Another year, another weekend of playing a bunch of games at PAX West 2023. This time around however, Nintendo joins the party with their Nintendo Live event!
Thank Goodness You’re Here!
Have you ever wanted to just be a little nuisance in a quaint Northern English town? That’s the essential hook of Thank Goodness You’re Here! as you visit a town and perform a variety of odd jobs for even odder folk. My brief demo had me grinning as I poked my head around the small section of the town I had access to; I was told in the full game you’ll unlock more parts of the town that you’ll be able to freely explore but my demo was limited to a garden and shopping plaza. Equal parts Untitled Goose Game and manic whimsey simulator, Thank Goodness You’re Here! will have you poking your nosey head anywhere and everywhere you can looking for new quests villagers can give you, or just anything you can smash with your slap. Thank Goodness You’re Here! is set to delight you sometime next year.
Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader
It’s still a bit hard to believe, but Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader is the first game in the Warhammer franchise to dip their toes in the cRPG genre. Now unfortunately my demo was a hands-off show of a basic combat encounter in the game against a group of Necrons, which played like essentially any cRPG or tactics game you’ve played recently. You’ve got your group of morally questionable goons who all specialize in their own style of combat, who are all slaves to an AP system that requires you to strategize your movements/attacks to be as efficient as possible. It’s a system you’ve seen before, but it’s what’s outside of combat that intrigues me the most with Rogue Trader. Spaceship combat is an exciting feature of the game, as is the fact that you’ll be able to see so many different xeno groups. A quirk with the W40k franchise is most games relegate the faction you see to just one or two of the other races, but from what I’ve seen of Rogue Trader, a good variety of the W40k races seem to have some sort of representation here which is exciting to see. Currently, Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader has no set release date, but you can bet I’ll be boots down to fight some xeno scum when it’s out.
Ascent Rivals
Ascent Rivals is an upcoming combat racing game by new development studio GENUN Games. There’s of course an immediate influence when you first look at the game, as its ships have a distinctly podracer style to them, but Ascent Rivals is more than just that. The left and right joysticks control their respective engines and the trick to the game is knowing how much energy to push in either engine to make sure you’re nailing your turns instead of barreling into the closest wall. I learned this the hard way on my first jump as I had pushed both sticks forward for maximum thrust… only to find myself somersaulting the moment I got some airtime because I had left the engines on full blast forward.
It’s a quick system to learn though, with some clear depth for trickier maneuvers if you want to take the time to learn them. Additionally, you’re also able to fire on your fellow racers by whipping out a rifle and taking potshots at them; the caveat however is that doing so requires you to lose control of your ship for a few seconds. It’s an interesting balance as I found myself having to preemptively choose what parts of the track I felt “safe” losing a bit of control on to make sure I can fire at any other racers. What’s perhaps my favorite thing about the game however is that coming in first doesn’t exactly guarantee a win: taking out other racers, your time spent in a top position, speed of finishing a lap and more all contribute to your final score which is a really interesting way to make sure the people who can’t get into first place still feel like they have a reason to keep playing. Ascent Rivals is due for release next year, but you can join an early playtest via their Discord here.
Persona 5 Tactica
Persona is no stranger to spin off titles and after dabbling in the musou genre, it’s now jumping into the tactics genre. Persona 5 Tactica features an all new story with the phantom thieves as they join up with a revolutionary in a new world to help overthrow its tyrannical leader. I didn’t get to experience much of its story in the demo I played at PAX West, as it was mostly a (very brief) combat slice, but the little I got had me going right back into Persona 5’s groove. If you’ve played one tactic game then you know what to expect here, as Tactica doesn’t seem too keen on shaking things up in the genre at least from what I was able to play. You move around the battlefield with your squad, taking care to stay in cover to better protect you from enemy attacks, and using each character’s unique persona to defeat enemies. Morgana for example can use their persona to knock enemies out of cover, giving your other characters the perfect opportunity to open fire on the exposed foe. I wish I got to spend more time with the game, since I’m curious how deep the tactics elements will get, and how the game will implement typical Persona elements like social links. Persona 5 Tactica is currently set to release later this year.
