Julius

Nah, it's an 8/10 for me...yeah, definitely an 8/10 considering that the positions of the other Saga films beyond the sequels are pretty fixed in my mind at this point It's funny though, I did actually notice the tree resembling the Jedi Crest (and by extension the Resistance/Rebellion symbols too, though the concept art certainly pushes it towards being more the latter two!), but never picked up on the First Order symbol. Thanks for sharing that! Always love the little things like that, though I'm still kind of confused about why the ISB building in Andor from a top-down view would look more like the Imperial insignia but with eight points instead of six, that one has me a little stumped What can I say though, Rian clearly learns from the best... Finding that one as a little kid blew my mind, and even more so that of the other kids I'd point it out to!

Right then, I've started watching through the films again this week in preparation for Celebration starting next Friday, and to change things up a bit - and because, well, the films I grew up with are already seared into my mind - I started with the sequels. Look, over the years, I've been pretty vocal about my thoughts about the sequels on here, and while I haven't quite exhausted my list of issues with them (despite talking about those issues a whole lot!), I wanted to go into these viewings with a positive mindset, looking for the things I could come away enjoying and point to as enough of a reason to justify their existence. Am I still gutted about how the trilogy turned out overall? Yes. They deserved more time and thought than they got, but there are still glimpses of Star Wars in there that I can enjoy. I'm not going to be exhaustive in writing about the positives here - mainly because I started taking notes in TFA and noticed how much I wasn't watching the film while I took notes! - so I'll just throw in some bullet points about what I liked in each film, give a general summary of my thoughts on the film, and give each film a score (I'm not a massive fan of scoring things but hey, if I've scored them on Letterboxd, I can score them here too!). Oh, and then a trilogy score based on those. Because I figured it'd be nice to just know where they stand against the other trilogies for myself personally, and might also expose my own bias. I've scored each film after watching them (I also have added my previous scores for them for reference, to see how my thoughts changed this time around). Without further ado... The Force Awakens Overall, while very much derivative of A New Hope, I still think The Force Awakens was a solid return to form for the franchise, and more importantly, a much-needed one at that that, at the time, unified fans and left us with a lot of questions about what was to come – totally by design. Hats off to J.J., the man knows how to spin yarn and leave threads for you to yank away at, because TFA was followed by two years of intense discussion, debate, and speculation, the likes of which I don't think we see often, if at all. I'm going to score The Force Awakens 7/10 (down from my previous scores of 8/10). The Last Jedi Whereas rewatching TFA this time there were moments where I was drifting from what was on-screen and getting easily distracted, my eyes were glued to the screen while The Last Jedi played the entire time, much as they are when I watch Revenge of the Sith – which, funnily enough, is where I actually think I get to say that TLJ is the most prequel-like of the sequel films, in that it so clearly had a vision that Rian didn't shy away from, much like George couldn't with the prequels (despite how much he might have wanted to at times). For what he was given in TFA - a solid film but a bunch of threads and an already shrunken Rebellion which could only get smaller in the second film in a trilogy - I thought Rian did great. Like in Empire, the gang still has things go wrong for them time and time again throughout the film. It's not a flawless film, but to me, it is clearly the strongest of the sequels. I'm going to give The Last Jedi an 8/10 (up from a 7/10). The Rise of Skywalker There's probably more I'm forgetting, so I'll update this post if I think of anything else, but for now, while I still think The Rise of Skywalker is the weakest film in the Skywalker Saga and a less than ideal send-off, there are still some great Star Wars moments to be found. I'm going to give The Rise of Skywalker a 4/10 (down from a previous 5/10). Overall, then, for me that gives the sequels a trilogy score of 19/30. I won't go as crazy with the notes on other films I watch again but will still be dropping by to share quick thoughts if I have the time, as well as to share the trilogy scores of the OT and PT!

