Julius

Paging @Jonnas I remember you mentioning last year that you were waiting for a release date – and now it has one!

Bayer Leverkusen have now gone unbeaten for a stretch of 44 games in all competitions – breaking the previous record (43, set by Juventus in 2012) for the longest unbeaten run by a team in one of Europe's top five leagues. Actual insanity; they're less than 10 games away from an invincible treble. (& I've totally just jinxed them, haven't I?)

Hey all, hope everyone had a nice Christmas and, of course, Happy New Year! With 2024 upon us and time finally being called on 2023, one of the greatest years for playing from the tippity-top of AAA gaming to the über niche and sleeper-hitting indies, the constant remains clear: N-E's love of video games and, more importantly perhaps, talking about them! Discussing the games we love - and those we don't - with nothing but respect! So, heading into this year, of course the question on my mind is: are there any gaming-related New Year's Resolutions you'd like to declare at the top of this thread? A particular game or series or developer you'd like to scream out your intentions for playing or digging into? A particular console you want to dig out of the No Man's Land that is your storage space of choice? Or a new approach to how you play? Whatever it is: I can't wait to hear it, and I look forward to discussing games aplenty in this thread this year ...after I catch up on the 2023 threads, ahem

THEY PULLED THE THOUSAND DOOR TRIGGER - FINALLY! IT LOOKS FREAKING BEAUTIFULLLLL A lot of love for the Mario RPGs of late, to put it lightly! Super excited to finally experience this game

Welcome one, welcome all, Happy New Year and welcome to the official The 2024 Eve– –oh, sorry, I'm being told I need to wrap it up Ah well, you know the drill by now! Here's the general events thread for the year of 2024! And announcements season is starting up nice and early this year on New Year's Day, with the first event to be announced this year: Summer Game Fest returns in June! Because Keighley ain't wasting a darn-tootin' second of 2024 without you knowing he's cooking a show scheduled around 5½ months from now

Previews dropping next Thursday (on the 25th) and reviews are dropping two days ahead of release (on the 21st May): Reviews releasing just two days ahead of launch would normally be a bit of a yellow flag, I feel, but with this being a remake, makes total sense; feel it'd probably get lost in the shuffle otherwise. I feel like the previews might be more important than the actual reviews this time around, because anything worth flagging is likely to come up in those, and so long as there's nothing crazy, I can't wait

It's the first, absolutely one of my favourites I watch it every year or so and it never fails to blow me away. The story and characters and world are great, but that music? It's my favourite Ghibli and favourite animated film (sorry, Prince of Egypt), and is in the eternal showdown up against a couple of others for the position of my favourite film of all-time. One of the greats

The fact that they highlight 100+ playable characters certainly makes me think it'll be the case they're all useable, but honestly I've kept the Kickstarter campaign at arm's length to avoid being spoiled, so I'm not sure if that's going to be a weird wording thing when all is done and dusted. But the way they word it certainly makes it sound like yes, there will be 100+ characters capable of joining your party (though not all at once, because I guess that'd be more of a rave) Begin corrections music pleaseeeeee The Suikoden series did not, in fact, gives you access to 108 "playable" characters to collect and battle with – while those games task you with assembling the 108 Stars of Destiny, not all of these Stars were playable (i.e. able to join your party and go out into the field): some would stay back at your base/castle to serve a purpose as an NPC, whether it be small talk, or as a shop or mini-game facilitator; others would only join the party temporarily; and some were entirely optional recruits that while technically Stars of Destiny, wouldn't be required recruits to meet the quota of 108 Stars for the game's true ending. There are also one or two branching recruits from what I remember meaning choosing to recruit one Star might mean not getting another, and so on. Looking it up, both Suikoden and Suikoden II have ~80 playable characters, and this number tailed off in later games as the series went on. If I'm remembering right there were technically over 120 potentially recruitable Stars in Suikoden II. Alright you can stop the corrections music if it's still playing now Hopefully you and others here leap at the chance to play the first two when that remastered collection releases though their silence on the re-release is a bit deafening OR FACE THE WRATH OF BEING ADDED TO MY IGNORE LIST (I'm kidding) (maybe) Murayama never would've done it because of his good relations with Konami after leaving, but the thought of it saying "108+" instead of just "100+" gives me a good chuckle

