Electronic Three Twenty Nineteen

[Delthazar]

You know the drill.

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE!

Microsoft: Sunday, June 9, 1pm Pacific Time
Bethesda: Sunday, June 9, 5:30pm Pacific Time
Ubisoft: Monday, June 10, 1pm Pacific Time
Sony Square Enix: Monday, June 10, 6pm Pacific Time
Nintendo: Tuesday, June 11, 9am Pacific Time

Yes, Sony is skipping this year. I'm also not sure if any of the smaller scale or more specialized conferences from Sega or Devolver and such are still happening.

WHERE TO WATCH THE THINGS!

As usual, Giant Bomb is my first recommendation for Talk Over style conference coverage and you can find all those on their site or their YouTube channel at the times above. They also have the only real post-conference chat stuff worth watching, @Nite, same places. Sometimes people drink too much and this happens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBRXiLecBKc

I'll post embeds in this thread if I'm not at work. Kinda Funny does similar coverage also on YouTube. If yer a podcast-first kinda person, Waypoint is the best bet for that. Not sure if their E3 pods will go here as usual or on something weirder like Periscope. If all yer here for is Nintendo, or if you'd just like a really good Nintendo-centric channel for E3 or anything else, try Arlo.

[Delthazar]

And now, we gots some leaks.

https://kotaku.com/massive-e3-leak-reve ... 1835338725

These are all from Bandai Namco. Grain of salt, of course, but at least one of these was already widely rumoured. That would be a new title supposedly called Elden Ring, which is allegedly the possible From Software/George R.R. Martin collab project we've been hearing about for a couple weeks. This could hit PS4, XB1, and PC.

Next is a Ni No Kuni remaster. The Switch might also be getting a vanilla port of Ni No Kuni, too. Platform details for the remaster are hazier right now, though.

Finally, and pretty surprisingly from the look of it, is Tales of Arise, a new entry in the Tales Of series, not that you'd ever guess that by these screenshots




If these are real it's a pretty bananas graphical leap forward for this series and a pretty big stylistic jump as well. I hope it's real.

That's all for now.

[DHerder222]

Nice, that looks pretty.

Do the rumors of a GRRM project say anything about it being an original IP?

[Delthazar]

I believe so, yeah. The rumours also had GRRM's part of the collaboration being some work he did as a worldbuilding consultant, so if that's true I'm guessing most of the actual heavy lifting storywise will be handled by From's Hidetaka Miyazaki.

[Delthazar]

Here's a bunch of folks doing prediction stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEvLk5gG_UA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r5uTq4keqM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIYZDVWK-6s&t=0s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0JQEa2-MMU

[Delthazar]

Microsoft is live in about 90 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR6OkB_pO-Y

e: hmm

https://twitter.com/Nibellion/status/11 ... 5203915778

[Delthazar]

Microsoft had a pretty great half or three-quarters of a conference. Huge highs early they couldn't quite keep up, but damn, at least one or two bits will be memorable as hell

I have family stuff to do this afternoon so I'll just toss some trailers in here and you can suss-out for yerselves what the big deals are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIcTM8WXFjk

(the live reaction to the reveal at the end of this trailer was wild, go look that up if I don't quite have the time to find and embed it myself)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uO-2LOdQXg

EIGHT YEARS LATER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM690dmXr8o

something more low-key

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ASnhnjlF9I

that From/GRRM project we were talking about

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGrUtl8ZXJM

Tales of Arise (still amazed someone gave that team a budget)

there were other cool things but I gotta run

[Bier_Engel]

Well, if that Tales of game has a PS4 release, I'll pick that up.

[Falcon Critical]

If you want to watch the Cyberpunk trailer via GB commentary, including the post-trailer stuff, here's a link for ya!

https://youtu.be/zR6OkB_pO-Y?t=2171

And if you want to start at the end/reveal/reactions, here ya go!

https://youtu.be/zR6OkB_pO-Y?t=2385

[Delthazar]

Cheers! Helluva moment.

