{"id":74413,"date":"2019-12-17T03:13:02","date_gmt":"2019-12-17T10:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/nintendo-bringing-bravely-default-franchise-to-switch-and-more-notes-from-the-game-awards\/"},"modified":"2019-12-17T03:13:02","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T10:13:02","slug":"nintendo-bringing-bravely-default-franchise-to-switch-and-more-notes-from-the-game-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/nintendo-bringing-bravely-default-franchise-to-switch-and-more-notes-from-the-game-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"Nintendo bringing \u2018Bravely Default\u2019 franchise to Switch, and more notes from the Game Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The protagonists of Square Enix\u2019s Bravely Default II<\/em>. (Nintendo press image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nintendo is bringing one of its cult favorites to the Switch, the Gears of War <\/em>series has a tactics-based spin-off coming to PC, and more of the X-Men are coming as DLC for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3<\/em>.<\/p>\n

These are a few of the big Pacific Northwest announcements from the Game Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, broadcast Thursday night from the Microsoft Theater. It was the convention\u2019s fifth year, and as usual, it was the \u201cSuper Bowl\u201d of gaming\u2026 in the sense that the major reason to watch it is to see the commercials. It was a big night for video game news, including several announcements from Wizards of the Coast<\/a>, and right off the bat, the live debut of the Xbox Series X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nintendo had a lot going for it, however. While the rumors of a new fighter announcement for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate <\/em>turned out to be unfounded (we still don\u2019t know who the fifth and last DLC character in the current Fighter Pack will be), Nintendo did announce the surprise debut of a new Bravely Default<\/em> game on the Switch.<\/p>\n

The Bravely Default <\/em>series is developed by the Japanese megastudio Square Enix. It\u2019s technically a Final Fantasy <\/em>spin-off, having evolved from plans to make a sequel to an older DS game called 4 Heroes of Light<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The newest entry, Bravely Default II, <\/em>is the third game in the series despite its name, following 2012\u2019s Bravely Second <\/em>on the Nintendo 3DS. The last two games were throwback Japanese RPGs, featuring an elaborate \u201cjob\u201d system that let you change your characters\u2019 classes on the fly, plenty of old-school dungeon grinding, and fantasy stories full of political intrigue.<\/p>\n

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Bravely Default II <\/em>is a collaboration between the team that developed the original game and the team behind last year\u2019s JRPG Octopath Traveler<\/em>. Beyond that, we don\u2019t know much about it yet, though it\u2019s ostensibly due out next year.<\/p>\n

Nintendo also took home prizes for Best Family Game (Luigi\u2019s Mansion 3<\/em>), Best Fighting Game (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate<\/em>), Best Strategy Game (Fire Emblem: Three Houses<\/a><\/em>), and \u201cPlayer\u2019s Voice\u201d (an award that was strictly determined by fan votes, also given to Three Houses<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Another big Nintendo debut was a new, extended trailer for Grasshopper Manufacture\u2019s No More Heroes 3<\/em>, a new entry in Goichi \u201cSuda51\u201d Suda\u2019s notoriously strange open-world action games.<\/p>\n

The original two No More Heroes <\/em>games initially debuted on the Wii, where they rapidly attracted a cult following. In the new game, which looks like a Hayao Miyazaki movie from the mirror universe, the series\u2019s antiheroic protagonist Travis Touchdown has to contend with a new breed of alien assassins.<\/p>\n

No More Heroes 3 <\/em>is planned to come out at some point in 2020.<\/p>\n

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Marvel Ultimate Alliance<\/a><\/em> 3 <\/em>has a new downloadable-content pack coming, this one starring several more characters from the X-Men franchise. Cable, Gambit, Iceman, and Phoenix will all be playable in the new DLC, alongside a new player-vs-player training mode set in the X-Men\u2019s famous Danger Room.<\/p>\n

MUA3 <\/em>came out this past July to middling reviews, but was one of the best-selling games in both July and August. It\u2019s brought out several more content packs in the intervening five months, including a free download that makes Cyclops and Colossus playable characters, and paid unlocks that bring the Punisher, Moon Knight, Blade, and Morbius into the game\u2019s already enormous roster.<\/p>\n

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In non-Nintendo news out of the Game Awards, the Vancouver, BC-based studio The Coalition, fresh off the successful debut of Gears 5 <\/em>in September, announced its next project: a spin-off from the main Gears of War <\/em>series called Gears Tactics<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Rather than being an action game, Gears Tactics <\/em>is an isometric-view tactical game in the spirit of something like Wasteland <\/em>or X-Com<\/em>. You guide a squad of soldiers through the environment, using cover and range to your advantage, while engaging in turn-based combat against your alien opponents. The game is set well before the events of the original Gears of War, <\/em>relatively early in humanity\u2019s fight against the Locust hordes.<\/p>\n

Tactics <\/em>is being made in conjunction with the British studio Splash Damage, a work-for-hire developer that\u2019s also contributed to the Wolfenstein <\/em>and Doom <\/em>franchises, as well as the multiplayer modes for both Gears of War 4 <\/em>and 5.<\/em> Gears Tactics <\/em>is ostensibly planned to debut in April of 2020.<\/p>\n

Gears 5 <\/em>also collected nominations for Best Audio Design, Best Performance (by Laura Bailey as Kait Diaz), and Best Action Game.<\/p>\n

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Riot Games, the publisher behind the popular online game League of Legends<\/em>, has made several announcements this year that revolved around moving the League <\/em>cast and setting into new genres. We knew there were six projects in total<\/a> as of mid-October, but two of them were still mysteries.<\/p>\n

Both of those unannounced titles made their debut at the Game Awards. The former \u201cProject F\u201d turned out to be Ruined King<\/em>, a single-player RPG under development at the Austin, Texas-based studio Airship Syndicate (Battle Chasers: Nightwar<\/em>).<\/p>\n

The other game is called Conv\/rgence<\/a><\/em>, <\/em>a single-player platform game starring League <\/em>character Ekko.<\/p>\n

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Despite all the announcements, awards, and hype, however, one thing that most people can agree on this weekend is that the real winner of the Game Awards\u2019 2019 broadcast was none other than a very, very mean goose.<\/p>\n

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The protagonists of Square Enix\u2019s Bravely Default II. (Nintendo press image) Nintendo is bringing one of its cult favorites to the Switch, the Gears of War series has a tactics-based spin-off coming to PC, and more of the X-Men are coming as DLC for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3. These are a few of the big… Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":74414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[174,377],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games-media","category-gaming"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t