It's indie time! Everyone probably melting down after the recent Silksong ratings haha

Welcome to your one-stop shop for all things related to the May/June 2022 (and beyond) PlayStation Plus overhaul! I figured with a vast and updating catalog of games to track, multiple subscription tiers, and a glut of new info, a dedicated thread could be helpful. See the end of this post for a selection of games planned to be included in the launch catalogs for this overhauled PlayStation Plus. Regional rollout schedule: Asia (excluding Japan) - 24th May 2022 Japan - 2nd June 2022 Americas - 13th June Europe, Australia, New Zealand - 23rd June 2022 Subscription tiers and pricing structure: PlayStation Plus Essential will continue to provide the same benefits that PlayStation Plus members get today: two monthly downloadable games, exclusive discounts, cloud storage for saved games, and online multiplayer access. There will be no changes for existing PlayStation Plus members at this tier. The pricing structure for Essential is as follows: United States - $9.99 monthly / $24.99 quarterly / $59.99 yearly Europe - €8.99 monthly / €24.99 quarterly / €59.99 yearly United Kingdom - £6.99 monthly / £19.99 quarterly / £49.99 yearly Japan - ¥850 monthly / ¥2,150 quarterly / ¥5,143 yearly PlayStation Plus Extra will provide all of the benefits from the Essential tier, as well as a catalog of 400+ PS4 and PS5 titles, including first-party titles from PlayStation Studios and third-party partners. Games in this tier will be downloadable to play. Also announced today by Ubisoft is that a new Ubisoft+ subscription service called Ubisoft+ Classics will launch with 27 titles as part of PlayStation Plus from its overhaul starting at this tier, expanding to 50 titles by the end of 2022. The pricing structure for Extra is as follows: United States - $14.99 monthly / $39.99 quarterly / $99.99 yearly Europe - €13.99 monthly / €39.99 quarterly / €99.99 yearly United Kingdom - £10.99 monthly / £31.99 quarterly / £83.99 yearly Japan - ¥1,300 monthly / ¥3,600 quarterly / ¥8,600 yearly PlayStation Plus Premium* will provide all of the benefits from the Essential and Extra tiers, as well as an additional 340+ games, split between PS3 titles available via cloud streaming and a catalog of classics - available to stream or to download - from the PS1, PS2 and PSP console libraries. It also includes time-limited game trials for select titles. The pricing structure for Premium is as follows: United States - $17.99 monthly / $49.99 quarterly / $119.99 yearly Europe - €16.99 monthly / €49.99 quarterly / €119.99 yearly United Kingdom - £13.49 monthly / £39.99 quarterly / £99.99 yearly Japan - ¥1,550 – monthly / ¥4,300 – quarterly / ¥10,250 yearly *PlayStation Plus Deluxe will be the highest tier available for markets without cloud streaming. It will be offered at a lower price compared to Premium (local pricing will vary by market), and is essentially Premium without the ability to stream PS3 titles: it will have all of the benefits of the Essential and Extra tiers, and include the catalog of PS1, PS2 and PSP titles, as well as time-limited game trials. Other important details: The games available in the PlayStation Plus games catalog will be refreshed on a regular basis: For those at the Essential tier (and at higher tiers), a monthly refresh will occur on the first Tuesday of the month, with new PS5 and PS5 games added to the service - the same as what PlayStation Plus members get today. For those at the Premium/Deluxe and Extra tiers, an additional monthly refresh will occur in the middle of each month. The number of games refreshed will vary per month. Players who have previously purchased digital versions of select games from the PS1 and PSP libraries (i.e. on PS3, PSP, or Vita) will not have to make a separate purchase or sign up to PlayStation Plus to play these titles on PS4 or PS5. When these titles are released for PS4 and PS5, players can head to the PlayStation Store and download a version for the consoles at no extra cost if they already own the digital version of the title. In addition, some of these titles will also be available for individual purchase. For select PS1 and PSP titles, a new user interface has been integrated, with menus which will allow you to save your game at any time, or even rewind the game if you want a do-over. For the time-limited game trials included in the Premium tier, you can play most of the included titles for two hours - the playtime counter will only count while you are in the game. Any trophies and game save date from the trial will carry forward if you choose to purchase the game. Game catalogs at launch: Included in the below spoiler tag are a selection of PS4 and PS5 titles which will be available at launch to players at the Extra and Premium/Deluxe tiers. Note: titles with an asterisk * are to be included as part of Ubisoft+ Classics, another benefit announced today for players at the Extra and Premium/Deluxe tiers. Included in the below spoiler tag are a selection of PS1, PS2 and PSP titles included in the catalog of classic games available at launch for those at the Premium/Deluxe tier, as well as the catalog of remasters which have been grouped with these titles. Included in the below spoiler tag is a catalog of some of the PS3 games available via streaming at launch to those at the Premium tier. Included in the below spoiler tag is the catalog of time-limited game trials available at launch to those at the Premium tier. Included in the below spoiler tag is the catalog of Ubisoft+ Classics which will be available at launch for those at the Extra and Premium/Deluxe tiers. Note: I've copied this list directly from Ubisoft's press release, so there will likely be some overlap with previous lists. Sources: UPDATE: All-new PlayStation Plus launches in June with 700+ games and more value than ever (PS Blog - 29th March 2022), All-new PlayStation Plus game lineup: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Demon’s Souls, Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut, NBA 2K22, and more join the service (PS Blog - 16th May 2022), Ubisoft+ Coming to PlayStation (Ubisoft News - 16th May 2022).

