Julius

Launch trailer: Quick start guide:

Ken Kutaragi has a Nintendo PlayStation in his closet which is in far better condition than the one which sold for $300,000 a few years back. Does that thing self-clean or...

So what your saying is that I should buy another copy, right?

Makes it genius marketing, though. It looks terrible, so people are talking about it. It clashes horribly, so it'll be impossible to not notice when watching the games. (And yes the logo is still crap)

Most recent thread relating to Persona 4 and probably pertains to Switch 2, too, so uh I'm going to drop this here: a potential web domain for a Persona 4 remake has been registered. Potential Switch 2 Direct attendee, or will it be saved for Not-E3 and probably turn up at Xbox or SGF?

Still remember my first time at Village Bridge in Pokémon White and then just standing there for 15 minutes to soak in the music and the vibes. Reminds me quite a bit of Suikoden II's Secret Village of the Ninja, now that I think about it: Both such excellent tracks

ASL versions of S1 and S2 are in the works, which is awesome! The ASL release of S1 will drop March 31st, giving people time to catch up, before the ASL release of S2 drops day-and-date from S2's premiere on 13th April. Per IndieWire: So great to see that Naughty Dog's best-in-class in-game accessibility is now being applied in some way to its shows, too!

I might need to jump on one or two of these before they leave, namely Kena and Animal Well. Shocked in myself not getting to Kena before but, eh Also, fully read 'Stray Blade' and thought it meant to say Stellar Blade or Stray. And now I'm just imagining Eve dressed as a cat, surrounded by cats, modded into Stray. Is there a cat outfit in Stellar Blade? That'd seem on-brand...

As others have said, it totally depends on how it's done. Also depends on if it's a proper theme (I imagine it will be, but who knows?) or just a limited anniversary thing, but making the swap from Mega Bloks to LEGO seems a silly thing to do if it's just for a handful of sets. I think if I were to make a bit of a wishlist... Microscale dioramas Pokémon's grid-based design for many of its region going back to the original Game Boy games means it's a prime candidate for me to have some microscale dioramas, like the one of Pallet Town above. I'd buy the hell out of some of these. Bonus points if they then sell every town and route so you can fit them all together to recreate an entire region. Let me dream, damn it! Please don't forget the other regions Yeah, yeah, Mewtwo, Pikachu, Charizard, Eevee, the Eeveelutions and the starters are all nailed on to be included in some way...but as it often goes with Pokémon, I hope they don't just go back to Kanto and call it quits. You can start there, but with it starting in the year of the 30th anniversary, it feels like we should be celebrating more than just Kanto. And speaking of which... Let's do it all Pokémon goes off in every direction imaginable, but similar to me not wanting them to just do Kanto stuff, I hope they also don't just focus on the main series games – again, you can probably start there, but branch out. The anime honestly has so many more setpiece-worthy moments which could be made into great sets. Mewtwo with the clone Charizard, Venusaur and Blastoise vs the real things from the first movie comes to mind. Please mix it up Yeah, let's see a proper mix of things here. Dioramas, big builds of Pokémon, some minifig-scale stuff with unique molds, Brickheadz, smaller and medium builds, etc. I think my biggest worry is they're going to just go HAM on Brickheadz, make a big build or two of Charizard and Pikachu, throw in a PokéBall set somewhere and call it a day. Biggest media franchise in the world, so I think if Star Wars gets everything, then Pokémon should get everything (if this is a full theme) too. Not all at once, mind you, but that first wave of sets is going to really set (heh) the tone and people's expectations.

Some details about the long-rumoured Final Fantasy IX animated series have purportedly leaked from a series pitch presentation, and it sounded pretty awesome. So it was a IX sequel series?! Could totally get behind something like this. I remember no-one liking the sound of a French-made animated series when it first got mentioned a few years ago but this sounded worthwhile. Cyber Group Studios filed for bankruptcy last year and so this is either now cancelled or being handed off to someone else (/in development hell).

2 weeks remain.

Releasing April 2nd: You know, I feel like there might just be something else going on that day which completely overshadows this...

