist. 

    As someone who never thought this game would ever exist, I have been delighted beyond measure with how the first part of the Remake project has turned out. Given the legacy of Final Fantasy VII in the gaming industry, Square Enix had massive expectations to meet. I can undoubtedly say that not only did they reach those expectations, but they surpassed them in every way. They have built a beautiful game that introduces a new generation to iconic characters like Cloud and Sephiroth, but have also brought something new to the table for veterans to sink their teeth into. We still have a long way to go before we see the end to the project, but I think that Square Enix has already gotten past the hardest part by releasing this game in the first place. I look forward to the day when we will be able to traverse the greater world beyond Midgar, and I don’t think Square Enix is going to disappoint. 
     
    Score: 9.5/10
  11. Inzoreno
    What Remains of Edith Finch
    Annapurna Interactive
    Giant Sparrow
    April 25, 2017
    What secrets does my family hold? What kind of legacy will I leave behind once I have passed on? How much do I really know about my heritage? All these questions arose as I played through Giant Sparrow’s remarkable What Remains of Edith Finch. As is the case with a number of other so-called ‘walking simulators’, the story leaves you with plenty of food for thought long after you have put down the controller. Though often derided for their lack of ‘real’ gameplay, I have often found walking simulators to be enjoyable experiences in their own light, able to craft stories with a lot more ambiguity and open to interpretation from the player. They are able to explore topics that otherwise might not work in a video game that requires more heavy player interaction. I went into the game expecting to enjoy it, as I usually do with these kinds of games. But I knew next to nothing about the game. I didn’t do any extensive research on it before-hand, the most that I knew going-in was that it was highly-acclaimed by game journalists. Sufficient to say, it lived up to the reputation.  
    The game has you control the titular Edith Finch, the last living member of her family, returning to the old family home after it had been abandoned for some time. As you slowly explore the various nooks and crannies of the somewhat-bizarre structure, you come across documents that detail the final moments of various members of the family. Tied together is the belief that the family is cursed, where only one member of each generation survives to continue the family line. In each case you are given control of the family member during their final moments and the manner of deaths, which range from a few tragic-but-mundane accidents, to one particularly horrifying incident that you are in full control of. These segments provide the majority of ‘real’ gameplay and each story varies in what you are doing. One story has you taking photographs, another has you transform into an owl and hunt rabbits. These segments help to break up the general exploration of the house and give it a slight edge over a traditional walking simulator. In addition, throughout her exploration of the house, Edith will comment on what she learns and fills in some of the blanks about her time living in the house with her mother and grandmother. Having been kept in the dark about the history of her family, she reflects the same amazement that the player feels as they uncover the stories behind the Finch family. Ultimately this leads to an unexpected but still satisfying conclusion that I didn’t see coming. If there is only one negative I could say about the game, is that I wish it was longer. I finished in only a couple hours and wished there was far more to explore and discover in and around the house. There is one particular segment that is teased, but sadly never delivers. 
    What Remains of Edith Finch will make you think about your own family and the unspoken secrets that surround your long-passed ancestors. It is sobering to realize that you may not know your own family as well as you think you do. You even have to ask yourself, would you really want to know some of those secrets? A few of the story sequences are genuinely disturbing and it is very understandable why family members would withhold that information from later generations. You then have to ask yourself, what is it that you would want to pass on to your descendants? Throughout the story Edith records her findings in a journal to be passed on to her son, providing them with a look at the troubles history of the family. One has to admire her willingness to be open about these things. Despite how terrible they may be, she doesn’t want to be the same as her own mother and keep the secrets buried forever. I think the themes of family and legacy are ones that anyone can relate to and find something to ponder over. While I know the genre can be a turn-off to those looking for more action in their video games, I do believe that What Remains is a game that anyone who considers the medium as art should play. 
        
    Score: 10/10
     
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