Julius

I also beat the big boss that is the hot topic, and hoo boy, is that one hell of a fight. I already loved the character from what I'd read and heard about them elsewhere in the game, so finally getting to square up to them, and having the fight surpass my expectations, was pretty spectacular. And I'm looking forward to seeing the ramifications of the fight too. However, while the fight is conceptually awesome...I do think it has some practical issues, and I feel like there are definitely one or two things which could have been done to make the fight a bit. It also brought to the forefront a minor nitpick for me in the game that I'd come across a few times before but could put up with, but this being a boss fight, it blew it up exponentially, and now it's going to be on my mind a lot moving forwards into other important fights. For reference, I've been running a STR-based melee build, which I've only really recently started phasing into a Magic Knight hybrid, and I'm probably one of the lesser experienced Souls players here, so looking at the tally for my number of deaths, I think I'm probably going to be one of those more intimate with the fight in terms of sheer exposure to it. I spent a good while with it, but thankfully, just powered through - got to that point where I always knew what was coming. It never felt unfair as I feel a couple of bosses in Dark Souls and Demons Souls did at times (looking at you, my clip-happy experiences with O&S and Adjudicator), but well, I'll just get onto it: praise, criticism, my idea on how it could potentially be improved, warts and all. Stopping there for now, got a few places I want to check out before I've got a couple of ideas for where I want to head next. I'm pretty confident I know where exactly the next big bosses are going to be based on my running ahead (I've pretty much only got the top right quarter of the map left to discover, and I have a good idea of what to expect there based on NPC talk, quests, and item descriptions), but I'm in no real rush to get to them, because I'm just enjoying the game that much. I do look forward to hopefully getting to the grinding spot @Hero-of-Time and @drahkon have been mentioning though, one final big grind before probably just going where I think I need to go would be very nice Lastly, it needs to be said: what a great year this already is for games. In all of the Elden Ring hype - which it's worthy of every drop of - I've somehow not realised that with this, Legends: Arceus, and a good chunk of late night/early morning Gran Turismo 7 sessions that I already have 3 games that I'm confident I'll be talking about at the end of the year when it comes to my personal favourites and backing in GOTY discussions. That's insanely wild, and I haven't even picked up Sifu or Horizon Forbidden West yet. Dare I say that 2022's already on course to be one of the strongest years for gaming, never mind the fact that so many other games with huge potential are pencilled in or are likely to be aiming to come out by the end of this year?

Oh damn, that's a great shout Glen! I loved that advert but it never clicked before, but that definitely makes the most sense for inspiration. Always knew Game Freak and co. were a cultured lot well, I guess James Turner specifically in this case, have no idea at all how a bunch of Japanese guys and gals might've come across that ad!

Yeah, I did the same, love it didn't have much luck with the boss fight though, so I still need to go back, but didn't suit my melee build at all and they destroy Ash Summons. Those were the ones I was referencing yesterday: Definitely one of the weaker boss fights I think I've encountered so far in the game, it's not terrible by any means, it just kind of gives me O&S vibes in how it functions...but kind of worse? At least for my melee build the fight comes entirely down to i-frames when rolling through one of their attacks, and a lot of the new mechanics just don't really seem that useable here. The arena is massive but it's not really used as you're often cramped between them anyways. Again, I'll be back, but they didn't leave a fantastic first impression

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought this also @darksnowman Sobble's final evolution, Inteleon, seems like a pretty clear reference to James Bond/MI6, and I'd guess the entire line is based on newts. Which we have some indigenous species of. Don't ask me about Grookey and it's line though: at best I'd guess that they're a reference to drummers, but not a particular one? It's also called the Chimp Pokémon when I think it's clearly a monkey, and I mean, I guess we have those in zoos? There's some neat stuff in there but Pokémon, for me, hasn't had great nuance and design for its regions since Unova in Gen V. Everything since then has very practically been "this country...but in the world of Pokémon!" I mean Unova is an entire region based on a city, and while every region is visually similar in shape to its inspiration, it never felt like it went beyond inspiration - there was loads of space for them to flex their creative muscle and design an awesome place. It's insane how much thought went into extrapolating so much in that region, from the focus on truth and ideals, to the design of many of the Pokémon, to the actual locations in the region compared with New York. Ditto for the preceding four main series regions before that. So yeah, Scarlet and Violet I'm sure will have many references to the real world, but in terms of the region, I agree that it will probably be pretty shallow in how it does this if the last few regions are anything to go by

