The Metal Gear series revolutionized the stealth game genre. It stands as one of the greatest gaming experiences to date with a whopping 17 games (including remakes, ports, or remasters) and it continues to captivate fans worldwide. The franchise first debuted in 1987 and has since become one of the most iconic and acclaimed video game series.

The franchise’s popularity knows no bounds, having sold over 60 million units across the globe. By September 2021, it had already reached a staggering 57.7 million units in sales. In November 2022, the number of units sold increased to 59.3 million, from the previous figure. The developers are even planning to resume sales on titles that got suspended temporarily. The series already generated 1 billion in revenue in February 2007. It is one of the highest-grossing video game franchises ever.

Hideo Kojima, the Japanese visionary and highly influential figure in the video game industry designed the series. The upcoming release is Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. The game will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

Don’t miss out on this epic adventure. Work as a member of U.S. Special Forces Unit FOXHOUND and experience the thrill, the stealth, and the extraordinary storytelling.

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Welcome back, cosplay fans! It’s time for the weekly COGconnected cosplay feature. This week, we’re taking a look at Monika Lee, a classic cosplayer of fandoms past. Lee began cosplaying all the way back in 2006, where she slipped into the skin of a variety of gorgeous anime, manga, and video game girls. She competed in a number of craftsmanship contests and won several awards, including numerous Best In Shows. And she also appeared as a featured cast member on SyFy’s Heroes of Cosplay reality TV show in 2013.

Although Monika Lee is currently better known for her work as a Product Manager on Battle.net, she hasn’t given up cosplay. In other words, having a real job doesn’t stop her from bringing out the costume wardrobe from time to time. Her intricate outfits and game-accurate makeup make her a legend in cosplay circles. Just look at her Yuna, for instance.

Scroll on through to see some of the amazing work she’s put together in almost two decades of cosplay.

Yuna – Final Fantasy X/Final Fantasy X-2

Elizabeth Comstock – BioShock Infinite

Check out page 2 for more amazing Monika Lee cosplay.

The post Monika Lee Cosplay is Still Seductive and Stunning appeared first on COGconnected.

Dante of Devil May Cry fame is one of modern gaming’s most memorable heroes, and Devil May Cry 3 has the best Dante. This may not be a particularly shocking statement to long-time fans, but I’ll put it out there anyway. Devil May Cry 5 may be the best-selling game in the franchise, but Devil May Cry 3 did the most for Dante as a character. It serves as an origin story for Dante on both a literal and metaphorical level. Every other Devil May Cry game since has been using Devil May Cry 3 as a foundation, and for good reason.

Like a lot of popular action games, Devil May Cry has a somewhat blurry timeline. One of the reasons for this is that each game takes a different approach to Dante’s character. In the original Devil May Cry, Dante was a relatively straightforward action hero. Next, Devil May Cry 2 took a step sideways by stripping him of his attitude. Devil May Cry 4 made him cockier than ever while Devil May Cry 5 added a painfully human streak for a more worn antihero. But it’s Devil May Cry 3 that truly cemented who Dante was going to be for the rest of the series–and how he would come into his own.

Every version of Dante that came out after the third game borrows heavily from its interpretation of him. Without Devil May Cry 3, we might have a completely different Dante associated with a completely different set of themes. Alternately, the series could simply have stalled the way it did after DMC: Devil May Cry. Whatever the case, it can’t be denied that Devil May Cry 3 was the game that made Dante who he is today.

Who Is Dante, Anyway?

Although earlier Devil May Cry games included some information on who Dante was, he started out with a lot of blank space. Most of his backstory and characterization were saved for tie-in materials. However, Devil May Cry’s flexible timeline came into play when Devil May Cry 3 was in production. For this game, Capcom wanted an origin story. Unfortunately, the existing expanded universe showed Dante coming into his demonic power as an adult. This meant that Devil May Cry 3 was going to have to tell its own story.

In the tie-in novels, Dante had been depicted as level-headed and somewhat depressed. Devil May Cry 3 threw that out in favor of a cockier, more hot-heated teenage Dante. This version of the renowned demon hunter was still just starting out–he hadn’t yet learned the harsh lessons that would temper him. Young Dante could have easily been made a joke. Instead, Devil May Cry 3 created the single most engaging and human version of Dante the series had seen at the time.

In Devil May Cry 3, Dante is at once simple and incredibly complicated. What you see is what you get, but not always the way you first thought it was. This Dante is arrogant and temperamental, charging headlong into danger without thinking twice. He’s also friendly, cheerful, and doesn’t take a rocket launcher to the face too seriously. He cracks jokes constantly and tries to play down the danger of his situation at every turn. According to Hideki Kamiya, this is a coping mechanism for dealing with his fear, and it shows. Devil May Cry 3 keeps Dante’s antics fun while also showing exactly how scared and desperate he can be underneath. All of this culminates with the addition of Vergil.

The Problem of Vergil

Technically speaking, Vergil first appeared in Devil May Cry 1, where he was the boss Nelo Angelo. Devil May Cry 3 took the moment where Dante is forced to kill his twin brother after finding him transformed into a monster and ran with it. This game reimagined Vergil as Dante’s foil–a refined and icy cold warrior with Dante’s face but the opposite personality. Dante’s carefree attitude clashes harshly with Vergil’s focus even before Vergil goes off the rails in search of power. However, this conflict is part of what makes Devil May Cry 3’s version of Dante so memorable.

Throughout the game, Dante’s main motivation is to track down Vergil and stop him from opening a gate to the underworld. However, Dante doesn’t want to kill Vergil, and it’s heavily implied that Vergil doesn’t actually want to kill Dante. Although they’re estranged, the brothers truly care about each other. That makes it all the worse when Dante succeeds in defeating Vergil but fails to save him from the consequences of his lust for power. The result is a bittersweet coming of age story that many gamers still remember fondly.

Keep On Rocking, Devil May Cry 3

Devil May Cry 3’s take on Dante and Vergil’s relationship is so iconic that succeeding titles gave Vergil important roles, too. However, even discounting this, this title still does the best job of making Dante fun, likable, and unexpectedly deep. Generally speaking, when people picture Dante, they either picture Dante from the original game or from Devil May Cry 3. They’re also the versions of him most likely to make crossover appearances.

Although Dante’s look from the third game is also infamous, most fans remember this teenage hellion for his personality. If they aren’t laughing at his ridiculous antics, they’re grieving his failures with him. This title featured solid mechanics, an exciting world, and gave players a merciless challenge. It also takes one of gaming’s iconic antiheroes and gave him some truly powerful emotional moments. This is why Devil May Cry 3 has the best Dante.

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Persona 3 is a game about depression, which may explain why it never reached the same popularity as its successors. This doesn’t mean that Persona 3 isn’t a fantastic game. In fact, I’d argue it may be the best Persona game so far. It’s certainly one of the most memorable. The Persona games are known for their trademark mixture of occultism, dating sim, and smiling in the face of despair. Although the first two Persona games touched on these themes, Persona 3 truly embodied them. With rumors of Persona 3 Portable possibly getting a multiplatform remaster soon, it’s time to look back at this incredibly optimistic game about depression.

First things first: every recent Persona game has a theme. Persona 5 was about rebellion, Persona 4 was about finding the truth, and Persona 3 is about depression. The opening features the Latin phrase “memento mori,” meaning roughly “remember you will die.” Throughout the rest of the game, death is only ever a stone’s throw away. Persona 3 is a dark, grim, and often truly horrifying game about depression and suicide. Despite this, it also manages to be a genuinely optimistic look at how people can overcome depression by supporting each other.

This Game is Rated M For Good Reason

Persona 3 is the Persona game that comes to capturing the larger Shin Megami Tensei franchise’s creepy tone. Often games are rated M for gore and crude humor. Persona 3 is rated M because the characters summon their Personas by acting out the motions of shooting themselves. Although the only weapons they hold are Evokers, replica guns with no actual bullets, the intent is clear. To summon your Persona is an act of self-destruction–an act that brings you literally and metaphorically closer to death.

This title is about depression from start to finish. Battles, cutscenes, and even simple conversations are all filled with imagery that reflects death and suicide. Several characters forcibly awaken their Personas, which must be kept under control through medication. Unfortunately, the medication is both expensive and has lethal side effects. Just about every character in the game has experienced some level of depression, including the protagonist himself.

By the end of the original game, every single surviving character’s Persona is linked to a dead loved one. However, the protagonist’s Persona is literally part of Death, the incarnation of humanity’s drive for self-destruction. Death entered the protagonist’s soul after his parents died. It’s been sleeping quietly within him ever since, but its mere presence has left him numb and sleepwalking through life. In fact, the protagonist specifically confirms that he doesn’t have any strong attachments to being alive. The game’s opening act makes a point of highlighting his unsettling grin as he sets Yukari’s Evoker against his temple and pulls the trigger. This nightmarish imagery contrasts sharply with the kindness the protagonist shows throughout the story.

