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Posts posted by Julius
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First trailer for Jim Henson Idea Man:
That song gets me every time
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This is on sale on the PlayStation Store for the first time since launch, down to £10.71 from £15.99.
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Heads-up, Hi-Fi Rush is on sale on PlayStation for the first time in the May Savings since it's small PS+ launch discount - it's currently down to £19.60 from £29.99.
Pleasantly surprised by this, as I was a bit worried Xbox might've gone the route of avoiding putting the game on sale on other console platforms for a while.
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1 hour ago, bob said:LMAO, who buys physical media these days? What a square.
Haha yeah why would anyone buy physical?
(call me Ki-Adi Mundi because I'm just catching strays at this point)
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8 minutes ago, somme said:No, you're right. A Star Wars TV show would never work.
Welcome back @somme
Reading it back, I actually think that post holds up surprisingly well, all things considered. To be clear: I was totally wrong, I (for the most part) love Star Wars live-action shows and (generally) find them a great addition to the franchise. It's been an excellent avenue to onboard new talent into bigger and more noticeable roles.
To have it happen, though, it took a major tech breakthrough in film (The Volume/StageCraft) to make it an affordable production prospect, and the creation of an entirely new streaming service in the form of Disney+ to actually have some reasonable level of ROI. And the episode runtimes are still all over the place, and the quality of the shows is a bit all over the place, though the same goes for the films by the end of 2019, and, well, after what we've seen happen to the MCU since then...maybe this is just a feature of being owned by Disney these days? Goodness knows
Though, I will say, even with as much as I've enjoyed some of the shows? I cannot wait to sit myself back down in a packed cinema to watch a Star Wars film. There's a certain energy in that room when Star Wars flickers on that I don't think the TV shows will ever benefit from while being watched from home, and getting the chance to watch a bit of Mando S3 with a huge crowd last year at Celebration is enough for me to want to scream from the rooftops that they need to start having these shows get some limited runs at cinemas!
Anyways, just looking back through this thread, while I'm here:
On 4/18/2016 at 9:45 PM, Julius said:My ranking of Star Wars films goes:
7) Attack of the Clones
6) The Phantom Menace
5) Revenge of the Sith
But, may I add, a very, very small gap between 5 and 4...
4) Return of the Jedi
A massive gap between 4 and my joint 2nd...
2 - A New Hope (and I LOVE this film more and more every time I see it, it constantly switches with my number 2...)
2 - The Force Awakens
1) The Empire Strikes Back
In terms of ranking those seven films? Still accurate for me other than TFA dropping down the pecking order, probably 4th firmly behind the OT and on par with Revenge of the Sith maybe?
Attack of the Clones is certainly dead last of the seven listed, still, that much is for sure...
*shudder*
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Extreme-G and Iggy's Reckin' Balls are joining N64 NSO...today!
QuoteToday, two racing games originally released on the Nintendo 64" system are bringing full throttle thrills to players with a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership! Careen around rollercoaster racetracks in Extreme-G™ and bounce up, up and away in the offbeat lggy's Reckin' Balls™ game when these titles join the Nintendo 64- Nintendo Switch Online library.
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Trailer from tonight's event:
Demo dropping in June, probably an Xbox Games Showcase shadow drop? Still so funny to me how they've got their name all over this game to the extent that they have, such as having them as the only console in the title for the above trailer:
QuoteMetaphor: ReFantazio The King's Trial | Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC
Box art is a bit busy, very art school-y with how it utilises the title I feel, but idk, I kind of like it? The top part especially.
Think I'm going to need to spend this summer making sure I'm caught up on JRPGs ahead of this launching in October
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October 11th! Confirmed during the livestream:
As someone who has fallen behind on the slate of newly released RPGs already this year...
(please be a relatively quiet summer pleaseeeeee)
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Trailer for Season 7 of My Hero Academia, which kicks off 4th May (there have been new recap episodes releasing this month):
The quality of the show may falter at times but damn if I'm not just as excited to hear what Hayashi has cooked up in the soundtrack this time around!
