Reflections on the Past E3

  In the annals of man's history, there are numerous events that have lifted his soul above the everyday and the banal and made him contemplate life. The invention of the airplane, the premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and the Spanish Reconquista come to mind. E3 2021, however, was not one of these events. Flying in the face of my original high expectations for this year's E3, the final product we fans were delivered can only make me exclaim the following:

Chef Skinner expresses his justifiable outrage over E3 2021.

    

    This E3 was a series of one letdown after another. Most of the games that were shown were bad, and few of my desired reveals occurred. While the fact that my pet projects didn't see the light of day isn't too surprising, neither did the hopes and dreams of almost any fans of any franchises! Most promising in-development games received no word as to their development statuses, which I will list in greater detail below. I had assumed that since game developers skipped E3 last year and had a whole year's reservoir of information to share, this year would be jam-packed full of exciting announcements, but I was sorely mistaken. It turns out that game developers had nothing to show for themselves, and in some cases it would have been better if they actually didn't show anything at all. (I'm looking at you, Square Enix.) I hadn't watched E3 for several years before I tuned into E3 2021, but this year's presentations were so bad that I feel a strong inclination to avoid watching them in the future, so as not to disappoint and disgust myself.

    Now I shall offer my thoughts on the conferences of the developers I mentioned in my previous post on E3: whether they lived up to my expectations or not, which of my hopes (if any) were fulfilled, and then I shall assign them a final grade. Without further ado, here is my evaluation of E3 2021, company by company.

1. BANDAI NAMCO

    Bandai Namco's E3 presentation was nothing short of abysmal. Indeed, the only grade I could fairly give it would be a resounding F. It consisted of a single trailer for a Western game called House of Ashes, developed by Supergiant Games, followed by a developer interview on said game. Now, if said game had been featured in Ubisoft's presentation, say, or Take Two Interactive's, I wouldn't complain. I wouldn't be enthused by the game, either, but I would acknowledge that there is a place for Western games in Western developer presentations. But to have literally the sole focus of one of the largest Japanese game developers' presentations at the biggest video game conference of the year be a Western game that it is merely publishing is wholly unacceptable. It is nothing short of asinine, as well as insulting to its fans. In general, fans of Japanese games watch Japanese game developer conferences hoping to see new games from their favorite Japanese game franchises, or to see a new surprise Japanese IP reveal. There are some exceptions to this rule, such as fans of Deus Ex watching Square Enix's press conference in hopes of a new game announcement for said series, but these are merely exceptions to the rule. And Supergiant Games does not have nearly the devoted fanbase that Deus Ex does.

    In addition, FromSoftware's new unannounced game was nowhere to be seen. I had hoped we'd see its reveal this E3, but no dice. To be sure, it is possible that it's not being published by Bandai Namco, but no other publisher has announced it yet, either. It seems to still be languishing in obscurity in some corner of FromSoftware's headquarters in Tokyo, apparently not yet ready for public scrutiny.

    Of course, there's one thing about Bandai Namco's "E3" presence that I am neglecting to mention: Elden Ring. When I said that I could only give Bandai Namco's E3 conference an F, I was excluding Elden Ring, for Elden Ring was not revealed at E3 this year, but rather at Geoff Keighley's "Summer Game Fest," which was held two days prior to the commencement of E3. But since the Summer Game Fest was held in such close proximity to E3, I will make an exception to strict E3 conference grading and include its reveal as part of Bandai Namco's E3 presentation. As I mentioned in my first post, I was hoping that Elden Ring would show up this year, and show up it did. Although, frustratingly, Elden Ring was not shown any further at E3, as many suspected it would be following its reveal at the Summer Game Fest, which is yet another stain on Bandai Namco's E3 presence this year. But at long last, we've got ourselves a release date for FromSoftware's next epic dark fantasy adventure. I'm looking forward to its release, and as a matter of fact, its reveal at E3 this year was good enough to lift Bandai Namco's grade from an F to a D. Such is the power of FromSoftware games.

GRADE: D

2. NINTENDO

    Ah, yes, Nintendo, the saviors of the American game industry. The most seasoned console maker in business today, and the last of the Japanese console-making giants. (I don't count Sony as Japanese anymore, since they moved PlayStation's headquarters to California in 2016.) I had hoped they'd offer us a reveal of Breath of the Wild 2, along with news on Pikmin 4, Monolith Soft's new games, and a new Fire Emblem title. Alas, only one of these hopes actually was fulfilled.