Home now, catching up with the Bethesda conference, bracing myself for some chop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJJ3rprEFw8

Well, if that Tales of game has a PS4 release, I'll pick that up.

I'd bet on it, I'm not sure there's been a platform-exclusive Tales since... the PS1? I keep forgetting how old this series is.

(fake edit: granted, it took a while for Vesperia to get on the PS3, and that version never left Japan 'til it got remastered and put out on everything just this year)

[Bier_Engel]

I saw an official post on Twitter saying it would also be on PS4 and PC. Don't remember where, but yeah, that's the usual course for this series.

[Bier_Engel]

Finally a release date and new trailer for FF7R.

However, still all Midgar/beginning of the game footage... This is getting weird.

Also, the battle system looks so different that I don't know how confident I am about it.

[DHerder222]

The uber-dweeb in me is still waiting for a FFVIII release on PS4.

[Delthazar]

Bethesda's really gotta stop letting 1999 Steve Ballmer into their press conferences

anyway, you pretty much know what yer gettin' with Beth, uh, with the minor exception of the sudden revival of Commander Keen, I guess. But otherwise, yeah, it's Bethesda stuff and whatever id is also doing. Only real difference this year is the obviously smaller focus on Fallout 76 since that thing already came out and is still a mess. Lotsa new content coming for it though, including proper NPCs and dialogue and story things, plus a battle royale mode, 'cause of course. It's free this week, maybe I'll check it out... and still probably only return in earnest when I hear it's completed the No Man's Sky redemption arc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2XdwS4lcZM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4NbPbkNUbc

Ben on GB's Talk Over calling the battle royale immediately and Jeff's face as the slow realization kicks in was pretty great

I'm also loving the look if this new thing from Tango Gameworks, the folks behind The Evil Within (shoutout to Ikumi Nakamura for a delightful presentation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27BSko8QHa0

but seriously Commander Keen what the hell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpneMd8xTFw

Other notable trailers from the Microsoft conference I didn't have time to embed earlier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4b88aW8kjk

yeah, THAT Blair Witch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReDDgFfWlS4

I'm not a flight sim guy or a Microsoft Flight Simulator guy but holy shit they brought back Microsoft Flight Simulator and it looks amazing. This'll be a big deal for a very particular niche - CALL DREW SCANLON BRING BACK GIANT BOMB FLIGHT CLUB

[DHerder222]

An entire game of flying around the beautifully-recreated world? Yeah, I could go for that.

[Delthazar]

Finally a release date and new trailer for FF7R.

I'm really surprised to see Square put all this out ahead of their actual conference. Wonder what the reasoning is behind that. Maybe they're just getting ahead of a feared leak, "fuck it, we'll leak it ourselves," or something.

The uber-dweeb in me is still waiting for a FFVIII release on PS4.

I don't think that was in the big dump of Final Fantasy games on Switch either, so... music licensing, maybe. Pretty sure I heard a rumour about there being issues with the license for whatever pop song was the headliner for VIII. "Eyes On Me" I think it was.

VIII was the first FF which did that so I guess it's possible that maybe they weren't 100% futureproofed legally when they signed that song license and rather than simply replace it they're preferring to sit on it 'til they clear the rights.

[Bier_Engel]

I know this is super vague with no proof but I read somewhere online that the original/master copy of FFVIII was lost, hence the lack of any remakes. I don't care enough for a remake of that one to dig deep into it, but maybe that's a starting point, if you are interested.

[Falcon Critical]

Ubisoft's conference was pretty meh, highlights for me were Watch Dogs Legion because I'm not sure how the heck they pull that off.... and KPOP in Just Dance (even though I lack rhythm and won't ever play it).

Thinking about it they could do the Saints Row protag voice thing, where different personalities say the same kinds of lines for other NPCs to respond to... which in turn reminds me of the Person of Interest 'simplified simulation':

https://youtu.be/uxPPZLZcYBg?t=135

[Delthazar]

As usual I missed the Ubi conference and as usual I'm not sure I care that much. I'll watch the coverage for it later anyway though

Got home just in time for Square

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZcXARX6e70

[True Perception]

The uber-dweeb in me is still waiting for a FFVIII release on PS4.

