Julius

Fair I suppose I was thinking more from the perspective of having an account tied to the console, but maybe that's just because it comes part and parcel with the experience of modern consoles these days

You'll need a Microsoft account in addition to your PlayStation Network account to play Forza Horizon 5 on PS5, per this FAQ: I think it feels gross whenever you need multiple accounts like this to play a game, but maybe that's just me

Per billbil-kun, standard editions of the game will be €69.99 and there will be a collector's edition retailing at €229.99, with pre-orders expected to start this month. Does that €229.99 have you making child maintenance payments for BB or something? Really curious to see what's included with that CE. Reminder that the game's release date is expected to drop during the game's dedicated SXSW panel this Sunday evening.

The game has received one of those rare (at least these days) glowing reviews from Digital Foundry: Love to see it

As a number of you here had suggested, Activision have now confirmed that the THPS4 included in this collection won't have the original career mode, but instead a list of challenges to complete within 2 minutes. Per Kotaku:

Oh a tag from H-o-T, wonder what this is ab– Welp. My poor wallet. Thanks for the tag @Hero-of-Time, going to need to add this drop to my calendar! I was actually just discussing with my mates earlier today how I was considering finally importing the JP-exclusive Final Fantasy XVI DualSense (maybe the plates too) as they just keep climbing in value and my bonus is coming in this month, and my group has taken to Helldivers II pretty well so far and so that DualSense had also been under consideration (think I'm going to commit to buying it only after playing a certain number of hours in the game). Got to imagine Ghost of Yōtei gets one later this year, too. But yeah...I'll buy this, happily. Which is funny because I don't think it actually looks that good. The first game is better than the second which I think is still great and also one of my all-time favourites, so I can't not. This drops on the 10th and the show starts on the 13th? Guess I'll wait for this to arrive, beat Part I in 3 days, and roll right on into Part II alongside the show I have too many of these damn DualSense controllers, man, I think I'm at 5 functioning (black/silver/Astro/pearl white/30th) besides the two retired launch DualSenses I had (sticks started to drift). Kind of wish they made these exponentially more expensive for people with more DualSenses like myself just to put me off

That icon hurts me poorly because of the new art style being used for Tir vs the original art style being used for Riou Very much looking forward to reading your thoughts on them Glen!

Whatever is happening in US politics with Cheeto-man and Nazi-boy, it seems to be bringing Europe closer as a continent, and I'm all for it

An official PS5 rental service is coming to the UK – link to the service on PS Direct. Per Eurogamer: @bob I was gutted reading about your experience with Spider-Man 2 on PC – this might be of interest to you as another means to play the game, rather than shelling out for a PS5 in its entirety?

In fairness, those were digital re-releases, so I wouldn't expect them to have a massive impact of the value on the physical releases. Still nuts to me that III never released physically over here and so the PSN release of III right now is the only way to access it over here through typical means. Personally, I do think there's the potential for a price increase on the originals given that the remasters aren't totally 1:1 with the originals (and are a bit too clean for my liking, kind of like the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters to be honest with you), and there are some really fun differences because of the bugs to exploit in those games which aren't around anymore in these remasters (at least I'd assume - haven't seen anyone bring it up in reviews or impressions far?), for example being able to use inns for free in II by backing out of the save screen. Ugh, alright, I'll check how much they're going for now...

To commemorate the launch of Suikoden I & II today, I finally caved and decided to order myself a JP copy of Suikoden II: If you'll remember, I picked up a JP copy of the first Suikoden back at the end of 2023 at Birmingham Comic Con... And then at Birmingham Retro Gaming Market last April I picked up the two Suikogaiden games... ...meaning that I now own a JP copy of every Suikoden title to hit PS1! Wasn't really my plan to complete the set, but hey, here we are – and here they are all together: Realising I never showed off the disc prints, either, so here those are: Suikoden II's is a bit bland (made up for by the art of Riou, Jowy and Nanami in childhood on the back of the manual), but love the silhouette cutouts of Nash on the Suikogaiden games. Favourite obviously has to be the first Suikoden disc print, though, I mean look at that thing! Still need to get my hands on a physical copy of V, given it is stuck on PS2 and not available digitally, and I'll also have a ponder over how far I want to go with collecting these Suikoden games. Will definitely be keeping an eye on the prices of the original Suikoden and II on PS1 to see if the re-release has any impact there!