    

    Nintendo's conference had the most games of any that I watched, so I must commend them heartily for that. In an E3 short not just on new reveals, but games at all, Nintendo at least brought games to the table. And they even brought a surprise, too. A new 2D Metroid game was announced, apparently the first in 19 years, an announcement which was received positively by fans. I myself have never played a Metroid game, so it didn't interest me very much, but I am happy for fans of said series. Shin Megami Tensei V, a game which had languished in development hell until last year, received a release date and finally showed some gameplay. And, as I mentioned above, Breath of the Wild 2 was revealed, and a release window given. These are significant positives, to be sure. But there were also quite a few negatives, too. So many that I'd say they outnumbered the positives.

    Firstly, as I mentioned above, Nintendo failed to show any of the games I was excited for other than Breath of the Wild 2. As I mentioned in my first post, it has been literally four years since Pikmin 4 last received an update. In the time since, Nintendo has released both a Mario Golf and a Mario Tennis game. (Well, the Mario Golf game isn't out yet, but it will be in four days.) The ordering of Nintendo's priorities is out of whack. It's high time Nintendo either reveals this game or disconfirms its existence. Similarly, it has been nearly two years since the last Fire Emblem game was released, and in the whole history of the series, the longest gap between game releases has been three years. Since no new Fire Emblem game has been revealed yet, it is very unlikely that one will be releasing later this year, which means that we are due for a new title next year. I hope Nintendo shows it sooner rather than later. No word was given on whatever Monolith Soft is doing at the moment, which is disappointing. Furthermore, though I am not a Metroid fan (as I mentioned earlier), I feel badly for the fans because Metroid Prime 4 was not revealed (as many were hoping it would be), but rather merely received an update saying that it was "progressing." And the poor Bayonetta fans received no word on the third title in their series, which supposedly was a Switch exclusive game. The last word on it came in December 2017. And even though Breath of the Wild 2 was shown, its trailer was not very promising. It appears that the game will use the same map as Breath of the Wild, with some modifications like floating islands. But I am not confident that floating islands will be enough to spruce up Breath of the Wild's map. It would not be enjoyable to run around the same map once again, since part of the fun of Breath of the Wild was exploration. If the map has already been explored in the previous game, and its sequel merely makes minor modifications to it, what would be the point of playing the sequel at all? As it is, it's still too early to dismiss the game out of hand. I am still hoping that Nintendo adds actual Zelda dungeons to Breath of the Wild 2, and I hope the game turns out well in the end.

GRADE: C-

3. SEGA

    I won't have to spend much time on this section. Sega had no conference at all this year. Despite E3's official website listing them as a participating developer, they did not show off anything other than a trailer for an 11-year old Sonic game. That was it. I cannot even fathom how this occurred. Not only was nothing interesting shown, nothing at all was shown. No Persona, No Project Re Fantasy, nothing from Atlus, nothing from Sega itself, nothing at all. That Sonic trailer doesn't even count. How was Sega even listed as a participating developer? It boggles the mind. There was some profound incompetence on the Entertainment Software Assocation's part here, or else on Sega's part. Anyway, having no conference at all automatically assigns Sega an F.

