I'm gonna be kinda winging it on this one; something I haven't normally done for a showcase.
Day 1: Avengers 2099[]
"Alchemax was just the beginning."
Day 1 begins as we take a leap to the future and into Avengers 2099.
So as you might know, Avengers 2099 is about a futuristic variant of Earth's mightiest heroes:
- Titanium Man 2099, Iron Man's descendant and an ambitious inventor,
- Scarlet Witch 2099, Magneto's descendant and Titanium Man's best friend,
- Spider-Man 2099, who to most Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions fans I shouldn't have to explain,
- Hulk 2099, the brute of the group,
- Captain America 2099, a descendant of Falcon and the shield-wielding leader.
- Vision 2099, Titanium Man's guardian and the genuine Vision from the original days of the Avengers,
- Black Panther 2099, the queen of Wakanda and a powerful warrior in close combat,
- and Doctor Doom 2099, a anachronistic Victor von Doom returning to the future to make his nation great again.
These heroes must unite to stand off against various foes, all of which have different chapters; there abound a ton of villains in the story, but for now, I'll just list the ones I have:
- The Alchemax Corporation, led by CEO Walker Sloan, and backed primarily by Serena Patel (aka Doctor Octopus 2099) and Trevor Slattery (aka Mandarin 2099),
- Ultron 2099, made by idiot scientists instead of Tony Stark or Hank Pym,
- Baron Holland Zemo, who rules the United Peoples of Europe (which is essentially the Soviet Union 2.0 run by Baron Zemo, so in other words, even worse)
- and Mysterio 2099, who like the conqueror Korvac, comes back in time from far in the future and essentially is a master of reality at this point in history, so the Avengers and their enemies have to unite to stop him.
So yeah, big name bad guys all at once. Luckily the chapters aren't too difficult, so it balances out.
Well, looks like that's all the time I have for Day 1, so I'll see you tomorrow.
Day 2: Pokémon World Fighters[]
"They take back the world!"
So, I've been having this rot on Lapis wiki for a long time, so I moved it here and actually began some work on it; in a way, it's like Hyrule Warriors but for Pokémon. Each trainer that can be used has a set number Pokémon that they can rotate between, each with different moves. Depending on the trainer and Pokémon, there will sometimes be upgrades you can get for the Pokémon's moves.
While each trainer does have different Pokémon, that's not the only thing that sets them apart; they each have a Trainer's Bond stage, where when the bond meter is raised to the maximum level, they can activate a special state where the Pokémon draw from the trait that sets each trainer apart to viciously attack foes.
- Red has teamwork, which his Charizard, Electivire and Mr. Mime work together on the field to viciously beat up foes; an example being Mr. Mime throwing a tough foe up in the air with Psychic for Electivire to hit in the face with a Thunder Punch.
- Giovanni has the power of the Ground-type, which during his Trainer's Bond, summons Zygarde, who changes to his Complete form and tears up the battlefield with attacks like Land's Wrath, Thousand Waves, Thousand Arrows and even Core Enforcer.
- Wally has the power of Mega Evolution, in which his Gallade Mega-Evolves and attacks foes with even faster and stronger versions of his base attacks.
- and Diantha has the mythical Diancie, who attacks foes with Diamond Storm and other powerful moves.
They sound really powerful, don't they? Well, when they're going up against hordes of enemy Pokémon, some of which are really powerful boss Pokémon (rogue Legendaries controlled by the evil teams, spoiler alert WHOOPS TOO LATE), you need all the strength you can get. Especially when Team whats-their-name and the guy who leads them shows up (Yeah, I'm being really secretive with this, aren't I?).
Well, Day 2 has met its close; see you guys tomorrow.
Day 3: The Wolf[]
"I've hunted criminals all my life. But I never imagined someone like the Phantom."
So, a few people may know this as the first original work I've done in a while; it's gotten a lot of recognition oddly, even though I haven't really worked on it so much.
While I won't say much about it for fear of spoilers, I will say that Alice will get her own gameplay via Wonderland segments.
Day 3's over already? Well, we can blame spoilers for that.
Day 4: Shadow of the Order[]
"I know that when a Jedi falls in love, you're supposed to bury the feeling; but I couldn't do that, especially when the person you love is someone you see almost every day or every mission."
So, I've been wanting to do a genuine Star Wars game for a long time now; Shadow of the Order was just the concept I wanted to do as well.
Taking place before Episode 3 in an alternate timeline, it tells the story of a mixed Jedi: he has the skills of all the primary Jedi classes (Guardian's lightsaber combat, Consular's powerful Force abilities and the Sentinel's spy abilities); but unfortunately, he had a tendency to break the rules, had a reckless streak and fell in love with a fellow Jedi (not saying who for spoilers' sake), and as a result couldn't stay on board the Order. But, he still wanted to make a difference in the galaxy and destroy the Sith for good; so he became the Shadow Knight, a being who used all 3 main classes to tear apart any traces of the Dark Side (like Count Dooku, Darth Maul, etc.). In this story he even gets an apprentice, someone who only appeared once in the Star Wars Clone Wars tv show (again, not saying who); and it all ends with a final battle on Mandalore, for the fate of the Republic and the Jedi. All of it.