I have a question to put out there: do we think the XYZ coordinates on the mini-map seen in the demo are here to stay? I ask because a lot of the breakdown videos I've seen are treating it as fact that it'll make it into the game, and while it would be nice and make things like guides and walkthroughs easier when seeking certain items/locations, I honestly thought watching the demo that it was just something they'd left in from the test build. On the one hand, Aonuma did say that development of the game is now complete...but on the other, he didn't actually say we were seeing the completed product (even if it did feel implied). The other thing that has me on the fence about it being included is the fact that, well, it looks terrible and tacked on (kind of like a dev option), as it can't be read clearly at all at certain points of the demo (light text on the light background representing the sky islands in particular). If it were to be included in the full release, I'd have to imagine there'd be a dark ring around the mini-map (or something along those lines) to house those coordinates instead? So yeah, curious to know what others think Hey @drahkon I'm sure you'll appreciate this

Yeah, honestly I thought if it did come to other platforms that it'd be around the year mark. This would make it around 9 months, maybe they had a 3 quarters deal? It is the end of most companies' Financial Years this week (which is probably why some smaller announcements are getting made), but who knows based on previous sales announcements for the game it doesn't seem to be a case of the game doing poorly by any means, though, which should be a good thing! Now if they could just give us an update on Dragon Quest III sometime this year that'd be great Give it a few years and the Switch can get Final Fantasy XVI Pocket Edition

PlayStation and Steam releases announced: Releasing 27th April, demo available now! I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting this to come to other platforms, much less for it to be announced with a demo shadow drop and released within a month!

Another episode of Mando S3 down, somehow just three more to go already! I had a lot of fun with this episode, stronger than last week for me, for sure, and probably one of the stronger episodes of the season, though, to be fair, only the first and fourth episodes for me have felt weaker than the others. I've said it before, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the shorter episodes typically seem to be on the weaker side compared to the longer episodes, because it makes sense, doesn't it? There wasn't enough there for them to flesh out into a longer episode beyond the absolute bare minimum of what they wanted to achieve in an episode, whereas these longer episodes by comparison really feel like they're better paced (because they can breathe, and actually have more directions that they've been fleshed out and so can go in). Anyways, looking forward to next week's episode before Celebration! Now that it's finished, I think I'll finally get started on The Bad Batch

April monthly games:

The themed Tears of the Kingdom Switch OLED is now available to register interest for: For anyone interested think the dock is probably my favourite part of the whole look!

Yeah, totally get that, because the exploration and atmosphere in BotW were the highest points of the game for me too. It's such a difficult line to draw on what should and shouldn't be shown in marketing a game like this - a sequel to a game reusing it's open world to some degree - but personally I'd rather they show too little when it comes to exploration rather than too much. For me, this showing has started to put to rest two of my greatest fears coming into TotK from BotW, and that's whether or not Nintendo would actually do something about weapon durability (they have, in a wacky and wonderful way that only they could) and just how well this game would run assuming seamless transition from the sky islands to the ground and vice versa (which I think is a test it passes with flying colours). I'll honestly be shocked if we don't have another video similar to this by the start of the last week of April, and I'll similarly be shocked if dungeons are in the game and aren't at the very least verbally confirmed by the time the game releases. I mean, the inclusion of dungeons and puzzles is pretty much exactly the sort of thing that you talk about on the back of the box! The fact that they didn't focus on the spiral-emitting rock things when we saw one on our way up to the falling debris that Aonuma used Recall on, and which many assume are going to be this game's alternative to the Shrines in BotW, I think is a good sign that dungeons are in; those feel like things you talk about bundled together. And surely we'll see or hear about them before reviews are up, which would absolutely talk about them whether included or not, right? I guess we'll just need to wait and see! I do think this (showing off the new mechanics) was the logical place to start with ramping up the marketing campaign, because they're probably going to be present in everything else shown from this point on, and so won't need to be explained in detail every time now that they've been shown off. And I'd much rather have 10 minutes focusing on this, then another 10 minutes focusing on shrines/dungeons, etc., and a further 10 minutes on generally exploring the world rather than them dumping one 30 minute long video, especially seeing as the reason they seem to be doing this is to hold things back. Think I'm otherwise at the same point at you - don't feel a need necessarily to watch everything shown, but I do want to see more to have other questions answered. As for Zelda, if she's playable, I do hope that's something they keep on the down low and don't really market the game with. Think it'll be a much more popular example of getting to play as another character that wasn't revealed before the fact, that's for sure... Lastly: anyone else getting the feeling we're going to get our Great Plateau equivalent on one of these sky islands to start out? The way the ones demo'd today were crafted definitely gave me tutorial level vibes. Oh, and a second lastly, actually: can we just acknowledge the genius of the game's originality in its mechanics and how that is going to spread like wildfire and make it such an obvious viral hit online? Nintendo have done such a great job this generation of making shareable moments that are built into their game's mechanics and experiences, which is an incredibly potent marketing tool that we don't get to see many others put to good use (because, well, no-one seems to put out as consistently deep games mechanically as Nintendo). Yeah I'm a little hyped just six and a half weeks to go!

