Julius

Just got back from watching TPM at the cinema and it was awesome to be back in a cinema watching Star Wars! First prequel I've seen in the cinema (finally!!). Did I nearly fall asleep during the podrace, like I always do? Damn right. The lack of music and focus during that scene on pure sound (for Ben Burtt to have his moment) combined with how boring the action going on is just, urgh, it's frustrating. And so is some of the dialogue. But the final duel/Duel of the Fates more than made up for it, as did the soundtrack - I was listening to my favourite (now defunct) podcast, Star Wars Oxygen, last night, specifically the TPM episodes, and I just love how much richness is there. Weaving the Imperial March into the end of Anakin's Theme is GENIUS, and there are so many examples of that in the prequels where John Williams is basically going back in time and setting up the archaeological finds we get with the soundtracks in the original films, just brilliant also Jabba's theme and Qui-Gon's, but of course, nothing topped that final duel musically. Also got to point out to my friends some of my favourite things about the film having watching it so many times, like Mace Windu being an extra when the council first arrive on Naboo towards the end of the film, Vader's solitary breath at the end of the credits, and Jabba the Hutt being played by 'Himself' in the credits. What I really enjoyed and went in trying to reframe the film as being is that George went into this film knowing it would be the lightest, and made it the most hopeful and childlike. Do some of the poop jokes go a bit too far with this? Sure. But I think I get the intent a bit better now, even if - like much of the rest of the film - it wasn't executed in the best way. Think I'll be rewatching all of the other films in the coming week, but for now...I think I'm going to stick with my previous rating of 6/10 for The Phantom Menace. It's so close to being a 7 for me, in all honesty, but the fact that the most boring part of the film to me is in the middle of the film is such an egregious sin and it's the closest I ever get to falling asleep in a Star Wars film EVERY. DAMN. TIME. Attack of the Clones is the weakest of the prequels for me, but I'll gladly go and watch it in cinema because, well, it's Star Wars, whenever the time comes (probably 2027 for its own 25th...URGH). Revenge of the Sith turns 20 next year and is by far the Star Wars film I most want to see in cinemas, but I'm likely waiting for the 25th anniversary in 2029 or something 50th franchise anniversary screening I'm 2027 for that? Meanwhile I guarantee The Force Awakens get re-released for its 10th (!!!!) anniversary next year, which, well, I'll go to...but come on! We then stuck around to watch the preview for The Acolyte, which was only a couple of minutes - basically just the wuxia-like fight we've seen set up in the trailers between Indara and Mae, very heavy Matrix vibes when you get Carrie-Anne Moss saying "we've got an unidentified Force user" and by the way, emphasis on the wuxia-like nature of the fight: Indara basically floats up the banisters on a staircase in a couple of steps. This was then cut with a few shots we've seen from trailers before and some new stuff as a bit of a stinger, it wasn't AMAZING but it felt awesome to get a preview for a Star Wars thing! Dialogue was CLEARLY cut during/around the fight and so they're certainly hiding something. Incredible trailer, much better than the preview we got to see following TPM imo. That "Sith"'s helmet looks awesome with the teeth! And also we can see a potentially newer model of Vector starfighter (the Jedi starfighter of choice during the era) than I think we've seen elsewhere in High Republic stuff, unless this is just how it's being adapted to live-action? I do actually wonder, with us now seeing this helmet-wearing "Sith" – assuming, based on the footage we've seen, Mae is the titular Acolyte and being tested (she tries to steal Indara's lightsaber during their fight which makes me think she's being tested to get a lightsaber to bleed the crystal? Idk) I wouldn't be surprised if this guy is the apprentice and the first season/show ends with the reveal of the master. Or, if this guy isn't for real, he'll get killed by the true Sith at the end. Really curious to see how it shakes out, just knowing any Jedi that come across an *actual* Sith can't really be allowed to survive. We also got another poster for the series, which again, looks great: Last thing, I've had a theory about a certain character for a while now, but I'll throw it in a spoiler tag just in case I'm right (which doesn't happen too often, but often enough that I know an educated guess I make about Star Wars normally isn't a million miles off)... Super excited for The Acolyte, think I might do a bit more High Republic reading before it drops

Someone has painstakingly recreated the opening to Republic Commando, and it is GLORIOUS: Love it happy Star Wars Day folks!

Trailer for Season 4 of The Boys: Can't wait

Another trailer: Here's a question for you all: with Luigi's Mansion 2 and 3 being on the Switch from the end of June, do you think Nintendo have plans for the original game? I know it came to the 3DS in its dying days, but do we think Luigi's Mansion gets a full remaster for the Switch 2, a HD remaster to fill out the standard Switch roster in the next 2/3 years during the transition to the Switch 2, or will it just be thrown on NSO as part of a potential GameCube collection? Because I've always found it a bit strange that they decided to free 2 from the shackles of the 3DS while leaving the original behind, seeing as most people I imagine (myself included) would like to start where it all began. But yeah, just curious!