Your World Deserves Saving

It’s not enough for Persona 3 to present players with a depressed protagonist living in a gloomy world of monsters and magical guns. The game demands the player shove him out of his comfort zone. In order to unlock new Personas and power up, you have to complete Social Links. To complete Social Links, you talk to people. You help them with their problems, and get invested in their struggles. Each person you can connect with represents a different kind of depression and detachment. Forming bonds with them means confronting feelings of emptiness, trauma, and alienation. And in the end, these bonds save the whole world from falling into suicidal despair.

While the characters may hate their own feelings of despair, Persona 3 treats depression with kindness. It’s a game that puts a spotlight on the joys of life, especially when things are dark. In the game, as in real life, forming relationships with others can save lives. This focus on communication and reaching out to others hits harder in Persona 3 than any other Persona game. Persona 4 and 5 may have their casts literally confront their Shadows, but Persona 3 has its cast confront themselves.

Persona 3 may have more in common thematically with The World Ends With You than it does with Persona 4 and 5. The difference is that Persona 3 focuses on a very specific part of the teen experience. This game pulls no punches when it comes to showing how high school students can fall into self-destruction–and how they can emerge from it. Persona 3 is a game about depression, and the angle it takes is that depressed kids can save each other. I think that’s pretty cool.

The post Persona 3 May Be the Most Optimistic Game About Depression appeared first on COGconnected.

Silent Hill has been a game that’s been, well, asleep for a while. There’s a hunger for it for big fans of the franchise, and it’s likely only gotten bigger with the Resident Evil remakes and their successes in the past few years. The Silent Hill franchise is one of the big horror games and something any fan would love to play, with its haunting atmosphere, slow reveals, and dawning horror.

Keiichiro Toyama, one of the minds that were behind Silent Hill when it originally created, spoke about the possibility of a Silent Hill remake and how likely- or unlikely- it would be.

“It’s not an action game where you can just refine the action as in Biohazard. To bring Silent Hill up to current standards or to polish up the graphics, the fans wouldn’t be satisfied. That’s not what it was about – how beautiful it was. I think you’d have to rethink the concept to make it interesting to fans.”

Toyama makes a very good point. This popular horror game, despite what happened in the later releases, was never meant to be combat-focused. In fact, in some versions of the games, killing too many enemies would mean that you would get the bad end.

And too, in order to modernize a Silent Hill game, there are various considerations to take in. It’s not just the modern playstyle and what current players expect from the game. There’s also the blend of taking what made the game a hit in the past, and knowing what has and hasn’t aged well. Toyama, for one, is keenly aware of this formula for video games.

“Unlike movies, games are difficult to enjoy as in the original state,” Toyama said in an interview with VGC. “Obviously because of the platform, but as time goes by game mechanics, especially in usability, lack rationality and sophistication. Visually speaking it’s clearly not made for modern equipment, so I absolutely don’t have any objection to modifying an original essence to fit the modern era which we live in today.”

Visually, it’s possible to create a Silent Hill remake; whether it’s possible with Konami staff is unknown. Toyama is unlikely to be part of the project, as he is currently with his own studio, Bokeh.

For now, Silent Hill fans may have to cross their fingers and try to find another game to scratch that itch in the meantime.

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Today on COG Considers, let’s talk about the uncanny hero of the zombie/crime drama shooter franchise known as Gungrave. It’s not exactly a new thing to make zombies the heroes of their own stories–Left 4 Dead has had playable infected for ages and Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse had players lead a zombie army to brain-hungry victory–but Gungrave’s protagonist gives it a Frankensteinian twist. Unlike most playable zombies, the aptly named Beyond the Grave isn’t infectious, was revived by forbidden science rather than dark magic, and his main character trait is his literally undying willpower. He has no particular interest in brains, but nothing can stop him from pursuing his twin motives: to avenge his own death and to protect mob princess Mika Asagi, who is being hunted by the same people who murdered Grave.

Okay, so that’s a pretty solid core motivation, but this is only the beginning of what makes Grave tick. When he was alive, he was a skilled mob hitman named Brandon Heat who served Mika’s father loyally. However, when Brandon discovered his best friend Harry was planning to betray Mika’s dad and take over the crime syndicate they both worked for, he was faced with a horrible choice: betray his boss or betray his best friend. Brandon was unable to make the choice, which led to him being brutally gunned down by Harry. Over a decade later a brilliant scientist resurrected him as an undead superweapon and renamed him Beyond the Grave, but over the course of the first game, it becomes clear that Grave is no longer the man he used to be.

Some games use a silent protagonist to help the player get immersed in the world. Gungrave uses its silent protagonist to subtly convey to the player that Grave almost certainly came back wrong during his resurrection. Despite his motives being unambiguously heroic, both the story and gameplay of Gungrave treat him like an unstoppable monster, and his complete silence–not even grunting when hit–only adds to the concerning implications. His over-the-top character design, which combines a cowboy hat, glasses with a lens blacked out to cover his missing eye, and a coffin-shaped mobile weapons platform also serve to divorce him from the more subdued and realistic characters around him. He may be human-shaped, but he is no longer human.

All in all, this puts Grave squarely in the revenant category of zombie–someone with so much unfinished business that not even death can stop them–which hooks in surprisingly well with Gungrave’s crime drama storyline. While the anime adaptation adds its own weight with Grave struggling to reclaim his past identity, I tend to prefer the games’ version of the story, where Grave instead leaves his past behind and shows no particular desire to become human again even if it were possible. The concept of struggling to move on with your existence even after having everything stripped from you, including your very humanity, is quite compelling.

With Gungrave G.O.R.E scheduled for 2022, it looks like Grave will soon be making his return. I for one am looking forward to seeing where this dead man walking’s undying loyalty takes him next.

The post The Appeal of Gungrave’s Zombie Protagonist appeared first on COGconnected.

We’re back with the weekly COGconnected cosplay feature. As you might have guessed, we love cosplay. Photographs, tutorials, even convention recordings, whatever form it takes. This week, we’re taking a look at Klepto, a Japanese cosplayer with a hefty library of gorgeous cosplays. All of her outfits might as well have stepped right out of the screen, including wigs, contacts, accessories, and even some really impressive tattoo work. If you’re impressed by game–and anime–accurate cosplays, look no further, because Klepto has a knack for bringing 2D characters to vibrant life.

 

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Sora – Kingdom Hearts

 

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Aoba Seragaki (featuring Mabs/@ionceateaspoon as Noiz) – DRAMAtical Murder

 

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Toshinori Yagi/All Might – My Hero Academia

 

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Ookurikara – Touken Ranbu

 

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Yuna – Final Fantasy X

Want to check out even more awesome cosplay?

Why don’t you check out our features for Knightmage, Anaelic, and Hakken Ryou.

The post Klepto Presents Iconic and Intricate Cosplay That is Out of This World appeared first on COGconnected.

The Final Fantasy franchise has had a fairly rough time when it comes to adaptations over the years. Square’s first venture into film, the 2001 CGI movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, near bankrupted the company, leading to a merger that formed the current company, Square Enix. Now, they’re taking another shot at the silver screen, with an upcoming animated adaptation of the classic PS1 title Final Fantasy IX.

The adaptation is currently being worked on by the Paris-based animation group Cyber Group Studios, who’ll also be handling the distribution of the series. Interestingly, the animated series will be targeted towards children – specifically 8 to 13-year-olds. While there’s no indication yet of a release date or even an episode count, Cyber Group Studios are currently working on putting together a setting bible outlining the world and story of the original game, and they’re aiming to begin shopping the series to broadcasters in the next few months. Right now, the goal is to get a broadcaster secured so that production can begin in either late 2021 or early 2022.

Pierre Sissmann, the CEO of Cyber Group Studios, commented on how they’re aiming to make the show enjoyable for both people who have played the game and who’ve never experienced a Final Fantasy title before – “The games have a strong co-viewing potential. For those who do know Final Fantasy IX , this will be an [introduction], and for the many who don’t, this will immerse them in a universe they’ll love.”. Seeing as Final Fantasy IX deals with some pretty heavy themes in its plot – there’s at least one attempted genocide over the course of the game – it’ll be interesting to see how it’ll be made a bit more child-friendly.

Final Fantasy IX isn’t the only FF game getting an adaptation – an FF XIV series has been in the works for quite a while now, but it’s been a little bit since we’ve heard anything from the project. Here’s hoping we get updates from both series soon!

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Today on COG Considers, let’s talk about doomed protagonists and how they can help create some of the most powerful moments gaming has to offer. While video games are often dismissed as self-insert power fantasies, they are also a medium that can make the player feel truly vulnerable. Many, many horror games have taken advantage of this, but other genres have also dabbled with this sense of controllable helplessness.

One of the surest ways a video game can shake your sense of safety is to leave you helpless to save the character you’ve been playing as for the whole game. Just to be clear, I’m not talking about games where the protagonist’s goal is to die–I’m talking about games where both the player and the protagonist try very hard to avoid dying, only to run into a wall at the end of the tunnel. Of course, not every game with a doomed protagonist has a depressing ending, but whatever the case, they tend to be thematically powerful and incredibly memorable. Caution: here be spoilers.

