MCM London Comic Con Oct 2019 – Event Report

It’s another year and MCM ends in London until May. I’ve been going to MCM conventions for the past two years and each time I go, I never find it boring and it’s the best time for anyone who is a part of nerd culture. You get to meet the actors who bring these incredible movies, tv shows and video games to life and enjoy the things that are coming. I even cosplayed this time which is a first.

In my case, I couldn’t really enjoy Comic Con as much as I would’ve liked. Not because of the event itself. Unfortunately, I was ill during the last two days of Comic Con. I missed out on half of Day Two and Three so if there are things I don’t talk about then that would be why.

Now three of the biggest games that are coming out in the immediate future are Final Fantasy VII Remake, Death Stranding and Cyberpunk 2077. Unfortunately, I missed out on Cyberpunk because of what I just mentioned above.

At MCM, there was a demo for Final Fantasy VII Remake which I got to try. I am a massive Final Fantasy fan and while VII isn’t my personal favourite, there is no ignoring what that game did for the JRPG genre and the influence it has had. The demo itself only covered a part in the beginning of 7 which was the mako reactor invasion. If you’ve seen the trailers then you know how incredible the remake looks on a graphical level but the gameplay is also pretty fluid as well. It has the best parts of FFXV’s combat system which is you can change between characters instantly in the heat of battle, it’s real time and more action orientated, you can counter or dodge attacks, you must take enemy weaknesses into account. Most fortunately, the camera isn’t something you’ll be fighting against and no friendly fire. It also has some nods to the classic combat with ATB gauges when you use moves from a character’s command menu which you can fill up with standard attacks. I wish characters would heal themselves without my input but it’s not a game breaker.

Death Stranding is a game of intrigue. At Comic Con, there was a 25 minute presentation narrated by its creator, Hideo Kojima. There’s a lot of mystery surrounding what this game is about and even after the presentation, I walked out with more questions than answers when it comes to the story. There is a lot of realism applied to some game mechanics which I like. Right now, I’d agree with the reviews that have come out which is most of the fun of Death Stranding will probably be finally getting the answers when you play it. I do hope the game is worth the long wait and all the theories fans have speculated about it.

Something that they changed for this MCM is you have to get autograph tickets before approaching a guest’s table. It’s not something I was incredibly keen about since it wasn’t clear if you could go up and just say hi to a guest if you don’t want an autograph at first. Thankfully, you could still do that but obviously it depends on how long the queues for the guests are. If it’s not too long then you can get a couple of minutes but if there are paying people behind you then it’ll be a bit more rushed for understandable reasons. It does end the somewhat free-for-all approach that there was for selfies and autographs before which could be a little hard to control for the staff.

As far as actors goes, I spent much of my time with Nolan North and Troy Baker again. They did another Retro Replay live show and I was fortunate enough to be in the founding 500 seats because of a close friend. It followed some similar beats to the one I wrote about in May (Seamus the Knight for instance). However, the game of choice was Five Night’s at Freddie’s VR. I feel bad for Nolan having to experience that and then dealing with scary clowns pranking him for his birthday as soon as he got the headset off much to our enjoyment. The best thing about being a Retro Replay fan is the community. Nolan and Troy are great but the fans are just as incredible. Within minutes, I was hanging out with a dozen fans for hours after the show. These are frequent occurrences too from what I’ve experienced and as Troy says ‘It’s all about the hang’ and the fans live by that mantra in the best way possible.

On another note, I met Bryan Dechart and Amelia Rose Blaire. For those unaware, those two were both in Detroit: Become Human and now stream on Twitch. I’ve been a fan of their streams since they played Detroit and they’ve gone on to play Uncharted, Until Dawn and Life is Strange. Yes, I am really looking forward to them playing Life is Strange 2 once all the episodes are out next month. I even made a point of saying that they will probably cry. If you watch their streams then you know that they also have actors from the game they’re playing joining them during some episodes. The Connor Army is also a great community of fans and Bryan and Amelia genuinely care about their fans too. They were very sweet to me when I got to meet them and they even responded to my tweet about the autograph. I hear there was a surprise appearance from a few other Detroit actors which I missed because I was at Retro Replay. Why, MCM? Why did you have to make me choose between them and a live show?

I wish I had the chance everything that MCM had to offer this time because there was a lot from premiering animes, television shows like Watchmen and Alex Rider showing exclusives and the Nightmare Before Christmas Sing-Along movie. You never have enough time to enjoy everything there but it’s better that there’s too much to do rather than not enough. You have to look far and wide to find someone who leaves MCM upset because all I see at the end is smiling faces.