Julius

Excellent pass by Pogba, no-one on the pitch had any clue what was going on except for Hernandez, and everyone knew where that ball was going to end up (even if an own goal). Pogba always shows up for France, shame for United fans he doesn't seem to do the same for them, but I guess they don't let him off the collar as much (guess they haven't got someone like Kanté), but it's crazy seeing him press so high up the pitch in this game. Passing has been all over the place from both teams though, really scrappy which is surprising, as great as it is for us neutrals

French and German lads clearly in a rush to get back to their hotels. Incredibly fast start by both sides!

DEMO IMPRESSIONS Got a bit caught up after starting to type this earlier with some other stuff and then the Nintendo Direct. As I mentioned before, I wanted to put together some more cohesive thoughts on the demo, in part to figure out my own thoughts on this game so far, but also because I know not everyone owns a PS5 right now and so there are some missing out on this demo I wanted to go into a bit more detail before (I know there will be online playthroughs and other impressions too, but figured I might as well share my own, as I actually took a lot of notes!). Depending on your pace and how much you explore, as well as how you handle Garland, you're probably looking at somewhere between 1 and 2 hours for this demo. Heads-up: I'll mention PlayStation button and trigger names throughout, it's purely because that's the only thing the demo is on right now, I'm aware it landing elsewhere too! As with most demos and many games, it starts out with you sorting out your settings, the most interesting of which were English and Japanese voice-acting options and the fact this demo has both Performance and Resolution modes; I personally went with the Performance Mode, which should have favoured frame rate over resolution, but I honestly couldn't tell if that was the case at times, as there were a number of times in the demo (a lot of them on one certain bridge during a battle) where the frame rate absolutely tanked. I know it's an early build, and I'm grateful we got to try it out, but yikes was it rough at times! There are also three different difficulty options available from the start: Easy, Normal, and Hard (I went with Normal for my first time through). Took a little while to load in (clearly not optimised very well just yet) and they had some tips in the loading screens, and I liked that you had the option to proceed rather than just automatically proceeding once the game has finished loading, as I know a lot of games do. You then load into a golden field for some tutorials, and it looks rough. Trying to pause the game brings up a menu but, as expected for a game like this, doesn't actually pause the gameplay, and you can still move around while in the main menu (there was seemingly no benefit to this in the demo). It was at this point that I noticed that there was an option in the menu for Job Trees, which got me excited, but it was greyed out for the time being. The tutorials introduce you to a number of key mechanics in the game, namely Soul Burst, Soul Shield, and Lightbringer. Soul Burst is like a special (almost like a riposte, kind of? Except the prompt sticks around for it for a good while longer, as they'll be down for a moment or two) and has its own animation, which we saw in the trailer for the game, where you crystallise your opponent, and you achieve this by selecting Circle on an enemy whose stance you have broken (similar to what I've seen in Sekiro with the Posture gauges, and yes, you have one too). Soul Shield is essentially a way to parry enemy attacks by tapping Circle while in battle, which helps fill up your MP bar, and can be used on both physical attacks as well as magic; for example, you will come across enemies in the demo where they shoot fireballs at you, and using Soul Shield will increase your MP but also allow you to fire these fireballs back their way by pressing Square (and you can do similar for stones thrown at you, but that's nowhere near as interesting!). Lastly, Lightbringer is an ability which will increases your break damage output when you have 1 or more filled MP gauges, and is accessed through L2 + Circle. R1 is your light attack, and R2 is your heavy attack. There are a bunch of tutorial messages scattered throughout the demo as you gain access to more abilities, and while it did feel like a bit much for the demo, over the course of a decently sized game I think it will be fine. Oh, and as you can see above, blood spatters across your character and their weapon. Really trying to justify that 18 PEGI rating! This brings us onto battles and the general gameplay loop as you make your way through the Temple of Chaos - how is it? I have limited experience with Soulsborne and Souls-like games, and I can't speak to just how similar it is to Nioh having not played those games myself, but it looks like a faster-paced version of that from what I've seen played of it before. It feels much tighter than something like Jedi: Fallen Order in terms of how it feels, but is generally quite forgiving by comparison to Demon's Souls, attacks feel impactful and hefty, but you won't often find yourself locked into an animation and can quickly dodge out of the way, with generous windows for you to use Soul Shield in. Magic attacks are quite overpowered compared to standard melee, whether that be you dishing it out or receiving it, and I had a bit of trouble with Bombs (some wonderful returning classic Final Fantasy enemies throughout, I saw a Cactuar too but a bit like a Crystal Lizard, he pegged it!) until I tried using Soul Shield and throwing their fireballs