Cult of the Lamb is coming to Switch...uh...soon, but hey that's exciting and the trailer is fun:

It's over in Caelid, next to my previous grinding spot, which I think is pretty well known (where you get ~1000 Runes per kill on these fidgety short guys). You don't actually need to attack anything, just need to be careful, and get ~2000 Runes per run, can do two runs in a minute, and so you're probably looking at somewhere between 200,000 and 240,000 Runes per hour. Hope that helps Don't think I'll be playing this much today, if at all, as I woke up with a migraine which has only been getting worse, so think I might take a break from screens after typing this

Got the Digital Deluxe version of the game and so hopped on with a couple of mates at midnight. One of them messed up the pre-load so jumped off after he realised he could only play the Music Rally ad nauseam, and my other mate hopped off around 01:30. So anyways, here I am starting to type this at 05:30 (I'm off work at the moment so no need to fear for my lack of sleep ), which should say a lot. This game is good. Like, addictively good. I was hoping it would be my FIFA replacement going in, and now there's no doubt in my mind that it's going to fill the role of a less intense game dutifully. So far I've completed a handful of races and got Gold in all of the A and B license tests, and spent extra time in those license tests trying to best my mate who got the game a day early (I now hold the better times for most of the tests - for now!) - some of those are insanely tough, and the feeling of being 0.002 seconds off a Gold is excruciating, but it's too much fun to put down. The game feels incredibly responsive and smooth, and the menus and short load times feel super snappy. Oh, and in a proper throwback to the days in my childhood with GT3: my left thumb looks a little worse for wear and the print-side of my right middle finger is tender from battling with the trigger. Firstly: the haptics. The game feels kind of nuts. The way it reacts to a change in surface and conveys it to you through feel - be it the chug-chug of a Tokyo speedway or hitting the grass - is kind of insane. Jury is still out for me on the adaptive triggers, can't figure out whether I'm a fan or not with how they're used here, but I do feel like I'm compensating for their adaptive nature by just tightening my hold on them, which probably isn't great in the long term. Visually, the game looks stunning. Next time I hop on I'll be sure to take some screenshots, but for now I've been playing in the mode prioritising frame rate, and I've not noticed a single dropped frame so far (I'm usually pretty sensitive to this stuff as a dodgy frame rate can make me feel dizzy). Not too surprising really based on what Digital Foundry were reporting, seems like Polyphony did a great job polishing the game up. This all being said, there are some odd decisions to be found in the game. For instance, the game requires online at all times otherwise you are SEVERELY limited in what you can do (I think it's basically an exhibition race with a choice of 12 or so cars?), and if that wasn't frustrating enough, the online multiplayer mode - in a game which needs to always be online - isn't accessible from the get-go? There are also some odd choices in terms of the car lineup, maybe it's just because I haven't played a racing sim in so long (Forza Motorsport 4) but...man, is it thin on the ground in some areas. No doubt more is coming down the road, but a quick look through Brand Central showed some pretty major supercar and hypercar brands being MIA, such as Koenigsegg and SSC, and some really big name cars are missing too. No Bugatti Chiron? Again, it's probably coming down the line, but I didn't expect to come back to racing sims to find less cars in the games now than when I last played them might be a case those brands have deals I'm not aware of, but it does seem like there's stuff missing. Lastly, a minor annoyance I've spotted but will surely grow accustomed to, so I'll mention it now: the default option that your cursor is hovering over after completing a License Test is 'Exit' rather than 'Retry', which is a pain to remember when you're ten attempts into trying to get Gold or beat a friend's best time and just want to smash 'X' and jump back straight back in. However if you fail the test (for example, you hit a wall or drive the entire car off the track) your cursor hovers over 'Retry'...so they clearly know what's up. Strikes me as an odd decision. But yeah, had a lot of fun, and really looking forward to taking my time (..?) and chipping away at this game.