Solid Snake is one of the most famous doomed protagonists in video game history. From the first Metal Gear Solid game, it was clear that he was living on limited time. Those limits finally caught up to him in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, wherein Snake’s cloned body begins failing him. As the stakes get higher and his health gets worse, the player is left desperately trying to accomplish Snake’s last mission before his inevitable death. The game concludes with the world saved, but Snake has at most a year left to live, which gives the denouement quite the somber tone.

Another example would be Raziel of the Legacy of Kain games. Although Raziel is only the protagonist of 2.5 games in the series, he is one of the franchise’s most memorable and beloved characters thanks to his delightfully creepy character design, excellent writing, and being one of the only semi-heroic people left in the dying world of Nosgoth. This makes the revelation that Raziel is trapped in a time loop that will see him devoured by the soul-drinking blade Soul Reaver and driven mad by an eternity within the blade kind of a downer. Both Raziel and the series’ other protagonist Kain spend a long time trying to break the loop without losing the power of the Soul Reaver. When Raziel finally decides to embrace his fate in order to give Kain the only weapon that can destroy Nosgoth’s grim destiny, it’s as painful for the player as it is for the two of them.

Final Fantasy X provides another example in Tidus, the cheerful athlete stranded in the far future, post-apocalyptic world of Spira. For most of the game, Tidus serves as the audience surrogate, which makes the twist in the last third hit much harder. As it turns out, Tidus actually died with the rest of his city one thousand years ago–his current existence is a dream supported by the Fayth, countless slumbering souls. In order to save Spira from being continuously ravaged by the monstrous Sin, Tidus must free the Fayth, knowing that he will disappear when they finally wake from their dream. The result is one of the most bittersweet endings in the whole Final Fantasy franchise, and one that affected people so deeply Square Enix made a sequel that gives players a chance to explore the recovering Spira and potentially resurrect Tidus.

There are many other great examples of doomed protagonists in gaming–Persona 3, the first two Dark Souls games, arguably Bloodborne, and the original Diablo, to name a few–but these are some of the ones that affected me personally. Something about playing as a dead man walking never fails to leave me shaken. Games like this serve as a potent reminder of both the inevitability of death and that there are things worth dying for.

Which doomed protagonists and their struggles have stuck with you?

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Today on COG Considers, let’s talk about style and the way it can save otherwise deeply flawed games. Let’s be honest here–a lot of our most beloved games aren’t beloved because they’re flawless examples of game design. We love them because they’re cool. Metal Gear, Sonic the Hedgehog, Devil May Cry, Halo, and Mass Effect are some of the most popular gaming franchises out there, and one thing they all have in common is a strong, cohesive vision that holds the games together (until the very end of Mass Effect 3 descended into controversy, anyway) and makes them legendary. It’s not exactly revolutionary to say that people play games because they’re cool and have good writing, but what if I tell you that sometimes, people play games only because they’re cool and have good writing?

Modern gaming in general likes to focus on photo-realistic graphics and responsive action commands to build player immersion and that all-important sense of style, but you don’t necessarily need fantastic controls or cinema-level visuals to create a good gaming experience. In fact, you don’t even necessarily need a good game to create a good gaming experience. Cult classic titles like Drakengard, Koudelka, and Pathologic have mechanics that range from dull and repetitive to actively trying to sabotage the player, but people still appreciate and even enjoy these games. They aren’t fun, but the worlds they create, the characters they follow, and the stories they tell stick in our memories regardless. As of writing, all three of these games have gotten sequels or remakes that aimed to make them more enjoyable. These attempts succeeded, but something was lost along the way, particularly in the case of Pathologic, which was made obscenely difficult intentionally. It goes to show that style alone can make a game stick in peoples’ heads, even if the title is a nightmare to actually play.

Of course, good gameplay and visuals can take a game from cult classic territory to smash hit. Case in point, NieR: Automata, which brought Yoko Taro’s existentialist musings, envelope-pushing themes, and twisted characters into the spotlight. There is much more to NieR: Automata than its stylish presentation and philosophy, but it exists because Square Enix noticed Yoko Taro’s style in the Drakengard and NieR games and gave him a better platform. For a more recent example, GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon is also a fusion of excellent style and excellent gameplay. Though this title is still in Early Access, I adored every moment I spent with it, including the parts where it made me screech with frustration.

I’ve played a lot of games over the years, most of them because I thought the idea was cool. Sometimes the devs took full advantage of that and handed me an expertly crafted game that felt amazing to play, and sometimes they really shot themselves in the foot. Either way, the fact remains that I remember ‘cool’ games much better than games that market themselves purely on mechanical excellence. How about you?

The post Style Alone Can Save a Game appeared first on COGconnected.

Today on COG Considers, let’s talk about video game movie adaptations. Yes, really. I know that video game movies usually suck, but after the success of Sonic the Hedgehog and The King of Fighters: Destiny actually being pretty awesome, it’s time to talk seriously about what other classic games really, really deserve to be adapted properly. Number one on my list used to be KOF, but that wish has been granted, so I’m falling back on my number two: Tekken, the dark and dramatic tale of the Mishima family and their inability to go five minutes without trying to murder each other. The intergenerational war between Heihachi Mishima, Kazuya Mishima, and Jin Kazama over control of the Mishima Zaibatsu–and the terrible power of the Devil Gene–is just begging to be turned into a movie or TV series. Horrific plot twists, compelling heroes turned equally compelling villains, a cycle of violence that threatens to drown the whole in bloodshed–these games have everything a good movie needs. So why don’t we have a good Tekken movie yet?

It’s not like nobody’s tried adapting the games to the screen, but all the existing Tekken films are pretty bad. The 1998 OVA Tekken: The Motion Picture tried adapting Tekken 1 and 2 and ended up with a poorly-paced, poorly-animated, and poorly-voice acted mess. Not only did it leave all the self-destructive charisma of the series’ first protagonist, Kazuya Mishima, at the door, it also changed the first game’s iconic twist ending to have Kazuya redeem himself after Heihachi’s defeat. Come on, guys, the entire series relies on Kazuya succumbing to his inner demons literally and figuratively. Where’s Tekken 3 supposed to come from if Kazuya doesn’t sink down to Heihachi’s level and become a villain in his own right? The 2009 Tekken live-action film is even worse, having basically no relation to the original games in terms of plot, theme, or aesthetic. The 2011 CGI film Tekken: Blood Vengeance is at least watchable, though it also has the least to do with the franchise’s central conflict–you know, until the surprisingly nice story of two superhuman schoolgirls investigating the Mishima Zaibatsu’s evil deeds gets thrown out the window in favor of a big, dumb fight scene that wrecks everything the first two-thirds of the movie built. At least Devil Jin looks cool.

Most fighting games run into problems during adaptation because they don’t have a clear protagonist or don’t have a clear plot (looking at you, Street Fighter), but Tekken is different. Not only do the games have enough story to fill an HBO series, they have a surprisingly heavy tone filled with murder, corporate corruption, and the scars of abuse. The result is a tale that shows how a hero can fall from grace, how good intentions can lead straight to hell, and how love and friendship can’t necessarily save anyone.

Also, giant international corporations are evil, but we already knew that.

The post We Desperately Need a Good Tekken Adaptation appeared first on COGconnected.

Once again, we’re back and bringing you the weekly COGconnected cosplay feature. Brace yourselves: this one packs a real punch. Knightmage is an international cosplayer whose creativity and astounding attention to detail have created a host of memorable photoshoots–including a fantastic Mortal Kombat group shoot–since he began cosplaying in 2012. When he’s not dressing up to bring attention to cosplay and boost the confidence of other potential cosplayers, he’s at work as a decorated 16 year veteran Deputy Sheriff in Ohio, which goes to show that cosplay is for everyone. Scroll down to check out some of our favorites from his catalog.

 

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Black Panther, Black Bolt, Namor, and a Skrull – Marvel Comics

 

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Wolverine – Marvel Comics

 

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Homelander – The Boys

 

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Spawn, The Savage Dragon, The Maxx, and Grifter – Image Comics

 

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Chun-li – Street Fighter

Want to check out even more awesome cosplay?

Why don’t you check out our features for Marusera YumeArt, Panterona Cosplay, and Hakken Ryou.

Click over to PAGE 2 for more great cosplay…

The post Knightmage’s Action-Packed Cosplay Will Get Your Heart Pounding appeared first on COGconnected.

Both Bandai Namco and NetherRealm Studios have announced that they will no longer be working with controversial esports organization WePlay. WePlay recently hosted big-budget events for Tekken 7, Soulcalibur VI, and Mortal Kombat 11, so this is quite the turnaround. The two companies made separate statements–that were published at the exact same time and sound suspiciously similar–citing vague differences in vision and professional standards as the reason for their decisions. Okay, so that’s a little odd, but the context surrounding WePlay puts this choice in a different light.

