Apart from the odd leak, we still don't know a lot about Nintendo's next game console. We know it has NVIDIA graphics. We know it can convert from a traditional TV set-up to a more portable one. Unfortunately, that's about where our verifiable knowledge ends -- or at least it did. A new filing at the FCC has added on more piece to the Switch puzzle: we now know that the device will probably ship with a non-removable battery.
Source: FCC
Frog Fractions was a breath of fresh air when it launched in 2012. (Has it really been that long?) The unconventional game was full of surprises and left a lasting impression on pretty much everyone who stuck with it. The developer, Jim Crawford, successfully launched a Kickstarter for a sequel in 2014, and Frog Fractions 2 could have been hidden in plain sight ever since. There's been lots of speculation, but no one had discovered the true sequel to Frog Fractions until now.
This is the part where I start spoiling stuff. If you want to back out, now's the time to do it. It's going to happen after the picture, so don't say you weren't warned.
Okay, I assume if you're still reading this you don't mind finding out where Frog Fractions 2 has been hiding. It turns out that the title was only released two weeks ago on December 13, under the name Glittermitten Grove. As you might imagine, this title has become far more popular since the news broke, going from a maximum of 5 people playing simultaneously to nearly 400 a couple of hours ago.
/this channel has been destroyed by sparkles/
— Is The Jig Up Yet? (@IsTheJigUpYet) December 26, 2016
Glittermitten Grove is nominally a game about resource management and helping faeries to collect berries and set off fireworks. In actuality, it's the candy shell concealing Frog Fractions 2, which was unlocked and went up on Steam after a lengthy alternate reality game (ARG) led to a mysterious box and key. One could easily argue that the ARG was a huge part of Frog Fractions 2, and that all the sigils and misdirection placed in other indie titles were all just part of the fun. If you'd like to try it out for yourself, Glittermitten Grove is available on Steam for $19.99.
Inside the Development of Gaming's Biggest Mystery, 'Frog Fractions 2' [Waypoint]
I hope everyone had a great holiday, whatever you choose to celebrate. Myself, I was drifting in and out of a food coma all day yesterday, though I did manage to complete a jigsaw puzzle with my in-laws.
Some of you long-time Destructoid readers might remember a feature Chad Concelmo used to put together from time to time called "The Great Retro Quiz!" These articles usually revolved around a specific retro franchise, but occasionally Chad would mix things up and take a look at a topic or theme the quiz around a holiday. I talked to Chad on Twitter and got his blessing to revive the Great Retro Quiz!
This particular quiz will be a little less retro than the name would suggest. Instead, we'll be using the quiz to take a look back at the most memorable games of 2016. If this proves popular, I may do more quizzes that more closely follow the format Chad set up, focusing on a specific game series rather than a year.
Although it was a pretty crappy year in many other respects, it's hard to deny 2016 was a great year for games. Each question will relate to a game that came out sometime this year in the U.S. You can leave your answers in the comments any time between now and 11:59 PM Pacific time on December 29. There's a copy of Stardew Valley on PS4 up for grabs if you're the winner, so check my community blog for the results this Friday. There may be some light spoilers for the games, so if you care about that sort of thing, maybe don't read the answers or comments below. Official rules for winning Stardew Valley are below the quiz. In the event of a tie, the winner will be the first post with the most correct answers. With that out of the way, let's get started!
Santa forgot your Xbox at the North Pole? No problemo, there are still a few lingering Xbox One S deals from select retailers out there. It's not Cyber Monday anymore, but hey, these deals will get you way more bang for your buck than sucking up the full price.
The best deal out there is at Walmart, which keeps the $50 holiday discount intact on the 1TB Gears of War 4 white bundle and also offers you up to $100 in bonuses. Wally world is tossing in a $50 gift card for future purchases and a free wireless controller of your choice (white or black) which is about $50 in bonuses on top. This deal is actually close to what we saw on Black Friday.
Walmart
Microsoft
If you had a different Xbox One S bundle in mind to buy, your other best option is the Microsoft Store. There you'll find the console bundles all full price (like everywhere else now) but with three really good offers this week: a $50 gift card bonus, a free game of your choice from list of 16, and a free copy of Ubisoft's The Crew.
The free game options at Microsoft are not crap games like it usually offers. Of the 16 titles you can choose from options like Gears of War 4, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, ReCore, Madden NFL 17, and more. Both these offers will be dead by the end of the week.
After several weeks of North American PlayStation Network deals for the holidays, to say nothing of that weekend flash sale, I am ready to never look at another bullet point again (at least until next year).