Did you go any further than the Manor? I'm assuming that you completed it I've also been avoiding Caelid like the plague, but after I take on the Manor tomorrow, I think it'll be time. I did pop in yesterday with some 30+ levels more than when I was first there and took out a couple of areas but the enemies in the open world kind of scream at you nonstop that you shouldn't be there, extremely aggressively. Not that that's at all a bad thing Did some grinding tonight for a couple of hours, didn't want to put the game down but didn't have the energy for catacombs/caves (just burnt out on that aspect a bit right now I think, hopefully be back up for it tomorrow), shot up ~20 levels and think I might now be a higher level than I've personally ever been in a From game before? I'm now at Lv 83, so yeah. Imma destroy those little freakos in the Manor tomorrow.

Yeah, you're probably right, I just want to one-shot those things got jumped by some in a woods somewhere when I grabbed an item...just, From...no. Sounds like I'll need to double back there after I've finished grinding

I entered. Saw an enemy. Turned around. Walked out. Nope. I'll wait until I'm obscenely OP before going in there I don't get the talk of players of From Software games being masochists but there's no denying that Miyazaki and some of his team are a bit of sadist I'm actually at a point where I think I might need to do some grinding, so maybe I'll just stick on a podcast after some food and look up if there's a better grinding spot than the one I've currently got. I've gone as far as I think I can for now with lighting up Sites of Lost Grace (which is, uh, pretty far) but I definitely felt under-levelled on the way over. Got a little burned out on catacombs and caves earlier too all of a sudden, which probably doesn't help the level situation the three main locations that I think could be the way forward just have me dealing out too little damage and receiving a bit too much for my liking, so grinding it is!

Game is selling well, let's pretend to be surprised The really surprising thing for me was seeing a friend from high school in my friends list playing the game, as he's the type to only really jump on FIFA/GTA/CoD/big single player or multiplayer experiences. Nothing wrong with that of course, but very surprising, just shows how great a job has been done with the marketing of this game. Firstly: good lord, I respect the grind I did a bit of grinding myself yesterday in a nice spot and got my secondary attributes for my hybrid build (DEX/INT) up to where I wanted them (18/15) and then got my primary attributes all up to snuff (STR/VIG/END to 25). I didn't do any grinding in Dark Souls but did a lot of it to farm Grass at the entry to 1-3 in Demon's Souls, so now I've just been going back whenever I beat a boss and find myself a bit short on Runes. I've only played through Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, so can't talk to the same extent about its difficulty compared to the other games as yourself and some of the others here, but I agree, it hasn't been that difficult *touches wood* so far. I think it just comes down to the sheer variety of tools at your disposal: every build seems viable, every weapon and moveset seems viable, there are Ash Summons, Flasks of Physick, Jump Attacks, and Shield Counters definitely makes most scenarios manageable, so long as you're smart about it. You can grab a pair of greatswords and demolish a lot of things in this game with jump attacks. There's only been one mini-boss (well, two, they were a pair) I've come across so far where my Ash Summons were practically useless, and for the bosses I was facing, the arena just wasn't great, because you ended up with your back to the wall in a massive room, which just doesn't suit my build. I'll be going back I'm sure, but it's the only one where I was like "eh, that's not a good boss fight", though to be fair I think the pairs of identical bosses with different weapons/conditions are just going to be like that when I'm wielding a melee build. The biggest thing for me that I was worried about to be honest when it came to the difficulty was the speed of the game, as I've mentioned before. Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are slow and in terms of their actual gameplay code, a decade old by the time I got around to them, but I've found I've adapted relatively quickly in some bizarre scenarios that I never came across in those two games when it comes to speed and variety, especially when it comes to some of the bosses. The first one gave me a bit of a hilariously rough time, though looking back I was under-levelled, on one occasion got too greedy, and on another he forced me off a cliff on what was easily my best attempt. Something else that definitely feeds into that I feel is the Stakes of Marika at most bosses and mini-bosses. I love the boss fights in what I've played of From games a whole lot (though there are some bad ones) and so it's nice to be able to just go back and get stuck in, but it also makes it a lot easier to learn the boss inside and out when you don't have to remember half a mile of other things you need to sprint through/dodge roll from/not set off. There are also waaaaaaaay more NPC summons than I've been used to, the only one I used prior to this was a missable one in Demon's Souls, which felt earned. All a move to make it more approachable I guess. The challenge is still there fundamentally I think if you decide to play solo/not use Ash Summons/NPC summons, but the sheer amount of tools at your disposal can definitely take away a good chunk of it. Yeah, I'm definitely the sightseeing type too, and I was actually thinking yesterday about something I feel this game could have stolen from Xenoblade: some sort of reward for accessing hidden areas or Sites of Lost Grace (probably Runes), or areas you "aren't supposed to be in". I know some will definitely argue that the reward in Elden Ring is coming across something you haven't before and it giving you that satisfaction of exploration, which I totally agree is there, but despite the world being open...it definitely feels level-gated to quite an extent. If you run ahead you will straight up get destroyed in some places, and so while I enjoy the exploration, in those times where I want to explore ahead rather than deal with a dungeon or what have you, there has definitely been one region for me where the only option really is sprinting through. It's nice to have that difficulty in the open world, rather than saved just for smaller encounters in smaller areas, but beyond giving myself Sites of Lost Grace to go back to when I want to tackle that part of the map, it was a whole lot of "oh hey that thing over there looks coo– FREAKING RUN RUN RUN". Honestly, after Elden Ring and once I've gone back to complete Artorias of the Abyss, I might just move onto Bloodborne or Sekiro myself. One reason is for the variety in place (I've only experienced dark fantasy From so far, which is cool, but coupled with the new mechanics in Elden Ring, DS II and III just don't look that appealing now), but secondly is because those just seem like very different experiences to what I've experienced from From so far. Sekiro, for instance, as far as I'm aware, can owe a whole lot of its challenge to players not having anywhere near as many options when it comes to how to take the game on. Maybe I've heard wrong, but builds just don't really seem like a thing, and so that challenge sounds super appealing (and also just having a main character and narrative to invest in, too). Will be super curious to see where I take my From journey after this...but back to Elden Ring

