Square-Enix isn’t a company that often has a press conference at E3. To my knowledge, this is only the second, and that’s after taking a couple of years off. The last one was pretty rough, with just some rehashes of stuff we already knew about and a sequel to Nier that seemed like a terrible idea at the time. After that, it made sense that they wouldn’t hold another one. But they decided to this year, so they must have something to show off, right? Right?

This is going to end up being the shortest post that I write this year, I think, because there just isn’t anything to say about it. This time, Square went the Nintendo route and made a pre-recorded video, and the end result is that the show itself was fine. No weird deliveries or botched demos. Unfortunately, there wasn’t the announcements to make it a show worth watching.

As far as actual announcements, there was a new game from Platinum called Babylon’s Fall and some kind of brawler called The Quiet Man. I’m sure Babylon’s Fall will end up being good, Platinum is great developer, but there wasn’t enough shown to really give me a great idea of what to expect. The Quiet Man started with a live action scene that transitioned into a fight. Is the live action stuff representative of what will actually be in the game, or was this just for a stylish trailer? No idea.

The rest of the conference was just stuff we’ve already seen. Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Dragon Quest XI, Octopath Traveller, Just Cause 4, Kingdom Hearts III, and Final Fantasy XIV. At least XIV was a trailer for a new patch as well as a crossover event with Monster Hunter World.

Where was the Avengers game that Square’s been working on? Where was the Final Fantasy VII remake? Where was any bombshell to justify having a separate presentation instead of just having them show up at the major conferences? I don’t get it. This was a pointless event and a waste of time.

I was not expecting to be this negative this year. But so far, we have one great press conference from Microsoft, a mediocre at best one from Bethesda, and straight up bad ones from EA and Square. I really hope Ubisoft can turn the ship around tonight.

Well, might as well go over predictions. Like I said, no Avengers and no Final Fantasy VII. My shot in the dark prediction was a new Mana, and nope, not there either. So that means I’m now at 2/12 predictions correct.