Adventure Time: Secret of the Nameless Kingdom, Falling Skies, and How To Train Your Dragon 2 highlight what Little Orbit is showing at E3 this year.
During the Electronics and Entertainment Expo, I was able to get an appointment with Little Orbit. Little Orbit was showing off a few of their games, mostly television and movie tie-ins. What I really wanted to get a look at was the new Adventure Time game, Secret of the Nameless Kingdom. I also got to check out the game based on the television program Falling Skies and the movie tie-in game for How to Train Your Dragon 2.
Fans of the Cartoon Network program, Adventure Time, will feel right at home with the newest game starring adventurers Finn the Human and Jake the Dog. Fans of the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past will also feel right at home because the game takes inspiration from ALTTP in graphics and style.
Long story short, Finn and Jake love going on adventures together but Jake lost his wedding ring and Lady Rainicorn is mad and isn’t letting Jake accompany Finn on adventures. However what mama Rainicorn don’t know, don’t hurt her, right. Jake can change his shape and size at will and he sneaks away with Finn in his pocket. Finn is trying to help establish a new kingdom and Princess Bubblegum told him he needed to put a Princess in charge. However after Finn makes this promise, all the Princesses go missing. You know what time it is? It’s Adventure Time! To keep the fans of the show into the game, the graphics have that 8-bit/cartoon feel to them.
I mentioned before that the game pays homage to the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in multiple ways. Finn was able to use a banana boomerang that was able to stun enemies, a la ALTTP. There is going to be an overworld map just like in ALTTP and the boss battle shown reminded me a lot of the Southern Palace boss that you fight with the Bow and Arrows in ALTTP. Adventure Time also has some role-playing game aspects to it such as being able to raise your attack power/hit points. You’ll start out with 2 hearts and work your way up for more health.
Jake has the ability to change his shape and he will use that to help Finn out on adventures. He can become an arm and grab enemies or he can become a shield so Finn can get through certain areas without harm. Each princess you need to find has a different temple so you’ll need to be on your “A” game to rescue the princesses, from probably the Ice King, he always does stuff like that. The game will be released for the PS3/Xbox 360/3DS in November.
Another television tie-in Little Orbit was showing was for the drama, Falling Skies. This game is a turn-based strategy game with RPG features as well. Before you go out into battle, you can customize your characters or their weapons. You can also heal your fighters or change up your party before heading out. You can dispatch members of your group to perform tasks for you. That way, the main members of the party don’t have to worry about that stuff.
There are story missions in the game and those missions follow the main characters from the show. There will be voice acting from the actual actors of the show when the game is released. Like most RPG’s, there are different character classes such as scouts, who can see long distances. When you are on the battlefield, you will only be able to see a certain distance in front of you. You won’t be able to see the whole area since those “un-viewable” areas will be fog-covered. Just like the landscape, you won’t be able to see the enemy until it makes a move. Different character classes in battle have different abilities such as being able to attack when the alien/enemy is within range. Strategy will come into play when you have to think on your feet, especially if you need to think two moves ahead but you have until September to worry about how to make your moves.
Lastly, I was able to see How to Train Your Dragon 2, which ties-in with the movie that will be released Friday, June 13th. This game relies more on island exploration than the last one and seeing how vast the island is, that might not be as easy as some people think. While you explore the island, there are tokens you can collect to unlock one of the dragon’s abilities. There are 50 tokens to find to unlock the ability but these tokens could be just about anywhere on the island.
You have 5 dragons to start and you can unlock another 2 during the progression of the game. Also there are tournaments that take place on the island that will be made up 3 races and two other challenges that might consist of you shooting Viking targets while using the Wii U Game Pad to aim. The other versions of the game won’t have these Game Pad-centric games. The races go from 4-7 minutes and whoever is leading at the end of the time limit wins. Dragons 2 will have a local 2-player mode as well as co-op play. One player uses the television and the other uses the Game Pad. This is huge seeing as though Wii U games don’t do this very much. During races there are ways you can get the upper hand like shooting fireballs or using the Viking Blitz. Hit the other Dragon pilot with 3 fireballs and they dismount and the Viking Blitz has you get off your own dragon and mount the other dragon and knock the pilot off.
