FNAF 4: The Hype

For the past several months, I’ve been had the fever: The Five Nights at Freddy’s fever.

It’s not as scary if you image he has Mario’s voice.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, Five Nights at Freddy’s is an indie, survival-horror game quadrilogy created by the super talented Scott Cawthon.  On the surface, it centers around a Chuck E. Cheese-eque pizzeria with you playing as the night guard who has to survive the haunted animatronics until 6 a.m. for 5 (or 6 or 7 if you are brave enough) nights.  As those who have read my Comic-Con blog know, I’m a big fan of Markiplier.   It was his Let’s Play of the series that initially got me hooked.  At first, it was just the jump scares and his reactions that reeled me in. However, as I learned more about the story through subtle clues and as new consecutive games came out, I was hooked.

I started watching MatPat’s Game Theory videos and other Let’s Plays and reading fan theories on Reddit.  When it came out on mobile, I downloaded it and played it for myself.  It scared me and it fascinated me.  The hidden secrets and story beyond just the main premise of the game intrigued me.  I love murder mysteries or mysteries of any kind.  Give me a good “who dun it” story and I become obsessed until I know all the answers.  And I expect all of them to be answered.  None of this Inception ending crap.  Tell me what happened at the end; don’t leave it up to my imagination/interpretation.

When FNAF 3 came out, we all assumed that it would be the final installment into the series. But it wasn’t long until FNAF 4: The Final Chapter was announced on Scott’s homepage for Halloween 2015.  Scott isn’t really good with release dates though.  Just a few weeks ago he announced that the game would be coming out early on 8/8 with free DLC on 10/31, but then the actual game just came out Thursday, July 23rd.  It was unexpected, but it brought at lot of hype.

Per the norm, I’ve already watched 4 different people play, beat and analyze the game.   I’m still watching and waiting for the entirety of the playthrough from Markiplier and the final theories from MatPat, but that will keep the buzz going.  Once the DLC comes out, which I suspect will be out before 10/31 if the main game is any indication,  we will finally (hopefully) have the full picture of the horrible and scary things that went on in the Freddy Fazbear’s Entertainment establishments.

The release date is a lie.

I won’t say too much in case you fans out there haven’t gotten a chance to see or play it yet, but I will say that the bite of ’87 is involved and there are lots of easter eggs in this game for fans of the series.  You just have to look and listen closely, much like the mechanics of this 4th game.  It’s unlike any of the 3 games before it. It’s more intense, frightening and in a setting we haven’t seen from this series before.  The game is packed with more story-filled minigames  and a minigame that can give you a leg up on the next night, if you are skilled enough to beat it.

I cannot wait until this drops on the App Store.  I wish my computer could handle FNAF on Steam, but (sadly) it cannot.  For me though, the fun comes not from the jump scares and the actual playing of it, but from the community and story that surrounds the game.  It’s morbidly magical, fun and always interesting.  How often do you have to scour teaser images and videos for clues?  How often do you have to ‘inspect element’ on a website to find out secret hints about the game’s release, setting or theme?  I love that stuff.   I look forward to the DLC completing the story, but I think I’ll be sad to see it end.  Hopefully, some other super awesome game will come along and snatch my attention.

Until then… FNAF 4!!!!!!!!  Woooooo!

-Gretchen

Remake vs. Remasters: Why the Final Fantasy VII remake is both exciting and terrifying

The image that caused a billion nerdgasms.

In recent years, it has become very popular to remaster classic and/or beloved games.  Great titles like the Uncharted series, The Last of Us, Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy X and X-2 all got the remastered treatment.  “Remastering” isn’t necessarily new; it’s essentially porting the game to a new system.  In fact, porting has been around since the early days of video games, even the Apple II had ports of games from the Atari.

However, as you undoubtedly heard due to the internet exploding, Sony and Square-Enix announced in their E3 conferences that the classic, ever-popular Final Fantasy VII was getting a full-on remake.  It’s not really a surprise as the remaster of a game that old just wouldn’t work.  We’ve already seen FFVII ported as a classics title to the PS3 and Sony portable systems and, even with the PS3’s smoothing features, Cloud’s polygonal hair will stab you right in the eyes until they bleed.

To be honest, I never finished FFVII.  I didn’t even play it as a child.  I didn’t make through the first disc, once I finally started playing it in college. My first Final Fantasy title was Final Fantasy IX followed by Final Fantasy VIII (my personal favorite) and Final Fantasy X which were all gorgeous games.  So, going “backwards” to Final Fantasy VII felt like a downgrade.  I couldn’t focus on the game without the graphics hurting my eyes and the battle system getting on my nerves.   I had gotten really good at using the Final Fantasy VIII and IX battle systems, but, for some reason, the materia system never really made sense to me. Maybe I made it more complicated than it actually was.  Wouldn’t be the first time.

Not to defend myself, I should have given it a fairer shot.  I was far too busy in college with all the new games coming out to really give this title a chance. Going off the graphics alone is no reason to set a game aside. It’s got a lot of hype as a game; hopefully, that’s not for nothing.  I own the game. I’ve seen the movie. I’ve even played spin-off games.  I pretty much know the story without ever having played.  It’s interesting to me and I think I would like it.

Which brings me back to the remake.

I was super excited to hear that this would be remade.  The rumor mill surrounding this had been going for years.  It seemed like every E3 since the announcement of the PS3 was speculating about a potential remake of this iconic game.  I blame the tech demo;  I was also super excited about the FFVIII tech demo back in the day, until I realized it was just a demo and not a remake of one of my favorite games.

