Julius

Which cameo do you feel it spoiled? I'm pretty sure most of the characters in the trailer had been officially announced recently...and probably aren't cameos, but more fully fledged or supporting roles. As for showing off the story... I think WB have long been in a very weird position with this film, from the originally slated 2018 Flash film to now, there have been dozens of writers attached to the project. There's the whole Ezra Miller controversy. And instead of being a solo outing, it's adapting Flashpoint, probably the best known Flash arc, to soft reset the DCEU and lead into the new DCU alongside the new Aquaman movie and close up shop on the mess of the last 10 years of DCEU projects. Way I see it, they're in the final stretch of a school project but have no idea how to conclude yet want desperately for it to be over...so naturally the conclusion is to just throw the kitchen sink at us with the trailer I'm more surprised that the film is even seeing a release if I'm honest, yes it's a $200M+ film but given the mess of its production and surrounding controversies, and the fact that the HBO Max Batgirl movie (with a reported $90M budget) got cancelled kind of compounds my surprise that this has somehow stayed above water all these years. Reports also say it's tested well with audiences, but that means almost nothing these days

New trailer for GOTG Vol. 3:

Hnnnnnnnng when that Elfman Batman theme kicks in

Great breakdown of the most recent trailer by Zeltik: Didn't clock the three-headed dragon or green goop at all!

Hemwick Charnel Lane kind of sucks, and the Witches of Hemwick boss fight really sucks. That might be one of the weakest boss fights in a From game that I've played, right down there with Pinwheel? That's all, think I'll leave it there for today I went up and down the tower I mentioned before and came to a locked door at the top (with some cagey platforming to get to the bottom!), and similarly, it turns out the door I was trying to open by BSB is just straight up not accessible from that side. Mentally noted those for later before I went to the left of the Grand Cathedral and did the Hemwick stuff. That means my next port of call tomorrow will be whatever's to the right of the Grand Cathedral!

