Julius

Aye, I've since seen Damn it S-E, get your crap together! I just want a DQ XII update so bad

Spent *a lot* of time this evening looking up some ideas for builds, then testing, re-testing, and painting some new ACs for NG+. Time to show off the outcome! Gawain First up is Gawain, based on what I read was a completely broken build wielding dual Zimmerman shotguns and dual Songbird missile launchers. And well, yeah: it's busted as all hell (as you'll see later on in this post), because both of those weapon types chip away chunks of the stagger gauge at a time, and both hit for plenty of damage normally, too. Combined? It's honestly obscene just how crazy this thing is. You'll see...I tuned it to my liking otherwise (as I have all these builds - spent hours replaying the trainee mission and tweaking things!), a build with a bit more heft, some more EN to stay in the air a bit longer, and a super high boost speed for snappy dodging and running around. Anyways, paint job started going a certain direction subconsciously, and I realised it's loosely based on the Wolf Ranger from Power Rangers: Wild Force! You know, one of the coolest Power Ranger designs of all time? Galahad Next up is Galahad, filling a role I'd certainly not been serving in my AC roster during NG, and that's a walking nuclear wasteland of destruction. It brings the heat, that's for sure. Lancelot For over an hour I toyed with different colour schemes for Lancelot after deciding he should be a medium build and a bit of an all-rounder: originally the plan was white and gold (based on its namesake from Code Geass), but it just never looked right, and I had a hard time deciding whether to go with a deep, dark blood red or an ocean deep dark blue to accompany the white and gold...so I settled for both, each taking up the theming for one arm, while the white I decided was better served more yellowed/bone-like to compliment the gold. The green eyes were a mainstay from the Code Geass inspiration. ...and then, 5 minutes after completing it's paint job, what did I realise had caused me to go with gold specifically around the "gems" on its lower torso? Oh gee, I wonder...totally wasn't Arceus! Oh, and here's a bonus clip of Lancelot destroying the trainee pilot with a brutal boosted kick: Tristan So, in earlier posts I talked about finding a lighter build I wanted to try out...and I wasn't a fan. Heck, it's boost speed wasn't remotely close to Tristan's, in any MK variant! So, instead of making a new build from scratch, I decided to use my Tristan MK-III (the chaingun variant) as the basis for MK-IV, focusing on a lightweight and speedy build. Plasma missiles were a carryover from before, just making sense to fire off when I need to back away and regenerate some energy/stamina before charging in with my boosters; the machine gun had to stay, too, though I decided to go with a different type to MK-I's; and then, for the melee weapon, I decided to go with the laser dagger, after seeing it be used so effectively in some boss battles towards the end of my NG run. I. Freaking. Love. This. Build! It's so fast, tight, and is everything I wanted an upgraded Tristan to be. It also got a nice paint job update, going for a lustrous palette (treating it like a second season of a show refresh, of course!) and swapping white out for silver. Super happy with how it turned out. NG+: A New Beginning After all this, I put a little bit of time into NG+...and flew through the entirety of Chapter 1 without so much as a second thought. Other than one mission where I used Tristan MK-IV to skip around quickly (to collect combat logs), I've exclusively used Gawain to see how broken my take on that build turned out, and well...yeah, it's busted. The closest I came to dying was when I simply stopped paying attention because I got cocky with how stupidly OP the build was, and that honestly just happened being targeted by massive lasers early in Chapter 1. I think getting S-Rank on these levels is going to be a breeze with Gawain. Now, NG+ doesn't make use of the tutorial boss, which messes the numbering of bosses up a little, so what I'll do is reuse the boss numbers from before to make it easy to compare the two. Spoilers: both go down without me dying once, and the second one was one of the tougher bosses for me in NG, for sure. Really curious to see how Gawain copes with some of the other bosses I struggled with after seeing how it coped with Boss #3. I'm thinking it's time for a little payback! After all this, I got called back to the Arena for some NG+ exclusive fun... Anyways, at this point, I'm going to announce my intention of going for the Plat. I absolutely adore this game and can't put it down, I've looked around a little for points on how to get to the Plat, and I've already come across an instance where new options were available in the middle of missions which seem to all cumulatively lead me down the road of two other endings, besides the one I got originally. Can't wait to see more of what this game has to offer, and how much of it Gawain can kick ass against

1..2..Wii U 2!!