Wish granted, I suppose.

[DHerder222]

Woo! That was the first I'd heard, thanks Teep.

I didn't have a problem with FFVIII's storyline or setting, which I know a lot of people had issues with. For me its flaws were all QoL. If the remaster fixes those, that could make it a top-tier FF game for me.

But Del, you were also apparently right, there seems to be some kind of issue with Eyes on Me.

[Delthazar]

Square was an odd show. Huge-ass highs off the top with Final Fantasy 7-R, an extended version of the trailer they showed at the concert last night and a ton of gameplay (and Tifa!) giving us a demonstration of the entire first boss fight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCJZg7pVtiI

https://youtu.be/kJvzzivkK28?t=278

for my money (a lot of which I'll be spending on this) I think it all looks fucking amazing. the combat is much more well-considered than I expected, more than just VII's characters in XV's system, there's a Tactical Mode here which stops/slows time for menu selections (not quite Fallout VATS, not quite old Infinity Engine RPGs) with big sweeping camera pans that all look pretty damn great. deeper in the trailer there's all kinds of callbacks and 21st century versions of some old battle stuff, plus other recognizable bosses. The limit breaks especially are super cool without being so different you wouldn't recognize 'em.

it's also got me thinkin' a lot about what this remake must be doing storywise. there's a lot of new content in here, both cutscenes and gameplay sequences, so I'm betting we're seeing a pretty substantial rewrite/reinterpretation of the original game's events. there's quite a bit of Jessie/Biggs/Wedge, for instance - Jessie is even on Cloud's motorcycle in one bit - so, hmm. maybe they might even survive...?

a damn fine showing for FFVII-R. I didn't expect E3 2019's biggest crowd pops to come from Keanu Reeves and Tifa Lockheart but here we are.

in other Square conference news, whether the issue was music licenses or missing source, it's been resolved 'cause we're finally getting that FFVIII remaster this year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpx2Z2CCjPs

https://twitter.com/Nibellion/status/11 ... 0481707014

better textures do a lot for a guy.

...otherwise it was a bunch of things that are either already out or that we already knew about and saw just recently elsewhere, though that new FFT-like Brave Exvius spinoff looks neat.

everything about that Avengers showcase was awkward as hell and maybe the biggest low of the conferences so far.

[Falcon Critical]

Haha yeah that Avengers bit was weird af. Like it was fun to me that I recognised 4/5 of the VAs but that whole bit where they sat on couches was ... odd. Also basically no gameplay shown was a weird decision.

Brad talking about Watch Dogs: Legion at the end of that presser has really raised my interest in that game. It was already pretty high but now I'm stoked.

Tentative Top 3 Games:
Cyberpunk 2077
Watch Dogs: Legion
Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Haven't watched the PC Gaming Show yet. Tonight.

[Bier_Engel]

Those FF7 trailers look great! I feel better about the combat, too. Seems like they wanted to appeal to non-RPG players while not alienating some of the original fans that might prefer turn-based games only. Also, I like that Tifa is actually proportionate in this game, without looking like a different person.

Interesting about FF8. Wouldn't have expected it, but it seems akin to the FF9 remake for PS4. Basically higher resolution, and probably not much else different except for the addition of trophies and possibly a turbo mode or something.

[Delthazar]

Some folks on Twitter are speculatin' that there's slightly more going on with the VIII remaster than just a texture upgrade, looks like they may have tweaked the character models a little, too. it's most noticeable with hair and stuff, those new details weren't there before.

https://twitter.com/danieltflynn/status ... 9285952513

so this version of VIII actually kinda looks like how it might've looked like on the PS2, which is neat.

Also, I like that Tifa is actually proportionate in this game, without looking like a different person.

She got a bit of a glow-up with her costume, too. Black thigh-highs, a more pleated-looking skirt, and a top with support. Overall an A+ upgrade. All Barrett really got was a pair of shades.

e: christ Twitter is great during E3 season

https://twitter.com/andreareventon/stat ... 8483467264