It’s another episode of The State of Gaming, our ever-expanding new series dedicated to what’s shaking up the gaming industry on a monthly basis. And that month for today’s episode happens to be April 2020, and our socially-distanced hosts Cory Galliher and Nate Evans are ready and willing to tackle everything a partially shut-down industry has to offer.
While much of the country is still quarantined at home, there’s still plenty for our hosts to gab and yak about – so let’s get gabbing and yakking!
Remakes, Remakes, Remakes!
Clearly, the game eating up the most oxygen this month is none other than Square-Enix’s highly anticipated remake of perhaps the most popular RPG of all-time, Final Fantasy VII Remake. You can (and should) read Cory’s review, but you’ll also want to listen as he goes into greater – and spoiler-free – detail about the episodic JRPG’s best, worst and most forgivable traits. If you’re a fan of that other Square-Enix role-playing blockbuster, Kingdom Hearts 3, you might be right at home with this vastly transformed version of a game you only thought you knew.
The guys also make time for a lengthy chat about Capcom’s own blockbuster remake, Resident Evil 3, and the return of the fashionable and frustrating Nemesis, which sparks some surprisingly divided opinions about how the faster, more intense sequel compares to last year’s slower, yet still superb remake of Resident Evil 2.
In other sad Resident Evil and Final Fantasy news, our hosts pay respect to original Resident Evil 2 Leon Kennedy voice actor Paul Haddad and Final Fantasy voice actor Keiji Fujiwara, who both passed away (far too soon) this month.
Breaking Hearts (and Records)
Did you know that Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons has quickly become not only the adorable town building franchise’s best-selling and most profitable entry yet, but the year’s second best-selling game in less than a month? Could the game’s massive success be a factor in why its parent platform, the Switch, has become impossible to find once again?
Other topics discussed is Netflix’s popular Castlevania animated series, why it took so long for RGB lighting to come to game consoles with the Cyberpunk 2077 Limited Edition Xbox One X, why the news of Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding for PC being delayed shouldn’t keep you from playing the perfectly fine PlayStation 4 version now, and why an RTX visual overhaul for a famously blocky game like Minecraft is a pretty big deal – and just really pretty.
This month’s up-and-coming recommendations include a nice swatch of known and unknown gems, including Trials of Mana, Dragon Marked for Death, Predator: Hunting Grounds, and the long, long awaited return to arcade-style beat ‘em ups with Streets of Rage 4. There’s never been a better time to be stuck at home!