Yeah, I think anywhere from September to November of next year makes sense. Personally I'd like for it to be September (because October/November is typically already so busy for new game releases)...which probably means it'll drop in November Kind of crazy to think we're probably going to see this thing in 6 months or so. Really, really curious to see if Nintendo goes for the easy wins with marketing (a clear separator from the Switch for starters) and what they have planned for launch. I hate how the UE5 demo is so obviously going to be coming from Square Enix lmao. Secretly hoping it's DQ XII (thinking back to when XI was announced for the NX, would just be a nice way to tie it all together) A lot of obvious big wins if they can make porting high(er) spec games relatively easy to this thing. GTA V Online seems ripe for it, and then all of the other third party big hitters of the last generation like Red Dead Redemption II, the Assassin's Creed RPGs, Elden Ring, the Star Wars Jedi games, and so on. Really curious to see what Square Enix's plans are going to be seeing as they seem to have a lot of deals going on with PlayStation for Final Fantasy at the moment. I like to think this is them just mulling over dedicated DX versions or offering upgrades I was actually thinking about it last night: while DX versions of games less than 6 years old with additional/complete content would kind of really suck rather than just offering upgrades to first party titles through BC and a fixed cost, if any company can get away with it, it's Nintendo. Their first-party stuff so rarely goes down in value that so long as the RRP is around the same as the original Switch versions, no-one is really going to give it too much thought from a pricing POV.

Wrapped up Chapter 5 today, which was indeed the final chapter of Armored Core VI. So, let's cover the rest of it, shall we? I'm just going to stick my thoughts on the remaining boss fights and missions in a single spoiler tag this time around, as there really wasn't much left! Yeah...suffice to say I'm not done with the game yet. There are more mechs to build and paint, and I want to see everything this game apparently has to offer (with new missions in NG+ and NG++). Not sure if I'll go for the Plat - I'll see how realistic that even is to attempt after trying to get a few more S rank mission completions under my belt - but all being well, well, I think I'll go for it. I said not too long ago that though it might not be the best game I play this year, Final Fantasy XVI will be the GOTY in my heart, because I enjoyed that game so much. We'll see what else Rubicon has to offer, but all I'm saying is... ...maybe there's room in there for two.

Next week's episode is going to be showing in select theatres in the US (I'm putting it in a spoiler tag as there's a new poster with a spoiler for this week's episode): Interesting to have a mid-season event like this, but based on this week's episode it makes perfect sense to me...

First international trailer for Ghibli's and Miyazaki's next film, The Boy and The Heron: Yep, that's a Ghibli film alright, but some of those frames are a clear step up. It gets its debut here in the UK in October as part of the BFI London Film Festival. No official confirmation on a wider UK release just yet, but the US are getting it 8th December. This would make a wonderful Christmas present, that's all I'm saying either way, I can't wait!