A heads-up for anyone who hasn't been able to get a physical pre-order in for the Pixel Remaster Collection, there are now waiting lists available to sign up to via the Square Enix Store (link is UK) to receive an email when copies are available. I've put my email down for a physical copy of the Switch version Whether that means more stock at launch is unclear, because apparently an email went out in error earlier today advising that payments would be taken 31st March, which has since apparently been corrected to 31st May.

Yeah, absolutely agree. The fact that we've now got a much greater variety of enemies to face and further variety to their arsenal really makes it feel like Fuse is going to see a lot of use and not just be throwaway. Myself and @bob, the soothsayers of N-E In all seriousness though, while COVID isn't necessarily an excuse, at a guess it would have noticeably impacted 2 of the 6 years this has been in development for, and the middle 2 at that. I think it's more likely a case of goalposts shifting as a result of COVID (take COVID out of the equation and I'd argue that 4 years is still a huge chunk of time to be working on a sequel!) than it is something going horribly wrong, or maybe they had some ideas for DLC as we know, but they weren't enough for a full game, so further brainstorming was needed? Genuine question: is there anything this game could do to convince you that it needed as much time in development as it's had? And anything, at this point, that could get you inside and actually enjoying the game? Without changing it into a fundamentally different game I know you weren't the biggest fan of BotW, which is why I'm curious Thanks for this! I knew Ultrahand was ringing a bell! Love it

And here it is: Just started watching, but hnnnnnnnng, that music! Gimme that erhu And from the very top, Aonuma confirms: development is complete! Some impressions: • didn't really think about it before, but the only 30s illustrated that we're going to be looking up at the sky a fair bit. Curious to see how, if in any way, this might have impacted some of their design decisions. • Recall is something we've already seen a fair bit of, but I was really impressed by the seamless transition from the ground to the sky islands and how there wasn't really any evident chugging. • Fuse is genius, and such a Nintendo way to effectively get around the weapon breaking concern many had, including myself. Makes so many more materials more immediately useful, really looking forward to seeing the combinations available, and hopefully the unique weapon combos people manage to come up with! • Ultrahand is awesome too, I was worried about how the mechanisms connecting to world objects might work, but it looks so...seamless. • Ascend looks awesome too, being able to freely phase through mountain ceilings is going to be great for when it's raining and climbing isn't as manageable! • wow, getting knocked off the sky islands is really harsh if you just fall back down to the ground level! I wonder if there'll be an item or outfit that might help you get back up? Overall: exactly the showing I was looking for. The new abilities look hype as hell, it was all very much to the point, and I absolutely cannot wait to try them out! In addition, the limited edition Tears of the Kingdom OLED model which was floating around a few months ago has now been confirmed to be real, and launches 28th April. In addition, a themed Pro Controller and carrying case have also been announced for launch 5th May. Quite like the look of the OLED model, but not a fan of the black bezels of the main unit and the black Joy-Con Grip, when everything is accented in white. Might be in for the carrying case and Pro Controller, though...and finally get my anniversary Zelda Joy-Cons out for the first time to play Tears of the Kingdom

This could probably also go in the PC thread, but given what it entails, I think it can also go here: the Dolphin emulator is coming to Steam in Q2 2023! Super exciting! I'm not sure if Nintendo would have much of a leg to stand on in trying to take this down, but it'll be interesting to following in the coming weeks and months as we wait for it to launch. The GameCube has a whole bunch of games I've wanted to check out for a good while, but picking them up physically is prohibitively expensive these days, so maybe this will be the way I finally get to check out games like Path of Radiance and The Thousand Year Door!

