Month: September 2021

Developer/Publisher PM Studios has announced No Longer Human, a game with a unique visual art style and gameplay that’s described by PM itself as “a high-energy cybergoth action fvck-em-up.” It is expected to be released in 2022 for PC, with a console release also planned but no details given. Check out the announcement trailer above.

The developers cite Devil May Cry and Smash Bros. influences, with support for speedrunning also being baked into the design. You play Tsunono, a woman who is a total badass in the metaverse that anyone can easily access and immerse themselves in within this near-future world.

Gameplay features include upgradeable special attacks and moves, an “abrasive” digital hardcore soundtrack, and freeform combat. Stay tuned to PAX West, beginning today, for more on No Longer Human.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

Originally released back in 2010 for the Wii, Sonic Colors marked a return to form for the Blue Blur. It righted the ship of Sonic’s 3D missteps by focusing entirely on what makes the series fun: feeling like you are the fastest thing alive. Sonic Colors: Ultimate is that same game, remastered for modern platforms with improved lighting, 4K/60 FPS support (except on Switch, of course), a remixed soundtrack, and a couple of other minor gameplay additions. None of these upgrades make Sonic Colors: Ultimate a must-buy for returning fans, but for anyone who missed it due to being put off by the likes of Sonic 06 and Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1, it’s still good enough that this trip to Eggman’s Interstellar Amusement Park is already an easy recommendation.

Regardless of whether you’ve played before, the story of Sonic Colors won’t be a surprise to anyone: Eggman is up to no good, seeking to harness the power of alien energy to fuel a mind-control weapon, and it’s up to Sonic and Tails to stop him. The plot obviously isn’t what anyone’s here for, but it’s at least well acted and sprinkled with a few chuckles here and there – especially thanks to Cubot and Orbot, Eggman’s two robot henchmen, who have their own little running gag of Cubot’s voice chip constantly getting damaged and replaced, much to the chagrin of Eggman.

What is important about the story, however, is that it introduces the Wisps, the small multicolored aliens that Eggman is hunting down. These Wisps are the main thing that separate Sonic Colors from every other mainline console Sonic game, both past and present. Think of them as transformation power-ups along the lines of what you’d find in a Mario game, only you get to choose when to activate their powers. Pink Wisps can turn you into a Spike Ball that allows you to cling to walls, yellow Wisps turn you into a drill that can dig underground, and teal Wisps turn you into a laser that can bounce off prisms and travel at the speed of light. They’re unlocked as you progress through Sonic Colors, but you can always revisit old levels and replay them with Wisps that you unlocked later on to access new paths, which is something that we’ll circle back to.

There are a total of nine Wisps that you can unlock over the course of Sonic Colors: Ultimate – including a brand-new Ghost Wisp that wasn’t in the original game – and they primarily enhance the two things that are key to a great Sonic game: your speed (duh), and the multiple paths that allow you to find your own way through a level. A pink Wisp might give you the opportunity to completely bypass a slow platforming section by zipping up a wall, a Drill Wisp might lead you to a subterranean path that’s way faster than the one above ground, and a Laser Wisp can instantly shoot you across a section lined with enemies, taking them all out at the literal speed of light. These particular wisps do a great job of varying up the level design without ever slowing Sonic down.

Wisps enhance the two things that are key to a great Sonic game: your speed and multiple paths through a level.

Then there are Wisps more geared toward secret collecting, light-puzzle solving, and platforming. While these are certainly less exciting than the ones built around speed, they still make exploration and revisiting levels with new powers a lot of fun, as they can help you discover new paths that dramatically change the flow of a level, and even help you improve your time or score.

The new Ghost Wisp is probably the weakest of the bunch, as it’s really only used to mix up the locations of some hidden Red Rings compared to where they were in the original game. With it, you can float through walls by pulling yourself to an anchor point, and… that’s about it. Unlike the other Wisp powers, it’s never really used in any sort of clever or satisfying way.

The one downside to the Wisps is that, because they’re drip fed to you one at a time over the course of the whole game, the first time through the early levels of Sonic Colors isn’t nearly as fun as they are when you’re able to replay them with all the Wisps unlocked. This causes the first few hours to be kind of a drag because you’re often forced along paths that are slow and tedious.

That’s an issue that carries over from the original, but one that Sonic Colors: Ultimate introduces for the first time is related to its remixed soundtrack. The first three levels of any world play a newly remixed theme and the last three levels play the original versions. The bummer is that there’s no way to choose which version you want to hear, which sucks because I’ve found that most of the original themes are far superior to the overly produced remixes. The soundtrack is still great all around, don’t get me wrong, but it seems strange to have both versions and not give you the option of selecting which one you want to hear on a given level.