Pretty gargantuan update in store from playing more of this the last couple of days, I'm at the start of Chapter 5 now - which based on the story I imagine is probably the last chapter in the game? Oh, also, the definition of what is and isn't a boss fight gets super weird - I'm generally just counting as when there's a health bar and it feels important (they're typically introduced with cutscenes or at the end of a level), so yeah, just so you know, the definition of a boss in this feels very different to other From games, which I think are much more consistent about what gets the big health bar at the top or bottom of the screen. Anyways: HOLD ONTO YOUR BUTTS! 04.09.23 First up on Tuesday was V.VII Swinburne. Now, from the multiple endings other From Software games - specifically the Soulsborne stuff - I'm no stranger to having to make choices in these games, but I didn't quite expect to come across one so soon in Armored Core (more come later with choices made in which missions you take on at certain points in the game). About halfway through the battle, where you've been hired and given the task of hunting down Swinburne by an opposing force, Swinburne sees the writing on the wall, stops fighting, and offers to pay you well for letting him go: which you can either Accept or Refuse. Naturally, I didn't answer and just started backing off and shooting, which he wasn't a massive fan of, giving me a proper earful and letting me know as much! Eventually I downed him but wanted to see the other outcome and also to see if there was more unique dialogue - the first time around he commented on me sneaking up on him - so the next time around I positioned myself in front of him, and after a solid 10 seconds, he moaned at me for pretending to be one of his guys eventually I got him down to half of his health, Accepted his offer, and my original contractor then sent a tougher guy out to handle me for betraying for them. Love it. And then, From being From, I figured there must be a third option related to gunning him down after accepting his offer...and sure enough, there was, with even more unique dialogue! Such a lovely touch Anyways, next on the agenda was another boss fight... After this it was back to the Arena for Rank C programs. A couple of these took over a minute, but still a few sub-60 seconds in there Then it was onto the return of a familiar face with the next boss fight... The next boss gave me a bit more resistance, even forcing my hand into making a new build: Gaheris. I didn't use him for the fight (and haven't used him much since), but I figure I might as well show him off! From another run against the trainee I got this beautiful kill shot, where he succumbs to plasma missiles as he goes in for a laser sword slash, the slowdown resulting in this slow-mo shot of my AC dodging the sword slash and firing off what looks like a killing blow with its plasma rifle. Beautiful stuff! By far the coolest thing I've done in this game so far Anyways, back to that boss... Oh, also, it was part of the same mission being attempted so might as well show off another cool, with some absolute BM in spinning around while dodging! Then it was some missions and another boss...and I'll also show you how we drew the first time around too, so I had to do it a second itme. That darn cheat, Rusty just pick me up and take me home! Then the Arena was the place to B (heh)... Wanted to show off one of my Rank B kills, just because of the speed of it all (Tristan is life): Then another boss (I love it but man this game seriously has a lot of them! Though not all equal ) And then, from that, to one of the coolest entries and boss battles in the game, after one of the coolest openings to a mission so far... And then it was time to wrap things up on a weird and recurring enemy... 05.09.23 Started yesterday with coming up all Aces the arena finally started to offer something of a challenge here, but nothing I was stuck on for particularly long. After this, though, it was time for a mission which ended with a boss that did take me a good few attempts! Also by far the closest I've come to losing in this game while coming out on top in a one-on-one - I was left with just 3 - 3!!!!!!!! - AP at the end of this fight. Following this it was back to the Arena to face off against the cream of the crop: the S ranks. 03 and 02 definitely took me a couple of attempts to adjust to - again defaulting to Tristan for speed and to pick up on their attack patterns - but I managed to beat 01 - the top ranking AC, unless there's more to come in this playthrough or NG+/NG++? - on my very first attempt. Following this was a mission I got stuck on for a few attempts, mainly because a boss - an S Rank! - turns up halfway through the mission while getting swarmed by a bunch of other ACs, which meant I was out of ammo by the time I got to the very end of the fight and had cleared the room to face the boss one-on-one. Naturally, this meant back to the assembly line, and a new AC: Bors. The focus here was on trying a different type of laser sword - or, in this case, a lance - and trying the laser handgun (a fast enough rate of fire with enough damage to be useful, with an option to charge) and plasma missiles too. Unfortunately I struggled to get an S Rank clear against the trainee pilot because of the cost involved in my ammo, after a run I swore up and down was an S Eank, no question. Nice to know recession hits some parts of the future, AC-fearing galaxy too. Anyways, well, I beat the boss and the mission first time with this build! After this it was time for a boss fight which I feel I knew was coming but didn't want to admit... After this it was time for what I think was only the second serious wall in a boss I've hit in this game, after deciding on a build to stick with... Anyways, still loving the game, bunch of builds and paint schemes to try out yet, as well as the rest of the story to finish. I did look up the strat for that final boss I downed on YouTube after, as well as some others, and it's crazy just how broken some of the meta builds are (big guns for stagger, which funnily enough I ended up on naturally for that last boss), I've seen some people beat that boss in less than 60 seconds with the right build - but at least it still takes some skill with the dodge timing and learning its moveset. The other bosses though seem to just roll over at the sight of certain builds, and it's such a shame, because while I think experimentation is awesome and finding these things for yourself is cool, I feel a lot of people are robbing themselves of some fun challenges and experimentation by just going straight to those from the off (I'm mainly talking anyone who has looked up a broken build going into this game). A build video I watched yesterday someone was trying for the fastest AC they could make and be somewhat balanced made it clear why I love my fast Tristan build so much: I'm just getting so much joy out of learning attack patterns for some of these bosses, zooming around and slicing things up, that's exactly what I love about mechs, the impossibility of their speed; it feels like there's a higher skill ceiling going with a faster build, and so there's space to learn so much more about the game. I might toy around with some even lighter builds - his video gave me some ideas - as well as some of the heavier and broken builds if I get into NG+ and NG++, because I'm super interested to see if I still have as good a time with the game playing in a completely different way. That's also what makes the game and its many customisaiton aspects so intriguing, though! I'll leave that there, and to be clear I'm not hating on people using broken builds - play how you want to play! - but I think there's a conversation to be had that could be interesting about games having an Easy mode - like so many seem to want from From - vs having busted builds, and if that's a suitable replacement for an Easy mode. EDIT: oh, also, forgot to mention... That's all for now folks