Hell yeah, that panel should be awesome!! Hoping for some good reveals and talking points, you and your nephew should have a blast It's looking unlikely at this point, but if that does happen, you'll be my first port of call In hindsight - and I don't know if this would have helped or hindered my chances, because we have no real insight into how the lottery works - we ordered three tickets and one of us dropped out a couple of months ago (so it's just one of those three being returned), but surely I could have entered three (or even four) people into the lottery, because it didn't seem to be linked to actual ticket purchases? Again, don't know if it would have helped or hindered, but could've been a way to have a spare or two potentially Awesome, and yeah, got in for 17:00 - 17:30 on the Friday just fine Was definitely a bit of a mad scramble in the 10 minutes leading up to the reservation queue going live and quickly figuring out which actual slots I'd be free for depending on panel times, which is why I went for Friday evening. Absolutely abysmal messaging though, totally agreed. I had three devices open and got through on two of them just 30 seconds or so apart, after booking mine I quickly added the same slot for my friend and it wouldn't process (so fully booked I gathered), so he'll be going 17:30 - 18:00 instead. Shouldn't really impact his purchasing ability (and from what yourself and others have said, it's not impossible to get in at another time just by lining up) but just splits us up for no real good reason Going back to avoiding panels and queue times when organising a slot, though, that struck me as really poor planning: having Lightspeed Lane reservations up before we even know what panels we've got into? Seen countless posts on Reddit and in the Discord about how people won't be turning up to their reservation because they got a panel lottery win! No email, no update on Showclix arrived about 30 minutes ago Yeah it's crazy, 4 Days were £200 a pop, selling it back to them fetched £165 at the time I applied to sell it back (because you can't if there's no demand, and the price itself is based on some supply and demand calculation) but then, at the time, they were marking them up for some £230+, so a tidy little profit for them. Surely that balances out though, so why not just refund what people actually paid? Not to bash the organisation of the event too hard, because I'm sure it'll be a lovely time regardless, but as someone who takes on the role of organiser in my group (and all the anxiety that comes with that): wth ReedPop and co.!

So I got an email earlier to say we got Galaxy Stage for Villains of the Sequels, which is pretty cool! Shame it's not Celebration Stage, but eh, probably being streamed at Celebration exclusively and surrounded by fans is nothing to complain about looked around and the general consensus at the time was that that was the only panel that had been sent out, so either they were going one at a time or in batches. I then saw advice similar to yours and headed to Growtix, and refreshed for a good half hour or so before the next batch came through...which I guess was everything all at once! We got into the Celebration Stage for the Lucasfilm Showcase! Which is obviously super exciting and I'm very pleased with of all the morning panels that's the one I least wanted to queue up for, not just because of how long the line would likely be (seen something circulating that we'll be turned away lining up before 08:00 on ExCel grounds, so naturally I guess a line is going to form just off it), but more so because I wouldn't have had a chance to get my bearings at Celebration yet. So yeah, well chuffed, will be trying to show up a bit earlier just to get a good seat! That's all for me, but I'm more than happy with my lottery winnings, the Lucasfilm Showcase was the one for me and Villains of the Sequels (even if streamed) should be good fun. Part of me wanted to experience lining up for a big panel or two, so I guess that's what I'll be doing to see if I can get into Ashoka or Obi-Wan (other than entering the draw the morning of, if that still ends up being a thing), other than following your earlier advice to see if anyone puts their spots up for grabs! A little nervous about potentially lining up for Obi-Wan as it starts at 13:30 and Villains ends at 12:00, so we'll see what happens How did things go on your end with the lottery? Did you have any luck with the Lightspeed Lane reservations for the Celebration store? And lastly, out of curiosity: have you received or had any updates on your tickets yet? I'm still waiting on mine for now, won't let nerves kick in unless they're still not here by the weekend! I'm having to exchange one of our tickets through Lyte for someone who isn't able to make it (by the way, for trying to cut out scalpers, Lyte's purchasing and reselling prices are awfully scalper-like), but obviously can't process that until I actually receive the tickets, so it looks like it's been a bit of a mess, because whoever is buying is waiting on a ticket from someone who hasn't received theirs

Calling it now: we haven't seen gameplay because the game is actually a first-person shooter, that's why it's taken six years! Little do those poor Koroks know that they're about to fall victim to Link's war crimes...

