Gaming news with coffee, week 30

There you are, come on in! I’m glad you could join me for some gaming news even with the Summer Holidays in full swing. Much appreciated my friend! What can I get you? I’ll go for a sunny melon cool drink instead of coffee, as I just got back from a stiff walk. We have been trying to loose some weight by eating less and walking a lot. It’s nice that we live on the edge of town, so we can walk straight into the fields. Downside is that I hardly ever find a Pokémon. Like tonight: we were away for 75 minutes…not one!

I’m still enjoying the game very much. I even found a gym for team Valor, where I could join using my Tentacruel. Here’s a picture of my few minutes of fame, an hour or so later my Tentacruel was back already. (The reception is poor, so sadly my Tentacruel doesn’t show up..or he was shy, lol)

Valor gym, tentacruel, pokemon go

What’s in Pokémon Go’s Future?

Sticking to the topic of Pokémon Go: John Hanke, CEO of developer Niantic, talked at the San Diego Comic-Con and gave us some hints of things to come. He confirmed again that trading will eventually be introduced into the game (very important as far as I’m concerned) and he also mentioned that rare Pokémon are coming. So far, only 145 out of 151 available Pokémon in this series have been accounted for by players, so the rare ones have yet to come out.

The team you owned will be playing a more important role. Each team has one of the three Legendaries connected to it, and the players in that team will only be able to catch that specific Legendary. Team leaders will be giving out advice too. Another nice thing coming is that some Pokéstops will be turned into PokéCenters, allowing you to heal your critters.

He hinted too at the fact that there are still plenty little easter eggs in the game that players haven’t found yet. The tip to name your Evee Pyro, or Rainer, or Sparky is one of those easter eggs that have been discovered already by players: it will allow you to steer towards the sort of Pokémon that you can evolve your Evee into. So there are more of those tricks!

One last tidbit of news: this is a map, made by Declutter, of most sought-after Pokémon across the various states of the USA, based on Google searches. There are plenty Pokémon on there that I haven’t seen yet!

Pokemon Go, Declutter list

New Game! The Challenge Stage! for PS4 and Vita announced

A game announcement that caught my eye is a game that will be released next January in Japan for the PS4 and the Vita. Not sure if this will make it West too, but the description somehow intrigues me: New Game! The Challenge Stage is set at the game development company Eagle Jump and puts players in the role of Aoba Suzukaze, who is tasked with creating add-on downloadable content for a hurriedly decided RPG epic.

You will learn skills from your more experienced co-workers, while everyone of them has different things to teach you. When the actual game story kicks in, you will follow conversations with your co-workers and friends. And depending on your response, the friendships can change.

I really couldn’t find much more about the game yet, but the description is weird enough for me to keep on eye on it!

Fantasy Life 2 on mobile

Last week Level 5 had it’s Vision 2016 event, with lots of interesting news. Like the second Fantasy Life game, this time for mobile, being ready for a closed beta test in Japan on July 29, so today! I wish they’d make a full sequel on the 3DS, but as that’s not in the works, I’ll happily take this one. And looking at the trailer, it looks really good!

https://youtu.be/DYtfjgsgBPk

Lady Layton announced for 3DS and mobile

Another cool bit of news that was announced by Level-5 is the new Layton game. But not featuring the professor: no, this time it’s entered around his daughter! The game is called Lady Layton: The Millionaire Ariadne’s Conspiracy and will be released on the 3DS, and on mobile too! That’s a bit surprising I think. The game is set to be released in 2017. Here’s the trailer:

https://youtu.be/saB-GDDstt8

Cross media project Snack World for mobile and 3DS

Level-5 has another cross media project in the works: The Snack World. This RPG centres around Chup and his friends and takes place in a fantasy world with weapon shops and inns, but it also includes more modern venues like corner stores, vending machines, and cafés. The game will be released in Japan on mobile in April 2017 and on the 3DS in July 2017. The game will be released West too, but there’s no date yet.

Cross media means that there will be a TV series starting on primetime on TV Tokyo in April 2017. In addition, there will be a monthly comic strip and signature toys, like little weapons. They can be read into the game, allowing Chup to use what you gave him. Again, sounds good!

https://youtu.be/ay_JHtkVQ_E

Enough for today, don’t you think? Level-5 sure had a lot of news to share this week. I do think it’s noticeable that there seems to be a definite shift to mobile gaming for them, not sure what I think of that. Maybe the new NX console, that is said to be a portable device, will influence the future of gaming. For me, a portable console is great news, but we will just have to wait until Nintendo finally shares the news.

