On a cold night in West London, last week we were lucky enough to be invited down to the Bandai Namco offices to try out their latest selection of games coming out later this year and early next at their Autumn Showcase event.
While I didn’t get a chance to play them all, the games on show were Dragon Ball FighterZ, Ni No Kuni 2, Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker, Gundam Versus, The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia, Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Hackers Memory: and Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time. A superb selection of anime based games from Bandai Namco building off of some of my favourite anime.
I was able to get some hands on time with three of the above titles, starting with Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker. I was absolutely blown away by this title. The best way to describe this game is that this is what you get when Naruto Ninja Storm meets Overwatch and completely merge into each other… except everyone is Genji! We played capture the flag and our characters had the abilities of a real shinobi, even being able to run across and up walls. This felt fast, frantic but also very tactical. Graphically it follows it’s Ninja Storm counterpart and the controls play very similar but the 4v4 nature of the game meant some form of teamwork was needed. Shinobi Striker was a lot of fun to play and I can see it being a big hit for Naruto fans.
The next game I was lucky enough to try out was the game I had the most anticipation for. Dragon Ball FighterZ. I am an enormous Dragon Ball fan and after the last few Xenoverse games had left me feeling wanting for more, I have been longing for a return to the side scrolling budokai days. DB FighterZ is a welcome return to that format, even if you can’t fight 1v1. 3v3 battles ensue and what follows can only be described as chaos. The controller cheat sheet even said to button bash square and triangle! It was frantic and frenetic but so, so much fun! I need to step my game up to do the best moves but a lot of cool moments came from me just playing with out a clue of what I was doing! The game as been presented as an E-Sport title so there is definitely a level of skill that can be acquired to play this game without just smashing your controller but with only a couple of games at my disposal I couldn’t quite obtain it!
The last game I played was Ni No Kuni 2. This is a title I know is beloved by it’s fans however I had never played the first one and didn’t know much about it, so this is a disclaimer that my analysis of it may not be with a full understanding of the game. I had the choice to pick a level to choose. The game reminded me of an old school PC click and point game but where you could actually move your characters around with the controller. It struck me as a charming game but I have to admit, out of context the game was also quite confusing to me and I would be lying if I said I found it exciting based off of that one level. But nonetheless, if you were a fan of the first game, there was nothing here that struck me as poorly designed and I especially enjoyed the music in game which help the atmosphere of what I had played.
Overall it was a fun evening getting to try out some very cool games. Unfortunately I was unable to try out every title but I thoroughly enjoyed myself and would love to thank Bandai Namco for the invitation to hang out with them. As always they were fantastic hosts and looked after us all!
Leave us a comment below if you are excited for any of the above games on show!