If you aren't ready to tap out yet, I have a few recommendations. Above all, Playdead's masterful adventure Inside ($9.99 with PlayStation Plus, $13.99 without) warrants a playthrough. You might have The Talos Principle: Deluxe Edition ($7.49 with Plus, $12.49 without) or The Witness ($19.99 with Plus, $23.99 without), but perhaps not both. You should! They'll last you a good long while. And Diablo III: Reaper of Souls ($19.79 with Plus, $29.39 without) is some of the best couch co-op gaming.
Plenty of crowdfunded projects fail to come to fruition, or do make it out, but fall short of expectations. It's the risk we take as backers. In the case of Hero's Song, an action-RPG from veteran developers who worked on titles like EverQuest, PlanetSide, and Star Wars Galaxies, it saw release. It's playable on Early Access and has been since November. Sadly, though, it hasn't sold well enough to sustain itself.
"It's with a heavy heart that I have to report that Pixelmage Games is going to be shutting down and we have ceased development on Hero's Song," reads a statement. "For the last year, our team has worked tirelessly to make the game we've dreamed about making, and with your support, and the support of our investors, we were able to get the game into Early Access. Unfortunately sales fell short of what we needed to continue development. We knew going in that most startups don't make it, and as an indie game studio we hoped we would be the exception to that rule, but as it turned out we weren't."
Impressively, despite the studio closure, players will be taken care of. The creators are offering full refunds to folks who bought Hero's Song, and if that's you, here's what you need to know:
[With everything going on in the world, it can be easy to forget how much video games can bring people together. LazrDragon lost his cousin to cancer this year, and is now using gaming as a means of raising money to donate to charity in her memory. Join him and his cousin in their effort to play 28 straight hours of survival horror in hopes of breaking a record and fundraising for Child's Play Charity. - Community Team]
Zul'jin is set to enter Heroes of the Storm's Nexus after Ragnaros in January, but before then, you can get a good look at his kit in the video below. His main gimmick involves doing more damage while his health is low, living on the razor's edge constantly. We'll see how people deal with him soon enough, and whether or not his survivability will allow him to keep wreaking havoc before he gets bursted down.
In other news, Chromie is getting a Genie skin, and Kharazim, a woefully neglected support as of late, is getting a tiger armor skin people most likely won't use. Oh, and a troll wouldn't be complete without an Amani bear mount.
I've been waiting for a troll to arrive since Heroes launched, so hopefully he goes over well! The whole "Warcraft assassin" thing is getting old though, even if Warcraft is Blizzard's big money maker.
Frog Fractions 2 is out now, but be warned that it's not a typical game. This is largely because its predecessor, Frog Fractions, was not a typical game, and series creator Jim Crawford is not a typical developer.
When Frog Fractions came out in 2013, it appeared to be a cute Flash title that taught kids math tricks through the guise of bug-snatching frogs. However, play past the first few levels and things get strange: After a trip to Bug Mars on the back of a dragon and a series of random adventures, the game ends with players managing a company that produces bug pornography. The whole thing takes about half an hour to complete and it definitely doesn't teach kids any useful math skills.
Source: GameDetectives, Polygon
Justice Monsters Five, the pinball game created to promote Final Fantasy XV, kind of came and went. I mean, I played it inside of XV proper at random cafes and had a great time (I love the art), but I never really gave the spinoff mobile pinball game the time of day.
A lot of people seemingly felt the same, as Square Enix has just announced that the spinoff will end service on March 27, 2017. It's kaput, finito, done. If you still have microtransaction items (gross) unused they'll refund them, and they'll shut off the ability to buy them on February 27, 2017.
This thing came out in August and was initially slated to get a Windows 10 release as well, but there's a fat chance of that happening. Ah well, my guess is the development costs were really low, as the minigame was basically ported over to XV proper.
Justice Monsters Five [Square Enix via Siliconera]
The colors, the art style, the concept -- everything about Birthday the Beginning is soothing as hell. Hopefully more people pick up on this thing when it launches in May, because I don't hear nearly enough people talking about this Arc System Works-led simulator.
In a rare move among flashy clips that really tell us nothing, this 15 minute clip straight from the developer's YouTube page gives us a clear look at what we're dealing with, from the daily order of operations, to ecosystem housekeeping, to a breakdown of the menus.
Maybe it's the weird name or the Red-Ranger mascot? I don't know man, this is a joint from the Harvest Moon creator Yasuhiro Wada! Check it out.
If you're still playing Pokemon Go and actually buying things (I haven't done the latter for months, as no one is around to actually use my lures), you now have a chance to buy more things, because Niantic is all about shoving in more ways to spend money than fixing or adding to the actual game.