I agree, honestly it feels like we're inundated with enough games as it is on the Switch alone, never mind every other platform! This year has been stacked and it already looks like the gaming calendar is stacked until at least the start of the second half of next year, which is nuts. For Nintendo, assuming we do get a Direct this month and it is a Direct proper this time around (not a silly old Partner Showcase, I hate those things, they just look and feel like the contractual obligations we all guess they are), I imagine it would be more from the perspective of hyping everyone up for what looks to be the Switch's last Christmas as their main focus, given that the general consensus is that it's successor is arriving next year. Maybe one or two announcements, but you're right, there's not much space for a megaton announcement to be dropped, especially with some titles already announced with very little info (like the Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon port or the new Peach game). This all being said, if this does shape out to be the last Direct proper solely for the Switch - given that I think it wouldn't be crazy for Nintendo to drop news on the Switch successor in Q1 next year and gear up for a more typical Q3/Q4 release this time around - I think they can yank our legs a little, if they really want to, and close on a Metroid Prime 4 teaser trailer, ending with a date of 'Late 2024'. Puts it squarely in the camp of launching alongside the Switch successor, one last big hype announcement for the Switch, and finally gives us an update on a game we haven't heard anything from since, when, well over four and a half years ago?!

Yep, totally agreed @FalcoLombardi: Part 4 is easily the best episode so far imo. Parts 1 - 3 were solid set-up and reintroductions to characters, but didn't feel like too much more; this is the first episode to feel like it had some serious stakes, and boy oh boy did it have them! Oh, and to say it outside of the spoiler tags: Baylan is awesome. I knew I'd love him as soon as we saw his design, feels great to have a physically imposing and worthy antagonist. Like Anakin if he'd never Vader-suited up, hands down my favourite villain to come out of Disney Star Wars since Kylo. You can really tell Ray was giving his all to this role, his physicality and weight is seriously intense. I have no idea if his character survives the series, but I'd imagine he does, and can already foresee a bit of what Dave would have had in mind, just considering the potential future of this show/the New Republic period and the planned film. GAH, can't wait for next week!

Universo Nintendo reported the other day that a Nintendo Direct was set to arrive on September 14th, and now Noda developers seem to be hinting at a Direct coming on that date, too: (their last game was announced at a Nintendo Direct)

According to Aonuma, in an interview with Famitsu (the below is translated via DeepL), there are no plans for additional content: I can buy it. TotK is one of the most content dense open worlds I've ever experienced, and honestly - maybe this is coming from a place of needing to return to it but feeling like I could more than double my current 65 hours of playtime so far fairly easily before seeing credits roll - I'm not sure I'd need, or want, more. It's a whole lot of video game. ...though, I could also see it being the case that there are no plans for standalone additional content, but please be excited for the 4K ultimate edition on Switch 2, with an additional dungeon and Kass. Would I buy the game again to experience that? No. I really hope we don't get DX² versions of Switch games and we can just bump them to 4K/whatever, even if for first party games it's at a flat fixed price of, say, £10. But please: no additional or exclusive content!

3 million copies of the Pixel Remasters sold. Still trying to wait them out to see if more physical copies are on the way, I'll probably wait until Christmas, before I inevitably pick them up digitally still can't believe how they handled physical copies for the game (I don't think I've actually even seen a standard edition for the Switch with a PEGI rating on, all the individual copies I can find up for resale are the SEA rating-less version), but it is what it is. Damn you S-E!

