Summer hype is mounting! (Update on summer releases!)

     Hey there, friends! I'm Jonathan, a self-proclaimed dreamer, and I'm starting to get excited for this summer! Of course, there is always a lot of hype around the summertime, kids get to be out of school for a few months, and of course, there are a few big game releases to come out! It's typically not as big of a time for releases as November is, right around the holiday season, but there are always a few big releases. A few years ago, we got Control and Astral Chain, and then a year or two after that, we got Paper Mario and the Origami King and Ghost of Tsushima. This year has already had a few great releases, and is looking to have a pretty exciting summer as well, so I just wanted to take some time this week to talk a little bit about some games that I'm looking forward to that are coming up in the next several months. Of course, we have already had news of a few major delays, such as Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 and Starfield, but hopefully those will both come out next year anyways, so I'm just focusing on releases from June until August!

The (hopefully) triumphant return of Strikers!

    June is looking to be the main source of excitement so far, though I think we can expect more announcements for July and August soon enough. For me, I'm excited for Mario Strikers: Battle League, which is due out June 10, though I am not without my concerns. The original Super Mario Strikers for Gamecube was a lot of fun and my brother and I played it to death when we got it pretty soon after release. We never got the Wii game, Mario Strikers Charged, but it has been 15 years since that game was released in 2007, and I have to say that I'm very ready to play another one. The gameplay itself looks really fun and just as brutal as the original one was, electric fences and all, and I especially love the animation and special touches that Next Level Games have added to proceedings this time around, which makes sense, given how beautiful Luigi's Mansion 3 was. Clearly I'm very excited for the game, but there is one major omission here. They announced recently that there will only be 10 characters at the game's launch, being Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Donkey Kong, Toad, Rosalina, Wario, Waluigi, and Yoshi. This isn't a problem because it's so few characters, the issue comes with who is being left out this time around. Princess Daisy has always been playable in the "Mario Sports" games, pretty much right from the beginning in Mario Tennis, but she never shone quite as brightly before Super Mario Strikers came along. Daisy came right out of the gate, screaming at the top of her lungs whenever the game booted up. "NIIIIIINTENDO! NEXT LEVEL GAMES!!!" Immediately, she was a fan favorite for this game, as she was just insane, and it's a real shame that she's not in the launch line up. I hope that she's in a free update somewhere down the road, but we'll have to see.

The rest of June!

    The next game of note would have to be Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, which is finally coming to Switch and Xbox when it becomes free to play after over a year of PC and PS4 exclusivity. That game is coming to the new platforms on June 21, and I hope people will like it on those platforms as well! Only a few days after this, on June 23, we will see the release of the Sonic Origins Collection, featuring Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 and Knuckles, and Sonic CD. This game looks really exciting for many reasons, but I'm personally looking forward to playing Anniversary mode (which allows you to play through the games with infinite lives in a widescreen resolution) with some of my friends, especially since Sonic 3 and Knuckles is almost never rereleased in these collections, and it's considered one of the best games in the series by many people. The day after this nostalgic collection is released, June 24, we're getting Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, which looks like it's going to be a lot of fun! I loved Hyrule Warriors and Age of Calamity, and my brother loved Fire Emblem: Three Houses, so we're both looking forward to playing through this new storyline that is certainly inspired by the most recent game in the Fire Emblem series, though it's clearly a bit different. We'll see how this is explained in the story, but it looks to be almost certainly set in a different universe, as Byleth appears to be a foe this time around, where as he/she was the main character in Three Houses. Also on June 24, Capcom Fighting Collection is coming out. This collection includes 10 of Capcom's fighting games: 5 Darkstalkers games, Red Earth, Cyberbots, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Hyper Street Fighter II, and Super Gem Fighter Minimix. I'm not much of a competitive fighting game guy, but these do sound pretty neat, and I do love Puzzle Fighter, so if nothing else, I'm looking forward to that. Cuphead's long awaited DLC, "the Delicious Last Course," is also coming out at the end of June. Also in June, we're getting a few conferences that have already been announced, such as Geoff Keighley's Summer Games Fest, which is returning for its third year in a row on June 9, and Microsoft has also announced a show a few days later, on June 12, so we can expect some announcements then. We can also hope for some announcements from Nintendo and Sony, since E3 is not happening this year, but hopefully they'll have events at similar times.