This year they gave us the fan service we wanted. It’s about time too; Square-Enix has been steadily climbing the ranks of my shit list since Final Fantasy XII and the continually delayed games like Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy Versus XIII, now know as Final Fantasy XV, don’t help.  Remaking Final Fantasy VII is something that might just turn the tide and get them back on my good side.  I’ll finally get to play Final Fantasy VII on a modern console and it’ll look pretty!  That’s awesome! Sign me upI I am down.

However, it’s important to understand that a remake is very different than a port/remaster and Square-Enix has already stated publicly that they intend to make changes and improvements to the game.  This is where the terrifying part comes in.  I’m totally down for the graphical improvements and even adding elements of the spin-off stories to the game to give us bonus content and a more complete picture.

Cloud is equally passionate about keeping this scene in the game. Just look at him.

But what exactly are they changing?  Will the battle system change to be more like the Final Fantasy XIII model? I don’t want that.  Will these improvements be like the “new and improved” label on your favorite cereal?  (you know that shit isn’t gonna taste better; they ruined it) Will they censor the game? I want to see Drag Queen Cloud in all his high-definition glory go in that hot tub and enjoy it.

I’ve seen the “Western effect” on Japanese creative before.  My favorite, Dragonball Z, became more and more censored in Japan as it went on.   We went from seeing full on holes in people’s chest to just bruise marks in Dragonball Kai.  I just don’t want to see the story and its fun easter eggs taken out because of “the children”.  I’m sure they see far worse things; remember Hard Gay?

Hard Gay. Giving children nightmares since 2005.

This remake could also go incredibly wrong if they delay the game for as long as they have other titles.  Just because they announced that they are making it, doesn’t mean it is coming out in the next 10 years.  With SE’s current track record, we might not see the game until the Playstation 7 is released in 2077, just so they can say FF7 is on PS7 (all the 7s).   I’m hoping that SE knows their ass is in the fire with this one.  I don’t expect it out next year and I do want them to take their time and do it right, but I don’t want it to become the clusterf@#% that is Final Fantasy XV.  Granted that game looks awesome, but they announced it back in 2006, under a different title.  It has almost been 10 years.  I don’t want that to happen to this remake; some of us will die of old age before it comes out.

Despite the terrifying aspects, I’m going to remain optimistic that SE will deliver a solid remake on a reasonable timeline.   With the Tokyo Game Show coming up in September, I fully expect Square-Enix to make some more announcements about the game.  We may not get a release date, but maybe we’ll at least get the official title.  It will be interesting to see what develops and even more interesting what they will have to say about it at next year’s E3.  Until then, we just have to do what every Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Square-Enix fan is used to doing: wait.

Are you excited for the Final Fantasy VII remake?  What are some things you’d like to see improved or added? What are somethings you hope they keep the same or take out?

-Gretchen

Halo: Master Chief Collection (Pt. 1)

So me and my co-host on radio are starting to replay all the Halo games now that they are remastered on the Xbox One. This will be an interesting experience because I haven’t played the games in years, and he doesn’t know the story very well. It’s also interesting because my play style is very centered around the way that me and my sister played back in the day, as well as how I currently play Bungie’s newest creation “Destiny”, so friendly fire has created some funny situations.

First thing’s first, the game is an HD remaster so the game looks really good…for the most part. You can’t expect perfection, so some minor glitches, graphic pop-ins, and frame rate drop are just expected at this point. Other than that though, what we’ve played of it so far (Halo: Combat Evolved) has looked as good as Halo 3 was on the xbox 360. Yes, Halo 3, not Halo 4. There isn’t a huge gap between those games graphically, but I’m just not blown away yet. It IS interesting to see the old environments updated though, and I distinctly remember taking time to stop fighting and look up at the sky box. It’s not Destiny-impressive, but I still love their sky boxes.

Second, the gameplay on this installment feels just like it did on the original xbox. That’s fine, except with the updated graphics, the floaty nature of how you walk, and especially how you jump, it feels sloppy at times. I guess back in the day I wasn’t so picky about how the game feels, and truth be told its been a long time since I’ve even played Halo 3 or 4 but I feel out of control while going around corners, and don’t even get me started on the ice rink you are on in the Warthog. With that being said, it is humorous to walk super slow because if you are playing coop, you characters legs still look like you are running at top speed, you are just sliding really funny. If you throw a grenade while running, your legs just stop moving altogether. I’m criticizing, but when it comes right down to it, I’m still having fun, and that’s the point, right? (I’m looking at you, people who play only for gamerscore and bitch about the slightest glitches)

Hey, this looked amazing back in the good old days.

Finally, me and my co-host play in a different way than me and my sister. Me and Gretch used to kind of play where one of us would lead and the other would provide covering fire and fall back when inevitably the person in front bit off more than they could chew and got WREKT. On the other hand, me and my co-host both try to play like alphas and go balls to the wall. i think our playing of destiny also makes us want to punch enemies a lot too, which means I could be throwing a grenade into a group of like 10 enemies and blow up my co-host, who is in the middle of them swinging left and right. I guess my old thinking of the game where one of us would fall back, combined with my old approach to staying back and letting the gun do the work (except to finish off elites), means that I use grenades to thin the herd. I don’t usually say “grenade” because one, its been a long time since I’ve played a game with friendly fire, and two, I use them so often that it would get ridiculous. That game, real talk, is built to spam grenades to avoid being overrun, and this will be even more apparent when we get to the flood.

Right now we are just trying to get back the feel of the game. Eventually me and my friend will put up game-play and go through all 4 games and provide commentary (all that good stuff). I will provide links to that as available. Sorry again for being spacey with my blogs as far as consistency. I work in radio and fairs have added to my schedule, but I put in my two weeks there and will be starting a new job soon, so maybe that will free me up.

-Dave