Spent a few more hours with the game just, and I'll probably get back to it later, just got a few errands to run (woo). Started off by climbing on up to and opening the Oedon Chapel, meeting some creepy-looking but seemingly kind-souled dude who wants me to send people there if they're looking for a place to stay. Prepping mentally for a classic From betrayal at some point but sure, I'll send people over. Walked around a bit, got to the elevated area overlooking the bridge where I faced the Cleric Beast, wandered around some more and found a sealed gate with a huge cathedral behind it – I'm guessing that's unlocked by the item costing 10,000 Blood Echoes in the Hunter's Dream. Whatever, can't afford it right now, mentally noted it and went another way and started a rather elaborate descent through Old Yharnham which saw some dude threaten me and then try to gun me down, probably the closest thing I've experienced to a cinematic setpiece in one of these games so far? Bunch of beasts about, always fun, guys scaring the crap out of me jumping through and breaking doors, wooden boards, etc. Not a fun time. Nice to be playing a From Soft game where I'm fast enough to attack and use a torch, though, whereas in Dark Souls it feels like I'm putting my entire guard down when I swap a shield out for a torch (speaking of, did find a wooden shield...which I found very amusing ). Anyways, eventually got to the bottom of the area and came to what obviously looked like a boss arena, a huge cathedral-looking thing. I spotted what I thought was a spectre by the staircase on my way down, so I ran over and activated it before the text popped up (couldn't see anyone around so was curious how they died)...and accidentally summoned Alfred, some dude I met a little while back. Okay, definitely a boss arena then, and kind of sucks that I accidentally summoned someone before I knew what was going on, but whatever I'm not one of those that thinks summoning is wrong in these games (I love the challenge of bosses solo, sure, but it's nice to have the option for particularly challenging bosses – I'm sure I would've used Solaire against O&S in Dark Souls if I'd done what I needed to for him to turn up!), I think I'm more irked at myself that I activated it before I knew what was going on! Anyways, approached the doorway, could see some sort of beast chilling in the back, so walked in with my new buddy Alf and we had a whole back and forth for 5 minutes with the thing before the Blood-starved Beast was down. Feel a little robbed that I accidentally invited Alfred along with me to the fight (I continued because I figured I'd die and could just use this attempt to scope the fight out to take it on solo, as I unlocked a bunch of shortcuts that I'd never get to use now!), but whatever, the guy died when it had about a third of its health left and I regretted it a little less when I saw how much it was poisoning me – thankfully, the area leading up to this was filled with Antidote-giving enemies, and so they were already in my Quick Items ready to be used (also nice to be able to have Quick Items and be able to heal separate to that!). I found and tested a Beast Blood Pellet not long before this fight and it seemed helpful, so had that in my Quick Menu, as well as the Fire Paper that Alfred gave me earlier, and both came in very handy during the fight. As someone who hasn't used stat-boosting items specifically for fights in other From games before this (lack of them being around and just not knowing what to do with them), I'm really enjoying how they're pretty plentiful on Bloodborne (if you fully explore), reading the item descriptions for everything I get has been a great way to figure out what's helpful and what's not so far, and so I'm going to save them for bosses and the like moving forwards (and try to remember to use them). Oh, and finished the thing off with a visceral because, once again, completely forgot to parry until the very end, but it was a fun and cool way to finish it off! Anyways, after that, back to the Hunter's Dream, where I acquired the item I figured I needed to access the Grand Cathedral. Got back to the gate and unlocked it, ran around the area, bunch of loops and shortcuts to love, found a summon close to the Cathedral for someone called Henriett (who I don't think I've met?) which I knew meant a boss was bound to be in the area but I actively chose not to bring her along – not after the whole fiasco with Alfred. Eventually made my way to the entrance of the Grand Cathedral (after finally figuring out how to parry the guys with three-pronged wooden spears outside, man the window is super early on those dudes!), ascended, and came out to a huge room with a woman praying. Cutscene played out and, hey, wouldn't you know it, there's the boss fight! Vicar Amelia totally didn't give me flashbacks to Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood or anything threw an oil urn at her (I finally hit someone with one! I'd whiffed all my other attempts to this point) and followed up with some molotovs (if the game has taught me anything so far I think it's fire is bad for beasts, or at least that's the logic I've chosen to roll with!) before we had a bit of back and forth, I backed up a few times to heal, eventually got my Fire Paper and Beast Blood Pellet equipped and went to town. Love that Amelia has moves to make sure I don't just hide behind her legs (what I normally do after my experience with bigger enemies in other From games, probably starting with those big ass knights in Dark Souls?) and it was a bit of a pain that she had a heal, but whatever. Finished her off with a visceral too! Think I bonked her on the head or something to open that up, I'm not too sure, similar to my experience with Cleric Beast tbh and not knowing how I triggered the visceral opening...but I'll take it! Got a cool cutscene after by grabbing the item at the altar...interesting. So yeah, a solid two hours or so with the game, another two bosses down, and 0 deaths my entire session. I'm sure my luck will run out against a boss soon, but it's not something I care about retaining too much, because dying in these games is inevitable; love how much I didn't care when I died during my first session getting swamped by dudes or when trying to learn parry windows, such a stark contrast to my days with Demon's Souls a couple of years ago. Really feel like Artorias of the Abyss was a decent warm-up for this game, if only to contrast how slow Dark Souls is compared to Bloodborne! Only allowing myself to hit Gwyn with parry and ripostes to see credits again definitely came in handy. Not really sure where I'm going to head next. There's an area to the left of the Grand Cathedral, an area to the right of the Grand Cathedral, there's that door I didn't go back to at the bottom of Old Yharnham near the Blood-starved Beast, and there was a tower and a short bridge I decided against climbing to explore other parts of Cathedral Ward. Curious to see which direction I'll choose! Oh, and also – there's 1000% something weird going on in this game. I'm not quite sure what, but reading the Chalice I got after beating BSB and learning about the existence of Pthumerians (what a Lovecraftian name that is! And Byrgenwerth), and then that time some portal or something turned up by Cathedral Ward when I grabbed that dead guy's top hat... ...or how about the fact that these statue dudes have very alien-looking heads on the staircase leading up Vicar Amelia? Curious. Love it. Also have no idea what Insight is/does, but seeing that there's a way to increase it with items (Mad Man's Knowledge)...there's definitely something going on that it links into design-wise or mechanic-wise, I just don't know what and I love not knowing what, but based on the mentions of Pthumerians in some loading screens (also - finally a From game which loads slowly enough for me to read item descriptions!) being some superhuman being (or something to that effect)...this is 100% rhetorical, but in my head I'm questioning: are we doing some Eldritch horror stuff or something? Because I both love and hate that stuff, it creeps the hell out of me, I thought I was just signing up for werewolves and other Gothic horror crap think I also saw some tentacle-bearded kind of dude with a crow out of reach in Cathedral Ward too... Anywho, some more pics because I didn't know where to put these, but just...vibes. urgh. I love it. Lastly! Got to shout out just how overtly heavy on lore this game has been so far, from actual notes in the game filling in blanks, to cutscenes giving context, it's a lot more direct with giving you an idea about the different characters and factions that have been at play in this world and I'm all for it. I'm loving it so far, long may that feeling continue Would love to! Any suggestions on what I could use outside Twitter? I don't beat the bosses fast enough to keep it within the 2 mins 20 secs or whatever that's the limit for non-paying accounts