June showers bring July... good games?

    July is a much less packed month, but there are still a few big names in here. Klonoa: Phantom Reverie Series is coming out on July 8, which marks the first time that Klonoa has been rereleased since the 2008 remake on the Wii, and it also includes Klonoa 2, a game that has never been released in the west, which is pretty cool! I'm looking forward to trying them, since I've heard great things about Klonoa and haven't had the chance to play much of it. Speaking of games that have never been released in the West, Live A Live is coming out on Switch on July 22, a HD-2D remake of a Super Famicom game from 1994. While I'm not the biggest RPG fan around, I do know that a lot of people are very excited about this game, and I might have to check it out once it's released. If nothing else, the art style looks really cool, and I'm always excited to hear that games that were previously only in Japan are being released over here. The concept of the game is really cool too, almost having a Cloud Atlas element as you play as several different characters through different time periods. The big one for this month is almost unquestionably Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and while again, it's not exactly my thing, I have always been curious about this series, and I may have to check it out at some point! I've heard from people that are more in the know that this game is looking to combine a lot of elements from the first two games, so I feel like I would have to play through those two before understanding what is happening... and that would probably take a really long time, so we'll just see if I ever actually do that.

Let's not forget August!

    August is even less busy, the list that I've found only has three things listed, but of those three, two of them seem to be interesting. On August 23, the reboot of Saints Row is coming out, and honestly I don't even have much to say about it at this point, since I don't think we've really seen any gameplay of it. I hope it turns out being good, because I really enjoyed playing Saints Row 3 and 4. Those games were really just goofy parodies of Grand Theft Auto, but it was a lot of fun to play through 3 with a friend. From the trailer, it looks kind of like they're taking a more serious approach, but I hope some of the Saints' wacky shenanigans will continue. The other game that I want to talk about from this month is Soul Hackers 2, which is releasing on August 26. This is a spin-off of the Shin Megami Tensei series, and a sequel to the game Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers, which was a 2013 release on the 3DS. I really don't know anything about this game, other than it has some relation to Persona (another SMT spin off), and since I liked Persona 5 so much, maybe I'll like that one as well!

Still to be Announced...

    There are a few games that I didn't mention here since they don't have firm release dates, but I do want to call special attention to them, since I think the developers have said that they're supposed to come out this summer. Those two games are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, and River City Girls 2. Both of these games are Beat-em-up games, a genre that has been fairly dormant for a while, but since River City Girls and Streets of Rage 4 came out a few years ago, it seems more alive than ever. River City Girls 2 looks to be promising more of the same formula from the original, which is fine with me. That game was really silly and had a lot of great gameplay, especially with Co-op. There are more characters this time around and a bigger world map to roam around in, so we'll see how that game turns out! Shredder's Revenge is basically a love letter to the old TMNT arcade games, which sounds fantastic in my book. So far, they've announced the four turtles, Raphael, Leonardo, Donatello, and Michaelangelo, as well as Master Splinter and April O' Neal. People are really hoping for some Casey Jones DLC or something, but we'll definitely have to see if that is in the cards. 

    As I've said several times over the last few months, 2022 is a wild year so far for games, and though we have had a few delays already announced, I think there are still some surprises in store. I certainly hope so, but there are already so many games here, I would be more than happy with what we already have released, as well as what is coming down the pipeline very soon. 

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends. I hope you're all having an alright week. Do you have any games that you're looking forward to that I didn't mention in this post? I hope everyone has something to be excited for, especially with so many things coming out in the weeks and months to come. I've been Jonathan, your self-proclaimed hopeful gamer, and I'll talk to you again soon.