Reviews (and impressions from reviews in progress) are starting to come in, and they're looking good. Digital Foundry technical review is also up: In no real rush to pump hours into GT7 as I don't think I'm okay pumping Elden Ring time into other games (maybe I'll just start the career), but I'm in for the long haul with it, so very excited to see how it's turned out. Roll on Friday

Yeah, think tiredness might have played a part, but there was just a sense of wonder for me that I just can't nail down. It just made me feel more than a boss fight in a game, it's a tough one to explain! And yes, those guys are a pain in the ass! I actually bolted out of that area the first time because of them, but at that point I'd figured out what was going on with how to unlock the thing, just thought I was under-levelled I spent about 30 minutes jumping around the place with Torrent and had no luck, so I figure (I don't actually know anything, but stick it in a spoiler because just referencing it feels spoiler-ish): Not that I could find... @Hero-of-Time sorry to hear you're not as crazy hot as some of us on here from the get-go, but as you've played the other From games - and played a hell of a lot of games in general! - I always find your perspectives invaluable. Even if this becomes my favourite game of all time and you hate it (not saying you do or will, just hypothetically if you came away really down on it), I'm sure I'll be able to understand where you're coming from, so by all means go for it, I think it just makes for much better, more rounded, and more meaningful discussion around the game. I've definitely got some minor nitpicks with the game (ahem, why not tell me how many Gold Seeds or Tears I have when asking me if I want to upgrade and then saying I don't have enough!). I also appreciate the honesty because I've definitely heard and read some things around the internet the last few days (not here, but on some of the early impressions stuff and review talk last week) where I'm just sitting there like "you're blazing hot on this game...but you don't even seem to understand the game? What are you talking about?!", and it's infuriating because it sometimes feels like people get caught in the zeitgeist and basically are throwing up the same buzzwords and opinions without giving it much thought. It's nice to read some level-headed "this is where I'm at with the game, this is how I feel about it", and for it to be something other than the usual non-positive thing about the game's difficulty. For me, I loved Breath of the Wild, even if it had a lot of areas where I want it to improve when it comes to its sequel. Demon's Souls and Dark Souls I thoroughly enjoyed, but it was just too oppressive for too long at times for me, and made me feel overwhelmed and need to take regular breaks, whereas with Elden Ring, because it's much more open and I'm not being bottlenecked down a certain route, I can find my own room to breathe, which is giving rise to some super long play sessions. I also just love the mechanical additions, like with the Jump Attack and Shield Counter coupled with stagger, and as I said before, I'm very worried about how willing I'll be to go back to Dark Souls II and III after this. Funnily enough, though, when I talked to a friend on Friday during our weekly GTA session, I was only some 4 hours in or so, and remember saying "there hasn't been a great interconnected space yet which feels like a proper From dungeon - I haven't gone to the castle yet, so know something like that could be coming, but I kind of miss it and I'm concerned about how it'll be handled." I've played through that legacy dungeon (think that's the buzzword they were using in the marketing) since and I think it absolutely captures that feeling, so look forward to hearing your thoughts on that when you get to some of them EDIT: I'm also sorry that got so long-winded

The Netflix Marvel series are coming to Disney+ on 16th March.