Once I've transferred everything over to the Switch 2 maybe I'll factory reset my OG Switch to hear it again just to feel that rush

Makes sense for the 30th, but damn, this is going to be huge. I have to stop myself from buying a lot of LEGO I know I'd want, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to stop myself here. Really depends on the quality of the headpieces. Arceus forbid that we end up with Squirtle with a standard printed minifig head, but long gone are those days (I hope). Giving me flashbacks to the Giratina & The Sky Warrior Mega Bloks set got back in, what, 2008 or 2009? Please don't just be Gen I, and please don't be stupidly expensive compared to other sets....

I mean Armored Core VI already has a pretty fun but challenging trophy list...

New Warbond announced, the Western-themed Borderline Justice drops this Thursday! Oh, we going all Red Dead and Star Wars western with this one the Hover Pack! As a bonafide Jump Pack enjoyer I might be in for that alone! Quick update on where I'm up to – Lv 27 now, still like Page 7 of the free Warbond and on the last page of Polar Patriots. Still having a great time

The PS1 Armored Core games are now available for download! I checked the usual sites to see if there were any details on trophies for these games, and it doesn't look like there are any. I just booted up the first game to see if that would trigger the trophies to pop up and, well: So, no trophies by the looks of things. Which is definitely a bit disappointing. Interestingly, on booting up, Agetec were listed as the game's publisher – so that seems to confirm that these will be the NA versions of the games, but much more interestingly, Agetec weren't the original publisher in NA of the first game, as Sony Computer Entertainment published the game outside of Japan (where it was published by FromSoftware); for reference, Armored Core released in the US on 22nd October 1997, whereas Agetec didn't even exist until 1998! I wonder if that's a mistake or the rights somehow reverted to them? They did publish a lot of the later games in the series, up until Last Raven (the final game on PS2), so maybe they were bundled in somehow. FromSoftware seem to be listed as the publisher of the PSP port so I don't think it's a case of this being based on the PSP version I just checked out the two other games and they both reflect the "correct" publisher, with ASCII Entertainment showing for Project Phantasma and Agetec showing for Master of Arena. The reason I highlight this is because it's a great sign. The rights for Armored Core are pretty messy in terms of the publishers of the games outside of Japan, but are much messier in Europe than they were in the US, and Agetec published every game from Master of Arena (the last of the three PS1 ACs) to Last Raven, so if I were a betting man, I think there's a great chance we at least see the PS2 games come to the service at some point in the future, too!

To be honest, I just assumed it'd be the Switch *click* sound. Hell, I'd be disappointed if it wasn't. I'd spam that thing until the button wears out Yeah I honestly can't even recall ever hearing that start-up music before, so you're 100% right about that

Today's addition to the service is...Tetris? Huh. Both the NES and Game Boy versions, too:

Keychains the size of maisonettes capable of playing console startup sounds are coming to the Museum's store: Sign me up for GBA, DS, Wii and Switch Put out some eShop music boxes already YOU COWARDS!!!

New trailer for Replaylee: No idea why both Xbox and PlayStation have the same video listed as the "Release Window Announcement Trailer" seeing as it's just "2025" but whatever

MinnMax's Ben Hanson shared back in October that he had heard Intergalactic - at the time the nameless and formless next Naughty Dog project - was being compared to a game with a lot of player freedom, and he has confirmed the game it was being compared to was Elden Ring. Source: Well, can't say I'm surprised, but I'm very curious to see how far the comparison goes!

Princess Mononoke is getting its brand new 4K restoration screened at IMAX screens across the US starting next week: [insert Julius rant about this being US-only and there not being enough *real* IMAX screens in the UK] Couple of posters to go along with the re-release, too: One step closer to 4K re-releases for Ghibli films. I've got them all on blu-ray already...but sure, I'll buy them all again

Uh, have there been some unintended casualties to the toolbar on mobile with the reset, or is it just me? Quote, font size, and I think font colour are the ones that have gone missing? I'd love to ask if text alignment could be added in if those could be added back (although I wouldn't mind if font colour stayed dead), would make it easier for me to update the main Gaming Diary thread post on mobile (needing to go to PC atm) pretty please?