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— Bandai Namco Esports (@BNEesports) April 30, 2021

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— NetherRealm (@NetherRealm) April 30, 2021

WePlay began making waves in the fighting game community last year when it started handing out huge payouts to top players and ingratiating itself with talent. It also offered some of the first in-person competitions since the beginning of the pandemic. The organization;s most recent venture, the Ukraine-based Ultimate Fighting League, marketed itself as offering a prize pool that totaled $150,000 and promised to be an ongoing competitive venue. If that sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is. The controversy began earlier this month when WePlay’s connections to controversial gambling site 1xBet were revealed on Twitter by competitor and community organizer Josh “Icege” McWhorter. Long story short, 1xBet is banned from operating in the United Kingdom for a variety of offences. According to Kotaku, they include: “facilitating gambling on children’s sports in Kenya, advertising on illegal streaming sites, and promoting a so-called “pornhub casino” with topless female dealers.”

Yikes. As if that weren’t enough, 1xBet’s three alleged owners are apparently wanted by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation as of August 2020. No wonder Bandai Namco and NetherRealm Studios decided to get out when this came to light. As of writing, WePlay has Tweeted a reply to Bandai Namco and NetherRealm Studios claiming the whole thing took it by surprise, but it will continue to move forward.

#SupportWUFL – Our response to NRS & Bandai pic.twitter.com/pmoUkdWTGN

— WUFL | #WePlayUFL (@WePlayUFL) April 30, 2021

What are your thoughts on the WePlay controversy? Let us know down in the comments, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.

SOURCE

The post Tekken and Mortal Kombat Have Parted Ways With WePlay eSports Events appeared first on COGconnected.

Earth Day is coming up, but how are you supposed to celebrate when we’re all supposed to stay indoors? The pandemic means that large gatherings outside are frowned upon, if not outright banned, and that means the big tree-planting efforts are hard to participate in. Though let’s be honest, most of us gamers were just going to donate money from the safety of our own homes anyway. Whatever the case, Shaw chose the perfect time to unveil a new Earth Day initiative: the Tree Spree Challenge. All you have to do is plant a tree in a game of your choice, screenshot it, and post the pic on social media with #ShawTreeSpree, and the internet giant will match it with a real tree.

Gamers, this is our moment! If you’ve ever wanted to give back to the planet, prove that you’re better at planting trees than anyone else, or just an excuse to decorate your Animal Crossing island, Minecraft homes, or Stardew Valley farmsteads, now is the time to do it. Flood Twitter with the evidence. Let’s get as many trees out there as possible. Last time, the challenge ended with a total of 4,000 trees, but we think you guys can leave that number in the dust.

The event’s call to action states that: “People can post a screenshot of their in-game tree on social using the hashtag #ShawTreeSpree, and Shaw will plant a tree in real life for them, too. The initiative will run until the end of Earth Month(April 30th) and is open to any game where you can plant a tree.”

How many games can you plant trees in, we wonder? Now is an excellent time to find out.

The Shaw Tree Spree Challenge will run from April 22nd (Earth Day) to April 30th, 2021.

How many trees did you plant? Let us know down in the comments, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.

SOURCE: Press Release

The post Shaw Tree Spree Challenge Dares Gamers to Plant Trees For Earth Day appeared first on COGconnected.

Today on COG Considers, let’s talk about space. Specifically, why so few RPGs let us go there. From a certain angle, it makes sense: most RPGs are set firmly in the fantasy genre, and fantasy has traditionally been planet-bound… except that it really, really hasn’t. The line between fantasy and sci-fi has been very blurry in the past, and plenty of fantasy stories have taken their characters to other planets. The Vision of Escaflowne takes place largely on the moon, John Carter of Mars goes to, well, Mars, and Star Wars is what happens when fantasy and sci-fi blend into a single entity. Every one of these works uses the concept of being in space, visiting other worlds, to great effect–yes, even John Carter–so why are there so few RPGs willing to give space a try?

At this time, the Mass Effect franchise is probably the most famous RPG game set in space. These games follow humanity’s steps into an interstellar alliance between species and the uncovering of a catastrophic cycle that could destroy the entire universe. Between the surprisingly accurate science, the many bizarre planets Shepard visits, the focus on alien civilizations and culture, and the sheer scale of the destruction portrayed, I think everyone can agree that Mass Effect used its setting to great effect. But this isn’t the only way for an RPG to go to space.

The Star Ocean games’ entire gimmick is that they’re JRPGs by way of Star Trek. Each title follows a rag-tag bunch of misfits as they struggle to accomplish a grand goal, but the presence of interstellar travel, aliens, and the Pangalactic Federation lend a unique flavor to what might otherwise be standard fare. Star Ocean was even created by the same people who started the Tales of franchise, and they share many of the same story beats. As it turns out, you can explore the trials of youth, systemic inequality, the fight against extinction, and the fallout of horrific experiments conducted on children just as thoroughly in space as you can in a fantasy realm. So again, why is Star Ocean the face of JRPGs set in space? A lot of JRPGs have gone to space briefly over the years, including several in the iconic Final Fantasy series, but relatively few make the setting a large part of the premise. That really sucks, because the RPG genre provides a ton of ways to explore space that shooters, RTSes, and even MMOs can have trouble with. Alternate histories, first contact scenarios, stranded space travelers, battles that take place on a truly universal scale… it’s all out there. And it makes for excellent game material.

If I had to name my favorite space RPG, it would be a tie between Knights of the Old Republic and Super Robot Wars. On one hand, you have one of the best video game explorations of the Star Wars setting out there, featuring some stellar writing from BioWare. On the other hand, you have the ultimate crossover franchise between just about every giant robot anime–or game–out there, equipped with a stunning soundtrack. They’re very different kinds of games, bound only by their shared determination to take RPGs to the stars. I think that’s what I love about RPGs going to space: the sheer potential of it all.

Also, people tend to be a lot more creative when designing alien planets than they do fantasy realms. Just saying.

The post We Need More RPGs Set in Space appeared first on COGconnected.

Quick recap: once upon a time, JRPGs used to be completely insane. No, really. There was a period in the 90s and early 2000s where big-budget studios like Squaresoft suddenly started producing incredibly wild titles. These games generally had top-notch production values, a ton of love poured into them, incredibly striking aesthetics, and stories so odd and unexpected that they stick with people to this day. We’re talking 50-hour-long epics produced by major corporations here, not the short little weird games that populate the indie game market today. These titles had messy characters, messy relationships, and yes, messy plots, but the frayed edges were part of the magic. In an age where big-budget games no longer take so many risks and recent Final Fantasy games are less interesting than Kingdom Hearts, it’s worth celebrating these lost–and bizarre–gems.

Arranged loosely from most obscure to least, here are 11 JRPGs from the past couple decades that are absolutely insane. Some of them blend genres, some of them do funky stuff with game mechanics, some of them are dedicated to flouting expectations, and some of them have giant robots for no discernable reason. There’s so much to talk about that I had to split this article into 2 parts. Here is PART 1.

Here’s part 2, which covers the last 6 games on the list. Be warned: here be spoilers!

6. Persona 2: Innocent Sin/Eternal Punishment

Like Digital Devil Saga, this game is a spin-off of the Shin Megami Tensei series and is actually two games. Unlike Digital Devil Saga, Persona 2: Innocent Sin and its sequel, Eternal Punishment, are both standalone titles. Innocent Sin focuses on Tatsuya Suou, a high school student who is targeted by Joker (no, not that Joker), a supernatural menace who sucks the life out of people. Joker blames Tatsuya and his classmates for an unspecified crime in the past–one they can’t remember. To survive, they must dig up their buried memories, reconnect with forgotten friends, and unlock hidden power. But they’d better be careful, because the fabric of reality is beginning to fray, and in a world where rumor becomes reality, there’s no limit to what can happen. The kids could be forced to kill their principal in self-defence, for example. Or Hitler could be resurrected. Or the world could end, because as it turns out, a bunch of traumatized teenagers aren’t the best people to try and save it. Yeah, that actually happens. Persona 2 doesn’t mess around.

Though Eternal Punishment technically picks up directly where Innocent Sin leaves off, Innocent Sin leaves off with the main characters agreeing to have their memories of each other erased so they can create an alternate world where they didn’t screw up and fail to stop the destruction of the whole universe. So in practice, it’s a soft reboot–you know, right up until both the player and new protagonist Maya realize that the conflict of Eternal Punishment was kicked off by Tatsuya not having lost his memories with everyone else. Now it’s up to Maya and the rest of her scattered party of working adults to prevent the universe’s destruction and save the traumatized kids. If you’re interested in urban fantasy, horror, and especially Lovecraftian themes, I can’t recommend Persona 2 enough.

5. Shadow Hearts/Shadow Hearts: Covenant

You know what I don’t see a lot of? Historical fantasy JRPGs. You know what else I don’t see a lot of? Horror JRPGs. You know what developer Sacnoth’s Shadow Hearts and its direct sequel, Shadow Hearts: Covenant offer? Historical fantasy-horror JRPG action. These games have it all: spooky ghosts, real-world locations, a lovely tour of pre- and mid-WWI Asia and Europe, and some of the funniest characters who’ll ever make you feel an emotion. In short, the franchise offers some top-grade dark comedy with your surprisingly nuanced character development, genuinely scary horror story, and neat alternate history exploration. They follow Yuri Volte Hyuga, a snarky young man who happens to be a Harmonixer–a sorcerer who can absorb the Malice of monsters and forcibly lay them to rest, while also giving him the power to take on their forms–which is good, because the voice in his head won’t stop demanding he do increasingly dangerous things. Yuri’s primary orders are to protect Alice Elliot, a young cleric, from a man who needs her powers to save the world. By destroying it. And that’s only in the first game.