Anyway, thank you for joining me, and enjoy your gaming week!

14 comments

  1. Your Pokemon skills are impressive. Catching invisible creatures can’t be easy. The Lady Layton reception seems to be positive. Ghostbusters take note – people don’t hate something just because you change the main characters to women.

    1. Lol, good one. Very very difficult catching invisible creature with an invisible Pokéball to boot!
      Oh, is Ghostbusters 2 having problem getting people to cinema? I’m out of the loop on that one, though I do plan to see the movie this holiday.

      1. The Otaku Judge is talking about the reboot, which is well-known for having a really bad trailer, getting a lot of the canon wrong (4 scientists save New York…. Actually, 3 scientists. The 4th guy isn’t a scientist), and the elephant of the bunch, making the main characters females. When people said they didn’t like the film, Sony said that they’re “Sexist”, when in reality, there’s mostly no bias to be found. Yeah, it’s a pretty annoying situation.

      2. Florida has a bad reputation in the U.S because of the people there. You see, Florida is part of the “Deep South”, the part of America that tried to break off during the Civil War. Thus, some of the people down there are fairly racist, especially towards people of African descent.

        Professor Layton has always been a very English series!
        Up made me cry as well. It’s a good film, but *Sniff* *Cries* Dang it, that intro!

        I’ve always been skeptical of mobile gaming, since loads of mobile games tend to try sucking the money out of the player. Like Candy Crush for example. I hope Level 5 isn’t like the other companies with mobile gaming.

        1. I didn’t even know that about Florida! Well, I’ll just enjoy the happiest place on Earth there, as Mickey isn’t racist in any way!
          Glad I’m not the only one who is an emotional wreck when it comes to that movie, haha!

  2. UGHH mobile only? and it’s turned into some city building game? and they added no new lives? and my phone wont be able to store/run this fancy smancy mobile game either -.-

  3. Time for my opinions on some of the news lineup!

    Apparently, Pikachu is popular in my home state! And meanwhile in Florida, they’re probably going crazy for that Mewtwo. Poor Mewtwo… (in case if you don’t know, Florida has a pretty bad reputation in the U.S outside of Disneyworld.)

    Snack World looks solid. Not very interested at the moment, but I think it looks interesting. Piqued me intruiged.

    Then there’s the biggest title on this list: LADY LAYTON. So far, it seems to be a (canon) continuation of where Unwound Future left off. Well, clearly plenty of years after Unwound Future’s very tragic ending, since Layton has a daughter now. By the way, I’ve found some translations of the trailer online. Lady Layton’s real name is Katrielle (Or Catrielle?) Layton.

    Also, she has a BASSET HOUND OH MY GOD. Basset Hounds are one of my favorite dog breeds. He talks for some reason or another. I’m thinking it may be an Up (The Pixar film, I’d recommend checking it out)-like situation.

    And finally, it seems the story focuses on the sudden disappearance of poor Hershel Layton. It’s funny in a meta-sense. Yeah, this game’s lookin’ good. Heard that, since Akira Tago died, they got another guy to do the puzzles in this game.

    Looking forward to the future!

    1. No I didn’t know Florida had a bad reputation outside of Disney World! I did know it was a favorite state for seniors to enjoy retirement but other then that?

      I think it’s way cool that we get a lady Layton with a talking Basset Hound. Can it get any more English? I watched Up in cinema years ago with my (then) little girl, and I confess the movie brought me to tears. Doesn’t often happen, but the old man was just so sad and lonely!

      I’m looking forward to all this gaming goodness too, but the way Level-5 includes mobile in every new release had me raise my eyebrows. You know I’m not averse to mobile gaming at all, and the way Nintendo is handling it makes sense. But with the road Level-5 is taking, we won’t need a dedicated handheld at all, and that’s taking it a step too far in my opinion.

  4. Woah! That is certainly a lot of cool reveals by Level 5. Too bad Fantasy Life 2 will not get a 3DS release, though.

    I hadn’t heard about some of those games, so thanks for the information.

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