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9 minutes ago, Glen-i said:Welp, guess Garoo will be swinging "Big and Large" for a bit longer.
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Few more scattered impressions after a bit more time with the game:
- The lack of an easily accessible quick/manual save and only being able to save at inns/dungeon save points feels a bit on the archaic side.
- The bosses so far being these 3D models vs your party's 2D sprites is great for providing a sense of scale. I mentioned before that it was pretty snappy, but the game's presentation in battles really turns it up a notch with just how well your party's attacks flow into your opponent's and back again.
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I'm not really a fan of the party info placement during battles, especially when attacks start to shoot off and you can only see the chain of events. I think a nice workaround would've been some sort of colour coding of or depleting glass-looking health pool laid over the character circles in the chain – just feels a bit unnatural to look to the right when so much of the battle info is on the left/centred. Heck, could've just stuck some green bars under those there sprites and it would be fine. I'm sure I'll adjust but it's odd in a JRPG to not be fully aware of how your party's doing during attacks
- Y'all are going to probably love Francesca.
- Mellore is going to be the marmite of these early recruits, I'm sure. I found her charming but I'm sure some will be tearing their hair out!
- Big fan of completing the requirements for a recruitable character, such as slaying a certain number of a certain type of enemy, before meeting them and then just being like "oh, you've done that already? Nice, I'm all yours!" That's always a win in my book.
- Somehow didn't mention it before, but the sprites!! I highlighted Suikoden II specifically when I played it as having some of my favourite sprites with how many unique ones there are, and that thankfully carries on here. One of my favourites so far is from the opening 5 minutes where you see some village folk picking crops in the background, it's such a small thing but adds so much.
- So, Suikoden generally lacked the sound of footsteps when moving around, but it was often because music was blasting, and at the very least small dust clouds often followed your footsteps. Here there's a bit of a lack of connection to the world when the music gets a bit more ambient, there's no dust clouds, and no footsteps to be heard. Just seems an odd choice.
- No small jingle for a weapon upgrade - even just a single "da-dun!" - feels kind of criminal.
- As with seemingly every HD-2D styled game, the depth of field is cranked up maybe just a little bit too much at times. It's weird walking into a shop which is just a guy and a desk some 5m away from your character and him looking a bit out of focus. Unless maybe that's why so many of these early recruits have Rune of Blind Resistance equipped, because visual impairment is so common in Allraan...
- Feels like the first time in a minute I've played a new JRPG where NPCs are just talking about the mundane or silly things going on to provide a slight grin and quickly move on.
Still very much enjoying my time with it!
47 minutes ago, EEVILMURRAY said:I did get more drawn in so I did invest financially. I was thinking more of buying hundred heroes for PS5, so is it confirmed what will pass on from rising?
It's these
I did pass on Rising myself in the end purely because I didn't want it to potentially hinder my desire to play Hundred Heroes after seeing just how mixed reactions to it were getting and how a select few started to worry about HH would turn out because of it, so I'm glad to see it's got some people here who got on with it!
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2 minutes ago, Dcubed said:Looks like one of the characters you can recruit is currently bugged and it’s possible to lock yourself out of the ability to recruit them…
Fortunately someone seems to have found a workaround here.
Aye, saw this going around the other day.
Based on my time with Suikoden I can't stress enough, if you're trying to get everyone, even if you track down a guide to do so: there are 20 save slots besides your auto-save slot; use them!
3 minutes ago, Dcubed said:Also, the PS5 version is locked into running at 1080p only and the Switch version seems to run really badly currently…
Let’s hope those patches come in thick and fast.
Yeah, it looks mighty rough on Switch at the moment, and that feels like a massive understatement; definitely makes some sense why they originally had it labelled as gunning for the Switch successor until it decided to not turn up to the party. A few updates have dropped throughout the week as I've been chipping away at it, don't mind the locked 1080p at all on PS5.