Introducing: Big Boy Bokoblin™ (idk if we saw it in one of the trailers but this is nice look and art if we haven't) Giving me rancor vibes. I love it

Per the Japanese site, it seems like each new wave from here on will include a returning character:

Stream next week for the grand opening:

It's that time of the year where Star Wars takes over Empire:

Oh yeah don't get me wrong, I'd totally be for it, and like you say, I think the vast majority would be too. I think it would be a great and very natural way to shake things up with us returning to a Hyrule we already know – I've said it before, but playing as Zelda and maybe having a skill tree for her magic, helping rebuild (well, hard to say after this latest trailer...seems like we're kind of heading towards a post-post-apocalypse kind of deal ), and having her journey be the main focus at ground level, with Link's focus in the skies and underground, would be the smartest way I think to make Hyrule feel fresh: by changing the eyes we experience it through. I guess it's the very vocal minority I was talking about, because they're the same folks that had issues when it happened in other games previously (can't exactly name them even all these years removed because I wouldn't want to spoil them!) So I think it looks like a nice CE, but it's pretty crazy to me just how much of a step down it is compared to the CE for Breath of the Wild (and even then, over here didn't we get a totally borked CE for BOTW anyways?). There seems to be a lot of that these days, unfortunately. I was looking at the Deluxe Edition for Jedi: Survivor the other day and other than having what I think is a much cleaner aesthetic to its case, the only differences for £20 are...some in-game skins? Compare that to Fallen Order which came with behind-the-scenes content, which I was totally in for, and it's another big step down. Kind of tempted by the Deluxe Edition for Final Fantasy XVI though, I won't lie. That black box with the silver Phoenix and Ifrit looks clean as hell!

Collector's Edition back in stock at GAME: @Ronnie EDIT: in case that Twitter link is as broken for me as it is everyone else: https://www.game.co.uk/en/m/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-collectors-edition-2732228

Would be neat if this were a tease for playable Zelda... (also Jon's response ) I'm leaning towards the side that they're hiding something about TOTK, and something like playable Zelda would make a lot of sense to keep hidden away until launch. That'd be a mic drop moment for sure. I also think if we do get a playable Zelda that they're absolutely setting themselves up for a hell of a lot of backlash unfortunately, as it wouldn't be the first time people got upset over playing as someone not in the marketing for a game

To quote the Chosen One himself: Oh absolutely, don't get me wrong, I love a lot of the side content in Ragnarök, especially the challenging stuff, and even more so as someone who didn't touch much of the side content in GoW 2018! I haven't really spoken to my experience with the game yet (I'm sure I will at some point), but the fact that there were moments where I doubted - even if only for moments - that Elden Ring was my GOTY last year is a testament to how fantastic that game turned out. There's just a lot about it to me, at times, that remind me of The Last of Us Part II, which I think also suffers from scope creep, bloat, and pacing problems, and I feel like the three are kind of a vicious cycle to get caught in and hard to escape from. Things like the wider open areas, the story pacing (I won't get into it too much as you're still playing the game, but I remember voicing some concern over the potential pacing of this game after it was announced that it would bring to an end out Nordic journey rather than being a trilogy, and think it was somewhat earned), it's just not as lean and as purposeful, I guess, as it's predecessor. Which is how I felt with The Last of Us Part II, kind of one of the reasons I haven't picked up Forbidden West yet, and a big part of why I'm a little cautious going into Survivor. Don't think it will make the game bad by any means if it does have some bloat, it's just something I'm noticing in a lot of sequels these days, and I'm not a huge fan of that direction