Princess Mononoke >>>>>

Greetings all; I have opened this thread so we have one set location to talk almost all things Disney, whether it be the films (live-action, animated or Pixar), theme parks and attractions, business, general appreciation or just about anything else that might come under this banner (Star Wars and Marvel have their own threads already, which is why I've specified Pixar films in particular here). My main reason for opening this thread right now is because A LOT of Disney-related news is dropping this weekend during the D23 Expo over in Anaheim, and with plenty more news and films to come in the coming months and years, I figured that it would save a lot of searching for threads to have this all discussed in one place. I have hidden the previous Disney•Pixar thread accordingly. Note: I'll be sure to update this post later to be more thread-introduction-friendly

This might get moved at some point when consoles are announced, but for now: Great website FAQs, too:

Just got the first couple of hours tonight and am creeping up to the inciting incident – taking much, much longer than both Suikoden and Suikoden II to get there, but we're certainly getting there. So, anyways, to cover the obvious: the game looks gorgeous. New areas/dungeons also get a bit of a feature, reminding me a bit of some of the special art we'd get to see entering a new spot in some of the older Pokémon games: With that out of the way, I'm enjoying it so far. Having first played and written at length about Suikoden and Suikoden II on here back in 2021 for the Gaming Diary thread, and coming away from those games a very big fan of them, I'll admit, I'm going into this game with very high expectations, and so far I'd say - time taken to get to the *actual* inciting incident aside - it's meeting those expectations. My biggest hope is that once it's done and dusted, I'd like for it to fall somewhere between the two. So it looks gorgeous (it's worth repeating, I mean just look at it!), the addition of voice work is a welcome one in a game with this much dialogue, there are little tweaks which aren't at all going over my head like having access to the inventory as a whole during battle rather than needing to assign items to individual party members that only they can access during battle, your protag has an actual voice and isn't just a blank slate which I'm a big fan of, there's a lot of silliness to go around, I'm not the biggest fan of 2.5D and HD-2D games because they can feel a bit floaty but this feels great to move around in, and heck, there's even a wonderful world map to look at and a handy list of objectives with some super clean UI to boot: Also worth highlighting is the wonderful character art you get to see when a new character joins your party, such as with Mio here: Combat is just as snappy as it was during my time with Suikoden and Suikoden II, and works in a very similar way, but there are some very welcome additions which seems like they'll keep things fresh, namely in the form of special boss gimmicks, seeing the full order of a round of combat adding another layer to your strategy, and something I'm still figuring out where you can use one character to defend another who is nearly downed. The way SP charges work and function for Rune-Lens use by filling up with a charge as they go a round of battle unused should add a nice element of risk-reward. The Rune Attacks of Suikoden return rebranded as Rune-Lens attacks, while the Unite Attacks return rebranded as Hero Combos, and they both look suitably awesome: Sword Rain is 100% the coolest move available from the start of the game. But Friendship Combo looks great too! As for nitpicks at this early stage, I've seen the loading screen in brief flashes a lot more than I honestly expected to when joining and leaving battles (maybe it'll get patched, who knows?), but there is an upside - and that's a lovely Suikoden carryover in the form of the protag running while things load up! It's the simple things connecting the two which are really making me smile this goes the other way too, though, such as Dux Aldric looking