That's 15:00 tomorrow for us UK-based folks. Yep, definitely the time for this, and definitely excited! Just some six and a half weeks to go and I feel like we know virtually nothing about the game, and while that makes me a little nervous (because, c'mon, very companies go the route of showing too little unfortunately!), I'm sure it's for great reason. Absolutely cannot wait to get lost in Hyrule once again really curious to see what they've chosen to show in what I imagine will be a highly curated 10 minute segment. Got to imagine it's some confirmation of dungeons, probably putting a name to whatever the shrine alternatives have ended up being, and maybe talking about some differences in the world, as well as Link's new abilities? Also, anyone want to put odds on people coming out of this showing and complaining that it doesn't look like it's had six years of work put into it? And then odds on those odds for those people being the ones that didn't enjoy BotW in the first place?

Those heathens and their damn UTC - adding funds worked at 00:15 on the spot! Anyways, Wii U games list purchased, so that's me done: Wii U eShop The Swapper Nano Assault Neo Year Walk NES Remix 2 Tengami Chasing Aurora Pullblox World VC Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land Golden Sun: The Lost Age Advance Wars Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising Sin & Punishment: Successor of the Skies Some of those VC games will probably be coming to NSO at some point, but again, it's Nintendo: it's worth exercising reasonable doubt and just picking them up to me. Advance Wars has really nice pixel art which I'd rather experience over the remake as someone that hans't played the GBA games before, and well, Sin & Punishment: Successor of the Skies just seemed smart because while the first game has come to NSO's N64 offering, I can definitely see there being some more obstacles getting in the way of SotS coming to Switch (it's not impossible, just seems unlikely). Oh, and the physical version goes for a fortune now, so there's that! Anyways, totally didn't have me stressing there for a moment Nintendo

So, I've been trying to add funds for the last 20 minutes and yeah, it's a no-go. Still getting the error message about potentially exceeding the limit, so Wii U games aren't getting purchased as of this moment. Why would that be, I wonder? Why would I have waited over 24 hours but still not be able to add funds? Any guesses? Because I have one. It's because they didn't account for Daylight Savings starting in some territories today and are probably running their servers on UTC, meaning that to the eShop right now it's 22:57 rather than 23:57. Now to just hope that they're at least consistently inept and I'm good to wait another 18 minutes or however long to actually add funds and get those last few games, instead of actually shutting them down at midnight (which I would have to doubt is the case, considering the time in other territories right now, but you never know with Nintendo)... Damn it Doug Bowser, I want you to take my money, why are you making this so hard?!

Honestly, that nearly got cut, but I looked at the gameplay again and it just looks so sneakily charming that I had to get it! Thanks for the heads-up, but just gave it a go and still no such luck unfortunately! Oh well, alarm is set for tonight so I'll be ready Don't remind them! Also, fantastic list of games there, definitely a few I had to make the hard decision of cutting from my own list! Now just got to try to resist the urge to add more funds to get some of the games I ended up cutting...

Here's the environments trailer from PAX East: And more importantly, here's the Live Letter-like panel in full: Yes, You Can Pet the Torgal. I've had a quick scan through the panel, but honestly, it goes pretty in-depth! We'll be getting more news on the RPG elements in April following the focus on combat we had a few weeks ago, and to be honest, I'm not sure I need to see much more or if I'll even watch this panel in full; they've got nothing else to sell me on. I have so much respect for Yoshi-P and CBUIII's transparency, I've tuned in to a few of the XIV Live Letters over the years and they always do such a terrific and charming job of so clearly communicating with their audience. There really aren't many studios like that in the industry, so kudos to them on that front Anyways, loading times are super fast, music hits hard, the sprites in the save data screens are adorable, the Eikon fights look like actual boss fights (with different mechanics used in different fights), the world map looks FREAKING AWESOME with it's miniature styling, and yes, you can pet the Torgle, so... . . . GOTY?

