The week of E3 is easily the busiest for any games media outlet. With so many games to play, people to interview, and previews to write, the week feels both like a year, and like a day. This frantic schedule means that some of the games you try at E3 don’t have a big enough showing for their own articles, but that certainly doesn’t mean they aren’t worth discussing. Here are three games that caught my attention, even if they weren’t major titles at the conference.
Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner MARS
Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner MARS is a PSVR remaster of the second game in Hideo Kojima and Konami’s Zone of the Ender series. For those who have never played the games, Zone of the Enders is about humans in the 22nd century who, after colonizing Mars, battle one another in large mech suits over things like the value of life. Like anything with large robots, it’s incredibly cool.
MARS is essentially a nicer-looking VR-compatible version of The Second Runner with minor VR additions like a 3D hangar to explore and models that can be viewed in 360 degrees. You use the VR headset to look around from a first-person pilot point of view, which certainly makes you feel like you’re in the cockpit of a mech. Flying around while shooting lasers at enemy robots is far more thrilling from a first-person point of view, making MARS feel like every Gundam fan’s dream come true. The anime cutscenes and voice acting are certainly dated though, but a little early 2000’s anime cheese never hurt anybody. I had a great time pretending to be a mech pilot in MARS, and I’d recommend anyone interested check out the game’s demo, currently available on the Playstation Store.
Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin
I feel as though Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is a difficult game to fully “get” from a short E3 demo. On the surface, Sakuna is a side-scrolling action game. Beneath the surface there seems to be a rather deep set of mechanics that revolve around rice cultivation. This is fitting, since you play as the titular harvest goddess Sakuna, but this process doesn’t really shine in a limited E3 demo.
The side-scrolling combat mechanics are wonky. Each hit has a great deal of impact to it, however this makes fluid combos difficult. Every hit or two feels conclusive, restricting the flow of combat. It didn’t help that the stage boss I fought got stuck in a wall for half the fight, making the battle that much clunkier. While the heavily researched storyline, based on Japanese mythology, is certainly interesting to me, my experience with Sakuna’s gameplay was underwhelming. I hope it was simply a poor E3 showing, but we’ll have to see when the game releases in full for the PS4 and PC this year.
Senran Kagura: Burst Re:Newal
If you’ve ever played, or seen, a Senran Kagura title, you’ll know exactly what to expect from Burst Re:Newal. Though it’s a remake of Senran Kagura Burst, originally released on the Nintendo 3DS, it’s still a Senran Kagura game. This means plenty of unapologetic sexual fanservice, solid 3D action gameplay, and ridiculously over-the-top innuendo. From what I played, Burst Re:Newal feels like a competent, if not somewhat repetitive, 3D action hack-and-slash game. Fans of the series will like it, while people who are turned off by fanservice will certainly have to steer clear. I learned that when I accidentally opened a groping/”intimacy” mode on the equipment select menu in front of everyone in the XSEED booth area. Never change, Senran Kagura, never change.
Which of these three titles are you most intrigued by? Let us know in the comments below!
