Let’s face it, E3 hasn’t exactly been great so far. Neither Ubisoft nor Bethesda really brought anything to blow us away with. Microsoft fared a lot better but arguably the most anticipated show this year belongs to Square Enix.

I wouldn’t go into Square Enix’s show expecting any big surprises, because they’ve already told us what they’re showing off, two of the most highly anticipated titles in gaming right now; Marvel’s Avengers and Final Fantasy VII Remake. While we have seen glimpses of FF7, we still don’t know all that much about it and as for Avengers, we know literally nothing about it other it’s title.

FINAL FANTASY VII

Oh boy, where to even start? Well the game is going to be 2 blurays worth or content which is nuts. Hopefully that means it won’t be episodic after all? Either way, it’s going to be absolutely massive, and I can’t wait to explore Midgar and the World Map once again but this time in even more detail.

Going into this presentation, one of my two biggest concerns with the game was with the combat. How dare they mess with my beloved turn based battle system? But after seeing this I’m no longer as worried. The battle mechanics look fun and visually cinematic, and I can’t wait to jump in.

My other biggest concern was with the soundtrack. I know Nobuo Uematsu, the composer of the original, had began work on a new soundtrack but had to leave early on due to health reasons. Fortunately, whoever has taken the reigns has done a fantastic job in recreating Uematsu’s epic work. There’s no way I would have accepted this game without those classic themes.

The voice acting is… well it’s not great, but it was to be expected. But if you’ve seen Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children then you knew what was coming. All in all though, this looks awesome. Can’t wait to finally get my hands on it in March.

LIFE IS STRANGE 2

I didn’t care for this at all. They’re turning mumblecore into games now apparently. A supposedly “charming” game which was just complete pretentious bollocks. I really hate this increasingly common trend of games trying to make out that they’re some artsy indie film, and this might be the biggest culprit. Slacker characters, hipster soundtrack and certainly emphasis on style over substance; I half expected Mark Duplass to turn up at any given moment (FYI, I like Mark Duplass, but not as a fucking game).

The people reacting the trailer were hilarious, in shock and awe, as a boy fell from a tree, even though the poor collision physics made it look like he didn’t even touch the floor. When it comes to getting emotional, I feel the same way with games as I do with animation. I just cannot feel emotion for a bunch of pixels, especially when the visuals were this bad, and I honestly don’t believe people are genuine when they do.

Anyway, this game has made me angry if you haven’t already figured that out. Screw this hipster bollocks.

We’re then treated to a couple of releases and remasters; Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles on mobile and Octopath Traveller on PC and The Last Remnant on Nintendo Switch (available right now!). Nice.

DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS 2

Dragon Quest Minecraft is back for another round. It looks like harmless fun, but it always amazed me how they got away with blatant copyright infringement. This was followed by a Dragon Quest XI remake? Or remaster? One of those.

This was followed by an announcement saying that Square Enix music is available on Spotify, iTunes and the like, followed by DLC announcements for Kingdom Hearts III and a new expansion pack for Final Fantasy XIV.

I got excited about talks of “a long night” and saw swords and fables of old and thought (albeit unconvincingly) that maybe we were getting a Square Enix Game Of Thrones game? But then I realised they were still talking about Final Fantasy XIV and I had stopped paying attention.

DYING LIGHT 2

A Square Enix zombie game is seemingly up next. Doesn’t look like your typical Square game. This could be any game shown from either the Microsoft or Ubisoft panels. It’s Dying Light 2… Haven’t we been shown that already during Microsoft’s show? Probably why I’m getting confused.*

*I’ve double checked, yes we did see it already

Then we are shown a pair of new Square Enix old school RPG games, you know the drill. Their names were on the screen to briefly (and were too long) for me to remember what they were called. I’ll look it up after the show*. Then we get an update to the mobile game Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius. This is all just passing time now until the main event isn’t it?

OUTRIDERS

Next up is a game from the creators of Gears of War: Judgement and Bulletstorm. Looks interesting. Giant space monsters and shooting things. Pretty standard affair, definitely not something I’d spend £60 on though. £8 second hand at a push. Most likely just wait until it comes to either PS+ or Xbox Games With Gold, as with most of these type of games. Once you’ve played one sci-fi shooter, you’ve played them all. Is it even a first person shooter? That was unclear.

Is it time for Avengers yet?

ONINAKI

Nope, another RPG. I shouldn’t complain about that. Square Enix are mostly known for their RPG’s so I knew what I was getting myself into when I pressed play on this video. In fact this one looks pretty cool, some nice Zelda style graphics going on which is always a win in my eyes, very reminiscent of The Wind Waker (which is the best Zelda game by the way)

Next up is Final Fantasy VIII. It’s not quite the full remake as had been rumoured before the show, but a remaster (that somehow didn’t look any different). Unless this was just an announcement trailer? I’d like to see the original and this side by side.

MARVEL’S AVENGERS

Oh shit. Here we go. Well first thoughts, the characters look weird, but then it took me a while to get used to the characters in Spider-Man. The gameplay looks pretty damn fun, especially Hulk. Looks like our 5 main characters are Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow and Hulk which is fair enough. No Ant-Man though :(. This is a different beast to Ultimate Alliance so it would have been unrealistic to expect 20 odd playable characters, especially when the story will be so focused on specific characters.

They’ve announced that all extra characters and playable areas will be available at no extra cost. It’s crazy that we live in a world where we have to be told this. But that’s good news anyway, and there will be no loot boxes or pay to win… so does that mean there’s an online multiplayer battle mode?

One last reveal announced that Ant-Man is also a playable character! And we’ll get it in May next year! Right, I’m damn excited. A whole year, though!

SUMMARY

As I said at the beginning, there were only 2 reasons we were here for the Square Enix show, Final Fantasy 7 and Marvel’s Avengers, and neither disappointed. While people are starting to look forward to the PS5 and Project Scarlet at the end of 2020, these two mammoth games have come along to prove that the current gen isn’t done just yet, not by a long shot.

It would have been nice to have more news on the nature of Final Fantasy VII’s release. Reports have said it’ll be episodic (which no one wants) but here they said it’ll be 2 bluray discs. Elsewhere on the internet it is being reported that this is only for Midgar. What is going on? It was the main thing I wanted to learn about FF7 from this showcase, yet we’re still no closer to knowing what the actual deal is.

Elsewhere, there was an hour of faff in the middle, including Life Is Strange 2 (don’t get me started again), but overall, we got pretty much everything we wanted.

Join me again at 5pm where I will live blog the final big showcase of E3, the Nintendo Direct!