Yeah, exactly! Like I say, I really just don't think it brings out the best of the game mechanically, and what I forgot to mention is that while a whole host of options are available to build your mech and so any build of the mech itself will do the job, in terms of weapons and approach, it just makes the idea of entertaining anything long-range pretty pointless in those fights...and so pointless in the game overall. I think it looks awesome, but yeah, at least so far, they just haven't done anything to stop getting up in a boss's face from being the solution. Maybe that's what Boss #3's shields were for, but then the direct damage you can do with a laser sword or missiles again just means getting up close and personal to deliver those attacks is the way to go Haha yeah that's fair, certainly sweetens the deal a bit, that's for sure! Also just makes me look way better at the game to crush his hopes again, poor guy must think he's stuck in a Live Die Repeat/Edge of Tomorrow situation Will do!

Another AC update, probably not super in-depth, but that's what the videos and screenshots are for going to preface all this by saying I had a good few framerate drops today, especially for the final Rank D encounter in the Arena. First things first: my black AC, Gawain, got renamed to Percival (yes, they're getting named after the Knights of the Round Table). No real reason other than Percival seeming like a more suitable name for a black AC than Gawain, which sounds very knightly to me! Anyways, got to the next boss, a certain someone from the trailers who fires a BUNCH of missiles, and Percival didn't have a great time...a few times. So I went back to the drawing board, as I just felt a bit too slow, so picked up some new parts and tested out my build a couple of times: rather than going tanky (which probably would've made the fight a lot easier), I wanted to up my speed, because I really enjoy darting around and dodging everything that I can at a breakneck speed. Gawain's weapons - missile launchers on shoulders, machine gun in the right hand and a laser sword in the left - would still do the trick, but the body needed to shed some weight, a new generator could come in handy, and obviously a new AC means a new paint job! Which brings me to the testing and creation of my second AC: Tristan. Obviously using that poor new AC pilot as the testing grounds and showcase of my new AC! Absolutely love this build, Tristan just absolutely flies all over the place, and it's such a joy to strafe, dodge, launch a bunch of missiles and chase that up at insane speed with a laser sword slash! Anywho, as for the third boss... While there is still certainly a sense of needing to learn your enemy's patterns and know your own build inside and out - when you've got the capacity to fire, to boost, or to dodge - I think what makes the bosses in this game so different - rather than difficult - and require some adjusting to is just how omnidirectional the battles can get; I simply don't think there are many other games making truly 3D boss encounters in this way, not even in the other From games. For example, think about how Ornstein and Smough chase you around the room in Dark Souls, pillar to pillar...in a very two-dimensional sense. There's left and right, backwards and forwards, but there is no up and down to contend with. Even in Elden Ring, a game in which you can jump and there's a newfound sense of verticality to exploration, boss fights are still very much the same as they have been in Souls games for a long time: they're two-dimensional. Not in the "this lacks substance" sense, but rather, in the way that you could capture an attack from above and from in front and you would have the complete picture of what is going on mechanically, and what you need to pay attention to. In Armored Core VI, for both better and worse (so far), I find that you also need to pay attention to your verticality (which is presented very differently from boss to boss)...and all of your systems. Energy. Ammo/capacity for FOUR different attack inputs. Keeping your enemy centred. Paying attention to audio cues. It's a lot, and at times, a little bit overwhelming; again, just because it is a different approach to a boss fight than what we typically get these days, and what's more there are a BUNCH of systems to pay attention to on top of that. At times - against bosses in particular, I find - I've found myself spamming attacks from a place of feeling overwhelmed rather than of purpose, which has occasionally resulted in death, but at other times seems to genuinely work out. Heck, there's been one or two times where I've just lost track of what's going on, and what buttons I'm pressing - like an 8 player game of Smash - because there's so much feedback I'm taking on mentally from the game at certain moments. I do think it's this, though, which leads to an approach like the one @drahkon mentioned being an almost one-size-fits-all solution for bosses: get in the enemy's face and just go absolutely ham. This approach also just removes or minimises a lot of the other noise I was mentioning before from the equation. And while I have enjoyed the bosses and don't mind spending an hour or so getting accustomed to one for it to finally work out in my favour, it weirdly doesn't feel skill-based, and it's such a shame because I think it almost casts a shadow over where the absolute gold is in this game: the one-on-one AC combat. Taking on an AC one-on-one, whether in the Arena or any other time a pilot turns up to face me down in the campaign, has been absolutely brilliant. It's why I can't stop replaying the mission where you're one-on-one against a trainee pilot: it's great practice and a good way to test a new build, but despite the fact that it's super easy, I think the one-on-one fights are where I'm by far having the most fun in the game. This game honestly seems like such an inverse of Soulsborne games in that sense, as in those games I feel that I struggle most with boss fights where you are one-on-one against another human NPC (maybe it's down to the sizing or the angle of the HUD, I don't know) and have the most fun with the bigger than life boss fights, whereas AC VI I'm having the most fun in one-on-one scenarios. Anyways, this is all to say that I blitzed through the E ranks, and just like yesterday: all in under a minute. Anyways, the next boss was another interesting case of needing to change my build for the occasion, and this time, it worked out immediately in my favour. But not before one of the funniest exchanges I've ever had walking into a boss arena for the first time in a From Software game... After this it was soon onto another boss fight, but not before a satellite-made minefield. That was fun to navigate after I decided to go back to the drawing board on my build. So anyways... After that it was back to the Arena, this time for D ranks, and finally a few of these took me longer than a minute to complete. I got close a few times - excruciatingly so! - but the last AC in D ranks gave me a wonderful bit of trouble, which meant a whole lot of fun for me! For these I've been committing to getting through each ranking with the AC I start out with, so in this case, it meant Tristan, and it just adds that bit more fun knuckling down and just going with one build. I rounded off my time today with AC getting to work on my next build: I wanted a bipedal AC with normal joints, a bit bulkier to take a hit but still be pretty speedy, with some big ass heavy ammunitions, a laser sword (of course!), a faster rate of fire than just a machine gun could offer; basically, I want to fire nonstop to wear down their stagger (I think it's called attitude in the game?) meter, quickly dodge out the way, timed right to then deliver a heavy blow with either a sword or a big gun. Oh, and obviously, a cool name and an even cooler paint job. Enter: Artorias. I am so, so happy with how it turned out! Having an absolute blast with this game, and let's end this post on something I don't think I've said about the game yet: this is by far, without question, the coolest I've ever felt in a video game