Oof, that's got to be the worst - and probably the only bad - take I've ever seen from Linneman. I don't think he's put a foot wrong in terms of content creation or social media presence for DF before, so that seems like a huge swing and a miss for me. I get the general sentiment that it's not for him and he sounds more than a bit wound up over having to cover it for his job - Harry Potter isn't for me either, totally get it - but play what you want to play and enjoy what you want to enjoy, I don't think throwing out a bit of a hysterical take publicly slamming the IP (and, by the standards of what you could slam Harry Potter for, it's for pretty petty reasons all things considered) and an entire design ethos in open worlds helps anyone. It comes across as slamming the people that do enjoy this - either the game, or IP, or both - which is never a good look. Sounds like something he should have aired out with his bosses, not the internet. If he did tweet that, it's incredibly unprofessional from one of the best technically-focused minds in gaming journalism who is normally anything but.

Yeah, the only animation that bothered me in Fallen Order was his run, and maybe "bothered" is too harsh a way to put it...but it would send me howling every time I was running away from a fight The other day I was thinking about how it feels like it's been so long since Fallen Order released, and...it will have released just 3 ½ years ago by the time this comes out. Nice to know the COVID era is still warping my perception of time! I'm a big fan of sequels being more fit for purpose these days and just reusing assets as and where possible: if I want a sequel, it's normally a sign that I want more of the same! Sure, there are some that have taken a little while even when trying to do this (Ragnarök and Tears of the Kingdom come to mind), but then again, the examples that come to mind are GOTY contenders whereas I don't feel like Survivor is under such an obligation. Something I've noticed lately with video game sequels is an increasing sense of scope creep and bloat (I loved Ragnarök, but it's one that comes to mind despite me loving it!), so I do hope Survivor finds a way to keep itself somewhat lean in the face of that seemingly becoming a trend. I replayed Fallen Order last year on a lower difficulty and just following the crit path after finally completing what I needed to get the Platinum, and the game and story just flows so, so, so much better without looking around for things to collect. With wider open areas in some of the footage we've seen I am a little nervous that it'll be more of the same here for those drawn to the completionist mentality (which I feel is most of us!), so I might immediately dive back in after completing it this time on a lower difficulty and just sprint through the story to solidify it in my mind and focus on it a little more than the video game aspects of it all. I will always be happy when prequel/Clone Wars era stuff pops up so I'm a happy chap

Also @Ronnie and anyone else looking out for the Collector's Edition, it looks like Amazon UK have just added their page for it here, though it's not available for purchase just yet. It does have a Spanish main image, mind you...but it's also the only such listing on Amazon UK atm. Worth keeping an eye on for sure, because if that is the page they'll be using, got to imagine it'll be on sale in the next few days, if not today

Don't think this has been mentioned in this thread yet, but Tears of the Kingdom will have the largest file size of any first party Nintendo Switch game to date, at 18.2 GB. Still think it's pretty incredible just how much Nintendo optimise their games and squeeze the file size down, can't begin to imagine the unholy 60 GB mess this game would be if made by someone like Ubisoft Also, I wonder if this is part of the reason for the price increase to $70 over in the US? We've had games larger than 16 GB before on the Switch, sure, but as Nintendo's first game over that size, maybe having to mass produce larger cards on a scale no-one has really had to for the Switch so far could be part of the reason for the price increase? Especially considering that they've already stated that this isn't a sign of things to come – so could be down to something like file size/card capacity?

