Tag Archives: Animal Crossing New Horizons

Blog: Early & Confirmed for 2020 – 12/11/19

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Next year is going to be a big year for video games, with a lot of hotly anticipated games due to release in the run up to the next generation of consoles.  New consoles are nice and all, but what about the 11 months between now and their release?  There are a ton of games slated for next year, but I’ve selected a handful of the ones with confirmed release dates to talk about.

That being said, there’s a lot of games that don’t have concrete dates that I’m excited for, but decided to not put on this list.  Anyway, here’s 6 games confirmed for the first half of 2020 that I’m personally excited for.

DRAGON BALL Z: KAKAROT – JANUARY 17th

Look y’all, Dragon Ball Z fever is back and people all over the world are charging up energy blasts and screaming at each other for hours on end.  After 2018’s Dragon Ball Fighter Z released, I feel like I’ve heard more about Dragon Ball as a franchise than ever before.  I guess with its swell in popularity, the decision to make a game based off of the most iconic arcs in the series was an easy call.

Enter, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, an action RPG where you’ll play as the worlds worst father himself, Goku, in what seems like the first few sagas on Dragon Ball Z.  It looks like the more classic Dragon Ball 3D fighting games with some RPG and exploration elements sprinkled on for good measure.  On paper, it all sounds really cool.

Out of the few games on this short list, this one is easily the one I’m most cautious about.  I don’t think it will be a bad game, but I do think it’ll be incredibly polarizing for people like myself who only really enjoyed Dragon Ball Fighter Z, which is a 2D fighting game, and never really played the 3D fighters.

ORI & THE WILL OF THE WISPS – FEBRUARY 11th

When I think back to my time with Ori & the Blind Forest, I can’t help but remember its beauty in both presentation and story and its good, but not great, platforming gameplay.  It wasn’t a bad game by any stretch, but more of a less refined experience than I was looking for.  Some of the exploration based stuff felt a little tedious and not worth the hassle.

A few years have passed however, and the sequel is on the horizon.  I’m excited to see what Ori & the Will of the Wisps brings to the table both in terms of new features and refinements to the existing platforming and Metroidvania formula of its predecessor.  Ori & the Blind Forest was a great foundation that a proper sequel could really build off of in some exciting and interesting ways.  Here’s hoping.

ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS – MARCH 20th

I’m not a big gardener, or interior decorator, people person or the general outdoorsy type.  In fact, if I was in a real life Animal Crossing scenario, I might physically and mentally break down.  That being said, I’m beyond excited to do all of those things I usually hate in the latest game in the storied Animal Crossing series, Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Just look at how dang adorable this game is.  It looks like its turning up the complexity of its mechanics ever so slightly with basic crafting mechanics, which I’m normally not a fan of, but it seems like a good way to increase the playtime in a game that’s basically a short, daily checklist.  Crafting seems like a decent way to artificially pad out how much time you can spend in a given session, making you have to consider the condition of your tools and make more of them to progress.

Like I said, Animal Crossing as a concept should be something I hate, but its just so darn cute and relaxing that I can’t help but be smitten by it.

CYBERPUNK 2077 – APRIL 16th

Remember all that cutesy baloney I was spouting in the last blurb?  Well forget all that, cause Cyberpunk 2077 is coming out shortly after Animal Crossing: New Horizons and it’s gonna be so extreme that I’m preparing now by funneling cans of Mountain Dew into my face as we speak.

I can’t wait to dive into a hyper connected, cyberpunk dystopia and chop it up with my main man Keanu Reeves.  We’re gonna drive our cyber car to the cyber store to buy cyber arms that have cyber guns in them, and it’s gonna all have a cool synth-wave vibe to it that’s absolutely my aesthetic.

I don’t know why I took such an aggressive stance with this description, Cyberpunk 2077 to my knowledge, hasn’t had any Doritos or Mountain Dew integrations announced for it… yet.

All jokes aside, the game looks like its right up my alley on all fronts.  My only trepidation is the fact that it looks like it’s gonna be a hefty game, and I don’t know that I have the time in my life anymore to dedicate to a game like that.  As much as I want a big, cyberpunk themed RPG in my life, it might be an overwhelming prospect.  We’ll see though.

MARVEL’S AVENGERS – MAY 15th

Man, this game doesn’t look great, but I can still hold out hope that we’re getting a good Avengers game in the near future.

