Last Dance
Last Dance, a full-fledged VR short animation that has been highly evaluated by many international film festivals and famous artists for its epic scale and unique VR presentation, is finally available worldwide!
Synopsis:
The human race has devoured itself in war, resulting in the destruction of our home, the Earth.
Only an AI created by human wisdom was able to survive.
The AI escaped into space and was given a single mission: the Regeneration of Mankind.
It kept recreating the Earth and humanity over and over, hundreds of times.
However, the cycle of human extinction did not stop – it only repeated itself every single time.
Just when it seemed history would only repeat forever, a woman danced alone right before the end of her life.
The AI, interested in this woman, could not help but to land on Earth to ask her the reason for her Last Dance.
The encounter between the AI and her would change the fate of the Earth.
Director’s Comment:
This story is a “myth” in the distant future, in which a god-like omnipotent AI falls in love with a human woman.
But what is so attractive about a human to an AI whose existence is beyond human knowledge?
Perhaps, for an AI that can live forever, the short life of a human is like a trotting horse lamp, with their inconvenient body bound by gravity.
Maybe under these limitations, their glittering dance may look peculiarly attractive.
I hope it can become the VR experience that allows us to rediscover the fleeting existence of human beings and the joy of love through the eyes of AI.
Toshiaki Hanzaki
Producer’s Comment:
This is my first time making a feature-length VR animation.
I worked together with Director Hanzaki to create the original story, with our staff gathering the creativity and techniques from all over the world.
Together, we have successfully created a wonderful work that made full use of the goodness of VR media.
I would like to thank everyone for their hard work.
For the time being, we will mainly be exhibiting the film at different festivals.
However, we are planning to broadcast it and release it through events next year.
Please look forward to it.
Kodansha VR Lab
Representative Director and President
Kenji Ishimaru
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Touch from a Raindrop
A magical stranger enters a small town and changes their lives forever.
Read More: Best Cinematic Atmospheric Games.
Awakening The Light
Waking up in a room full of light, NoName #1892 is thrust into fighting countless monsters to stay alive without any memory of who he is or why this is happening to him. All he knows is that he has to keep moving forward. He has to keep fighting so that maybe, just maybe, he’ll find answers to his questions and find rest in a place that he can call home.
With a classic top-down style 2D game and a slight twist on the traditional RPG, Awakening the Light takes the familiar dungeon crawler and emphasizes the power of choice for the player to progress through the game. Fighting enemies and even bosses are now optional. However, don’t be fooled into thinking that it will be a breeze if you choose to take the shorter route!
Read More: Best Cinematic RPG Games.
Flow Weaver
Experienced on the Oculus Quest 2
You can view my review & gameplay here: https://youtu.be/sZg7HmGa_XE
This is a narrative driven puzzle game / escape room. It took me a little over 3 hours to complete this game, although I did have to cheat and look up some of the solutions online as I was completely stumped. The puzzles range from very easy to challenging. However, they’re all very logical and if you play close attention, you should be able to solve them without having to look up answers online like I did.
– Real player with 4.2 hrs in game
Brytag Studio
This game is very good for movie makers, and there are so many possibilities
– Real player with 2.5 hrs in game
Very fun and creative game, I would definitely recommend playing this!
– Real player with 1.6 hrs in game
The Lord of the Rings™: Gollum™
Athletic and agile, sneaky and cunning. Driven by the desire to once again hold in his hands what he lost, Gollum is one of the most fascinating characters in the world of The Lord of the Rings™.
He has seen things that others can not imagine, he has survived things that others would not dare mention. Torn by his split personality, he can be vicious and villainous as Gollum, but social and cautious as Sméagol.
While being vital to the story by J.R.R. Tolkien, many parts of Gollum’s quest have not been told in detail yet. In The Lord of the Rings™: Gollum™ you get to experience this story. From his time as a slave below the Dark Tower to his stay with the Elves of Mirkwood.
Use stealth, agility and cunning to survive and overcome what lies ahead. Climb, leap and grapple your way past dangers or into advantageous spots.
While Gollum might not be a fighter, it is not unlike him to assassinate a careless enemy when the chance presents itself – or dispose of them in more creative and villainous ways.
The decisions you make and the way you play have a direct influence on Gollum’s personality: Always struggling between the two sides embodied by Gollum and Sméagol, it is up to you to decide whether the darker side of Gollum takes over or if there is a spark of reason left in what once was Sméagol. One mind, two egos - you decide!