It'd be nice to see it go down, I'd love PAL copies of Suikoden and Suikoden II on PS1 for my own collection given my affinity for those games. Something I'll be keeping an eye on for sure. This has reminded me, though, I need to make a not totally unrelated post over in the Retro thread...

I'm not going to go super in-depth on it yet, but I've been chipping away at this since the end of Jan/start of Feb. I'm like 40 hours in and roaming around in Chapter 10? Really trying to savour it. So, this game's incredible. There's a point in Chapter 8 where they just decide to throw fan service moments at you nonstop and if you've played earlier games by RGG - I'm talking Yakuza and Judgment here - you are in for a freaking treat. My mind has been constantly blown by it all. If I were rushing through the game to get a review it, yeah, maybe there is a little too much, and I think some of the pacing issues would be a bit more glaring played that way. I actually really liked the slow-paced start this time around for how it served as a check-in for what's happened with everyone between LAD and IW, whereas in other Yakuza games it's the typical 2-4 hours of exposition before getting into the thick of it. I felt like I kept on top of news for this game yet had no idea it had its own version of Pokémon Snap, or about the dating app, and a bunch of other things – again, there's SO MUCH game here! Loved the exploration side of things too, and how the Friend Bingo Cards you complete through exploring then improve friendships which lead to great Drink Link stuff to help fill in the gaps on character backgrounds, it's just awesome. I did look up if there was anything to pay special attention to going in, like the Foreman job in LAD not being telegraphed as being nearly as important as it was for dungeon explosion, and the only thing mentioned was to opt in for a moment of reflection super early on in the game. The game sets it up like it's a recap of previous events, when it's just a minute or so of Kasuga monologuing about some of the events and close characters in LAD – but most importantly, it tells you what happens to one of the key antagonists set up at the end of the game between LAD and IW. I can't believe that's optional, and as far as I can remember, it hasn't come up in the 10 chapters I've played of the game so far. I think the big stumbling block for me so far, and why this game is taking me a while to get through (keep in mind I put in like 20 hours in a 3-day weekend to start out at the end of Jan/start of Feb) is that Dondoko Island being such a massive time investment is kind of looming over the entire playthrough. I know I'm going for less Plats and if it's not something I enjoy then I probably shouldn't go super deep into it, but yeah, it's just there. I feel similarly about the two dungeons which are basically Tartarus/Mementos knockoffs, except much more visually boring and serve no other purpose than to literally just keep you at a high enough level for the story content – just like it was in LAD. Because of this, my last session with the game was just spent doing all the side stuff now that I'm back in Yokohama that I could. I enjoyed it, obviously, but the two things I mentioned above are things I think I just need to get around to tackling to get them out of the way – I don't even think Dondoko is particularly bad, but when it's effectively the replacement for the business mini-game in LAD (both in time investment and monetary rewards), I do think it's a noticeable step down from what I've played so far. Main point of praise has to be the turn-based combat, because holy hell did they take notes on what people had issues with in LAD here. It's freaking incredible. The simple addition of being able to move around in a certain radius to position yourself somewhat Xenoblade-style and line up what are effectively tennis rallies with enemies by hitting them into your other party members adds such nuance to battles, it feels like it moves at a much faster clip than it did in LAD, the way grabbing items is signalled to you in order to bash enemies with doesn't feel as randomised and is awesome (though I will say – a bit of a pain if you're stuck in a certain spot and just want to deliver a standard Attack to set something up either with elemental weaknesses or whatever and they grab the item and bash them with that instead! Makes sense for Beast-style but virtually no-one else), love Kiryu's ability to swap between styles too. I will say that I've just kept everyone in their default class and the game has been fairly breezy so far, sometimes I'll wander into an enemy I'm too low a level to face in the open world and that can be an issue (game again doesn't tell you that to run away you need to ensure the path is clear, levels don't really factor in!), think I'll just stick with everyone being their defaults until I hit Rank 30 (for the trophy but also I remember from LAD most if not all of the important/interesting moves are typically learned by that point) before figuring out where I want people to go. Think I've got an item on Chitose (bestest girl, btw) which allows her to heal when a stat is buffed, which happens all the time because of my team set-up and the moves, equipment and weapons she had to hand. Oh, and I completed all the Sujimon stuff. That was awesome. Better than any Pokémon game I've played in a good while with its battle pacing and story, and all delivered in like 5-8 hours, too! Pretty happy I didn't play this last year because, uh, yeah, this is a genuine retroactive 2024 GOTY contender for me and it would have made the already impossible task even more difficult. Looking forward to getting back to it! Okay so maybe I did end up going pretty in-depth on it...