This is probably my twenty-somethingth "HOLY CRAP" moment of the game, but seriously, at this point - what the heck is this game?! Pretty far north of Limgrave to give a rough idea of where in the world the spoiler tag is for, trying to keep text in the tags brief/obscure enough to avoid spoiling for Tapatalk folks.

It's finally happening: all Funimation content is being moved over to Crunchyroll.

Well that's pretty neat, but... ...just give me some folders and themes please already, damn it Nintendo!

Oh yeah, that's totally fair! The game's huge...no doubt I'm loving it that much I could see myself playing a NG+, but if I were to do it after beating the game for the first time or in the next six months, I could see myself taking the crit path, depending on what carries over to NG+ and if there are multiple endings (which I imagine there probably are?). I'm mostly doing it for sanity ("wait, where was that thing I saw / wanted to buy?!") and to keep note if cool things, but nothing massively exhaustive. For me I guess it's just to keep track of things, and it's making it much easier to remember the quests, as just writing down what I need and where an NPC was makes me much more likely to remember it. It's already gone wrong once (unless that NPC was meant to die? I have no idea with these games) but with the game being so big it's definitely helping me keep my head straight. Especially helpful when I find a sorcery, armament, set of notes or Stonesword Key at a merchant too, just writing down all the interesting stuff they have that I want, how much they have of it, it's price, etc. It's also proving useful for some of the occasions where I do run ahead but done explore, say, some Catacombs that I open up and get the Site of Lost Grace for, just by keeping a list of the bosses I've beat, where they were, and keeping track of how many attempts it took to beat them has been funny to see too The first "HOLY CRAP!" moment I posted, it's around there three tiers of spoiler tags below: explicitly the general location (just clarifying the hint), how to unlock the fight, and the explicit location of the boss fight

I took on a boss yesterday that we saw in some of the trailers, but was completely overcome by chills and nearly teared up. Was not at all expecting to so viscerally react to a boss fight in this game, much less because of the beauty of the track backing the fight, or the actual moveset of the boss itself. The atmosphere, lighting, sound effects... seriously, though not a hard fight, that's immediately up there with some of my favourites. Moved on from Limgrave yesterday as I did what I had to in that area, think I explored most of it in the available directions but no doubt I've missed plenty. There was an Evergaol I want to return to but was getting sorely beat into submission by, so might need to go back to that at some point. In an odd spot with my build where so far most of my points have gone into VIG/END/STR - a standard build - but now I'm investing in INT to make use of a cool sorcery I picked up, which inevitably means a bit of invest in MIND, and I want to try out a different weapon too, so DEX as well. Aiming to get those to 18-20 for access to a greater variety of tools at my disposal before I go back to pumping everything into VIG/END/STR. I've started heading north, unlocked the map for those areas, but I just keep getting amazed by the scale and secrets of The Lands Between. I'm loving it, but at the same time, I think playing this I've just given myself an exponentially harder time when it comes to going back and some day experiencing the earlier Dark Souls games, III in particular. Again, I feel like I've just barely scratched the surface of this game, and I'm left awestruck time and time again by it, whether that be it's combat, what I can figure out if the story, it's characters, or secrets to uncover in the world. Keeping notes has been a big help, specifically with merchants (I'm taking note of their name, location, and any key items I figure would be helpful, which is essentially me buying every Stonesword Key in sight!). It's also helped me to actually progress some quests in a From game for a change...but that didn't save someone from dying It's been really interesting on my journey just seeing how differently I tackle each area. In central Limgrave during the CNT I explored most of it, so here it was mainly going through and completing things I'd come across before as I came across them, but sometimes I just find myself in the mood for wandering off ahead and seeing how far I can get, and what cool things I can see, setting up a bunch of Sites of Lost Grace along the way before coming back at some point and slowly going through the area, no doubt still missing plenty. But the thing with Elden Ring is it gets to 21:00, I've been on most of the day, so I start winding down...and then I think "eh, you know, I could just explore a little more, maybe 30 minutes and then I'll start to properly wind down for bed" or I get an idea of how to deal with some secret/cave/quest, and so I go back on for a bit. I do whatever I planned to do in that 30 minutes, and then I find another thing: "okay, let's quickly check this out, and then I'll go off to sleep." And then it's 01:00 the "oh, okay, just one more thing" nature of the game is making it incredibly tough to put down, which I'm very surprised by as my time with both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls gave me times at which I was more than happy to take a break, as the bleak and oppressive nature of the games could get a bit overwhelming at times. Here, I don't mind just trying something else, somewhere else, because I can and the game has no issue with me doing that. I only have Demon's Souls and Dark Souls as my points of comparison - the two mechanically oldest games in this style - but I can already comfortably say that this is my favourite From Software game. There's no doubt in my mind.