Ourea
ourea calls itself a cinematic puzzle game and sure enough, cutscenes with cinematic shots happen very often. too often, as a matter of fact, disturbing what little gameplay there is without providing anything substantial for the most part.
– Real player with 2.9 hrs in game
This game is a great example for aspiring devs for the type of effort they should be putting into their early work. Too often I find that new devs publishing their first games just dial in broad swaths of their games. These guys clearly put a lot of effort into this game, but they’re just not there yet. I’m glad they got so far as publishing because very few do, and this project shows so much promise for their future projects. For my full thoughts I made a video on this particular game:
– Real player with 1.8 hrs in game
Spice&Wolf VR2
This game is heavier than Cyberpunk and Half Life ALYX. For this game, I need to use 70% resolution scale on GTX 1660 Super and Ryzen 5 2600.
They also gave no option to disable or lower the quality of the desktop vr view mirroring. Unlike other games (e.g. beat saber) where you can put the mirror in lowest quality and keep high quality in VR.
btw,
Why they didnt put the subtitle above their heads? Just pin its location to head and direction to player camera…. Currently the subtitle are a pain to read and detract from the experience.
– Real player with 4.6 hrs in game
This is fantastic! It’s a great step in the development of the concept of a VR anime/OVA, though it is expensive for how much content you’re getting. The quality of this is SUPERB, everything about this is well done and really enjoyable to watch/experience. Acting all around is great from Holo and Miyuri, both are fantastic and express the characters amazingly well.
It’s a no-brainer to buy.
Only thing I wish we had was an option for the “petting” mode for 2D screens using the mouse as a hand, That’d allow for a better value for everyone.
– Real player with 3.6 hrs in game
Tears of Avia
Update: I originally wrote this review on launch day, I have now completed one full playthrough and adjusted some comments to reflect this.
A great genre aware indie game. If you love JRPG’s then this will embody every trope, cliche and worn-to-the-ground charisma you’ve come to love in the best ways possible.
With a selection of protagonists straight out of a pregen dungeons and dragons adventure, colourful and classic personalities along with bright and iconic designs (RIP Reina’s spine) there’s someone you’re bound to love. I myself was torn between the obviously-the-protagonist Kai and the all too matching a description Iris. And the rest of the cast, so far, hasn’t been a let down either for me. From the hard working superior you bump into to the obviously-not-merlin (which I have nicknamed Fauxlin) provides plenty of laughs. Although you don’t spend much time with some of the later characters, revisiting previous locations will sometimes provide interesting inter-character dialogue that you can watch while in the tavern, and replaying some levels with mixed up parties will let you see interesting dialogue combinations. With the added bonus who you recruit and how you treat your party members changing their outcome in the epilogue also, some of which can be quite sad.
– Real player with 38.0 hrs in game
This review has been updated to reflect my thoughts after completing the game on normal.
1. Nice character and enemy designs
2. Nice animations (you can skip them and enemy movement)
3. Good music and the main menu theme song is catchy
4. Varied skill trees kind of encourage skill experimentation
5. Loot from battles is worthwhile - a nice gameplay loop of finding better gear
6. Combat is streamlined (healed after battle and can quickly retreat to town)
7. When you equip a new weapon its shown in battle and also the main character in town exploration
– Real player with 17.8 hrs in game
The Great C
This short adventure cinematic is well-made, though it has some of that “indie” charm to remind that it has been made by a small team of enthusiasts, rather than a heavy-hitter like ILMxLab. Most of the characters' animations are motion-captured performances, though there are plenty of character movements that are stilted and robotic, which were obviously manually-animated. The characters are cartoony, but expressive. And don’t let the character designs fool you… this story is not for young children.
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Not quite long enough to be called a movie and not quite short enough as the Google spotlight shorts. At 38 minutes long it’s almost as long as an episode of most series.
The story is good and the actors are quite believable. Graphically it looks a lot like Telltale (rip) games. Which kinda makes me sad that I’ll never see that studio dive into VR.
VR cinematic experiences are quite new and there is a lot of experimentation involved. Some of it really works, like the building case scene, where trying to follow both characters creates tension, or the final confrontation, where the scale of C really can be appreciated. Some of it doesn’t, like suddenly you feel like an ant watching giants and the next moment a giant watching ants. But that cam be expected in such a new medium.
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game