Bandai kicked off their show at Gamescom 2016 on Twitch with a trailer for an interesting looking new title called Little Nightmares, due out in Spring 2017.
With the tagline “Play With Your Childhood Fears” and a very creepy aesthetic, it definitely stood out. The animation looks to be stop motion. Described by the producers as a suspense exploration title it features a small girl as a protagonist who has to be smart and sneak around any enemies she encounters. The gameplay demo showed her using a lighter to light her way, using noises to distract enemies, climbing on the environment and throwing a clay pot down on a chef who was trying to grab her. One disturbing sequence also required you to grind some type of meat in a sausage grinder to create a dangling rope of meat to swing across a gap. Little Nightmares seems interesting and atmospheric from the small amount that was shown.
The next game up was Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2. Immediately notable in the game were Dragon Ball GT characters, with the developers confirming that the game would be focused on Dragon Ball Z along with characters from all the movies and GT. Changes from Xenoverse to Xenoverse 2 include a 60FPS framerate and improved online play. The game looked very similar to the first Xenoverse, but combat appeared to be much faster and more fluid. Targeting and rushing have been improved, along with a new dash mechanic to help you close with enemies. There are also more quests to do online, along with a bigger hub city. The game will also be incorporating the Dragon Ball Super story to a certain extent, although the developers stated it was hard to include because the game has been in development for some time and Dragon Ball Super is rather new. However, they do plan on trying to include it.
The developers spoke repeatedly about taking community feedback, as well as continuing to support the new game after launch. It seems that Bandai is determined to make everything about Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 bigger and better. As a fan of the original, I’m excited to get some playtime with the new one. Xenoverse 2 should be available October 16 of this year.
Bandai followed up Xenoverse 2 with another fighting game, this one arguably one of the flagship titles of the genre: Tekken 7. The game is meant to give players some idea as to why the ongoing fight between the families in the game, as well as the Devil Gene, have been happening for the last 20 years. Tekken 7 has been created on the Unreal Engine 4, which allowed Bandai to bring a new level of detail to the game. It was also revealed that Akuma was built in the game with no input from Capcom. Instead Bandai studied his moves and have build him to work in their 3d engine.
There are also new characters coming to the game as well as characters returning from past titles that haven’t been seen in some time, with this game having the most new characters to date. Some characters also have some unique mechanics a la Akuma. One such was the rage art, which is a character specific command that does massive damage, and also has armor on startup to make it harder to interrupt. These moves are flashy and powerful and are meant to finish opponents.
Tekken 7 will be released in early 2017 on Xbox One, PS4 and PC.
