PixlBit

Hey Pixlbit friends,  I haven't been around much, as I've been trying to do more artwork, and I find that I only have so much time for other things (I have even less time to play games now).  I have gotten a taste (basically played a half hour to a few hours) of Final Fantasy XV, Resident Evil 7, Gravity Rush 2, and Last Guardian, and all are great games in my opinion.  I also got an Xbox One right before Christmas, but haven't really played much on it (Recore is sitting on the shelf tempting me).

I missed Sony's E3 press conference livestream due to work, but was able to catch the highlights.  Looks like they have a pretty great lineup:

So Overwatch officially launches tomorrow, and much of the gaming world will be rejoicing.  I on the other hand, am pretty indifferent, because I hate playing online first-person shooters.  In fact, I don't really like first-person shooters at all.  I tolerate the odd one here and there if it's one of the only worthwhile games during a console launch (Resistance: Fall of Man), or if the story or setting really grabs me (Bioshock), but other than that I can't stand them.  I always hated Golden Eye, and Halo, and Destiny, and whatever else my cool friends were playing because I just don't enjoy them enough to get good at them, and that really becomes a problem when the only modes are online multiplayer.

So, September 9th happens to be the anniversaries of the US launches of two of my favorite consoles ever.

...when the opening theme started up?  After years of ports, teases, and mediocre spinoffs (Crisis Core excluded), SquareEnix has finally done it.  Well, they've announced that they're going to do it: remake Final Fantasy VII, far and away the most popular entry in the series.  Personally, I fell in love with the game many years ago on PSone.  But over time those feelings were tempered by newer and flashier Final Fantasies, and I found myself entertaining arguments from the game's detractors: that it was overrated because of its popularity, that it wasn't perfect even back then and certainly hadn't aged well, and that FFVI did everything first and better.  But as they say, the heart wants what it wants, and the anticipation I felt as this reveal unfolded reminded me of the impact the original game had on me years ago.

So I just backed Koji Igarashi's new game, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night on Kickstarter.  I swore to myself I wouldn't do it, not because I don't believe that he'll be committed to finishing the game or that it won't be great, but there is a slight chance that disaster could strike and I'll be out a hundred bucks and get nothing in return.  I chose the $100 tier mainly because it came with the Ayami Kojima illustrated slipcase.  She is the brilliant artist who did a lot of the designs for Symphony of the Night and some of the other IGA-produced Castlevania games, so I forked over the extra dough to get it.  It also included the soundtrack by Michiru Yamane, who also worked on many of the beautiful Castlevania tracks.  They, along with IGA himself, are the "holy trinity" behind some of the best Castlevania games, and the fact that they are all involved in this new game is a dream come true--once I visited the Kickstarter page, it was an inevitability that I'd pledge something.  In fact, I really wanted the art book from the $150 tier, but I wasn't sure exactly how nice it would be (size, pages, etc.), and I figured if the game was a success, I'd just be able to buy it later.  Anyway, hopefully I'll be very happy in 2017 (when the game is scheduled to ship).

So there's this rumor going around (I read it on IGN) that Microsoft is in talks with Konami about purchasing the aborted game Silent Hills to release it exclusively on Xbox One.  At first glance, this seems plausible, because it would make sense for a hardware company to at least inquire about securing this game as a console exclusive, considering the interest this game has garnered.

In my last blog post, I talked about how game publisher Konami and it's superstar producer, Hideo Kojima, were in the midst of some sort of breakup, resulting in corporate restructuring and Kojima's probable departure from the company once development on Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is complete.  This also resulted in the cancellation of their highly anticipated game Silent Hills and the removal of its teaser, P.T., from the PSN store (Konami also took the extra step to ensure that it cannot be redownloaded once it is deleted from the PS4 hard drive even if it's still in a user's library, so don't delete it if you ever want to play it again!).  While we don't know much about Konami's future plans in regards to game development, at this point it seems that they will focus more on their mobile and/or pachinko businesses, which apparently have much more room for growth and profitability, but less room for growth in the business of being loved and admired.  

You may or may not have heard, but apparently Hideo Kojima, the mastermind behind the Metal Gear Solid franchise, and Konami, Metal Gear's publisher, have had some sort of falling out.  If the reports are to be believed, then Kojima will be leaving Konami once MGSV: Phantom Pain releases later this year.  As it is, he's classified as an outside contractor now.  Kojima has always said he wanted to work on new things, but Konami's reliance on the series (and his inability to leave the series in other peoples' hands) has always led him back.  When he said that Phantom Pain would be his last Metal Gear, many fans rolled their eyes and took it with a grain of salt, but it looks like it may be true.  Not only that, but Konami has gone so far as to erase his name from everything he was a part of--his team, studio, credit on all of Phantom Pain's logo and marketing, even the game's twitter account.  And today, Konami announced that they were searching for a team to make a new Metal Gear, when they should be focused on the one that isn't even out yet.  This kind of stuff doesn't happen if there's an amicable split.

So I just found out that Origa (Ol'ga Yakovleva) passed away today at the age of 44 due to lung cancer.  She sang the theme to Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, among performing other anime and game music and voicework.  What's weird, and the reason I'm writing this, is that before today, I didn't even really know who she was.