Important to remember that some people who have their hands on the game might have got them a bit earlier than the devs expected, but in the case of the Switch, physical copies obviously are being saved until next month, so what we're seeing on the Switch is people who likely got the game in the last day of so via their digital Kickstarter code. Very unlikely anyone (besides maybe press?) got that code early.
Fingers crossed they've been plugging away and some of the early updates at it's official launch put the game in better shape, but man, this blows HARD for people who backed the game on Kickstarter and decided to pick up a Switch version of it in particular.
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Totally missed this: a Reddit AMA held earlier this week in r/JRPG by Rabbit & Bear Studios revealed that Murayama had started planning the game's sequel and that R&B will be moving ahead with a sequel.
Quoteu/universalbunny | What's next for Rabbit & Bear? With the unfortunate passing of Murayama-san, are plans for a potential sequel to EC up in the air (provided that the sales are well above or within expectations)?
u/EiyudenChronicleRB | Absolutely!
We are moving forward with a sequel.
It is very sad that Murayama is not with us anymore, but we have discussed many things with him.
I hope we will be able to carry on Murayama's legacy, and I always want to treasure his last work.
I hope many people will support this game.
Very happy to hear this. The original Suikoden was positioned more as a setting up of Suikoden II mechanically, technically (in terms of development), and as a story; with Eiyuden being a Kickstarter project, it's hard to imagine Murayama would've approached this much differently. A real shame that he won't be able to spearhead whatever comes next, especially after being away from this particular type of JRPG for so long, but I'm happy R&B are planning to carry his legacy forward, and from what I've read about Murayama when researching Suikoden in the past, he seemed to me like the type who would be flattered by them doing so and be happy that the team he helped put together would get a chance to continue making games together.
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DK must've slipped on a banana or something, because the opening of the Donkey Kong Country section of the park at Universal Studios Japan has been delayed to "late 2024".
QuoteDonkey Kong Country, which was previously scheduled to open in spring 2024, has been changed to late 2024.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused to those who have been waiting. We will announce the opening date and other details as soon as they are decided.As Miyamoto once totally and famously espoused:
QuoteA delayed Donkey Kong Country section of Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios™ Japan is eventually good, but a rushed Donkey Kong Country section of Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios™ Japan is forever bad.
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24 minutes ago, drahkon said:Urgh, doesn't fill me with confidence that I will enjoy the games when/if I play them...
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58 minutes ago, EEVILMURRAY said:How do you choose your party with so much choice?!
Just to add some context from Suikoden to what @Glen-i said, there were a number of times in those games where temporary members would join your party for certain story beats; I think there were times that as many as 4 slots (including the main character) were essentially determined for you, other times you might need a certain trio in your party when talking to a recruitable character to recruit them, and so on.
I'm not deep enough into Eiyuden to comment on how smoothly it's done it yet, but I'll be shocked if it doesn't use a heavy EXP multiplier like the early Suikoden games did, which made it a breeze to bring a new recruit joining you at, say, Lv 5, up to Lv 50 in just a few battles. This allowed for constant reconfiguring of your party and testing out new characters, which worked even better if you threw the new recruit in one of the back corners of your setup. This is also super important considering that mastering the game's battle mechanics is going to depend on having a setup which produces the most potential Hero Combos.
For Suikoden and Suikoden II, outside of story beat-assigned characters, I would generally stick to a main trio based on how the story evolved (typically MC and childhood/family friends), fill the party in a little with Hero Combos in mind, and then in the last slot or two throw in some of the cooler looking or heavier hitting characters. I'm planning to do the same here
Also just seen the full trophy list @Hero-of-Time, looks like it'll definitely take a bit of a grind (max out weapons for all characters). I'll be going for recruiting everyone but I think I'll pass on grinding that out
especially with how long some of the other mini-game related trophies will probably take!