Most JRPGs have you start out fighting slimes or goblins. In Shadow Hearts, you start out fighting skinned corpses. Covenant tones down some of the horror elements–some–but retains the same bizarre sense of humor, surprisingly strong relationships, and spooky monsters. You’ll desperately juggle spells and sanity points while trying not to let your party members go berserk, recruit Princess Anastasia pre-revolution and ransack NPCs’ homes for gay porn you can trade for better equipment, and become increasingly worried about Yuri’s mental and emotional health as he absorbs more and more of the world’s Malice. These games start out creepy and spiral into Lovecraftian territory without ever losing sight of what makes them charming. I really can’t recommend them enough. No comment on the third game, Shadow Hearts: From The New World, though. You can have too much of a good thing.

4. Xenosaga

It’s odd to talk about a spiritual successor before the series that inspired it, but my experience tells me that Xenosaga is just a bit more obscure than Xenogears, so I guess we’re starting out in space and working backward. In short, Xenosaga is a trilogy of science-fantasy space opera games developed by Monolith Soft–specifically, by a team composed of ex-Square Enix employees who wanted to do more with the ideas and themes of Xenogears. These three titles focus on Shion Uzuki, head of the first R&D division of Vector Industries, and KOS-MOS, the android superweapon she’s developing. When disaster strikes in the form of the Gnosis, intangible but deadly extra-dimensional beings, Shion gathers a team of cyborgs, androids, artificial human mercenaries, an ambiguously human traveler who can destroy Gnosis with a touch, and her estranged brother. Together, they must survive, find the source of the Gnosis, and unravel the truth of what happened on planet Miltia 14 years ago. The truth of that incident could destroy Shion or save them all.

Xenosaga takes place in a future where Earth has been quite literally lost to the ages, as in ‘no one even remembers where it was anymore,’ and humanity is becoming an increasingly nebulous term. It’s a series where Mary Magdalene is reincarnated as a robot and one major villain was driven insane as a child by being forced to experience the heat death of the universe. It draws heavy influence from the real first and second century CE religious movement known as Gnosticism, as well as alchemy, philosophy, and psychology. There are a ton of symbols and obscure details that you probably won’t pick up unless you have degrees or special interests in these areas. These are the kind of games people can and do write essays about. If that sounds like fun, check the Xenosaga games out.

3. Xenogears

Here it is. The beginning of a sprawling, multi-brand franchise. The origin of both Xenosaga and Xenoblade. Many JRPGs have blended fantasy and sci-fi before, but nothing quite like this. The game begins with the cinematic destruction of a high-tech spaceship from within before immediately switching to a remote fantasy village where Fei Fong Wong, a sensitive painter with a past he can’t remember, is preparing for his wedding day. Unfortunately, things go horribly wrong when the entire town, including his bride-to-be, is annihilated by a mysterious madman called Id piloting a humungous mecha called Weltall. Fei narrowly survives the incident, only to find his fate bound to the machine. From there, Fei is hunted by the military, dragged into a civil war, and forced to battle the tyrannical Empire of Solaris, all while frantically trying to understand what is happening to him–and why he feels like he already knows Elly, the enemy officer who defects to join him. Who is Fei, exactly? The answer to that question could be the only thing that can save this world.

Xenogears is a flawed masterpiece that combines mecha-to-mecha combat with more standard foot battles fought using magic and conventional weapons, a choice that should stick out in its old-school fantasy anime-style world like a sore thumb. It doesn’t, because Xenogears has a metric ton of worldbuilding and backstory that go into fleshing out a plot that spans 10,000 years, crossing from grounded fantasy to political intrigue to high-concept sci-fi. This game touches on just about every subgenre that falls under the umbrella of speculative fiction and does so with incredible panache. It hits many of the same cosmic and religious themes are Xenosaga, including the protagonist with a shattered mind and a tragic past, but does so in a way entirely its own. Unfortunately, the second disc goes increasingly off the rails structurally as poor scheduling, inexperienced staff, and lack of budget, resulting in one-hour long cutscenes and entire scenes consisting of characters sitting in a chair and summarizing the events of the story. Even in its unfinished state, there’s nothing out there quite like Xenogears, including its many successors. If you look into just one game on this list, make it this one.

2. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

If you’re not feeling a game with an overly complicated plot, how about one that’s all atmosphere? The third game in the mainline Shin Megami Tensei series starts right before the end of the world–as in, about ten minutes before the apocalypse. That gives you just enough time to get to know your two best friends, Isamu and Chiaki, take a quick tour of an abandoned hospital, and almost get murdered by an evil cult leader before a creepy little boy drops a demonic parasite into your eye. Now you’re the Demi-Fiend, an entity somewhere between human and demon.

Good news: this means you survive the apocalypse that wipes out basically everyone else and smooshes the remnants of Tokyo into the spherical Vortex World, an ocean of power and lost souls waiting for someone to turn it into something new.

Bad news: to create a new world, you need two things. One, you must be human; two, you must have developed a Reason you want to build that new world around. As a part-demon, the Demi-Fiend is no longer capable of building his own Reason, but as he gathers power and explores the ruins, he may become the most dangerous piece in the game. This world might be beyond saving, but you can still decide how this story ends. Spoilers: it is, and has always been, a horror story.

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne is drenched in creepy ambiance from beginning to end. The simple story and archetypal characters don’t stop it from exploring incredibly dark themes like grief, self-destruction, cult mindsets, and the slow loss of humanity. It creates a world where gods and monsters walk beside the ruins of mankind’s creations, where magic and technology are one and the same, where true freedom can only be found in rejecting everything that once defined you, and asks ‘what choice feels best to you?’ Also, the art direction is top-notch.

1. Final Fantasy VII

Here it is. The title you’ve all been waiting for. The crowning jewel of JRPGs, if not video games in general. Final Fantasy VII. More than twenty years after it was first released, FFVII still has one of the most interesting settings, weirdest magic systems, and most engaging casts in gaming history. In many ways, FFVII is as much a departure from JRPG norms as Wild ARMs 3. Think about it: there’s only one teenager in the main cast. The protagonist is clearly suffering from a form of PTSD and has made up most of his past. The party consists of eco-terrorists fighting against a huge corporation that is metaphorically and literally killing the planet. And then there’s Aerith, whose death was carefully crafted to make sure it lingered with the player, a gambit that succeeded with flying colors. The story of Cloud Strife, AVALANCHE, Shinra Electric Power Company, and Sephiroth went down in history for good reason.

To this day, I can’t think of a setting that better fuses technology and magic. The world of FFVII is cyberpunk by way of fantasy, where super soldiers that can shrug off bullets coexist with gigantic magitech guns, where you can buy magic in cities while literal monsters spawn in the slums. It feels like what would happen to a standard JRPG fantasy setting if technology moved down a familiar path rather than staying stuck in the medieval ages. The result is an eerie mirror of our world that wouldn’t be out of place in something like Black Mirror. Aerith’s murder left a scar on the psyche of gamers that is still felt today, but she’s far from the only memorable thing about FFVII. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this game changed the way videogames are made. So really, if you haven’t already, go check it out. FFVII is more than worth it.

That’s the second half of my list of bizarre classic JRPGs! You can check out PART 1 here.

Thank you for keeping it locked on COGconnected.

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The post 11 Classic JRPGs That are Absolutely Insane (Part 2) appeared first on COGconnected.

If you stop and think about it, the entire concept of Kingdom Hearts is pretty ridiculous. A collaboration between Square Enix and Disney, starring a big-eyed JRPG hero in Mickey Mouse pants fighting to save the multiverse with a giant key? Laughable. And yet the franchise has gone on to be an incredible smash hit since its initial release in 2002. Now it’s 2021, there are about eleven narratively-important games in the series (it’s hard to tell with all the mobile spin-offs), and we’re all stuck indoors with nothing better to do than catch up on one of the most confusing JRPG series of all time. Thanks to the Epic Games Store releasing Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, Kingdom Hearts III + Re Mind (DLC), and Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory on PC today, we can get started on that right now.

These four collections contain a total of eleven magical games that will definitely suck you into a world where hearts are heart-shaped, Aerith interacts calmly with Donald Duck and Goofy, and a key is the most powerful weapon of all. Just don’t ask us to explain what was going on with Organization XIII, okay, it’s very complicated and we’re still getting new twists related to those guys. Also, they might still be alive? Or quasi-dead? Nobodies are weird.

To celebrate the Kingdom Hearts series finally making its way to PC, there will be a 20% discount is available on all Kingdom Hearts games sold via the Epic Games Store until April 6, 2021. And that’s not all. Anyone who purchases Kingdom Hearts III + Re Mind (DLC) on the Epic Games Store by May 31, 2021, and is not a current Disney+ subscriber, will receive a three month subscription to Disney+ courtesy of the Epic Games Store. Note that this applies only in North America and select countries, however, so check the full terms and conditions first.