Yeah, it's got 3 source inspirations for the core gameplay: Batman: Arkham Origins, Star Wars Battlefront 2 (by Pandemic) and Star Fox's traditional Arwing gameplay; in other words, it has lightsaber and Force combat, large open maps, stealth gameplay and space battles that involve racing through all the chaos of a Clone Wars battle and shooting stuff that may get in your way. So really, it has a lot of stuff you wouldn't expect from a traditional singleplayer Star Wars game.
Well, we're coming down to the end, looks like; but before I go, I wanted to share a detail about the Shadow Knight that would seem insignificant, but really has much to say on second glance:
- When the Shadow Knight was just a youngling being trained in the Order's ways, his lightsaber crystal that he found on Ilum was orange; while it may seem insignificant, it actually shows a lot of detail. Mace Windu was remembered for his purple lightsaber, because he had both physical prowess and Jedi abilities, a trait not commonly seen among Jedi. The Knight's original Orange Lightsaber showed that he had mixed skills not seen before in the Order, much like Windu.
And with that note, Day 4 is closed for now.
Day 5: Spider-Man & Venom: Partners[]
"Mind if I give you a hand, boys?"
So, you might be wondering why I'm talking about this after I've already started working on it; well, development was kind of at a standstill for a while, and now I've decided to do another story detail to further tie it in into the last entry, Web Warriors. The first game had just Spider-Man & Venom, and Web Warriors has Spider-Man, Venom, Gwen Stacy's Spider-Woman, Flash Thompson's Scarlet Spider and Jessica Drew's Black Widow. Partners is going to bridge the gap and bring Spider-Woman into the main story, whereas Black Widow and Scarlet Spider will get their own DLC episodes explaining their backstory. Which although I don't know what they'll be, I promise they will be original storylines set apart from the original.
And I don't really have plans to do more Most Wanted missions for Web Warriors, but I have been considering them; not sure if I'll do them, since I'd like to keep the numbers of side missions even between characters, and they each have 4, attuned to their specific story theme and control mechanic. In case you're wondering what they are, I'll list them below:
- Spider-Man is usually about gadgetry, his signature Spider-Sense and agility to keep out of the way of the opponent's incoming attacks.
- Venom has power primarily, with some elements of stealth.
- Spider-Woman has flight, mostly; appropriate considering she flies most of the time. So yeah, expect quite a few aerial battles.
- Black Widow has stealth and gadgetry.
- and Scarlet Spider has strength and agility.
Each of them have a discerning feature as well.
- Spider-Man has his Spider-Sense,
- Venom has the symbiote-based attacks,
- Spider-Woman has flight and bioelectric attacks,
- Scarlet Spider has a special vision sense like the Spider-Sense, but it's actually 2099 Spider-Man's Accelerated Vision.
- Black Widow has a lot more gadgets than the other 4, the primary one being the Widow's Bite, a projectile taser of sorts.
Now that I'm done going off on a tangent, I guess I can get to the afterword and something I wanted to explain about Batman: Arkham Beyond.
Afterword: Batman: Arkham Beyond[]
So anyways, there is something I wanted to explain about this game for a long time. Here goes:
- In Arkham Beyond, Batman does not have a cape; it is replaced with biomechanical wings based on the research of Kirk Langstrom, AKA Man-Bat. There are explainable reasons for this.
- To start off the reasons, I have reason 1: for better transportation. Think about it; every Arkham game is set in a part of Gotham that is significantly expansive despite being only a part of the big city:
- Asylum had Arkham Asylum, which wasn't just one building: it had the Arkham Mansion, Botanical Gardens, the Penitentiary and the Intensive Treatment building, not to mention a makeshift Batcave and the catacombs and sewers beneath the island.
- City had Arkham City, a sectioned-off portion of Gotham that was a really unefficient prison. It had the Bowery, Park Row, Amusement Mile and finally the Industrial District. You could even see the Asylum to the east; plus, there was several buildings you could go in, like the Museum, the Solomon Wayne Courthouse, the old GCPD building and others, like the monumental Wonder Tower.
- Origins had all the Arkham City areas, but shiny and new since Origins takes place about 10 years before; plus it introduced New Gotham, which had 3 new areas: Burnley, the GCPD's area; the Diamond District, home of the rich and fatcattery; and Coventry, which is kind of a mix of industry and commerce.
- Origins Blackgate had Blackgate Prison, which, despite being explorable in Origins, was quite expansive compared to its predecessor. Also, apparently Blackgate got turned into a shopping mall after the inmates were moved to Arkham City. Ingame thugs talked about it in City.
- Knight had 3 new islands (Bleake Island, Founder's Island, and Miagani Island) including a few extra islands surrounding them.
Where am I going with this? Well, Beyond has (with the exception of Blackgate) ALL OF THAT. That's one of the reasons why I chose having wings, because even with a cape, that would be a little much.
- As for reason 2, this is Batman Beyond were talking about; he's a futuristic Batman being mentored by a retired Bruce Wayne. He also has a bunch of technology that is way more advanced than Bruce Wayne's Batman, since it is two years into the future after Knight and logic would dictate that a lot of the tech he uses would be more advanced. Hence why he has lightweight biomechanical wings instead of a cape.