Right then, to give my thoughts on this, as it definitely caught me by surprise as I'm sure it did everyone else: very surprised by them getting Gen IX out this year, even if we've been getting 3 year gens for a while now, substantial DLC for Legends: Arceus or rushing out another remake through ILCA could have easily given them another year to develop this pair of games. Not at all surprised but more relieved that we finally have a pair of games set on the Iberian peninsula, because this has been speculated about forever, since back when I was on the Serebii forums in high school. The thing that made it seem like only a matter of time and the reason it was at the centre of a lot of speculation at the time was a visit Masuda made to Spain back in 2014 or 2015 which got mentioned in the Game Freak blog, but wasn't exactly business-related - similar to previous mentions about visits he had made to New York (Unova) and France (Kalos) preceding the releases of the games those locations inspired. Really glad it opened up to be both Spain and Portugal, was a bit concerned when I spotted the map that they might make a Spanish region and just use the entire Iberian peninsula as the regional outline for it, so glad @Jonnas has pointed out a lot of the Portuguese influences here that quelled some of my reactionary fears there. They've nailed the visuals for me in terms of the vibrancy of a region based in Spain and Portugal, and the architecture especially. It's just a shame that the presentation of those inspirations are a pixelated mess of awkward textures and, once again, a choppy early look at the upcoming game. In terms of the game, I loved Legends: Arceus, as a lot of others did too, so I'm all for it. I've seen some mention that they hope it's more open rather than being zonal from a hub with a lot of loading screens, and while I think the trailer itself did an okay job at conveying this, the official site confirms it: Now, to what degree that is remains to be seen, because I suppose you could have several towns and open areas in a zone and the same phrasing would apply. Definitely a step up from Arceus in this regards though, from the sound of it. The starters: I love them. Now, Fuecoco was immediately the one for me - little guy just looks a loveable lug - but I like the contrast between Quaxly and the previous Water-type starter, Sobble, as Quaxly looks much more confident and prideful. Sprigatito is probably the most generic out of the bunch, but my mind went straight to an Iberian lynx as I think was the case for many others too, so I'm excited to see it's evolutions, and love its name. Finally: I hate the trainer faces as they appear in game, despite loving the trainer art itself. It's their stupid noses, looks like they're from DokeV. Interesting decision to have a slight tweak in uniform for each version, I'm sure it won't mean much, but version differences have been getting what feels more and more granular these days anyways. Violet definitely has the better uniform design in my opinion. And that's pretty much all I have to say for now, felt like we saw a lot less of the region than we did for Galar, though that might be down to having potentially fewer settlements and being more open. Really curious to see what the box art legendary Pokémon look like, as it seems like there's much less we can extrapolate from the logos this time around when compared with Gen VII and Gen VIII, and what, if anything, the gimmick for this generation might end up being.