Decided to boot this up after a post-BG3-opening power nap (don't ask), just to have a quick go at things, and well... ...I already can't put this game down I'm having a blast so far. I love the mission-based level structure. The number of customisation options are absurd. The bosses so far have been fun (although, nothing on other early game bosses by From, based on what I've seen so far at least ), and the checkpoints have been really generous. The story, or what scraps there are of a story, are more than enough to keep me hooked. This feels like a PS2 game, and right now for what I want and need from a game, it's certainly scratching an itch I didn't even know I had! Going to throw some stuff on (and footage of my time with!) the bosses in spoiler tags... After the first boss/mission, I spent some time going through a few more missions, and eventually found myself replaying a mission where you are one-on-one against a trainee AC pilot...and I watched him die. Again. And again. And again. That kid made me a millionaire after a few attempts I swapped out the default rifle for a machine gun, and my replays immediately jumped from C to A rank, and so it became clear that, for me and the way I want to play this game, that was the way to go. Then went and picked up some missiles for my left shoulder to match my right, kept the laser sword in my left hand, and this is the result, my first AC: Gawain. I spent well over an hour on trying out different colours and parts, but eventually I gave up and decided that I'll likely stick with a very basic look my first time through all of these missions, because until I have all the parts purchased, I'm going to be making changes nonstop anyways anyways, my Gawain strat is fairly straightforward: don't let up with the machine gun, fire missiles to force a stagger, and when the enemy is/is about to be staggered, it's laser sword time. I love it! Best way to showcase my play style with Gawain is probably to just show how my Advanced Mercenary Certification went, so: To nearly round off my first session I took on a mission where I had to pick up as many logs as possible, which led to this extremely close call after an enemy AC turned up at the last minute: And then it was time for the arena, which, well, early doors, but Gawain made incredibly light work of: all three F ranks taking less than a minute to complete each! And that's a wrap on my first session with AC VI, I'm really having a blast! Look forward to picking up more parts and eventually getting all of them to go as ham as I want to in customising my ACs

