Our Favorite Moments from E3 2015

Another E3 has come and gone, and with it there were plenty of announcements that came plenty more questions. This year had more conferences than ever with Bethesda throwing their hat into the ring with a Sunday conference, Square Enix coming back for a conference (which may have been a mistake), and PC Gaming deciding they needed some love. Let’s take a look at some highlights.

Keys to the Kingdom

After nearly 10 years of waiting we FINALLY get a proper Kingdom Hearts III trailer. The trailer was just “okay”; it showed off some gameplay that seemed very similar to its predecessors. Sora is back in the saddle, working with Goofy and Donald and a myriad of different Keyblades. The trailer featured some new special moves for Sora which included Disney rides. In fact, Sora’s new weapons come from the Magic Kingdom itself. Sora will use roller coasters, tea cups, and even chariots to take down the Heartless. While the trailer was fine enough, the most disheartening part was that the end of the trailer gave us the same “Now in Development” end screen that we got after last year. Aside from some of the gameplay that was recycled from last year’s D23 in Japan, we learned that Tangled will be a part of KH3, that’s right, Tangled, possibly-not Frozen.

The fact that a release year, let alone a date, has not been announced for KH3 yet is very disheartening. Director Tetsuya Nomura doesn’t have a great track record for pumping out games in a timely fashion. Especially with the announcement of the Final Fantasy VII Remake – that Normura is directing – where does that put Kingdom Hearts III? I’m hoping for a 2016 release date, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t until after 2017 – it’s expected release year for FFVII as that will mark the 20th anniversary of the greatest video game ever made (in this writer’s opinion, anyway).

Star Wars Prepares for Battle

Taking a left turn from bleak release dates and long development times, Star Wars Battlefront raised spirits. Fans who were hoping for footage got more than enough to satiate their appetite. There was the 5 minute Hoth trailer which featured a lot of different battle perspectives. The game looks like it’s taking a large focus on the high stakes battle aspect of intergalactic war, where you can be attacked by AT-ATs, X-Wings, and even Luke Skywalker – and play as any of these as well. I hope that there is enough variance and ability to play as different characters every round to keep the game fresh for a long time. After EA featured Hoth, Sony featured the Tatooine trailer with the crashed Star Destroyer. Another fun fact is that you can be bossed around by Admiral Ackbar.

With all of the gameplay that was shown with iconic characters (Luke, Vader, Boba Fett), DICE games has a lot to offer with Star Wars Battlefront. We were given a release date of November 17, 2015, which is exciting since it seems that the game is mostly finished. The only question is if EA will find a way to ruin this experience for us? I have never played the Battlefield franchise (DICE’s popular flagship franchise), but from what I heard it’s a lot of fun. I’m hoping DICE can put out a solid Star Wars game.

Flying away on an Arwing and a Prayer

Finally, my number one moment from E3: Star Fox Zero. There is so much to digest between the trailers and all the treehouse sessions. After looking through all the footage this is definitely the game Star Fox fans have been waiting for. It has been 10 years since the last console Star Fox game, Star Fox Assault (not including the Star Fox 64 3D remake for 3DS). While it was not clear in the trailer and developer story, Nintendo has said this is a reboot/reimagining of the events in Star Fox 64. For me, the most exciting thing is the different vehicles (which includes transforming Arwing!) available throughout the game.

This seems to be the happy medium between making a true Star Fox game while allowing for different missions and objectives that don’t strictly keep you to flying in the Arwing.In addition I’m glad Nintendo is finding creative ways to use the gamepad for Star Fox Zero. In the game, the view from the pad is as if you were in the Arwing’s cockpit; your television will have the more cinematic view, which adds an interesting learning curve to the gameplay. This seem appropriate given that Nintendo helped innovate the space fighter genre with the original Star Fox. While we do not have a release date, we know that it is Holiday 2015 so we do not have to wait much longer. For me, this was the announcement of E3. I definitely think Star Fox Zero is the game to look out for this holiday season.

[php] wp_link_pages(array(‘before’=>’

‘)); [/php]

============================================================================================================================================