My Highlights of E3 2021

 

So E3 2021 has come and past. Despite my lack of enthusiasm there were some announcements that intrigued me. Pre-E3 Sony had their State of Play presentation which the standout of that was the gameplay demo of Horizon Forbidden West. Horizon Zero Dawn was on of my favorite games that I played in 2019 so I was eager to see how the follow-up would turn out. Visually, Forbidden West is gorgeous. It's hard to tell completely from my TV how good the game actually looks since I was watching it through YouTube on my PS4, but I can still tell that it looks better.

I'm here for the gameplay improvements first and foremost and I saw some things that intrigued me. Now there's underwater swimming which can be terrifying if you encounter one of the Snapmaws in the water. There are new melee attacks with the spear and even a super charged move. Aloy has a grapple hook for climbing and wall jump traversal and a glider for... gliding. The new mammoth enemy looks dope as well. I'm intrigued to see what other crazy robotic animals we'll see. The trailer also gave a tease about the story. I guess there's something killing the world, but I honestly don't care much about the plot of this game. I'm here for the combat.

One of the battle maps as seen in the trailer

I was working during E3 so I didn't catch any of the streams as they were happening so I selectively chose trailers I wanted to watch on YouTube. The first stand-out to me was a trailer for Metal Slug Tactics. That came out of nowhere. SNK's run and gun franchise is getting a tactical RPG spinoff. The artwork in the trailer is done by artist dsloogie who I follow on Instagram. The sprite work is gorgeous as always as par for the franchise. I, myself have only played Metal Slug once or twice on an arcade cabinet, but Tactics might be the first game I own in the franchise. There is currently no release date, but we know it will be for Steam. No word as of yet of any other platforms, but I expect it will be come to Nintendo Switch at least. It seems like a perfect fit.

There was another strategy game that caught my attention this E3 and that was Advance Wars Re-boot Camp. I never thought we would be getting an Advance Wars remake, but here we are. Nintendo bringing out the hitters. Advance Wars Re-boot Camp is a remake of the first two games in the Game Boy Advance strategy game series. It features new art, 3D models, and online play. Nintendo's Tree-House Live is always the best part of E3 in recent years and that remained true for 2021. We got to see some hands-on gameplay of Re-boot Camp. It plays just as I remembered. I played this game a lot back in the early 2010's, but never managed to beat it. On my third try I finally made it to the final battle, but due to an in-game mechanic I ended up with the worst possible team for the battle and according to the internet it's near impossible to beat with that team so I ended up just giving up on the game.

I still don't own a Switch yet after all this time, but hopefully I will be able to afford one and get this game and I pray in this remake that they don't screw the player over in the final battle if they didn't play the campaign in a certain way.

Nintendo also showed off Mario Golf: Super Rush at the Treehouse. Now I haven't played a single Mario Golf game, so I can't compare it to any others, but I liked what I saw. It's definitely going to take some skill to get good at this game and the special shots makes each character feel a bit different. I didn't stay long enough to see how the Adventure Mode is. I have to save some surprises for myself when I eventually get around to playing this. I will say I do think the golf outfits for the characters are kind of hot. Mario Golf: Super Rush is out now for the Nintendo Switch.

Metroid Dread. Well, I definitely wasn't expecting this. The last Metroid game I heard they were working on was Metroid Prime 4 which we've heard nothing about in years so a completely new one being shown off for E3 was a surprise. Metroid Dread is in the style of the 2D games from the SNES and NES days. Samus is an all-new armor that looks great. The gameplay appears to be more fast-paced than the older entries and brings the gloomy and dark atmosphere that the games are known for. It comes out for the Nintendo Switch on October 8. Still no word on Metroid Prime 4.

A new Smash Bros. character was revealed at this year's E3 and it was fucking Kazuya Mishima! I thought we were done with fighting game characters, but we got a Tekken character in Smash now. If there was going to be a Tekken character then I figured it would be a Mishima. It was going to be either Jin, Kazuya, or Heihachi, but I feel like Heihachi may be currently played out and this old man would look weird with the other characters. Kazuya looks nice though. I might play him, yet again I still need to buy a Switch. I'm eager for Sakurai's usual breakdown of the new character.

To my disappointment Nintendo showed off only what was essentially another cutscene video for the Breath of the Wild sequel. It's been a couple of years or so, but I expected to see more than that by now. There's not much for me to say about it. I saw Link fall out of the sky, some fields, and a couple enemies. I sort of miss the days when we could get a direct sequel within a year or two.

More footage arose for Psychonauts 2; a game I completely forgot about as I think it's been years since I last heard of it. Psychonauts 2 surprisingly will be out this year for every platform minus the Nintendo Switch at an undisclosed date. I never played the original back on the PS2, but I am intrigued by it.

That sums up everything that caught my attention at this year's E3. I still have to look back at a couple of the panels I was interested in. Things are opening back up, but here's hoping by next year we'll be back to a proper E3 at the Lose Angeles Convention Center.