like an older Luca Blight with a bit of facial hair... ...and of course there's Cassandra, the innkeeper with a portrait (almost certainly meaning she's recruitable and will be managing the inn when we get a base) being a huge step down from Leona from Suikoden II Anyways, final little nitpick: 'Enter' being the text that shows up to enter and exit a building, so I've just been viewing it as entering the outdoors but it feels WEIRD... The music so far is also just...kind of fine, so far? We'll see how it turns out but I won't lie, that's where my expectations were probably lowest going into this game, given the crazy quality of the first two Suikoden OSTs. Anyways, not wanting to go out on a low but instead on a high, one last thing I want to though: the geopolitics of a fictional JRPG world, as was front and centre in Suikoden and Suikoden II, just feels great. Even after Final Fantasy XVI built a great world and political intrigue, the first two Suikoden games are the absolute height of this for me in JRPGs, and I already feel the tension creeping up over the smallest of things, just with how certain characters say ambiguous things, carry themselves, or correct people in a petty way. It hasn't quite made up for the lack of an inciting incident in the first 30 minutes, but I'm sure it could do by the time credits roll around. Been in a proper gaming rut of late, so I can't help but feel this has arrived at the perfect time – super excited to get back to it already!

Ooooo! I watched the Digital Foundry interview about this with the fine developer folk over at Redemption Road last month and they seem a lovely and earnest bunch, well worth a watch Looks like it'll be a brilliant time hope it comes to console at some point! Think they've mentioned Xbox before but hopefully it comes to other platforms too

While I agree that Indie World Showcases are the biggest shows consistently released specifically for indie titles, they're often lucky to break the 1 million views mark. They're nowhere near big enough to actually expand the audience for Silksong. Even in lieu of a Direct proper, for something like Silksong, I could see Nintendo coming up with any excuse to have a Partner Showcase and feature the title – I just think it would be going backwards to go from the first game shadow dropping during Nintendo's E3 Direct to an April Indie World Showcase that draws a fraction of the crowd. Heck, I'm sure that Nintendo not turning up with a Direct proper in 2022 is a big reason why it turned up at the Xbox Games Showcase instead. But, for the reasons I said above, I don't think an Xbox Games Showcase would be suitable for this game to shadow drop - they pull in a pretty niche slice of the gaming crowd, all things considered (and the thing being considered is that it's mostly Xbox fans, the smallest traditional platform to release on currently). Summer Game Fest would be absolutely suitable for this and draws in crowds from every platform, it would probably be the best event in terms of sheer eyes-on volume for this to drop during. But, checking the release schedule, I reckon that if we get a shadow drop or release date within the next month for Silksong, it'll be because of Shadow of the Erdtree launching 21st June. If Silksong is complete and ready to go, as the recent ratings would seem to suggest, I can easily imagine a scenario where they were waiting to shadow drop it at Xbox or SGF, learned of the Shadow of the Erdtree release date, and spotted that mid-April is pretty open by comparison. I think, at least in the diehard gaming crowd which has been fawning over Silksong updates for ages now, the overlap with the From crowd is pretty huge, and a lot of Hollow Knight's success overall is down to smart release timing and plenty of word of mouth to spread the word about the game. That'd be my guess anyways. Not saying it wouldn't be smart to drop tomorrow, there are just objectively bigger events coming up, and Shadow of the Erdtree is the only genuine reason I can think of wanting to avoid a mid-June release and deciding to just drop on a random Wednesday in April instead.