The other big gameplay addition is a Rival Rush mode that lets you race against Metal Sonic in what is essentially just a dressed-up time trial. It’s a fun way to challenge yourself to beat a level quickly, but it feels like it should be something you can do on every level instead of there just being one per world, a total of just six races all together.

Rival Rush is a fun way to challenge yourself to beat a level quickly, but it should be something you can do on every level.

Cosmetic items were also added in this remaster, giving you the ability to customize Sonic’s shoes, gloves, aura, and boost effect by spending a new currency that you can collect throughout each level. None of them are particularly noteworthy though – it’s just some straight recolors, simple visual effects, and tacky patterns. I found myself sticking with the classic look.

On the graphical side of things, Sonic Colors: Ultimate holds up reasonably well for a nearly 11-year-old Wii game. The one sour spot is the cutscenes, which were not redone and are super low-res on a modern screen. But the actual gameplay runs at a steady 60fps in 4K on the PlayStation 5, and there are some nice improvements made to the lighting and character models.

Most importantly, Sonic Colors: Ultimate benefits from having been a gorgeous game to begin with. Its levels are among the most imaginative the series has ever seen, from the Rainbow Road-esque Starlight Carnival that has Sonic speeding through space while an intergalactic war plays out in the background, to the dreamlike Sweet Mountain that’s made entirely of junk food. Every world is beaming with creativity and the unifying theme of it all being part of an amusement park is just icing on the cake.

Square Enix has confirmed that it’ll be hosting a dedicated Tokyo Game Show segment that will offer “the latest news about our upcoming titles, along with pre-announced information.”

The stream will take place on October 1 from 3 AM PT / 6 AM ET, and will run for just under an hour. Square Enix has no shortage of games that could make an appearance, including Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Final Fantasy XIV‘s Endwalker expansion that’s due out in November, and several mobile games such as Final Fantasy: The First SOLDIER and Hitman Sniper: The Shadows.

Final Fantasy XVI is likely one of the biggest games from the company that it could provide more information on, as very little of the game has been revealed since it was first shown off almost a year ago during the PS5 console reveal showcase.

During a recent Final Fantasy XIV stream–via Aitai Kimochi and Siliconera–Final Fantasy XVI’s producer Naoki Yoshida added that development deadlines meant that the game wasn’t ready for the virtual show floor.

“We really want to show something for Tokyo Game Show 2021, but we probably can’t make that deadline… we definitely want to show it, but isn’t it better if when we do, you’re able to play it right after? I personally don’t like it when small bits of info is release to string people along. I talked about this with the team and director Takai-san. We want to reveal something where people will say, ‘I want to play it now! Release it now!’ And we can reply, ‘sure, here you go!”

Microsoft will also host a showcase at Tokyo Game Show, with a 50-minute event on September 30 that’s titled the Xbox Tokyo Game Show Showcase 2021. You’ll have to be up early for that one, as it’s scheduled to be streamed from 2 AM PT / 5 AM ET.

Like most conventions, Tokyo Game Show is sticking to an all-digital format this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, but other confirmed guests for that expo include Konami, Capcom, Square Enix, Ubisoft, and 505 Games so far.

As with previous weeks‘ Red Dead Online updates, this week continues to go hard on incentivizing players to complete Blood Money crimes. As well as bonuses on cash and exp, there’s a handy list of weekly discounts for players to enjoy as well.

This week, Red Dead Online will be paying out double $RDO on certain crimes: specifically A Lit Fuse, Back Pay, Stagecoach Stickup, and Wrongful Property. These crimes can be started by talking to mission givers Anthony Foreman, James Langton, Joe, or Sean Macguire.

If players complete one of these crimes they’ll also unlock a discount offer for 50% off selected boots. In addition to the double $RDO on the listed Crimes, all Crimes and Opportunities completed this week will award double Ability Card XP.

Players will also be able to redeem a handful of freebies this week, including 100 Express ammo for the Repeater, Rifle, and Revolver, and a Treasure Map for all players over Rank 100. Setup costs for Persistent Posses have also been waived for the week.

This is also the last week for the rapid-fire battle pass Quick Draw Club No. 2, with No. 3 due to arrive next week on September 7. Players who’ve invested Gold in the pass have just one more week to complete it and recoup their investment.

