It was great pleasure recently that we took part in a special private media preview Sega held entitled, Sega Summer Showcase. The private event allowed media to wander between different private previews for upcoming Sega titles, to test and sit with the gated experiences at their leisure. It was a super comfortable way to shift between up to eight different titles over an afternoon, and the freedom was much appreciated.
Stranger Than Heaven
The temptation was too much for us to resist sitting with the demo for Like a Dragon franchise prequel Stranger Than Heaven to start things off. Similar to the demo made available at Summer Game Fest: Play Days, this demo centered almost entirely on the combat mechanics of the game. We were shown a preview video that hinted at the teased showman / band leader mechanics of the game, but the demo was all rock-’em-sock-’em robot-madness. The preview was divided into easy / medium / hard segments corresponding with three of the game’s focused timeframes: 1915 Kokura, 1929 Kure and 1943 Osaka respectively. Each bit had main character Makoto Daito strolling into a location to immediately be greeted by assailants.
In the easy section Kokura, it served to introduce the mechanics of how to attack and defend, along with switching between fists and melee weapons. Unlike most games that focus on light and heavy attacks and parrying/countering, Stranger Than Heaven insists you learn some new tricks. Your combat retinue is focused on left arm and right arm attacks, regardless of whether you’re unarmed or using one- or two-handed weapons. Then, the trick is alternating the combos of switching between left and right side in the right succession. If you’re an older gamer, this feels like an elaborate expansion of the mechanics so perfectly utilized in the NES-era Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. In Kokura, the combat is a simple setup where a group of thugs greet you in the town square. We had to learn to pace attacks to subdue and eliminate each enemy. Shifting between a knife and a long, heavy polearm helped get the job done while we became accustomed to the controls.
The medium segment Kure was an ambush by a wharf featuring another group of thugs and an Abobo-style miniboss that was about twice the size of every other enemy. This one took a while to get through, as the miniboss had a pretty devastating counterattack that could basically put you on the ground if you tried to get in too many consecutive hits. That specifically, poses a special danger in Stranger Than Heaven, as once you’re exhausted to a point and knocked down, you’re stuck there until you regain enough energy to jump up. While on the ground you’re extremely vulnerable and have to carefully time dodging until Daito can get back up. The other challenge is while the light and heavy weapons both massively have their uses, you have to acclimate your brain to the fact that once you’ve swung either, you can’t take another swing on either side until that swing has landed or failed. In a lifetime of learning games getting used to instantaneous feedback, it takes some adjustment to realize that once you’re committed to an attack, you better hope it lands and rather than just mashing away, you have to plan your next sequence of strikes.
After finally completing Kure, we moved on to Osaka, where the game went for a classic cinematic one-on-one showdown in the rain. Our unnamed enemy here appeared to be something of a drunken, wayward ninja? The fight takes place in the middle of a market street in the evening, and while the hard encounter from the demo, those confines actually helped make this one a little easier than Kure. This boss had a devasting desperation move, and once you started doing really well against him, he could basically employ it from anywhere. That all sounds fine until you realize it takes a little more than half your health and, in many cases, that’s a kill strike. But, the simple tactics of boxing someone in did the job nicely here, as we kept pushing him towards the wall and then just relentlessly kept cutting away with quick knife strikes.
The only problem with any of this, is it’s massively apparent even these three whole segments is but a tiny fraction of the treasure chest coming with Stranger Than Heaven. Odds are, Sega is well aware of this, but we want more. So much more….
Stranger Than Heaven comes out for PlayStation 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S on January 15th, 2027.
Persona 4 Revival
We next moved to spend significant time with Persona 4 Revival and fans of the fantasy RPG series are going to be absolutely elated. This full remake of Persona 4 Golden—which in turn was a remake of the original 2008 release Persona 4—also features new content in addition to the previous expanded content. We were given decent time with three segments of the game. The first part was mostly a story segment, introducing and explaining main character Yu and Yosuke entering the shadow/TV world and along with meeting the carinval-esque, hollow bear Teddie, start to navigate it to save a friend. Their town has been beset by bizarre murders and at this point, it is not known what is causing them. The TV world is a Forbidden Planet-like shadow world, where the repressed emotions of each of the characters exist, and if not contended with create what are called Shadows. Each character in turn confronts their repressed self, and upon accepting and admitting to their true feelings, are able to unlock their “Persona,” an almost avatar level super version of themselves (think if Bruce Banner could just summon the Hulk at will and then just go back to being himself).