Stream with the latest updates dropping next Monday (22nd April) at 23:00 BST. UK inclusion confirmed?!?!?!?!?! Is this game the ultimate British Empire power fantasy?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Will there be tea and colonies?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Will the Queen somehow return?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! (okay but seriously a joke in this game about the difference between the United Kingdom vs Great Britain would be great)

Okay so this one didn't leak: the long talked about Project Re:Fantasy from Studio Zero! Atlus loves Xbox now? Or their money, at least

The years are flying by because I 1000% thought that we'd had a Mina update and new footage more recently than Silksong, but nope, latest stuff I can find is still Q1 2022 for Mina (mostly stuff shortly after that Yacht Club presentation with the game's KS announcement) and June 2022 for Silksong during the Xbox Games Showcase. Some serious mind fudgery going on here. Let's get updates on both! Okay maybe that's a bit much to ask for but eh, why not It definitely feels that way for me, I feel like a Direct would make the most sense for a shadow drop if it were going to happen, absolutely got the most eyes on them during those. Indie Showcases do middling numbers by comparison. There's no chance in hell in my mind that it drops during an Xbox event (even with Game Pass deals and the like) simply because of how poorly it would get communicated that it was dropping on everything. I mean Xbox buy a couple of days of Atlus saying their games are coming to Xbox only in their trailers, for pity's sake! Wdym, we get so many fantasy farming sim indies shadow drop all of the time, there's no way Silksong is bigger than those

A whole bunch of games leaving the service this month, 25 in total: Bunch of FF mainline titles bowing out, guess it makes sense as I suppose they wanted that impact up to and shortly after Rebirth, but still: that's one heck of a cull.

What have we here? In what feels like a rare event these days, the reverse is suitably gorgeous too – look at all that character art! Very excited for this going to start the install now, and I'll be back with some impressions later/tomorrow!

Yup, a solid night in the end, nice to see a big win. Been a disastrous couple of seasons since Ted and co. took over, but hopefully we can finish the season strong and kick on. This team needs some more experienced players around, though, as seen from the spot kick shoving around that went on; it's simply not acceptable. This is what happens when you spend big on a bunch of kids though, I guess, it was good to see Gallagher stepping in but well, there needs to be more to it Actually heard a bit of Dele Alli's punditry on it around them not showing up to be fighting for the pen late on against United but wanting to nab it off the now joint scorer in the league this season when we're already 4-0 up, it's embarrassing. But enough of that, crazy stats time: Palmer is the first to score in 7 (!) successive games at the Bridge, and has scored more goals this season for us in the Prem (20) than Havertz did in three combined (19). If he continues to kick on this then I'll consider City's De Bruyne debt paid off by karma

Yeah, I still find it hilarious that Bayern thought that they wanted and needed Pep so bad - just six months after making it to the UCL final - that they effectively forced out a legend like Heynckes, whose team in 12/13 then went on to break multiple records and won an unprecedented treble. The ultimate middle finger from Jupp because Pep then not being able to win the UCL with that team is probably the only real stain on his CV, I love it Eh, Tenet has massive issues and is pretentious as hell, but up until that point Nolan's films pretty much all bang. I love the Dark Knight trilogy but so many of his "smaller" films I'd argue are a much better showcase of his talents, like Memento or The Prestige. Funnier yet, though - with @Hero-of-Time not rating Nolan in particular - I think Nolan is to modern film what Kojima has been for games and have for a long time - how they tackle their auteurship is kind of freakily similar, they both absolutely need focus and to be reined in - and the critical response to Death Stranding reminds me a lot of the response to Tenet Edit - didn't see your post before mine @Happenstance so a quick edit, but yeah Nolan's sound mixing sucks ass, idk how but it's got worse over the years