Everything about the online structure and live service nature of Marvel’s Avengers scares me just a little bit.  While I would’ve preferred a more traditional single player experience with the option to group up with my pals in a cooperative campaign, I won’t balk at an Avengers game without giving it a fair shake.

The story seems interesting enough, the gameplay looks fun enough, but part of me is worried that the live service stuff is going to compromise a lot of the positive things this game has going for it.  Fingers crossed.

THE LAST OF US PART II – MAY 29th

I don’t know if I can handle another 20 hours of being repeatedly punched in the emotion glands of my body the way that The Last of Us did back in 2013.  Actually scratch that, I think I can handle it, but I just don’t know if I have the patience for more zombie stuff anymore.

I stand by the assertion that the worst parts of The Last of Us were the parts where the zombies were involved.  I get that the story revolved around curing the virus and how people survived in that world, but every single time a clicker was on screen I just wanted it to be over.

It was much more interesting and fun to square off against the horrible humans that inhabited the world instead of having to sneak around these one-shotting zombies, hoping I had enough shivs to dispatch those who would inevitably see me.

I’m excited to see the next chapter in terms of the gameplay innovations, story telling and presentation, but I’m less excited about fighting more zombies.

So that’s just a few cherry-picked releases from early next year that have confirmed release dates on them that I’m interested in.  There are still a ton of games that are confirmed for 2020 that don’t have dates that I’m curious about, but we’ll get to those eventually.

Blog: A Mild Year – 10/23/19

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Since starting The Bonus World, I’ve always tried to get some sort of end of the year wrap up article together for game of the year season.  Usually by this time in the year I can start constructing some loose amalgamation of a top ten list.  2019 happens to be the first year in a while where I’m having a tough time building that list.

That isn’t to say that the games I’ve played in 2019 have been disappointing or bad, I just found that a lot of what came out this year didn’t really resonate with me.  Things like Kingdom Hearts III and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice were received positively, but once again, not my kind of games.  Then we also had some real clunkers like Crackdown 3 and Anthem release early in the year and fade away into obscurity.

I think a lot of it has to do with developers gearing up for the next round of consoles along with the fact that early next year we’re going to be blitzed with some big titles like Doom Eternal, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Dying Light 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 to name a few.  2019 just feels like the gap year between the bombastic 2018 we had with Marvel’s Spider-Man and Red Dead Redemption II to cherry pick some of my favorites, and the swan-song, end of the generation year of 2020.

Like I said, I don’t think it was a bad year for video games, but when compared to last year and what’s coming up next year, it’s definitely lacking something.  But hey, the year isn’t over yet, so I could eat my words on this.  We’ve got The Outer Worlds and Call of Duty Modern Warfare dropping this Friday (10/26), and games like Luigi’s Mansion 3, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Pokemon, Death Stranding and of course, Shenmue III in the very near future, and any of those games could be great.

But let’s be real here, I’m probably just gonna play Red Dead Redemption II on the PC obsessively and let the other games just slide into the background.

E3 2019: Nintendo

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Ah Nintendo, it wasn’t too long ago that everyone made fun of you for making the most backwards decisions possible.  While you still make some absolutely bonkers choices, you’ve earned a ton of goodwill since the Switch launched.  Personally, I want to know more about Animal Crossing, Super Mario Maker 2, and hopefully some information on the future of Nintendo’s online service, whether that’s new NES games or even SNES or N64 stuff to their offering.

Well, let’s see how wrong I was about all of this, and shine the light on Nintendo, for this, the last of our conference coverage for the week.

SUPER SMASH BROS. ULTIMATE

What better way to kick off E3 than by announcing a new character for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.  Or maybe 6 characters?  They weren’t incredibly clear about how many characters are joining the fight, but my guess is it’s just one character with a couple of different costumes.

Oh, it’s a Dragon Quest character, probably should’ve mentioned that.  For those of you still playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, I hope this is what you wanted.  Another anime character in Smash.  I hear the Smash community loves those.

LUIGI’S MANSION 3

I never had the chance to play the second Luigi’s Mansion on the 3DS, and in the face of this announcement, I now realize how upset I am by that fact.  Luigi’s Mansion 3 looks so charming and pleasant, adding in a bunch of new features in terms of ghost hunting and multiplayer modes.