As per usual, the new week also brings a handful of new discounts on in-game items as laid out below.

• Work Horses – 30% off
• Single Bandoliers – 30% off
• Gloves, Chaps, and Half Chaps – 30% off
• Tents – 40% off
• Saddles – 50% off
• Beards and Accessories at the Barber – 50% off

Brendan Greene, better known by his online persona PlayerUnknown, has announced today that he will be leaving PUBG developer and publisher Krafton to form his own independent studio, PlayerUnknown Productions. Greene has been credited with pioneering the battle royale genre, after creating PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds as an Arma mod, and later developing it into a full game with South Korean publisher Krafton.

In 2019, Greene moved to Amsterdam to set up PlayerUnknown Productions under Krafton’s PUBG Corporation, moving away from development on PUBG to work on new projects. Now, PlayerUnknown Productions will officially be splitting from Krafton to become an independent studio, with Krafton holding a minority stake in the studio. The studio’s first project, Prologue, was announced at the 2019 Game Awards, though it’s unclear whether the project will be impacted by the studio’s split.

“I’m so very grateful to everyone at PUBG and Krafton for taking a chance on me and for the opportunities they afforded me over the past four years,” Greene said in a press release. “Today, I’m excited to take the next step on my journey to create the kind of experience I’ve envisaged for years. Again, I’m thankful for everyone at KRAFTON for supporting my plans, and I’ll have more to reveal more about our project at a later date.”

The press release adds that the team at PlayerUnknown Productions “are exploring the systems needed to enable massive scale within open-world games.”

SPOILER WARNING: Be careful! No More Heroes 3 is a game filled with surprises, and sometimes boss fights don’t always go as expected. In other words, we recommend not reading the boss strategy until you’ve actually started fighting the boss to avoid spoiling some of the game’s best moments!

Sonic Juice is one of FU’s most trusted companions, so you know you’re in for a crazy battle against this XL-sized intellectual. At this point, you’re probably wondering what sort of random direction things are going to go this time around. This time, it’s… turn-based. For more guides, be sure to check out our No More Heroes 3 beginner’s tips.

How To Defeat Sonic Juice

Considering all of the genre-swaps that have happened so far, turning No More Heroes into a JRPG almost feels natural at this point. Unfortunately, Travis brought an action-game skillset to a menu-driven fight, so many of the commands you’re presented with are useless. You’ll need to puzzle out a solution to deal any real damage to Sonic Juice.

There are two ways to go about this. You’ll notice that Sonic is in a sea-like environment and uses water-based attacks. What’s the typical JRPG elemental weakness water has? Electricity–the very thing that powers Travis’s Beam Katana. Using the katana by itself will barely do any damage to Sonic Juice, but if you go to Magic and use the Thunder spell, the Beam Katana will power up immensely. Once you’ve done this, select Fight on the next turn, and you’ll deal a tremendous amount of damage. Repeat this process, healing and recharging your Beam Katana energy when necessary until he goes down.

The other method is significantly more meta. Instead of selecting Sonic after hitting “fight,” try moving your cursor elsewhere on the screen! You can attack the menu windows and essentially “deconstruct” the game, forcing Sonic into a more traditional action-driven battle.

Since Sonic Juice always follows the same pattern (charge up, attack for about 50-70 damage, then attack for 400-500 damage), there are ample opportunities to heal up. Make sure you don’t dip below 500 HP, or your quest shall come to a tragic end!

Afterward, you will fight a more traditional battle against Sonic Juice. The basic strategy is to dodge his attacks, run in, get in as many hits as possible, and then retreat before the next round of attacks happens. The techniques he uses in his first phase are pretty simple, mostly mirroring those in his RPG phase: a fist-smash, a swinging-arm attack, the Legendary Water spell (which will hone in on you and is fairly easily dodged), and a flurry of small projectiles. If you dodge his punches with good timing, you can enter into a slow-motion mode, allowing you to strike back for some decent damage.

At 2/3rds health, Sonic Juice gets two new attacks. For the first attack, he will create a hub made of water in the middle of the field, with damaging liquid “spokes” that circle around it. You can either move alongside the water to keep yourself from touching it or jump over the damaging bits as they come at you. Soon afterward, Sonic will lunge at you with a massive spinning pinwheel of rotating water blasts. Time a dodge correctly to weave in-between the liquid spikes, and you’ll be in the clear–and in a good spot to deal some damage.