Right then, been a minute since I posted in this thread but I'm back to talk about how I trimmed and trimmed and trimmed my list down..and still ended up trying to exceed the eShop added funds cap that I didn't know existed, meaning that while my 3DS purchasing may be completed, my Wii U purchasing is not I'm actually going to have to wait until 23:15 tomorrow to add my final eShop code funds, so uhhhhhh let's hope I don't forget to get around to that! Anyways, here's what I landed on adding to my 3DS (in addition to previous eShop purchases): 3DS eShop BOXBOY! BOXBOXBOY! BYE-BYE BOXBOY! Pullblox Fallblox Fullblox Liberation Maiden HarmoKnight Pocket Card Jockey Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale Weapon Shop de Omasse The Starship Damrey Nintendo Pocket Football Club Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword The Legend of Kusakari Nano Assault EX Siesta Fiesta Wakedas Noitu Love: Devolution Tokyo Crash Mobs Gurumin 3D: A Monstrous Adventure The Legend of Dark Witch The Legend of Dark Witch 2 The Legend of Dark Witch 3: Wisdom and Lunacy Virtual Console 3D Gunstar Heroes (not technically VC I don't think, but...shush) Pokémon Crystal The Mysterious Murasame Castle Catrap Defenders of Oasis Shining Force: Sword of Hayja Legend of the River King Legend of the River King 2 Pokemon Trading Card Game Harvest Moon GBC Mole Mania Dragon Crystal In the end a much, much, much leaner list of games than I originally planned for (see my earlier post for how stupid the original plan was), but with a stupid amount of games already on my shelf and some trips planned for this year, I thought it best to go a little nuts...but not actually nuts with it. Still, glad I've picked up a bunch of games, and limiting myself to a certain budget really helped to trim the fat on my list: rather than going for just Virtual Console titles to fill up the good ol' reliable microSD (plus the recent NSO announcements around GB and GBA games meant more cutting just seemed wise, though Pokémon TCG seems like it belongs on a dedicated handheld which is why it's still made it to this point ); I really ended up questioning what I was looking for, digging a little deeper to find some games I'd never heard of and quite fancied the looks of, and ended up with a variety of games that I'm really excited to try out over the coming years (and on a couple of long flights I would guess in the coming months!)! I'll be back tomorrow or Monday for my short but sweet list of Wii U pick-ups once the 24 hour cooldown on adding eShop funds to my account is up

Oh yeah, you're not wrong, and honestly the special is fantastic and well worth checking out ASAP. We're nearly there, just one more fourth and final part to this final season... . . . right? Yep, they should do! Dub releases I've founded to be much more inconsistent since the whole COVID thing (which I guess makes sense), there are only two episodes left to be released as dubs and they're normally weekly releases, so even if they're delayed for whatever reason, I've got to imagine they should be out by the end of April

uhhhhhh, would now be a bad time to point out that the English dub for MHA won't be completed for another week or two? Only reason I know is I've been waiting on it (like you, for MHA I prefer the dub, mainly down to Sabat's All-Might); might not be a problem if you don't get through shows voraciously, but thought it was worth pointing out in case you do and then need to wait for the other episodes to release. Similarly, for AoT, not sure where you've got to with S4/The Final Season, but if you're up-to-date besides the most recent release, that release wasn't for a full season, just two episodes stretched into a nearly hour-long special. I'm going to stop myself because I sound like a right spoilsport, but enjoy them either way! AoT's most recent special was awesome (also totally agree on a lot of your points about Crunchyroll, and find it very funny that it and Funimation have very unique issues that the other doesn't. I'm still confused about why they haven't pulled everything from Funimation yet and thrown it all on CR, considering it's all owned by Sony now, but eh )

More Ranking of Kings, this time in Gaiden Collection form (so not S2...yet) with The Treasure Test of Courage: Man RoK S1 was awesome, hope this is a good stand-in while we continue to wait for S2!