No-one: We'll get the announcement of Gen IX today. Absolutely no-one: We'll see the starters and footage of Gen IX today. Game Freak: So anyways, here's Gen IX! Everyone: I just can't believe they faked us out with what I saw as a tease of Detective Pikachu news not once, but twice, and we ended up with Gen IX. It's insane. Overall the Presents was definitely one which showcases the two extremes of Pokémon, as we had updates on not one, not two, not three, but four games available on mobile (not necessarily exclusive, but you catch my gist), a lot of it stuff we'd already heard or guessed was coming over the last few days: Pokémon Go with it's super tame and phoned in Alola teaser, Masters Ex with its anniversary event, Café Remix with its updates and event, and Unite with its event and showing off the next support. It was...rocky. Though, there's always light in the darkness, and the light's name in this Presents was called Marshtomp Then it was onto the stuff I feel most were waiting for: updates on Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl in the form of Oak's Letter being shadow dropped, which is a pretty fun event (Gen IV definitely had some of the stronger events with how they were handled in-game), as well as an update for Legends: Arceus, in this case update 1.1.0 - Daybreak. Smart move to keep it fresh in the mind with some tweaks and additional content, getting easier access to Hisuian-native Pokémon is a massive win in my eyes, though it's a bit of a shame they weren't as easy to get a hold of in the first place. The announcement of a short series set in Hisui sounds like good fun. And then the big surprise: Scarlet and Violet. Yeah, didn't see that coming at all, don't think anyone really did. Then again, I do remember the same guy who translated the Chinese leaker's tweets said Gen IX was coming sooner than we thought and would be announced by April, so looks a step up from Arceus already in terms of its reveal footage, definitely a bit rough around the edges but Arceus managed to turn itself around with the time it got between announcement and launch, so imagine it will be the same here. I'll save my thoughts on what we're actually getting for the game's thread, but for now, those character faces look...bleh. Overall, an event which had absolutely no pacing, but will be remembered favourably only because of a huge surprise announcement and the recently released games getting nice smaller updates. They need to curate these events better, because opening with the snore fest that is updates on four consecutive titles available on mobile could have had people checking out of the event. Just stick the Legends: Arceus update at the beginning, saying thanks to everyone for getting onboard with this new type of Pokémon adventure, and then say "speaking of gratitude..." to transition into the Oak's Letter event, then go to mobile. That way you've set the bar high enough for people to actually want to stick around. My verdict for Pokémon Presents: Pokémon Day 2022: 7.0/10 (too much mobile) It's been a fairly solid start to the year for events!

Doubled my time with the game today (well, yesterday now), I'm around 17 hours in, and I still feel like I've barely scratched the surface. This game is freaking huge! But despite that fact, I am still thoroughly enraptured by it. I cannot strongly echo enough @drahkon's sentiment: if this sense of joy in exploration, combat, characters and story continues to keep pace - heck, if it even drops off a bit and peters out towards the end - this is going to be a very tough year for GOTY's, and I absolutely think there is a distinct possibility that this could go down as one of my favourite games when all is said and done, too. Anyways, I feel like I simultaneously made both a lot and incredibly little progress today, a bit of that down to I feel exploring some of the areas outside of what we saw of Limgrave in the CNT previously and so it was more just going through, thoroughly completing the areas when it comes to dungeons and anything else I could find. Also started and finished a few quest lines, which feels good. The note-taking is definitely helping I did actually beat the boss that was giving me trouble before, beat him on my third attempt today, but naturally, my much stronger second attempt (based on how many Flasks of Crimson Tears I had left) came to a hilarious - if premature - end. I actually tried my hand at the legacy dungeon (i.e. the castle) and probably got around a third of the way through, at a guess based on the map. My aim was to just try things out and take it easy while setting up some Sites of Grace for a proper run through, but well...I spent a good hour or two just trying things out, looking around every corner, trying to get used to the terrain and enemy types, and yep, that classic Souls feeling of great interconnected level design is still absolutely there. But it's so damn big and labyrinthine! I did also manage to find a familiar General Grievous-lookalike along the way. Exacted my thirst for vengeance. South of Limgrave I came across the second Evergaol of my journey so far, and well... ...it happened again! I definitely got very greedy this time, and From definitely designed this enemy's attack pattern at close range to shutdown R1 spamming Besides those two I beat another field boss and six other smaller bosses in dungeons/caves/what have you, so definitely been productive! I have come across another one of these, atop a tower to the south, and you'll definitely know once you've come across it. Hope that's vague enough to not spoil but hopefully clue you in enough on if you can open the spoiler tag safely... (the thumbnail of the clip only shows the top of the tower but nothing else if that's a bit too vague, though!) I just can't even with this game at times, man, I've picked my jaw up off the floor so many times already, and again, I've barely scratched the surface. Goodness knows what Miyazaki was on saying the game could be beat in 30 hours - that even seems impossible to imagine for a non-NG+ (assuming there is a NG+, I have no clue) crit path, just given the scale of everything. And even if it is possible, unless you're speedrunning...I have no idea why you'd crit path this game. It's too damn good. Anyways, got a couple of dungeons and areas highlighted in my notes for exploration tomorrow, and then I might try my hand at the castle again. Maybe. If I don't get side tracked...which I'm sure I will Yeah, unless there's an item or something opens up later in the game, it seems like they're gone. Same goes for mini-bosses too. Also, haven't seen anyone mention it so I need to make sure to: your pouch is probably one of the most useful but barely mentioned tools at your disposal when it comes to getting quick access to non-combat items. You can access it from the top half on the right side of the menu, and assign items to different buttons on your D-pad, and then to use these items on the fly you only need to hold down Triangle / Y and then press the button on the D-pad with the assigned item you want to use. I've found it a godsend as opposed to having items take up valuable room on your person and cycling through with Down on the D-pad mid-battle through stuff that doesn't need to be there. I've got the Steed Whistle assigned to Up (the one which absolutely needs to be in the pouch, in my opinion, given how much you'll be using it), Telescope to Left, and Lantern to the Right (because there are loads of dark places in these games, and screw dark places in From Soft games). Hope that helps someone