Almost two years to the day I last bumped this thread and well... ...and have actually started tackling Bloodborne. And it. IS. AWESOME. Been having a weird time these past few weeks, a bunch of ups and downs, but rather than do what I typically do in such a time - play FIFA or GT7 mindlessly - I wanted something which could be all-consuming in the way it grabs me, and obviously a From Software game would fit that billing perfectly. And, well, Bloodborne seemed to be the one calling to me most - just a massive shake-up in terms of appearance after I've played three dark fantasy From titles (Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and Elden Ring) and a new type of combat to learn. Anyways, from the top - the character creator in this game kind of blows took me a good 40 minutes or so to come up with something I'd be okay spending more than 5 minutes at a time with! The opening to this game is very ambiguous, and very attention-grabbing as a result. Sprinted by the wolf beast guy chilling out in the other room where I woke up after realising I didn't have a weapon to hand, sprinted through to th lamp, and went to the Hunter's Dream. Grabbed the Saw Cleaver and Blunderbuss - because those are the cool looking weapons on the cover, right? - and then returned to Central Yharnam. I've seen clips here and there of Bloodborne over the years, and my main takeaways were how much faster it looked compared to Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, as well as the parry/visceral system, which I thought was fascinating and looked anime as hell. So, naturally, first guy I actually fight in the game I get a shot parry/visceral off on Also did the same the first time I faced this horizontally challenged fella: The shot parry and visceral feel SO DAMN GOOD! Give me monkey lizard brain all that dopamine please love how aggressive this game invites you to play, losing health but being able to gain some of it back just slicing and dicing dudes with a vengeance has clicked really quickly for me (thankfully!), I love the speed of fights, the dodging...I'm a bit over two hours in so far, but if this is any sign of things to come, I think this is going to have my favourite combat in any From Soft game I've played. Sorry Elden Ring I died a couple of times in this area to the bunch of dudes walking the streets, so in the end adopted the age-old approach I first adopted in these games at New Londo at sprinted through after taking out my fair share of the guys here, and haven't died since. Basically felt like I was constantly circling downwards, found some cool Hunter attire which I've since donned down in the sewers, came out to a bridge at a point but then just kept going down, ended up surrounded by gravestones after not diving deeper into the sewers (was starting to get hit hard!)...and felt like I'd gone maybe a bit too far down and like the bridge was probably the true way forwards, so headed back on up and crossed the bridge where I faced the Cleric Beast. For whatever reason the fight didn't click for me until about halfway through when I realised I could tank a few of his sweeping attacks, and so long as I didn't grabbed (which I did once, and it almost killed me getting bounced off the ground!), I could tank these hits while I was dealing damage and just get a bunch of health back; so long as I kept an eye on it, things would be alright. Tried to shot parry but it never paid off, unfortunately, but did get a visceral after bonking the hairy guy on the head at one point left him reeling! And the fight ended pretty shortly after that After that, with the door behind the beast locked, I wasn't too sure where to go, so just decided to risk it and go deeper and deeper into the sewers after a bit of levelling up, and thankfully this paid off with working my way around a bridge some guys were playing catch on...with a huge flaming boulder? took care of the remaining folks and headed up to another boss fight, against Father Gascoigne. This one got hairy at points, especially seeing as he kept hitting me through gravestones while I kept getting stuck trying dodge around them, and similar to my fight against the Cleric Beast, it didn't really click until the end of his second (awesome) phase that I should probably have been trying to shot parry/visceral the whole time! D'oh! Finished him off with two consecutive parry/viscerals once I remembered those were a thing! Anyways, Gascoigne was taken care of first try too, and that capped off my first Bloodborne session. Picked up the Saw Spear to try out tomorrow - looks like it scales with Skill, and I think that's the direction I might go in if I'm right in thinking that that stat's responsible for my visceral attack damage? Besides the combat being awesome, the exploration so far feels like Dark Souls on crack, in large part thanks to how vertically designed this part of the game has been: ladders galore, hidden elevators, and plenty of shortcuts looping around to! Combine that with the awesomely exhilarating combat, and well, the game's sound and visual design... ...and, while only two hours in, yeah, I can sense that this game is going to be very special - even by From's own stupidly high standards. Shame about the framerate though, definitely been a couple of times where it's noticeably nosedived, including during the boss fights I've encountered so far. It's actually the first From game I'm playing targeting anything but 60 fps, so I'm pleasantly surprised by how quickly it all clicked despite that! Really wish I could tell Gehrman to cool it, though... Anyways, that's it for now! Don't think I'll go crazy in-depth in here during my playthrough, but I'll be back for boss fight thoughts for sure, as well as anything interesting otherwise Oh, and to update my Death Tally vs Bosses counter! It's something I toyed with in my notebook while I played Elden Ring and is really fun to look back on, so figure I'll slip it in here to give you an idea of just how bad and good I can be at video games ...really feel like I'm jinxing that third boss fight, huh?