Put a little bit of time in just to get past the very opening of the game, after spending far too long on character customisation. Unfair to call these early impressions for the amount of time I've played so far, but the pre-rendered cutscenes are pretty spectacular (even if they buckled once or twice), I already love the amount of options in dialogue, and I already feel like this game has illustrated that it's going to get weird, and I'm here for it! So anyways, here's Alxodar (AL-SOH-DAR), my Brass Dragonborn Paladin who has taken the Oath of Vengeance! ...and his Guardian! Who I spent way too long on considering I don't know what she's for/will do story-wise, originally I wanted my Guardian to be another Dragonborn, but that didn't seem to be an option? But hey-ho, she turns out looking pretty good imo So yeah, super early, I have very little else to say at this point. Oh, I love the dice rolls and their animations! Definitely going to be a game I chip away at for an hour or two here and there I think, really want to take my time with it is the sense I got from my first but of time with it. Yeah, okay, that's it, that's all I've got to say for now

11 tracks from Final Fantasy XVI are being added on November 1st! aaaaaaaand I guess now I know when I'm going to be picking up a copy of Theatrhythm all absolute banger tracks, some of my favourites from the game made it in, so if your ears haven't yet been blessed with the sounds of XVI's soundtrack, buckle up: because they're about to be!

A free update launches today (see video below: potential spoilers) and not one, but two, installments of paid DLC are coming to XVI – with an update on that coming later this year! Maybe TGAs? Free update DLC Really exciting stuff, already can't wait to get back to Valisthea. And you just know the music is going to kill

Thanks for these @Glen-i, it's been a joy reading through all of these, and it really highlights for me what a shame it is that the trickle of spin-offs we get now just feels like it's doing so much less for the brand outside of the core series games than used to be the case. Sequels (New Pokémon Snap), remakes (hey I'll take all the PMD remakes I can get, to be clear, maybe give me some Ranger ones too?), and attempts at creating new known massive spin-off brands (Detective Pikachu), it really feels like the outlook of the rest of the industry has finally caught up to Pokémon spin-offs, and it feels so much less inventive for it. It also just really brings to fore that, even nostalgia put aside for me as someone who grew up on those games, there's a very easy case to be made for the DS era being the golden era for Pokémon in both the spinoffs and core series. The sheer volume, variety, and quality of those games were something else, and it felt like the last time Pokémon were really in a position where they were looking to try new ideas and takes risks, which they were handsomely rewarded for. And lastly, it's also just a reminder that I need to pick up Rescue Team DX I remember when, where and why I got Blue Rescue Team (2007 when I was in Year 4; it was £20 from my local CeX and a treat from my parents for a solid parent's evening!), I don't think it's up to the standard that the Explorers game set following it, but it holds such a special place in my heart. Your write-up has definitely bumped it up to the top of my backlog for when I'm looking for a new look on a nostalgic trip down memory lane

And thus our journey ends...Platinum retrieved! Throwing save clears in a spoiler tag as they show the order of key boss fights: Love seeing it go from a ribbon for the demo clear, to a silver trophy for the standard clear, then to a gold trophy for the NG+/Final Fantasy clear shame it doesn't list playtime for each, though! My initial playthrough was around 55 hours long, doing everything I possibly could, and then it took another 3 hours to clear everything I wanted to there in terms of the tomes, trials, and combat-related trophies. For my NG+/Final Fantasy playthrough I completed only one quest to help speed things up a little, and otherwise just crit pathed, skipping the majority of cutscenes and destroying most bosses at the first attempt, and also had to do about an hour of grinding for AP to complete my collection of all of the Eikon skills, all of which took 21 hours according to the PS5's timer. So just under 80 hours in total, taking things at a casual pace in my first playthrough and charging through the second. And it was worth absolutely every penny Final Fantasy Mode/second playthrough thoughts: no real changes in opinion on the game following my second playthrough, though skipping cutscenes did highlight just how many there are, I think the worst it got was skipping through 7 cutscenes in a row towards the end of the game, and there were quite a few instance of there being 4 or 5 in a row throughout. I weirdly came across way more slowdown during this second playthrough, I'm not sure if that's because of the mixed up enemy composition meaning some with attacks with more/heavier particle effects ended up in more demanding spots, but it was very odd considering my first playthrough was practically flawless from a performance perspective. The mixed up enemy composition in FF Mode is fun, but everything just becomes a sponge, and it's not really fun having even the smallest of enemy encounters stretched out just because. Mandatory grinding for AP kind of blows and it's the least fun grind I've completed since Yakuza 6, and apparently even if you 100% in both your first and Final Fantasy playthroughs (so, including quests, hunts, etc.), you'll still end up with needing to grind things out a bit. The lack of variety in the game just in terms of not having any mini-games does feel like the biggest missed opportunity in the game, while it's heavier most of the time, if VII Remake can have mini-games, then I feel XVI should too - especially considering just how much CBU III put into them in XIV! To end on a positive note, though: despite skipping 90%+ of cutscenes the second time around, the ending still hit like a ton of bricks, and my favourite boss fights were still absolutely brilliant. Also just want to pop down a guide or two that I used to make the grind for AP that much easier for anyone else who plays and guns for the Plat: I've said it before, and I'll say it one last time: absolutely adored my time with XVI, it's definitely in the GOTY conversation for me, and I'm looking forward to hearing about other peoples' journeys in Valisthea!