The second section was a larger, more focused dungeon, clearly another, longer visit by the Investigation Team the students form into the TV world, this segment showing more of a dungeon crawl, regular combat showdown where the characters have to seek out each enemies’ weaknesses through trial and error. The characters were attempting to save their friend Chie who had ran headstrong into this dungeon heedlessly. What jumps out strongest in our demo, is just how lushly designed this remake is from top to bottom. The color choices are bold, the character and creature designs are unforgettable. This title benefits from its art direction about as much as any in recent memory, as the journey feels worth it, just to see what each segment might look like. Furthermore, the game is a bold choice, because the core mechanics are not overly difficult (think the extreme opposite of last year’s breakout hit Clair Obscur: Expedition 33). But what the real reward here is, what it shows and does for you as you take those steps. Kind of like playing a piano chord and letting the notes ring out for minutes, the payoff here isn’t did you time things perfectly, it’s the wondrous animations you’re gifted with anytime you do something right.
The third section was a larger, open world sandbox of Inaba, where you could basically explore the vast social mechanics of the game. Go home and take a nap, visit shops, go on outings. We chose to visit the game’s famous The Velvet Room, where we met Marie, a denizen of that limbo-style zone seemingly bereft of real-word experiences. We chose to invite her out for a day in Inaba, and spent a day just showing her various sights around town. We probably could have lost ourselves in this segment for another full hour, but daylight was burning and there were more demos to try.
Persona 4 Revival Comes for Play Station 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S on February 18th, 2027.
Total War: Warhammer 40,000
When two great tastes taste great together, you absolutely combine them. Enter: Total War: Warhammer 40,000. This title is a new edition of the long-running Total War franchise and the first one of which to be utilize the IP from famous miniature tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000. This is real-time strategy on steroids, as it works on micro, continent level and macro solar system level scales pretty fluidly. Our demo took us through navigating our Imperium of Man troops to an enemy enclave on our route. There, it shifted to the micro level where you could control the focus and axis of the camera in 360 degrees in any direction. Truly, that allowed you to find your own viewpoint and comfort level. The tutorial took us through leading units up to an assault at an entry gate and finding a high-ground position to draw the enemy into combat range. True to the game system, these opponents were the green-skinned Orks. We called down a series of dropships and plummeted them right onto the heads of those not taking the bait.
After dispatching them and heading through the gate, we were then in a more open field terrain where the Orks came running towards us from numerous directions simultaneously. Orientation is everything, and you must quickly direct your battalions to array themselves in just the right direction. We struggled a bit with getting the hang of this, but this was by design, not a super challenging portion of the game. Then, we could call down massive orbital strikes raining fire on dozens of the enemies to make quick work of them. Before our time ran out we also got to see what things looked like at the macro leve which was just stunning. You could zoom out to see an a gorgeously designed planetary system with numerous planets that could be visited. Our main spaceship could be seen in orbit, and we were told that while absolutely possible to get to it to visit another planet, in keeping with true science fiction motifs, you would have to first head to a starport. There, you could board a shuttle and take the shuttle up to the main spaceship. Another entry we can’t wait to play more of.
Sonic Pico Park
We spent just a little bit of time with the madcap fun of Sonic Pico Park as we ended the day, the four-player co-op crossover puzzle sequel featuring the beloved characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog series. This game is crazy in a good way. It will most likely inspire the most in-room arguments since the legendary NES title Jackyl where you could steal your friends’ lives. But in the case of Sonic Pico Park, it’s because the game forces you to work together collaboratively and while cutely beautiful, it is delicately finnicky. So it’s really easy to fail over-and-over-and-over-and-over. Playing with one other journalist and two reps from Sega we were screaming out loud within minutes. Amidst the possible characters, we chose Shadow over Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, and had to navigate timed jumps, switch mechanics and even all being roped together on a bungee cord of sorts. And while time may have been short, we did manage with our three teammates to finish every level of the demo. Alright!