I have now There's something similar in the open world that I mentioned before that involves the same smoke you see in that situation. Trust me, you'll know when it happens Yeah, I headed there yesterday after saying I'd stop exploring, and it's probably the best region that is directly adjacent to Limgrave which really puts into perspective how big the map is going to be. Hell yeah After playing a bit today I figured hey, why not give the same, story boss you first get pointed towards a go? I thought I might be a hit under-levelled / unprepared for it, but hey, what I love about Elden Ring so much is that if you hit a wall in one place, you can just go explore pretty much anywhere else and continue to grow before coming back. So I also gave it a couple of tries, and then I got close. I GOT SO CLOSE. How close, you ask? Only other boss I took on today (well, didn't run away from and stuck around to fight) was Agheel. It took a (good) while using my trusty, un-upgraded Halberd, but I beat it on my first attempt, just a whole lot of patience and persistence with my melee build, and a little bit of cunning too. So that's my first field boss beat I know of a few other small dungeons and caves in Limgrave I'll be checking out before going back to that boss who gave me some trouble, but I'm so excited to play more. Off to the cinemas for now though, so that might be all for today

Yep, that's the guy. I have not, but shall be keeping an eye out. Also, unrelated, but something I need to mention regarding a bit of a trap I came across in Limgrave, that left me super confused in the moment...

Heh, I've checked your spoiler and I pretty much had the same reaction. However... I'm absolutely loving it so far. I genuinely want to lend the game to my friends who don't play From Soft games once I'm done with it, not necessarily to take on the game's challenge (as that's not their cup of tea), but just to explore the world. So far it's been so meticulously and naturally designed. Utilising Jump Attacks and Shield Counters to break down an enemy is so much fun, as is the use of the Bell, and while I've yet to focus on the main path and have just been fighting smaller bosses, it came to a head yesterday against one of the guys in an Evergaol (the same one from the CNT). Having only played the mechanically oldest and likely slowest From Soft games in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls before this, the guy's speed, jumps, and spins took a couple of attempts to adjust to, but on my third attempt I had him nailed down when it came to his moveset (besides his attacks causing Bleed - need to find a better shield or upgrade mine when I get the chance!), and so for example he had a volley of attacks that came in a three, so once the second made contact, I would step closer for the third to get a Shield Counter and then Jump Attack. Gah, I loved it. So far I'm rocking a fairly standard melee build, which is going pretty well. I do want to eventually get to a point where I put some points into MIND and INT, as some of the new spells look super cool and I've never really made much use of magic in these games. I do want to mention in terms of performance that when exploring the open world, yeah, the framerate does drop a fair bit at times. Thankfully not to the point of causing any motion sickness, and I don't think it's happened when in combat yet, but I've also seen some fairly egregious examples of pop-in, so I hope further updates just keep rolling in. This game deserves far better. Anyways, breakfast and then back to it!