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3 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:Charging top dollar for a MediEvil 2 remake is a bold move. I guess this is why they keep releasing versions of the original game on PS+ but not giving us the sequel.
Couple of years ago:
Days Gone sells millions of copies following an admittedly mixed reception at launch due to being bug-ridden, but it's certainly popular. Plans for a franchise totally scrapped. PlayStation care about Metacritic scores just as much as sales, apparently. But they're still making a TV show, mind you!
No-one:
Absolutely no-one:
PlayStation:
SO ANYWAYS I STARTED REMAKING EVERYTHING NICHE AND/OR UNPOPULAR AND/OR NOT-SO-GREATLY RECEIVED. YOU GOT YOUR GRAVITY RUSHING TWICE REMAKE, CREEPY HORROR HOUSE WITH WEIRD FACES KINDA FIXED REMAKE, AND MEDIEVALEVIL SKELETOR REMAKE. THAT'LL BE 70 SQUIDDEMS TA AND HUZZAH.
I simply don't understand what they're doing these days. It's actually incomprehensible. This goes beyond not feeling like my own game preferences are being met as consistently last gen by PlayStation, it feels like they're actively tarnishing how everything but AAAA first-party games are received by pushing out everything and anything which can skip most of pre-production due to being remakes at lower levels of development. The same generally goes for their TV and movie plans.
Feels like they're beyond being dangerously prideful at this point. Thank goodness the PS5 is backwards compatible and that third-parties seem to be having a decent gen, I guess?
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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?)
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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
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1 hour ago, Jonnas said:Should I take this as "Better than anything else", or "Nothing is worse than this"?
I hope it's the first one, because I really like this film (rewatched it not too long ago, too).
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
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15 hours ago, EEVILMURRAY said:With all that character art on the box, does it really give you access to 100 heroes, or is it just a flashy title.
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)
1 hour ago, Dcubed said:The Suikoden series did indeed give you 108 playable characters to collect and battle with in each game; so this game is actually a downgrade by comparison
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
1 hour ago, EEVILMURRAY said:I've never played a Suikoden game 🥺
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)
1 hour ago, Glen-i said:Actually, the box says "100+", so it may not be a downgrade... I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being 108.
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
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Princess Mononoke >>>>>
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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
.png/183px-Leona_(S2_character_art).png)
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!
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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 -
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General Switch Discussion
in Nintendo Gaming
Posted · Edited by Julius
Grain of salt and all that fun stuff (or maybe not, if you're a slug), but Vandal are touting some potential knowledge they have if the Switch successor (source article):
All of this sounds a bit on the safe side to me?
• potential accessory manufacturers being able to touch the console but not actually see it in some Fear Factor-type of way is weird as hell. But this is Nintendo, so fairly believable.
• early 2025 release has been touted for a few months now, nothing new here and seems to be the expectation at this point.
• bigger than the Switch but smaller than the Steam Deck makes perfect sense. Would expect screen size to increase but Steam Deck has some thick ol' bezels and is just generally a big boi. Fairly believable.
• Joy-Cons being magnetic rather than having a rails system makes total sense, I think I'd love that so long as the magnets were protected enough they they didn't wear over the time. Funnily enough the lack of any detail when talking about the Joy-Cons relating to the drift issue makes me think this is real purely because I maintain that Nintendo ain't going to say or show anything being different when it comes to this before launch. Remains to be seen if that would actually mean not making any changes, mind you.
• current Pro Controller being forward compatible makes complete sense, it ain't cheap and other than an actual D-Pad (which I'd expected on the new Pro Controller) I don't think there'll be any major differences to it.
• Joy-Cons potentially not being forward compatible is interesting, would be a shame but makes sense with a magnetic system vs rails. Still think they could make some money here with Joy-Con jackets that have the same magnet system as the new Joy-Cons reportedly will.
Overall...magnets, amirite?