Plans on E3

I know that coming up soon will be E3, so I wanted to go on ahead and give some insight into what I'll be doing this year, as it'll be my first year covering it.

Hopefully, the plan is to have something posted every night, on what all was shown that day. Things can change, though, so there is no guarantee I can cover every day, nor post every night. I will try to, but this is really the first time I've ever tried doing this, so please do bear with me on it.

Hopefully, we'll see some good stuff coming out of E3 this year, enough to make the rest of the year interesting and exciting. For me, Black Ops 3, Magic Duels:Origins, Dragon Quest Heroes(which I should have a post up on soon), and Adr1ft are already on my radar, so it should be fun to see what else is coming this year and in the future.

Magic Duels: Origins preview

As I stated in my Hearthstone review, I'm a big fan of the Magic the Gathering tcg. I play FNM's almost every Friday night, and try to at least make the game day's and pre-releases, and have played in my fair share of IQ's, PTQ's, and grand prix's.

Admittedly, though, most of the digital versions of the game just never really interested me. Magic itself is a costly hobby, which I can barely afford now. So, trying to play both the physical card game, and Magic Online, was never feasible.

Magic Workstation is ok, in that it's better used for play testing new ideas, since you don't have to put money into it. Then there's this line of games. They're good games, but still require an investment, but unlike Magic Online, do nothing to help out your ratings.

Now, the first thing I should mention is the title. The series used to be Duels of the Planeswalkers. Wizards is retiring that series, and replacing it with this game, which is going to be a free-to-play, continually updated game.

This means now, we won't be having a shifting card pool and feature set every year. Your collection will be more permanent now, and you can obtain new up to date content as new sets come out. Also, Planeswalkers cards will be playable for the first time in the series.

Being f2p will allow players to potentially earn every card in the game without spending any real money, earning currency rewards for completing the story campaign, multiplayer matches, and daily/community events, in the same way that Hearthstone allows you to earn currency as well. One has to wonder though, if the currency will be easier, harder, or about the same to get as in Hearthstone.

One thing of note, is if you already have 4 if a card in your collection, additional copies of that card won't show up in additional boosters. This should make getting all the cards easier, and won't leave you with extras, so that's a plus.

With the new content model, you can expect updates to roll out around the same time a new set comes out. They will also line up with whatever the newest set that releases, so when Battle for Zendikar releases in the fall, you'll have a corresponding Battle for Zendikar content expansion for the game as well.

Along with the campaign, you'll have the opportunity to play against thousands of different decks in Solo Battle mode, and participate in up to four player multiplayer, including the return of 2v2 2 headed dragon, with new features expected to be added down the line. Could there be a possibility of doing drafts or sealed with this as well? That would be nice, but probably not something we'll know about until E3, or possibly later. The Solo Battle and Story modes can be played offline as well, so that is nice as well.

With the past releases, this game was always fun, but just fleeting, as each title would be inevitably forgotten and tossed to the wayside with each new release. With this new approach embracing longevity and the collection aspects, could it be possible that we'll start to see tournaments in the future?

This newest edition in this series is looking like a real winner, and is showing that it has the potential to grow into something bigger down the line. I'm excited and looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Chrono Trigger review

So, I said one of the things I'd wanted to do for a while, is do some retro reviews, so I really couldn't think of a better game to be the first one than the game I love the most, Chrono Trigger. I will discuss the 2 versions that I've played, the SNES and PS1 versions.

The game itself is hands down, one of the best rpg's ever. You'd be hard pressed to find an rpg player who doesn't like or love this game. This game, along with Final Fantasy 3, usually are at the top of a lot of rpg favorites lists, usually 1-2, with either one ahead of the other.

This games story is one of the best ever, and still holds up well today. I absolutely love the time traveling, the twists and turns, the backstory of the characters, and how they develop. The characters are memorable, and each one has it's own story arc that lets you get to know them. This is what made both this game, and Final Fantasy 3 so memorable. Getting to know these characters, and to care for them, is one of the better parts of theses games.

The graphics are great. Some of the best on the system, and they still hold up today, and even look better than some games today. The sprites are crisp, and clean, and everything just looks beautiful.

And the music? Listen to the soundtrack and tell me it's not some of the best music ever. I could listen to this games soundtrack for days. It really is that good. Final Fantasy always has good music, but in my opinion, the music in Chrono Trigger is better than Final Fantasy, but again, that's just my opinion.

I also love some of the things introduced in this game. Dual techs, and triple techs, magic abilities using either 2 or 3 characters, are some of the best abilities I've seen. I also love the New Game+ option as well. It allowed you to check out the alternate endings in the game, in which the original had 12, that I remember. The endings themselves were also brilliant and finding them was another part of the game that was great.

To be honest, there's absolutely nothing about the game that I can say that I dislike. The PS1 version though, brought some new things to the game, like cut scenes, but is generally considered the worst version of the game, simply because of the loading. Every battle causes the game to pause and load, which for me was pretty unbearable. The original had minimal loading, but the PS1 version literally made it unbearable. So really, there's nothing really wrong with the game, just the system it was on.

This is hands down one of the greatest rpg's ever made. Really, the only problem this game has ever really had, was more to do with the system it was on, rather than the game itself. Outside that, this is by far one of the best rpg's ever, and one of the best games ever made.