Right, while I still want to catch up on last year's diary in some form or another, figured it was a good idea to start off with what's fresh in my mind and kick off my 2023 diary. But before I dive into that - while probably a month or so late to ask! - does anyone else have any 2023 gaming resolutions? I think I've narrowed mine down to three core resolutions. 1. To buy fewer games at launch by being more purposeful with my purchases. I have a stupidly long backlog of games, an ungodly number of them taking up space on my shelves, and barely enough time to truly make a dent in those...and the pile of games in my backlog continues to grow when I pick up games at launch that I have every intent to play, but ultimately end up steering away from, for one reason or another. There's an edge of guilt to some of these purchases as a result, but perhaps worse than that, it's probably one of the few corners of my spending where I would stand to save quite a bit if I was either more patient about picking these games up or avoided picking them up for the sake of doing so altogether. So, my general rule of thumb for buying at launch in 2023 is that if I buy a game at launch, I am committing to playing that game next. 2. To make a reasonable dent in my backlog. I spent about an hour a few weeks ago going through all of the physical games on my shelf I have yet to start (or, in one or two cases, complete), and not wanting to plan my own demise by committing to getting through 50+ games on my shelf this year, my aim is going to be to put as much of a dent as I can in what I am considering my "priority backlog" - 26 games I want to get through most this year, which on average would mean completing a game every other week if I did get through all of them (...if I started in Jan, starting in Feb kind of mucks the numbers up a bit, but you get the idea). Now, to be very clear for my future self here: the aim is not to get through all 26 of these games in 2023, nor does it mean I can't pick up new games I desire enough to play at launch (as outlined above) or that I can't play other games I own physically if I'm in the mood for them (feel like this could apply to sequels of games in the list in particular), and this is only a collection of physical games - there are no doubt games I own digitally that I'll want to check out at some point this year too; no, the aim is simply to come back to this "priority backlog" and put as much of a dent in it as I can. To help visualise this - and potential spoilers for what I plan to play this year, in a way? - here are the 26 games I have in my priority backlog: 3. To post in the Gaming Diary thread more frequently. Look, I love writing about and talking about games, and while last year was a bit of a wild one for me personally where I needed to take a break, my aim this year is to provide frequent updates in this thread about what I've been playing. How frequent? No clue! And no doubt there'll be asymmetrical gaps between posts depending on game length, what I'm busy with in my personal life (or not, in some cases - I'm actually going on holiday this year!), and I'm sure plenty of other unknowns too, but this is my aim. This is a place I love to post, and games are a passion and interest of mine, so I'm going to try my damned best to stick at it. Thinking back to earlier posts I've made in previous threads and I think I set a high bar for myself with some of my favourite write-ups (namely Chrono Trigger, Metal Gear Solid 2, Suikoden, and Suikoden II), and I think I somehow internalised some pressure over this and felt a need to take excessive notes when playing, planning to write War and Peace for every game I played, when sometimes the flow to my writing isn't there, or sometimes there simply isn't that much to say, which resulted in procrastinating, which meant burdening myself with totally unnecessary stress and in a lot of cases just not posting in here - in recognising that it's okay to not write my magnum opus each time, while I'm sure there'll be a handful of games this year I truly want to dive deep into when talking about them in this thread, I'm also not going to hold myself to any real standard other than being honest and purposeful with what I have to say about the games I play this year. And now, with that all out of the way - and hopefully inviting some people to talk about their own 2023 gaming resolutions, or come up with ones to commit to if they haven't already! - it's time to dive into talking about the first game I completed in 2023. Dark Souls: Artorias of the Abyss | 2012 So, while I completed Dark Souls for the first time back in 2021 - a gruelling but awesome second dive into a modern From Software title, after playing through Demon's Souls in 2020 - I was more than done with my playthrough by the time I was ready to face off against the game's final boss and roll credits. I kept a manual save of my character - a pretty standard sword-and-board, STR/VIT-focused melee build fella - resting at Firelink Shrine prior to the final fight, with my intention to come back to complete the game's DLC as and when I pleased. Diving back in, I walked around a bit before heading over to the start of the DLC - with items I'd gathered and interactions I'd already triggered during my playthrough, thankfully, because boy is accessing this DLC anything but straightforward! - and quickly found that I was very much overlevelled and over-equipped for the DLC. What level did I think I was? Late 60s, maybe early 70s. What level was I actually? 91 that, combined with me having a Black Knight Halberd+5 to hand (a notoriously strong weapon in the game which requires a bit of RNG good fortune and is normally what you'll see in the game's fastest speedruns) meant that the DLC was, both fortunately and unfortunately, a relative breeze: I could tank pretty much any attack thrown my way, and hit back much harder. That's not to say it was easy, mind, as I died a few times to standard enemies out in the world. For those wondering how I fared with the bosses? Sanctuary Guardian I beat on my first try; the titular Artorias I beat on my fourth try; Kalameet I beat on my first try; and Manus I beat on my sixth try. Now, despite this being a relative stepdown in challenge from what I expected going in and compared with my experience of a solid chunk of the main game, Artorias of the Abyss is a fantastic piece of DLC. All four of the boss fights feel so unique when contrasted with the boss fights in the main game, and the titular Artorias is, in my opinion, the standout, with a frantic and almost savage-like moveset which sees him wailing on you again and again, flipping and leaping around you, a massive change-up from the main game considering that after going back to this game following my time with Elden Ring last year...Dark Souls is SLOW, and Artorias is anything but. His music throughout the boss fight, the way he's introduced - both hinted at in the main game but also his introductory cutscene ahead of his boss fight here - and the way the game pays off besting this legendary knight really made it a fight that's hard to forget. Further yet, exploring Oolacile, a land being swallowed by the darkness emanating from Manus below, is just brilliant. In terms of size and structure, this DLC felt like a much larger and enhanced take on the Painted World of Ariamis, in both how it is separate from the main game, but also just how much it brilliantly builds its own atmosphere and lore, as well as feeling like something of a soft reset in terms of what you should expect from this game. The level design is brilliant here, because while it's maybe not as vast, twisting and far-reaching as it is in the main game, there are plenty of shortcuts, hidden characters and experiences, and great enemy compositions to face here. My greatest bit of praise for this DLC is that I regret not playing it alongside the main game in 2021; if you haven't played Dark Souls yet - well, firstly, what are you doing?! - this DLC is must-play as far as I'm concerned, just as much as the main game itself.