He gains some more attacks once you’ve shaved his life down to one-third. When you see Sonic reeling back, he’s preparing to launch a massive wave of water at you. Move to the very left or right edges of the platform (opposite of what side he’s on), and the tidal wave should barely miss you. Afterward, water will emerge from the center of the platform in three consecutive circular ripple formations, starting from the center. You’ll have a second to see where they’re coming from and react by getting out of the way.

Sonic isn’t terribly mobile, though he’ll sometimes rear back a bit just out of range of sword swings. If you want some extra damage, try using Death Slow when you have an opening. Death Rain works very well, too, since he doesn’t move out of a small radius very often. Don’t get yourself too wet, and you’ll hang him out to dry with ease.

SPOILER WARNING: Be careful! No More Heroes 3 is a game filled with surprises, and sometimes boss fights don’t always go as expected. In other words, we recommend not reading the boss strategy until you’ve actually started fighting the boss to avoid spoiling some of the game’s best moments!

Finally, it’s time for the showdown with the Asshole Prince of the Cosmos. The entire game has been building up to this battle, and you’d better believe that it’s going to be quite a challenge! For more guides, be sure to check out our No More Heroes 3 beginner’s tips.

How to Defeat FU (AKA Jean-Baptiste VI)

As is fitting of a final boss, FU comes with an arsenal of extremely dangerous close- and long-range attacks. Close-up, he fights with blazing-fast claw swipes and hair whips. At a distance, he can summon a wave of huge spikes to emerge from the floor. He also creates drills out of wind energy and sends them to hone in on Travis. (Alternatively, he may send them out in a wide fan pattern instead.)

FU’s most annoying move is a wrestling grab, where he’ll dash up to Travis and headbutt him several times before tossing him to the ground. You can’t escape this once you’re caught in it–the only way to not take damage is to simply not get hit.

What makes this battle so difficult is FU’s rarely-relenting defense. Death Force is almost useless, and Death Kick is very frequently nullified when FU puts his guard up. You’ll need to counter when he’s missed a close-range attack, either with a Perfect Dodge or by catching him in his brief recovery phase (such as when he tries to grab you and misses). If you dodge and try to hit him while he’s still in his attack animation, you’ll find your strikes deflected. Do not attack until you are sure you have an opening because otherwise, you’re in a terrible position and will likely be eating a headbutt (or worse).

At 2/3rds of his life, FU gets two new attacks added to the mix. The first attack has his floating up into the air to shoot a massive blast of dark energy down to the ground. The blast radius on this attack is enormous, so once you see him preparing it, prepare to duck-roll and run far away! (Use the dodge+B button skill learned from the Power-Up machine for easy extra movement range.) The second new attack is a series of dark energy waves radiating out from his body. He’ll send out several of these in a row, and while the damage radius isn’t too large, it’s still not something you want to be caught in. For easy damage, get behind FU during this attack and use Death Rain, or use Death Kick to interrupt and potentially dizzy him.

At one-third life, he becomes his most dangerous. He’ll begin using a swift, leaping claw strike to try to catch Travis off-guard. Be prepared to guard if you see him rearing back. He also gains a technique where he’ll hover in the sky and cause pillars of spikes to emerge from the ground where Travis is standing, one after the other. Keep on moving during this attack, and you should be able to outrun the hazards.

Don’t get complacent, though–it’s not over yet! Prepare to take on FU’s final form!

The good news is that the second fight with FU is considerably easier. Fu’s claw will pop out of the rainbow-colored portals surrounding the arena. Sometimes it will retract, and other times, it will lunge out in a straight line to attack Travis. After this attack, the arm remains vulnerable briefly. Now’s the time to go in for some strikes. If you’re feeling saucy, you might try to hold a charged heavy attack until one of the arms lashes out, then smack it for a big chunk of damage–the hitboxes on the limbs can be a little wonky, however, so if you attempt this it’s best to go for the bigger hand part. You can also put yourself in a position to Perfect Dodge and work to score more damage that way.

When you’ve shaved off a quarter of FU’s life, he’ll opt to attack with a slower, meatier arm instead. It’s not too much more dangerous than the first phase, so just keep looking around to see where you’ll need to attack. At half of his life bar, he’ll add some dark energy lasers shooting down from the walls as an environmental hazard, restricting your movement space while also switching back to swift strikes. Finally, when he’s on the ropes at a quarter of his life, the big beefy fists will return to try to pummel you.

FU’s final form fight is more of a test of patience and alertness than anything else. Keep your wits about you and strike when you can to give FU a big ol’ F-U.