Yep, that sounds about right I think my low-key aim as the Bard in multiplayer is to cause as much unharmful chaos as possible outside of battle, and taking things very super seriously inside of battle! Also I just want to play songs in the background during cutscenes I will admit I am a little tempted to rip apart my Half-Elf Bard ideas though and make a Dragonborn Bard-barian...not because I think it'd be a fantastic idea (though idk the idea of a big buff dragon savagely tearing things apart only to pick up a flute later on in the game) but because the name simply sounds cool My friends: alright Julius, smash through that guy! Me: calming flute noises I think it really depends on the game and how much control/customisation I get over the character, but even with less control I do generally like to fit the name into a theme or make it suitable for the world. I think it's also a question of time investment: for something like this or Elden Ring or Monster Hunter where I'm looking at a potential 100+ hours, I definitely put loads of time into thinking about it, whereas in shorter games I'll just cobble something together. Dark Souls, Demon's Souls and Bloodborne I just went with some variation of Julius that seemed to suit each game, because I felt the options to take ownership of the character weren't too exhaustive It's funny, after seeing your message last night I tried to think of where it comes from, and I think it started with Pokémon? But not the Pokémon themselves, but the character. I used to stick with canon names, then I swapped it to the Japanese names, then for X I decided their name had to start with 'X'...but then weirdly since then I think I've mostly just chosen my actual name where I can Love Alcyon and Solus. I've always wanted to ask actually, where did 'Drahkon' come from? Is there an interesting origin to your screen name? I feel like whatever you decide you should go with RP reasoning, like the Ranger gets tired of the long, drawn out process of prepping for the hunt and so obvious pivots into utilising their hunting reflexes in more direct and potentially unnerving ways

Treehouse footage: Completely flew under the radar, for me at least, that there was one!

Thanks! Fingers crossed honestly so long as the controls gel at some point and I enjoy the customisation as much as I think I will, I'm sure I'll have a blast! Well ain't that the question I'd already done the research I wanted for my characters, so yeah, some Half-Elf Bard for multiplayer and then a Dragonborn Paladin for solo (because dragons are cool, and to make up for my vertically challenged Dragonborn Bard not coming to fruition), but beyond that (and their looks!) I'm sure I'm going to spend pleeeeeenty of time in the character creator fleshing everything out. It's going to be a customisation-heavy weekend, which I'm very excited for! I always take a lot of time to figure out a cool and contextual name for my character too, using name generators (in this case for D&D, just to get a grasp on the naming conventions of different races!), plugging words into Google Translate to see what sticks, making some portmanteaus, and so on. Don't think I've created a character with so much thought put into them since my Elden Ring character last year (still the happiest I've ever been with a character name, their name in context - Aligare, from the Latin alligare, or to bind, based on the emphasis on metal in marketing and so considering my Tarnished an alloyed being! - and their look!), but I've got a name for my Dragonborn ready to go, got a name I'm happy with for my Bard too but want to try a thing or two more. This sounds like a super fun build I imagine a stealthy ranger should be possible from what I've seen about the game, really want to see how that turns out if you can and do go that route. Looking forward to hearing about your adventures!

November 15th launch for PlayStation Portal in select markets (US, UK, and much of Europe): Interesting release date, would've thought they'd put the Spider-Man themed console out so early (releases tomorrow I think?) to give this some space and potentially launch around Spidey 2, but okay then.