Dragon Ball Xenoverse, Rise Of Incarnates, and Lords Of The Fallen highlight what Bandai Namco showed off at E3 this year.
For my final appointment at this years E3, I decided that position should go to Bandai Namco. There’s a lot to cover from Bandai Namco so let’s get right into it, no introduction needed.
Bandai Namco revealed Dragon Ball Xenoverse earlier in E3 week and since Dragon Ball Z is making a “comeback,” it was only natural to check out the new game. Not much was revealed or known about the game but what was mentioned was that this Dragon Ball game will do things that haven’t been done/attempted before in previous DBZ games. Battles have been reborn for this game so bone up on your DBZ history to know what/when the battles are taking place. Battles with Goku/Vegeta, Goku/Frieza, and Goku/Cell were shown in the video demo so much of the early sagas of the series should be in the final game.
Xenoverse is being developed for the next/current gen systems but it will play on previous gen systems. It might not look as good as the PS4/Xbox One but it will play on others. It was mentioned that the controls will be easy to work with but the tactics/strategy will be a challenge, like knowing when to launch an attack (typical fighting game stuff). The game also looks quick, just like the show, so you will have to learn quickly, when to attack. You’ll be able to counter special attacks and be able to create your own combos in the final version but be in mind, this video was showing very early development. There was a mysterious character that will only appear in the video game and nothing other than being mysterious was revealed pertaining to the character. This game is meant to be a large game and like I mentioned before, things that are being done/attempted have never been done in a DBZ game before.
Also shown at Bandai Namco was the game, Rise of Incarnates. This game is easy to jump into and play but it looks tough to master. In the demo, there were two on two matches but they drove home that this isn’t a final version so that could change later in development. Incarnates will be on Steam only but it’s a free-to-play title. You’ll be able to use items and different fighting styles in battle and will have the ability to upgrade those items. There will be micro transactions but they haven’t been fully developed, since the game is still in development.
Each character will have their own fighting style in the final product. The fights will take place in similar to real locations like the demo had the fight taking place in a New York City battleground type location. There is a lock on fighting style similar to the Z targeting in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In the battles, you and your partner will have to work together if you expect to win. In the demo, there were character transformations and different tactics shown that help you score victory.
Last up from Bandai Namco was the extremely challenging Lords of the Fallen. The game is designed to be quite difficult and if the demo is any indication, they’ve done a great job at making a game that is damn hard. The game could be described as an action RPG similar to Dark Souls. A quick recap of the story for the game is simple: A thousand years before the time period in the game, an evil god was banished from the land and in the god’s last ditch effort, created the Hands of God Mountains. If you performed an evil act you would be branded as an outcast and have a tattoo to show you were evil on your face.
The people were fed up with this and decided that the only way to fight the evil god was with evil. That’s where your character, Harkyn, comes in as he is deemed the most evil person in the land. The question is how will your character be perceived by the evil god and vice versa? Will Harkyn decide to join up with the evil lord or decide to fight him? All those questions will be answered further in the game, if you can make it that far.
The game has one difficulty setting, hard! The replay value of the game is quite high since you will learn things as you progress through the game and learn how to perform tasks easier and quicker. There is a stamina bar and a manna bar on display while playing and the manna bar allows spells to be performed. The manna bar regenerates over time and the longer the stamina bar, the easier it will be to brandish your weapons.
Different weapons will weigh different weights and be tougher to use. The same can be said for different armors being able to slow you down as well. Lords of the Fallen has some great looking graphics and the developers for the game hope that it won’t frustrate you too much. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I do think this game will frustrate the hell out of people. You will have to try and try again to learn things for this game, like I was doing during the demo. The game is expected in the fall for the Playstation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