A heads-up to those like myself looking out for the physical version, it looks like it's starting to crop up on sites that aren't the Nintendo Store, so keep your eyes peeled. So far I've spotted it for £42.85 at Hit (the recently rebranded Base), where I'm sure it will come down closer to the £35 RRP in the next few days, but I've gone and put my pre-order in with ShopTo, where it's only £29.85! Hard to imagine you'll be able to find it for much less than that anytime soon EDIT: also, as if we needed anymore confirmation of Metroid truly being back at the fore for Nintendo, there's now a dedicated Metroid portal on their official site!

Here we go again: a slew of new indie announcements and updates incoming. Update #1 @ 16:00 GMT - PixelJunk Scrappers Deluxe arrives later this year. Update #2 @ 16:15 - a new look at the awesome looking Animal Well. Update #3 @ 16:30 - an update on Eternights (can love on a battl– I mean, uh, bloom after the apocalypse?), coming this summer. Update #4 @ 16:45 - an update on Pacific Drive, coming later this year.

Trailer is finally up on an official channel, so I've added it to the OP. There's also an official Bandai Namco site for it with a few more details.

What better way to celebrate the sixth anniversary of the Switch and Breath of the Wild, amirite?

Went to check the UK Nintendo Store in case Prime Remastered was already up for pre-order physically, and the site has crashed from a high volume of users. Seems about right, between a delayed physical release of Metroid Prime Remastered and the Tears of the Kingdom CE