What’s your favorite Kingdom Hearts game? Let us know down in the comments, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.

SOURCE

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Once upon a time, JRPGs used to be completely insane. No, really. There was a period in the 1990s and early 2000s where big-budget studios like Squaresoft suddenly started producing incredibly wild titles. These games generally had top-notch production values, a ton of love poured into them, incredibly striking aesthetics, and stories so odd and unexpected that they stick with people to this day. It’s not hard to make a strange little game nowadays–in fact, much of the indie gaming market relies on that premise–but I’m talking about full-length epics here. These titles made truly weird choices, explored incredibly crazy worlds, and sometimes went on to shake the foundation of the JRPG genre. The modern JRPG market no longer takes so many risks or pushes so many boundaries. I think that’s really sad, so I’d like to go over what made these titles so bizarre and compelling in the first place. Personally, I think the key points are the experimental settings, a willingness to let characters and relationships be flawed and ugly, constant and deliberate blending of magic and technology, Lovecraftian horror vibes, and a total dedication to telling these crazy stories to the end. Of course, each game also has its own strengths, so I’ll touch on those too.

Arranged loosely from most obscure to least, here are 11 JRPGs from the past couple decades that are absolutely insane. Some of them blend genres, some of them do funky stuff with game mechanics, some of them are dedicated to flouting expectations, and some of them have giant robots for no discernable reason. There’s so much to talk about that I had to split this article into 2 parts. Here’s part 1, which covers the first 5 games on the list. Be warned: here be spoilers!

11. Chrono Cross

Everyone’s heard of Chrono Trigger, the cult classic JRPG about time travel and putting it all on the line to create a better future, but how many of you have heard of its obscure follow-up? Chrono Cross is a 1999 game developed by Square and is technically a sequel to Trigger. In practice, it’s actually a remake or reimagining of Radical Dreamers, a twist-filled visual novel that focuses on the reincarnations of several Chrono Trigger protagonists. If that sounds too straightforward for this article, don’t worry, because Chrono Cross makes Radical Dreams look positively simple in comparison. The game opens with protagonist Serge tripping into another dimension where he died as a child and things spiral from there. Remember how when Chrono Trigger briefly removed Marle from existence, she was still conscious in some kind of void? Chrono Cross takes that little moment of horror and runs with it.

The heroes in Chrono Trigger removed entire timelines from existence, and now Serge is stuck dealing with the aftermath. Multiple futures are fighting for survival, the titanic Time Devourer is actually Lavos is struggling to undo its defeat, and main antagonist Lynx manages to steal Serge’s body and run off with it about a third of the way through the game. He also makes off with your entire party, but that’s all right, because Chrono Cross has a whopping 45 playable characters, not all of whom can be recruited in a single playthrough. In the end, it turns out that female lead Kid is Schala’s temporal doppelganger/magic clone/what have you, created in a desperate attempt to stop a malfunctioning supercomputer with delusions of godhood and the Time Devourer from consuming all alternate realities. Yeah. It’s kind of a mess, but at least it’s a fun mess.

10. Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean

What is it about floating continents that captures the imagination so much? I don’t know, but I’m not complaining. Developed by Monolith Soft and published by Namco, Baten Kaitos brought us some of the best graphics on the GameCube, including lovingly crafted architecture and costumes to lend environments a certain local flavor, and also some beautiful “Wings of the Heart” that change the way the characters move and fight. It’s also a game that incorporates you, the player, into its story, which never fails to make things a little crazy. In Baten Kaitos, you take on the role of a Guardian Spirit, a benevolent force accompanying young antihero Kalas on the hunt for the one who murdered his brother and grandfather. It doesn’t take long for the two of you to stumble into a mysterious girl called Xelha, who wants to stop the local evil empire from capturing the five End Magnus, items containing the power of a long-dead evil god, and using them to take over the world.

Sounds simple enough. Then Kalas is revealed to be an artificial human who’s been tricking you into helping him revive said evil god… and Xelha knew the whole time. Yeah, that’s right, the main player character is a traitor, and the Guardian Spirit would know this if he hadn’t helped wipe their memory at the beginning of the game. What follows is a desperate attempt by Xelha and the player to save Kalas from his own flawed nature. That twist, combined with the game’s overall fantastic visual presentation, is enough to get me on board.

9. Wild ARMs 3

Media Vision and XSEED Games’ Wild ARMs series is pretty weird in general–I mean, come on, a franchise based around desert punk western JRPGs?–but Wild ARMs 3 takes the cake. In the broken, post-apocalyptic world of Filgaea, four Drifters wielding magical guns called ARMs team up in search of a priceless treasure known as the Eternal Sparkle. On the way, they trip over an ancient conspiracy that already ended the world once. But the plot isn’t the real appeal in this game. The main draw is that it feels like a JRPG made by people who’d never played a JRPG before and weren’t familiar with the conventions of the genre.

The hero is Virginia Maxwell, a teenage girl whose naïve optimism is criticized until she comes into her own as the game’s knight in shining armor, magical Indigenous character Gallows Carradine isn’t here to give anyone advice when he’s so busy running away from his own responsibilities, angry loner Jet Enduro is the party member who most needs emotional support, and smart guy bounty hunter Clive Winslett has both the highest attack in the party and a family that doesn’t die. There’s no romantic subplot in the game, you can’t buy healing items, and weapons can only be upgraded and customized, not replaced. There isn’t even a mana points system–instead, a Force Gauge builds as each character attacks, with new magic attacks unlocking at a certain level. Plus, you need to search for items and locations on the world map with a radar-like ping and you can skip random encounters. All in all, Wild ARMs 3 is a title that wanders cheerfully away from the standard JRPG formula and heads off in its own direction, and I respect it for that.

8. Digital Devil Saga

Have you ever looked seriously at an RPG and thought ‘I wish this game had cannibalism as a major gameplay mechanic?’ No? Then you definitely haven’t played Digital Devil Saga. Developed by Atlus in 2004 (with part 2 released in 2005), this spin-off of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise is drenched in Hindu lore and dripping with a fusion of ugly magic and misused technology. The duology of games begins in the Junkyard, a virtual hellscape dominated by six Tribes battling for turf. The Karma Temple, the arbiters of the war, has declared that the last gang standing will have a chance to reach Nirvana, a paradise without war or strife. In the game’s opening sequence, the battle between protagonist Serph’s Emryon Tribe and the nearby Vanguard Tribe is interrupted by the sudden discovery of Sera, a mysterious girl who comes from somewhere outside the Junkyard… and by both sides suddenly transforming into voracious demons. When Serph and company regain their senses, they find themselves in a bloodbath. Fortunately, Sera is still alive, because the Karma Temple has made some new rules: the winning Tribe must present Sera to the Temple, and use their newfound demonic abilities, Atma, to eat the competition. This means everyone is going to be gunning for the Embryon Tribe now. Oh, and the formerly emotionless combatants are suddenly experiencing emotion for the first time. There’s no way that will complicate anything, right?

Pretty intense, right? And that’s only the first half of the story. Digital Devil Saga 2 picks up where the first game left off, but takes the Embryon Tribe to what they know as Nirvana–and we recognize as a post-apocalyptic earth. Turns out that Sera is the only real human in the first game, and the Junkyard was a training sim for combat AI loosely based on people she knew in real life. In this world, the god Brahman lives in the sun, and he’s so fed up with humanity that he’s been turning everyone its rays touch to stone. The only survivors have the power of Atma, meaning they have an alarming tendency to become ravenous demons. Needless to say, things are looking grim. Going over the plot in any more detail would take up an article in itself, so let’s just say that Digital Devil Saga may be the most out-there game on this list–and for that, I love it.

7. Vagrant Story

As a general rule, most games lose something in translation. Vagrant Story, which has what may be the best English localization in gaming history, is the exception. This gothic tale is at once smaller-scale than most JRPGs and much, much larger. It takes place within the walls of a single city, but incorporates an elaborate item crafting system, combat inspired by rhythm games, the structure of an 80s dungeon crawler, a story straight out of Greek drama, quasi-Shakespearian dialogue, and the aesthetics of French graphic novels. Oh, and pretty much the entire cast is wearing bondage gear for absolutely no reason, so that’s fun. The story is loosely connected to the world of Ivalice, as shown in Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XII, but Vagrant Story is functionally a standalone title, which is good, because being connected to FFXII would only drag it down. The game begins with immortal cult leader Sydney Losstarot kidnapping the young son of powerful Duke Bardorba and fleeing to the cursed city of Leá Monde, where the dead do not rest in peace. Players take on the role of Ashley Riot, Riskbreaker, a one-man army who must infiltrate the city, assassinate Sydney, and retrieve the boy. Unfortunately, a sinister paladin has also arrived in Leá Monde, and he has his own plans for Sydney and Ashley both.