Purple 'H', wait does that mean... Just in time to play Suikoden, right @Hero-of-Time?

4 weeks remain.

International release dates for the first movie in Demon Slayer's Infinity Castle trilogy have been announced: This is going to be insane!

Special look at Andor S2: And the poster: Andor S2 might just be about to cement Andor + Rogue One as the defining achievement of the Disney era. I can't believe we're getting the Ghorman massacre!

Looks like a further 20 members of staff at PlayStation Malaysia will also be getting laid off (source).

Reviews dropped the other day for this, and it's currently at 91 on Metacritic (77 reviews) and 90 on Opencritic (71 reviews). Some reviews for your perusal: MinnMax also did their rapid-fire questions (carrying on the spirit from GI's old videos, of course) with Josef Fares and it was awesome: Can't believe this is how I find out his brother is one of the senators at the Rebellion war table in Rogue One! And details on how to play co-op online with the Friend's Pass: Sounds like Fares and Hazelight have once again crushed it – to my surprise, this is their first 90+ rated game (by critics) on MC and OC, is the second 90+ game of the year (after Monster Hunter Wilds last week), and is the highest rated game of 2025 so far. We've got a long way to go, of course, but seems like they'll once again be in the running for GOTY. We've come a long way from "f*ck the Oscars", and yet it feels Fares and team have kind of backed all of that talk up.

Some layoffs over at PlayStation's Visual Arts studio, per Kotaku. Sucks. Sounds like the live service initiative actually has some casualties now to show for it if this is accurate. Hope anyone affects lands on their feet soon enough.

My copy has turned up a day early ...and in classic Julius fashion, I'm busy playing something else (another JRPG, in fact! And it's even turn-based! Huzzah!) and probably won't be getting around to replaying these games anytime soon they weren't on my shortlist of games to replay this year, either, so I'm just here to support the cause. That being said, both are some of my favourite games (II getting the nod for me over the first, but is clearly so reliant on the first game to reach those heights!), so maybe a replay could help clear some things up for me as to just how highly I regard them... Anyone else planning on getting in on the Suikoden fun when this arrives tomorrow? Reviews seem positive, solid 30 fps on Switch (60 fps elsewhere) too!

Poor Other Consoles, relegated to a wait-on-Nintendo-release-confirmation dumping ground, almost like it's some type of... American Wasteland

Another day, another shared Platinum between two PS1 JRPGs being remastered for modern systems. Whether I care, or how much I care, about trophies tends to differ from game to game, but multi-game collections should absolutely have a Platinum per game rather than for the whole collection, imo.

Huh, that's weird. It's shown for me as going until 18:00 GMT today the entire time when I've checked in on it, so yeah, maybe it's some weird technical timezone thing on his PC or something?