I always appreciated how Nintendo was able to make a lighthearted game in a spooky setting while also constantly just giving Luigi the short end of the stick.  I look forward to it releasing later this year.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: LINK’S AWAKENING

Here’s another one I never got to play, back when it made it’s initial debut.  The top down, 2D Zelda games never did the trick for me like the 3D ones, but this one looks so darn cute and adorable, that I’m willing to give this game a shot.

Also, they’re putting in a dungeon maker mode?  I hope this is the backdoor pilot to Nintendo actually releasing a full Zelda maker in the vein of Mario Maker.  It’ll be out on September 20th, 2019, and I will certainly be getting it.

THE WITCHER 3

It’s impressive as hell that they managed to put The Witcher 3 on the Switch and I don’t want to detract from that.  But I’ve spoken about The Witcher 3 before, and while I do genuinely like the game, I don’t know that the Switch version is going to be the best way to experience it.  That game had trouble playing on modern consoles as is, and I can’t imagine what it will be like on the Switch.  Otherwise it’s a fantastic game that I ended up turning on god mode for most of.

Hopefully it works great and people can enjoy that game on the go.  It’s due out later this year.

NO MORE HEROES 3

I have a confession, I’ve never played a No More Heroes game, but I’ve always heard good things about the series, but never got a chance to play it.  I have no idea what to expect from the third title, but from my understanding, they’re traditionally fun third person action games.  I think it also is a game that has attitude, for whatever that’s worth.  With a nebulous 2020 release date, we’ll see how it shapes up.

ASTRAL CHAIN

From what I can gather, in this cool looking action game, you capture the enemies you’re fighting to use their abilities in combat.  It looks cooler than I’m describing.  You’re basically fighting these big monsters, throwing a chain at them, and then taking control of them at utilizing their abilities in combat while you’re chained to them.

It sounds interesting enough.  It comes out on August 30th of this year.

MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 3

I always had a hard time getting into the Ultimate Alliance games for various reasons, and lower on that list was the camera angle. I know that the point of the game is to see your allies and cooperate with them, but it always left me feeling a little disconnected from the action on screen.  This one seems to have a more traditional 3rd person camera angle while continuing to trade in the same basic action loop the past games did.

Otherwise, I’ve always enjoyed the pitch of the Ultimate Alliance games.  All of these superheroes team up to fight an even bigger baddie.  It’s a simple concept, but one that manages to hook me every time.

It comes out on July 19th, and I will certainly be checking it out.

ANIMAL CROSSING NEW HORIZONS

Welcome to my deserted island that’s overrun by enterprising raccoons.  Animal Crossing New Horizons looks incredible, not only visually, but mechanically.  It seems like it’s going for a slightly more survival focused gameplay loop.  The player crafted a “flimsy axe” which leads me to believe there’s gonna be some sort of item degradation in it.  Also there seemed to be an emphasis on changing weather, which I’m into.

This is all just me speculating, but it seems like they’re trying to add more emphasis on moment to moment gameplay, making you think about your items and needs in the short term, as opposed to just thinking about long term goals.

It’s a shame that it isn’t coming this year, but it won’t be too much longer of a wait, considering it releases in March of 2020.

BANJO KAZOOIE!

They’re putting Banjo-Kazooie in Smash.  Everyone can finally shut up and be cool for once… right?  This is great, everyone has been clamoring for this for a long time, and it was this inevitable thing that just needed to happen already.  They’ll be added to the game this fall.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD SEQUEL

In what could be the spookiest announcement of the conference, a sequel to 2017’s monumental Breath of the Wild, was announced to be in development.  It’s safe to assume that it’s going to play just like Breath of The Wild, so if you didn’t like that, too bad.  That’s really it for info, but it’s exciting nonetheless.

More exciting is the prospect of how Nintendo hopes to recapture what made Breath of The Wild so engaging in the first place.  The sense of discovery and exploration was incredible, but if we’re traipsing around the same map, I wonder how that sentiment holds up.  I’d like to see maybe a new map, or a map so remixed it’s barely recognizable.  Also, I think it’s time to let us play as Zelda.

Without a trace of Bayonetta, Metroid, new hardware or any info on their online service, some could look at this presentation as a whiff.   I thought this presentation was great though.  Still upset about Animal Crossing and it being delayed, but whatever.  Nintendo’s lineup for this year looks great.

And that’s it folks.  Thanks for riding with us for these conference overviews.  There should be some more E3 coverage this week, but not a ton more.  After all, I am in New York and can only do so much, but thank you again for sticking with us.  See you around.