Nah, I won't stand for this slander. I don't think the quality faded with the DS games, I think you just grew out of it or your relationship with the franchise shifted as you got older. Everything's subjective, blah blah blah, but let's be real here: the quality objectively crashed into a brick wall and never quite recovered with the transition from 2D to 3D with the 3DS games. Game Freak weren't well-equipped then, and the shocking thing is that in the decade since, they've only looked less experienced as the games have become more demanding.

Freaking insane that Leverkusen are 6 games away from an unbeaten season in all competitions: Besides that wave still rolling in, the Conference League has honestly been fantastic since it first started up a couple of years ago, I find - probably the only food decision UEFA have made in the last decade (also MAYBE doing away with aways goals in knockouts, though I did love the tension that added). The chaos and it bringing the atmosphere of European football to relatively smaller clubs has been fantastic to see. Stupid name, though. Basically a merger between the Europa League and Champions League in terms of initials (ECL), the Europa part of it can lead to it being buried a bit, so maybe needs a rebrand. Looking forward to next week's games!

PSA: all EIGHT of the Hollywood live-action Spider-Man films are returning to UK cinemas later this year! This follows the re-release announced a month or so back for the 100 year of Columbia Pictures over in the US. Didn't really know where this belonged but eh, it's a re-release, so general will probably do Despite not actually showing on Odeon's Twitter (currently known as X) account, it's been picked up by film fans and actually shows on the Odeon app having first screenings for most locations on the Wednesday just before the Friday listed, meaning I guess these are getting showings from Wednesday to Sunday of the week listed? Below are the release dates. I've verified this by checking the app myself so, yeah, despite no official word – it's all there! Think me and my friends are in for Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and No Way Home. I might be down for watching Spider-Man 3 in cinema, it's the worst one by a longshot but I reckon why not finish the fight and watch the whole trilogy? But yeah, anyways, there's your heads-up

Caught up on The Bad Batch S3 last weekend ahead of the finale on Wednesday, which I've also watched. Damn onion cutting assholes over at LFL Animation I swear, that ending got my eyes watering. Overall I'd say the show is the most consistent in terms of quality between it, TCW and Rebels, and I think all of its episodes are probably in the top 60% or so of animated episodes by LFL. There's nothing terrible about any of them. It's also the best looking of the bunch for me, it's insane to compare this and S1 of TCW to see how far they've come! And the music was great as always from the Kiners, too. Despite the *actual* ending scene getting me a bit choked up, I do think it falls short of the epic and emotional journeys that both TCW and Rebels took you on in their finales. Look, not everything can end with a 10/10 episode, but it did feel like they downed tools on certain ideas they'd been pushing on the audience throughout much of the show (which I won't spoil but should be very apparent if you've seen it) and it ended up being a bit of a backdoor pilot for potentially another series (or two?) set in the period between Episode III and Episode IV. To which I say...urgh, really, again? There's also a bit of an Occam's Razor (Lightsaber?) thing going on here where so many of your first and simplest instincts about what's going on are probably right, which I don't think we've had in Star Wars for a while, but makes me glad I didn't tune in weekly or I would've felt a bit letdown, honestly. Anyways, I loved The Batch, and loved Omega. Her theme is one of the greats in the GFFA. The character arcs are solid and I love how much The Batch felt now compared to when I watched them on animation rigs all those Celebrations ago. And, speaking of Celebrations...my ticket is booked for Japan 2025

"Universal Epic Universe" will never fail to make me laugh

Let me quote a message I sent to my friend about FC24 the other day – for context, I've stopped buying FIFA at launch, only get it digitally, typically pick it up at Christmas when it's 50% off or wait until it's on PS+...or skip it entirely. Really been getting excited for the Euro's this year and FIFA wasn't on sale anywhere. I sent this on Friday. So anyways, I bought it. And you see what happens? Excited for Tunic though

Excellent result for Dortmund tonight, thoroughly deserved, though them and PSG both spurned a smattering of chances; beautiful goal from Füllkrug. Fingers crossed for Dortmund next week, would love to see them make the final. Last night's game between Real and Bayern was great too, though it really just showcased how poor the quality of defending has generally become at the very top level. Hard to not feel a bit sorry for Kim with how much he got called out on what was clearly a poor night for him.

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?

First trailer for Jim Henson Idea Man: That song gets me every time

This is on sale on the PlayStation Store for the first time since launch, down to £10.71 from £15.99.

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.

Haha yeah why would anyone buy physical? (call me Ki-Adi Mundi because I'm just catching strays at this point)

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: 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*

Extreme-G and Iggy's Reckin' Balls are joining N64 NSO...today!

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: 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

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)

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!

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. 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! 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!

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! 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.

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. Direct link to question. 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.