Vagrant Story is one long dungeon, dripping with atmosphere and filled with creepy lore. At times, it comes very close to being a horror game in the vein of classic Castlevania. Especially noteworthy are Ashley’s growing uncertainty if his tragic backstory is even real, the awful truth of what happened in Leá Monde, and the growing realization that Sydney isn’t just a worshipper of The Dark–he’s trying desperately to keep its power out of other, less scrupulous hands. When the unstable cult leader who cut his own arms off as a sacrifice turns out to be trying to save the world, it really puts things in perspective.

That’s the first half of my list of bizarre classic JRPGs! Stay tuned for Part 2.

Thank you for keeping it locked on COGconnected.

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SaGa Frontier. This RPG classic from 1998 is finally getting a remaster for, like, every system, and we’re living for it. But what does the remaster actually entail? In this case, it means new events, new cutscenes, and adding a whole new storyline. Players will be able to pick from the original seven different protagonists, each of whom has their own storyline and goal, or choose new protagonist Fuse and go on a brand new adventure. Which, admittedly, will cross over with the rest of the protagonists’ storylines after you complete their quests and unlock new episodes for Fuse. Still sounds pretty great to us, especially since New Game Plus mechanics will let you carry-over your stats, no problem.

Fuse’s story mode will allow players to explore ‘what if’ scenarios where Fuse intervenes in the other characters’ stories, letting you form unique parties that are only available in this campaign. There will also be exclusive multiple endings as a result of decisions that can only be made thanks to Fuse’s interference.

Other features will include:

• Team-up with IRPO members
  • Other members of the IRPO can also join a party in Fuse’s storyline. Emilia’s fiancé “Ren” finally joins the party in the remastered version.
• All Protagonists Join the Party
  • All protagonists can potentially join a party if certain conditions are met in the Fuse storyline. In the original game, certain characters did not join a party depending on the protagonist, but one of the compelling aspects of the remastered version is that it enables players to recruit all other protagonists to a party in the Fuse storyline.
• All Final Boss Battles Possible
  • Players can potentially battle the other protagonists’ final bosses if certain conditions are met in the Fuse storyline. (A system that enables players to once again challenge the “final boss” of a protagonist that has joined a party in the Fuse storyline.)
  • Players can challenge up to 6; the more players defeated, the stronger the final boss becomes in the route, unfolding into a battle that poses an even greater challenge. The final boss battle BGM from the Fuse storyline has been newly composed by Kenji Ito.

SaGa Frontier Remastered will be released for PS4, PS5, PC, iOS, and Android on Thursday, April 15th, 2021.

Would you read a book on X-COM? Let us know down in the comments, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.

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The in-game story of the X-COM franchise is equal parts simple and complicated. On one hand, it’s easy to sum up what the games are about: they tell the tale of an organization dedicated to defending the earth from malicious aliens and UFOs. On the other hand, the number of options, narrative unpredictability, and spin-offs packed in over the years makes it really hard to actually explain things beat-by-beat. But the games stay popular, the concept stays compelling, and there’s a lot of people (us included) who’d really love to see not just the story inside the X-COM games, but the story of how X-COM even got made in the first place. Fortunately, someone has written that book, and it’s been fully funded on Kickstarter after just twenty-four hours. Way to go, everyone!

Monsters in the Dark: The Making of X-COM: UFO Defense will tell the story of the original 1994 game’s development and creator Julian Gollop’s early career in the field of game design. Written by David L. Craddock, who is known for writing about the history of Blizzard Entertainment, the book is written in narrative-style prose and is based on interviews with Julian Gollop, his brother Nick Gollop, and many developers and producers they worked with. If that’s not enough, the book has also been praised by giants within the video game sphere. Sid Meier’s Civilization IV lead designer Soren Johnson called it: “An engaging history of not just X-COM, but also of Julian Gollop’s path to creating one of the cornerstones of strategy gaming.”

The book’s Kickstarter will be active until the morning of April 8th, 2021. It will be available in digital and paperback editions, including a special edition showcasing bonus content, so get backing if you want to read it.

Would you read a book on X-COM? Let us know down in the comments, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.

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Did you know that Nippon Ichi Software makes games other than Disgaea? It’s hard to believe, but it’s true–from time to time, they produce standalone games with a similar cutesy art style and dark comedy sensibilities. Unfortunately, because these games are standalone, they tend to be lost to the mists of time in a way that the constantly re-released Disgaea games aren’t. So when we heard about Prinny Presents NIS Classics Volume 1, we were already pretty excited. Then we learned that Soul Nomad & The World Eaters, one of the best and darkest SRPGs the company has ever produced, is finally getting an English re-release over a decade after its initial 2007 publication. We are now officially hyped.

In case you’re a newcomer to non-Disgaea NIS games, here’s a quick rundown of both titles. Phantom Brave tells the story of Marona, a young girl who can channel the spirits of the dead. This earns her the dreaded title of ‘The Possessed’ and leads her to be hated and feared by others, even though she’s never done anything wrong, but it won’t stop her from trying to make the world a little brighter. Accompanied by the undead Ash, a friend of her deceased parents who basically raised her, Marona works as a Chroma–an all-purpose problem-solver–which is fitting, considering that her world is about to run into a ton of problems. It’s a game that’s melancholy, funny, and heartfelt in equal measure.

Soul Nomad & The World Eaters, meanwhile, is probably the darkest of any NIS game (and yes, we are counting Disgaea’s bad endings in that statement). This game begins by having the protagonist pick up a cursed sword and be immediately possessed by the weapon’s malicious occupant: Gig, the so-called Master of Death, a cruel and sadistic god who almost destroyed the world 500 years ago, and who makes no attempt to hide his plans to take over your body and finish the job. Fortunately, your will is strong enough to save you–at least, for now–but as you set out into the still-devastated world to find and kill the World Eaters, Gig’s Godzilla-sized monstrous former minions, you find yourself with no choice but to rely on Gig’s power. To save the world, you must build yourself an army and prepare to take on slave traders, apocalypse cults, and misled empires on top of the cataclysmic World Eaters. And in the Demon Path, unlocked on New Game Plus, you get to see what happens when the savior of the world turns on it. Yes, we are saying that Soul Nomad had a genocide ending long before Undertale was a thing. That alone makes it worth checking out.

This re-release contains all the unique gameplay mechanics, memorable characters, and DLC from the original releases, as well as up-scaled artwork. That’s over 60 hours of SRPG action for each title. We’re living for it.

Prinny Presents NIS Classics Volume 1 will be available on Nintendo Switch in Summer 2021. A limited edition is available for preorder at the low, low price of $99.99 US.

What’s your favorite NIS game? Let us know down in the comments, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.

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Today on COG Considers, let’s talk about ghosts. Specifically, why more video games should let you play as one. Oh, sure, titles like Phasmophobia and Ghosts n’ Goblins feature ghosts prominently, but the spooks aren’t playable, so I’m not satisfied. Come on! Left 4 Dead let us play as zombies, Carrion let us play as a horrifying blob monster, and Bioshock 2 let us play as a giant cyborg super soldier stuck in a diving suit. All of these things are much harder to build a plot around than a restless spirit, so why are there so few games which let you play as a ghost? Not only do ghosts come with built-in motivation–gotta have some reason they’ve stuck around on earth–they come with a great opportunity to experiment with visual and sound design, add in weird (and spooky!) game mechanics, and can completely change the way players engage with the game’s genre and themes. After all, everything changes once you bring death into the picture, even if death isn’t the end.

I’m not trying to say that there aren’t any games that make ghosts playable. Murdered: Soul Suspect tasked players with possessing suspects to solve the protagonist’s own murder. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective did a fantastic job of building a plot around the unfinished business of several ghosts and threw in some top-notch haunting mechanics and identity shenanigans for good measure. The upcoming Wonhon: A Vengeful Spirit promises to let us play as the kind of furious stringy-haired ghost girl that stars in so much Asian horror, and I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how it all plays out. But these games are few and far between, even though there are a ton of games about ghosts.

Why aren’t there a lot of ghostly protagonists in gaming? Maybe it’s because incorporating death and undeath into gameplay is hard. We can’t all be Raziel from Legacy of Kain, for whom dying in-game was mostly just a forced shift into the spirit realm. Some games want to actually punish failure. That’s fair, but I would argue that having the protagonist be dead to begin with doesn’t mean that failure can’t be punished. As Wonhon shows, a dead protagonist can still be hunted by supernatural threats and potentially subjected to a fate worse than death. There’s a reason we have so many stories about tormented spirits that are never able to find peace, after all. Beyond that, not all games have such a brutal approach. I want to see puzzle games about ghosts piecing together the mysteries of their pasts. RPGs where dead heroes refuse to stop fighting. A reverse P.T. where you play as Lisa and must make your murderer pay. Even dating sims where you get to know other ghosts and learn about history while smooching some spooks.

Come on, developers, stop being afraid. Ghosts go with everything!

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As you can probably tell, we’re big fans of Final Fantasy VII. We were thrilled when Remake finally came out, we were thrilled when Intergrade was announced, and now that Square Enix has announced two more entries in the series, we’re thrilled about that, even if the new titles are mobile games. Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier is a battle royale game aimed at everyone who’s ever wanted to play as a customizable SOLDIER before the fall of Shinra Electric Power Company. Set thirty years before the events of FFVII, in the early days of the SOLDIER program, this game chronicles the struggle of early SOLDIER candidates to compete for fame, fortune, and survival. If you’ve ever dreamed of playing as Zack or Cloud in Fortnite, keep your eyes peeled for more information.