GRADE: F

4. SQUARE ENIX

    Good grief. Square Enix's presentation was probably my most anticipated of E3, and yet it ended up being a complete disaster. The presentation lasted about 40 minutes, and yet incomprehensibly, the first 20 or so minutes of it were devoted to showing off a Western-developed Guardians of the Galaxy game. How did this happen? It's the same thing that happened with Bandai Namco, all over again! Nobody watches Square Enix press conferences for news about Guardians of the Galaxy games! People watch them for news about Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, or Kingdom Hearts or Deus Ex (as I mentioned above). The rest of the conference consisted of announcing remasters, DLC to a (Western) game that flopped, mobile games, and two other games which I shall describe in greater detail. The first is Babylon's Fall. This game is being developed by PlatinumGames, a studio known for making high-quality action games. As such, I was happy to see it shown off at Square Enix's presentation. Unfortunately, its reveal was also accompanied by some bad news: it will be published as a live service title. This is disappointing to hear. The game originally looked like it would be a single-player action game, like those that Platinum is known for, but instead now it looks as though it will have multiplayer mechanics and live service elements shoehorned in. This is not good. It is perhaps too early to proclaim the downfall of the game, but it is certainly a distinct possibility now, and more so than it was before. And the other game was a Final Fantasy game, which is great. But it wasn't a great Final Fantasy game. Not in the least. As a matter of fact, it looked awful. Final Fantasy Origin, as the game is called, is a spin-off of the mainline Final Fantasy series, but it lacks all of what made Final Fantasy good in the first place. Final Fantasy traditionally was renowned for its art direction, character designs, music, worlds, and to some degree plot. But the trailer that was shown was truly laughable, with an absurdly edgy tone that does not befit a Final Fantasy title, a ludicrous main character who looks like he came straight from an American gym, and horrible art direction and character designs. This is all the more disappointing considering the fact that Tetsuya Nomura did the game's artwork and character designs, and he has proven his mettle in both of these fields time and time again with his work on older Final Fantasy games, and considering the fact that the game takes place in the universe of Final Fantasy I, which had excellent art direction and character designs due to its fantastic artist, Yoshitaka Amano. The least Square Enix could have done was to hire him out to work on this game. But no. It was not to be.

    There was nothing in Square Enix's presentation that wasn't disappointing in some way. There was no word on Final Fantasy XVI at all, let alone a release date, and nothing on either of Yoko Taro's new games. Well over half of the presentation was spent focused on Western games, an absurdly high proportion considering that, again, this is a Japanese developer's press conference. I was greatly disappointed by the conference as I watched it. The company I was most excited for turned out to be my biggest disappointment.

GRADE: F

    Well, E3 this year was a pile of garbage. But at least we got to see Elden Ring at the Summer Game Fest. Thanks, Geoff, for attempting to salvage the smoldering corpse of E3 before it even began. Maybe the Tokyo Game Show will have some actual news. Or maybe next year's E3 will be better. But I won't be getting my hopes up again any time soon. Until next time, my fair readers.

OVERALL E3 GRADE: F

Reflections on the Upcoming E3

    The past few months have not been kind to gamers worldwide. The video game industry was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, and as a result news has slowed to a trickle. Games in development hell have rotted away with no updates as to their statuses, while new game announcements have been scarce. But all that can and should change with the welcome return of E3 on June 12, a mere nine days away. E3 was sadly and conspicuously absent last year, also because of the coronavirus pandemic (though one must wonder why a digital event could not have been arranged as is being done this year), but it makes its glorious return this year, albeit in digital form. The conference boasts an impressive lineup a lineup, with several heavy hitters from the East participating, and a few from the West as well: Nintendo, Sega, Square Enix, Bandai Namco, and Capcom representing Japan, Ubisoft representing France, and Microsoft (including their new subsidiary Bethesda), Take-Two Interactive, Warner Bros. (ostensibly a film production studio), and Verizon representing the United States. Notably absent are EA, Sony, and Konami. Before this E3 I had no idea Verizon was in any way involved with video games, but perhaps the company is using this E3 as an opportunity to stealthily (or not so stealthily) break into the industry, to provide it with some much-needed healthy competition. If KFC can make a video game console (which I suppose remains to be seen), then why can't a telecommunications company have a presence at E3?

A screenshot of the home page of the E3 2021 website. (Verizon logo highlight added).

    All levity aside, I'm hoping for a good E3 this year. There are many previously announced games without release dates whose presences are sorely desired at it, and since developed societies the globe over have somewhat regained their footing after shooting themselves in the foot with the hullabaloo over COVID-19, I figure that E3 2021 is a great opportunity for developers to provide updates on said games. It has been long enough since these games were announced and since developers adjusted to pandemic work guidelines that they certainly are due for an update. I'm speaking of games like Breath of the Wild's sequel, Elden Ring, Bayonetta 3, and Metroid Prime 4. Even if I don't care about all of these games, their fans most certainly deserve some news. Since I mostly care about Japanese video games, I won't be commenting on my hopes for the Western companies' press conferences, because I don't have any.