Until December 30, you can buy a "Special," "Great," or "Ultra" box, which provide Great/Great/Ultra Balls respectively, as well as a varying amount of Incense and Incubators. You save a small amount of Coins (the earned in-game and premium currency) for each bundle.
After that, "Bronze," "Silver," and "Gold" boxes will go on sale on December 30 through January 3, with a secret batch of items in them that will be revealed in a few days. So uh, this is something you can buy if you want. I think a lot of us are waiting on actual features to arrive first.
Limited-time holiday item packs [Pokemon Go]
In sort of stealth update after Christmas, Nintendo added in a new piece of functionality to the My Nintendo system -- check-ins.
By going to a special section of the My Nintendo website you can access your own unique QR code, which, according to the site, "gives you access to exclusive My Nintendo member benefits that may be available." If history is anything to go by, it'll be repeats of 3DS themes you already have.
But in all seriousness, I hope something good comes out of this. The only major upcoming event I can think of that this would be relevant for is the Nintendo Switch roadshow that's partially open to the public, but other big shows like PAX and the public parts of E3 are perfect for it.
My Nintendo was a nice effort at first that had a few good, new rewards, but it's fizzled since then into something not even worth logging into. Maybe this initiative will start changing that?
Nah.
Check in [My Nintendo]
Retailers across the nation will be holding promos for the slim system that include a bonus "gift" with the purchase. A few stores are also throwing in a $50 gift card along with the console, so that sure is fun!
Sadly, the console price isn't cut down (and the deal doesn't extend to the original model), but a free game kind of makes up for that.
So many fellow amiibo collectors drew a line in the sand with the "Smash line." They wouldn't partake in all these wacky sideshows like Zelda, Kirby, or Monster Hunter, as many of those are just doubles, or distractions. The first Wave started with Smash, and their collection will end with it.
But among the missteps that Nintendo made with these figures (besides the woeful situation in the US where they took money for retailer exclusives that led to shortages and scalping), three Smash toys still aren't out yet, over two years later. The culprits? DLC characters Corrin, Bayonetta, and Cloud.
Just the other day I was talking to someone who quit collecting, and was wondering when the trio would ever come out. Some speculate that they'll try to hype the Switch up (the trailer all but confirmed amiibo support) with the aforementioned three, and a possible Smash port, which sounds accurate given the popularity of Cloud alone and the conspicuous Final Fantasy 30th anniversary looming around the corner.
Although I won't go out of my way for them, you know I'm waiting. What's your status? For an up to date list of every amiibo, past present and future, check out this list. I think I'm the only one who cares at this point.
While I didn't go as gaga about Wonderful 101 as some, I was wondering where all of the buzz was. Maybe it was the weird off-putting Sentai setup that made some westerners stay away, or the low installbase of the Wii U, but this game deserved to be much bigger than it was.
Either way, another relic of 101's past is dead this year -- the soundtrack. Platinum's Hideki Kamiya shared the sad news on the developer's blog that "the soundtrack will be out of distribution within the year...[and] there are no current plans for a re-release." But before it goes away into that good night, he's given us a tracklist of his favorite songs, which you can read about here.
His picks are on point, and you can download the tracks yourself in the master list. You can also buy all 127 songs (!) over two albums digitally, which are $9.99 each.
The Wonderful 101 Soundtrack’s Distribution Comes to a Close [Platinum]
Bandai Namco, the gamesmaker behind Tekken, Dark Souls and a whole bunch of Dragonball games, has invested in an artificial intelligence startup. The team at Heroz have an algorithm for shogi (Japanese chess) that's bested several professional human players in public matches. Bandai Namco is hoping to tap into that know-how to improve its non-playing character behavior in future titles, although expect to see it in much simpler games long before that eventual Dark Souls successor.
Via: Nikkei
Source: Bandai Namco (Japanese)
At this point, I'm fully ready for Gravity Rush 2. I've played the demo multiple times (it's pretty rad), I've replayed the first game on PS4 and all of its DLC, and I've watched the Overture anime.
You can do that latter bit in a hot second too but checking out Parts A & B below, as Sony has released the anime for everyone on YouTube. Produced by Studio Khara, you'll definitely want to turn on the closed captions setting so you understand what's going on.
Only less than a month to go now!
Welcome back from the long festive weekend. In the midst of all that egg-nog, present opening and family router troubleshooting, you might have missed Apple's first published AI research, the worst gadgets of the year, and the latest Chinese luxury smartphone that goes all-in on battery life.