The second mobile offering is Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis, a single-player game with cute chibi graphics and great ambition. If the press release is to be believed, then Ever Crisis is “a chapter-structured single player experience which will cover the whole of the FFVII timeline, including the events of the original game along with all the FFVII compilation titles, as well as new story elements, penned by FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE story and scenario writer Kazushige Nojima, surrounding the origins of SOLDIER.”

In other words, Ever Crisis will be a mobile adaptation of not just the original Final Fantasy VII, but also Crisis Core, Before Crisis, Advent Children, and possibly even Dirge of Cerberus. Though we really hope not. Dirge of Cerberus should be left to rot peacefully. Not everything needs a remake. But hey, it’s good to see Zack again, isn’t it?

Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier and Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis are expected to hit iOS and Android in 2022.

What kind of mobile game would you like to see Final Fantasy VII announce next? Let us know down in the comments, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.

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Today on COG Considers, let’s talk about one of Resident Evil‘s most iconic characters. Albert Wesker is a man with a dream. Unfortunately for everyone around him, that dream mostly involves stealing high-profile zombie bioweapons for fun and profit, ruthlessly using anyone who trusts him, and racking up more betrayals than Revolver Ocelot. Despite this, he’s still one of the series’ most beloved antagonists, and for good reason. Even after the complete disaster that was Resident Evil 5, Wesker’s actions continue to haunt the protagonists. He was responsible for the events of Resident Evil 7 long after his death. Now that’s some good villainy right there. But why do we all love Wesker so much?

The first reason is as simple as it is obvious: he’s just cool. He made an honorable mention on our top ten list of Most Wickedly Evil Video Game Villains, where we described him as a “stylish pain-in-the-ass”, and I can’t agree more with that statement. While his slicked-back hairstyle may be a bit out of date, Wesker’s coolheaded approach to monstrosity, ice-cold demeanor, and smug demonstrations of superiority never go out of fashion. Add in superhuman abilities, eyes like glowing coals, an obsession with protagonist Chris Redfield (and to a lesser extent, Jill Valentine), and the occasional glimpse of something maddened and frenzied under the affable mask, and you have one interesting bad guy. Plus, he’s responsible for just about everything that goes wrong in the series. Effectiveness is sexy. Just look at this cosplayer if you don’t believe me.

The second reason is a bit more complicated: in a series that straddles the line between B-movie horror tropes and social commentary, Wesker unites both parts of Resident Evil‘s horror. He’s both the traitor within your ranks and the corporate executive who cares more about his bottom line than peoples’ lives. This means he represents a form of faceless, corporate evil as well as more traditional fears of the undead–in fact, his relatively polite facade and complete moral bankruptcy lean much harder toward the horror of being at the mercy of giant corporations, which adds a looming background threat to every installment. The main characters may be able to take down the zombies in front of them, but they can’t stop Wesker from causing another outbreak later and taking what he wants in the chaos.

The third reason on my list is just that, well, a high-functioning zombie is a really neat idea. After the events of RE1, Wesker is infected with a variant of the T-virus. Although he can still pass for human, he’s very clearly become something other. He can dodge bullets, punch through stone walls, and his ever-present sunglasses serve the practical purpose of hiding his glowing red eyes. Much like Resident Evil Village‘s Big Vampire Lady, it’s very fun to try and figure out how his biology works and what he’s truly capable of. Would he purr when happy? Can he carry even the notoriously giant Chris Redfield in his big, strong arms? Does he suffer from the same horrific hunger that drives the rest of the zombies in Resident Evil mad? Who knows! Maybe that’s why he went off the deep end in RE5. Zombies need brains to function, after all. Maybe he was just running low.

Regardless of what decisions Capcom has made in the last ten years, Albert Wesker’s legacy continues to live on within the series and in pop culture. One thing is for sure: fans will be demanding more of this dearly beloved horror game villain for a long, long time.

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For years, BioWare has marketed the Dragon Age games as dark fantasy epics. They’re certainly fantasy and they do tend to involve epic quests, but how dark are they, really? Yes, the franchise does touch on racial inequality, systematic persecution, environmental destruction, world-destroying monsters, and even cultural genocide at times, but the player characters aren’t usually given the option to really participate in any of that. You’re not even subjected to it outside of certain backstory events. And the Darkspawn are no Lovecraftian horrors, we’ll tell you that. Dragon Age may be bleak at times, but trust us, we can think of RPGs that went much harder than this.

Don’t believe us? Here are seven RPGs we can think of that are darker than Dragon Age, ranked loosely by order of cosmic horror, existential dread, and sheer hopelessness. Be warned: here be spoilers!

7. Drakengard 3

Starting off with a bloody, bloody bang, Drakengard 3 tells the story of the Intoners: five maidens who used their incredible celestial powers to overthrow vile, corrupt leaders, end war, and unite the world. But you’re not playing as them. You’re playing as Zero, their ‘older sister’, the foul-mouthed, sadistic warrior dead-set on killing the other Intoners–no matter who’s in her way. This game starts with a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting which only gets darker as the seams begin to show. The world isn’t half as peaceful as it appears, the Intoners are struggling to hold things together with reality-warping songs that brainwash the listener, and Zero is unquestionably the hero of the story because if her sisters are allowed to live, their existence will doom everyone. Oh, and three of the four endings lead straight to outcomes so depressing you might cry. At least the rest of the game is dripping with dark comedy along with its Lovecraftian horror.

Content warnings: suicide, murder, genocide, xenophobia, physical and emotional abuse, rape, and basically everyone dies in the happiest ending.

6. Shadow Hearts

Speaking of dark comedy, Shadow Hearts is one of the funniest games to ever get under our skin. Unlike the brutal fantasy setting of Drakengard 3, this title takes place in a world recognizable as our own. You know, if skinned corpses regularly accosted travelers throughout the 20th century. Players follow Yuri Volte Hyuga, a snarky young man who can absorb the Malice of monsters to fuse with their souls, and who would really appreciate it if the voice in his head would stop demanding he do stuff. The first thing it orders him to do is save Alice Elliot, a young cleric being hunted by a man who needs her powers to save the world. By destroying it. Villains aside, the real star of Shadow Hearts is the grim, damp, and eerily grounded setting. It’s a world where the dead linger, grudges can kill, and god is an eldritch abomination that will destroy the world on contact, but it feels disturbingly plausible. Maybe that’s why the scene of a mentally-broken Yuri being forced to dig his own grave is so haunting.

Content warnings: murder, physical and emotional abuse, attempted genocide, a lot of religious horror, and the bad ending is canon.

5. Persona 2: Innocent Sin

Before Persona 4 made it big with a coming of age story and Persona 5 became a classic tale of rebellion, there were Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. Eternal Punishment was more bittersweet in the end, but Innocent Sin was terrifying. The whole franchise falls into the urban fantasy genre rather than straight-out horror, but P4 tasked its teenage protagonists with trying to solve a murder mystery and overcome their inner demons. Innocent Sin‘s teenage protagonists have to kill their principal in self-defence and grapple with any rumor spread far enough coming true, all while being hunted by a supernatural masked madman determined to kill them for a sin they can’t remember. The ending sees the main villain, Nyarlathotep, succeed in murdering the protagonists’ beloved friend Maya and destroy the world in the process. All that’s left is one town floating in the void of space, a grieving best friend, and four broken teenagers who must erase their own identities in order to turn back the clock and keep this from ever happening. Ouch.

Content warnings: murder, Lovecraftian themes, teenagers killing people, Hitler gets resurrected for a bit thanks to rumormongerers, and the apocalypse is inevitable. Also, the protagonist is bisexual, which might be why Innocent Sin didn’t get translated back in the PlayStation era. Cowards.

4. Shin Megami Tensei

Ah yes, the original Shin Megami Tensei: a happy game about high school students doing chores, making friends, and–OH GOD, A DEMON ATE YOUR MOM! This title came out in 1992 but only saw an official English release in 2014 for some reason. Possibly because the potential localizers took one look at a game that revolves around summoning demons, surviving an apocalypse of biblical proportions, and trying to decide between helping the followers of god or the allies of Lucifer, and decided that there was no way they’d get away with bringing it westward. Said official release was on iOS and no longer functional, but there are mods, which means you can still try–and fail–to stop things from falling apart. First, a corrupt general tries to lead a coup with demons, then the US nukes Tokyo to try and stop the demons from coming through, and then you’re transported to a post-apocalyptic future where demons run rampant and humanity is rapidly going extinct. Also, all your friends backstab you, the girl of your dreams is a stalker willing to dispose of all her rivals, and there’s another apocalypse coming no matter what you do. You’re still just a kid, and you’re going to die alone.

Content warnings: murder, genocide, body horror, religious horror, god is an evil bastard, people get eaten by demons, Tokyo gets nuked, all your friends betray you, the apocalypse is inevitable, and then you die.

Head over to PAGE 2 for more games on our list…

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