    Without further ado, I now present my hopes for E3 2021, listed by the respected companies each "hope" is associated with. Note that I don't expect all of these to occur, which is why they are hopes and not expectations. But a man can dream, can't he?

1. Bandai Namco
• Hopes: Elden Ring update and release date, plus a new FromSoftware game announcement. At the end of 2018, company president and gaming overlord Hidetaka Miyazaki confirmed that FromSoftware was developing two new unannounced games alongside the then-unreleased Sekiro. (Source here: https://www.usgamer.net/articles/from-software-sekiro-two-games-dark-souls-bloodborne). One of these games was revealed to be Elden Ring at E3 2019. The other has not been announced yet. I hope that this E3 will see its reveal. There is a good chance that it will not be published by Bandai Namco, but I'm categorizing it with said company, because it published all three Dark Souls games outside of Japan and is publishing Elden Ring as well (it also published Demon's Souls in PAL regions).
2. Nintendo
• Hopes: Breath of the Wild 2 reveal and release date, Pikmin 4 announcement and release date, plus Monolith Soft's (a Nintendo-owned studio) medieval fantasy game announcement. I personally thought Breath of the Wild was a good game, a 7/10. I didn't think it was the masterpiece that many people claimed it was, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. And thus I'm interested in its sequel. As for Pikmin, well, I played Pikmin 3 many years ago and liked it a lot, so I'm most definitely interested in a new installment in the franchise. Shigeru Miyamoto last teased Pikmin 4 in July 2017, and sadly, nothing has been said about the game since. Maybe this year the game will finally get its time in the spotlight. And as regards Monolith Soft's game, for the past few years, Monolith Soft's website has contained a recruitment page for a new project, alongside some concept art. (This page can be accessed here: https://www.monolithsoft.co.jp/recruit/special/). While this project may at first glance appear to be Breath of the Wild's sequel (since Monolith Soft co-developed BotW with Nintendo), there is a separate listing for a Zelda project on the website, indicating that the two games are separate. Although nothing is known about the game yet, its concept art looks cool, so I am eager to learn more about it.
3. Sega
• Hopes: Persona 6 announcement, Project Re Fantasy reveal. Project Re Fantasy is an RPG that was announced by Atlus (which is owned by Sega) at the end of 2016 and has received almost no coverage by the developer since. At the end of 2020 its director claimed that he would like to make its reveal in 2021, so I hope that finally happens at E3 this year. But, we might be kept waiting yet. Regardless, I'm interested in the game due to its excellent concept art and high-caliber production team. The game is being developed by the core team of director Katsura Hashino, artist Shigenori Soejima, and composer Shoji Meguro, the group of men responsible for Persona 3, 4, and 5, so if nothing else, the game will at least likely have good art and character design and good music. Project Re Fantasy's teaser website can be accessed at rpg.jp, but only in Japanese.
4. Square Enix
• Hopes: Final Fantasy XVI update and release date, Babylon's Fall update, reveal of Yoko Taro's two new games. I like Final Fantasy (although the series has really gone down the gutter in recent years), so a new entry in the series is assuredly going to pique my interest. (If XVI sucks, though, I might give up on this franchise ever being good again.) Babylon's Fall looks pretty neat from the trailers released thus far, and PlatinumGames is reputedly great at developing action games, so this game has my attention. Square Enix has already confirmed that Babylon's Fall will receive an update at E3 this year, so that doesn't really count as a hope, but I'm including it here anyway. As for Yoko Taro's new games, at the end of 2020, his producer and buddy Yosuke Saito stated that they together were working on not one but two new games (source here: http://firesanctuary.com/blog/2020/12/31/yoko-taro-is-working-on-2-new-games/), neither of which has been revealed yet, so I'm waiting with bated breath to see what these new games are. Every *real* game (I'm not including mobile games) Yoko Taro makes is interesting, so whatever he comes up with will likely be worth checking out.

I'm looking forward to seeing how my hopes pan out. Maybe there will be a few pleasant surprises at this E3. Only time will tell. After E3 concludes I will be writing a post detailing my thoughts on the event, so please look forward to it. Until then.

EDIT: I also would like to see Nintendo show off a new Fire Emblem game at their conference. The latest Fire Emblem game was released in 2019, and Fire Emblem games typically follow each other within two or three years, so I think a new one ought to be coming out soon.