back at them, and a few of those will cause them to Self-Destruct. I think the demo did a good job of giving you the tools to take enemies on in this sense, and using the Soul Shield is a must - it felt like it was pushing you towards it more than what I experienced in Demon's Souls, where it's more of a smart option if you can land it, but not totally the be-all-and-end-all if you choose not to. No back-stabbing in this demo for anyone curious about that. Rather than bonfires, Cubes are your place to restore your HP, MP, and stock you up on potions (in the demo I think I only came across a handful of potions being dropped by enemies, so they're in pretty limited supply), reviving slain enemies and removing unclaimed items from the field, and of course you return to the last field you've touched. Not sure if difficulty has any bearing on the number of Cubes in the Temple, but they were plentiful in the demo. Along with this there's also an option to optimise your equipment, so again, it feels like it could be a good first place to familiarise yourself with Souls mechanics if you're looking to get into those games. I didn't really come across many light puzzle elements, though there was one time where I kicked a ladder down to make a shortcut, but the demo didn't really give you a good reason to go back that way; there was also one occasion where I accidentally nudged a Bomb off a ledge and it exploded and killed some of the enemies below. Some small rooms off the beaten path, but absolutely nothing like Souls, at least here, in terms of larger, interconnected spaces. There's also an option to 'Abandon Mission', which I didn't try out, but I'm curious as to what it is; I'm guessing it just takes you back to the start of the Temple, but that seems a bit counterintuitive in a game like this. The animation for opening doors will look very familiar to most. General background music plays as you make your way through (unsurprisingly, Chaos Temple from the original Final Fantasy is mixed in there), and there's also some encounter music, but it feels a bit out of sorts with the Main Theme (which is pretty damn epic, if I'm being honest), as the standard battle encounter music is more electronic and modern. Defeating enemies earns you experience which will in turn level up your proficiency in the job role you were using, awarding you points to further upgrade your skills in that job through a skill tree. You can watch short clips on what the new skill will look like if it is visually distinct from others, and while there are three Basic Jobs in this demo (being Swordsman, Mage, and Lancer) that you can access through picking up certain weapons or getting to certain points as you go through, there are also three Advanced Jobs you can access for them by reaching the end of their respective skill trees (namely Warrior, Black Mage, and Dragoon). Each have their own weapons and abilities, you can save preset loadouts for future use, and you can quickly swap between any two Jobs on the fly by tapping Triangle. I imagine the experience multiplier was bumped up a bit for the sake of this demo, but in my first playthrough I got to Warrior and Black Mage in the Advance Jobs, but you pick up Lancer quite late on, so I didn't manage to really give that a go or get it to Dragoon. I was really pleasantly surprised to see jobs in this, my only wish would be that unlocking a new job came with its own distinct look, I would have liked if becoming a Black Mage netted you a look based on the classic Black Mage appearance from the original Final Fantasy with a blue cloak and pointed hat. Speaking of which, there is a loooooooot of equipment that you'll pick up, either from chests or defeating enemies, and I'm not sure if it was them wanting to make sure you were well-equipped for the demo, but I really didn't understand the benefit of carrying so many swords around with me. Again, feels like one weapon per job type and then having rare equipment to find for each would be the way to go. I do want to briefly talk about magic in particular, as I had good fun with it and think it's implemented pretty well. Obviously it uses up some of your MP gauge, no surprise there, but to access it once you've changed over to being a Mage or Black Mage, you hold down R2 which brings up this wheel and that blue ring starts charging in a clockwise manner, and you select the magic element you want to use with your left stick, so for example as you hold R2 with Fire selected, it will charge up from Fire, to Fira, ands then Firaga once fully charged, and you release the trigger to attack. There's a bit of risk-reward, though, as while you prepare a magic attack, you can't move your character, however you can cancel out of it if for example an enemy is charging at you by dodging with X / Cross. And, as you can see above, magic will also be used on environmental hazards to clear them, so I'm curious to see how heavily that features when the game eventually releases. Which brings me onto the boss of the demo, Garland. I mentioned it before in a spoiler tag with the boss's name, but I'll do it here without: this boss battle reminded me very much of a certain battle in Demon's Souls - with the attempted grabs, jumping up in the air and throwing stuff down at us, the charged attack into the floor which ends up being a wider range AoE-type deal, the speedy charges from across half of the room - and I loved it. I want to say he wasn't as aggressive here as a Souls boss, but there were times where he was absolutely chaining one attack after another, and if you don't react quickly enough, you could easily go from 3/4 health down to none at all. He cuts an imposing figure, is a really fun challenge, and the music in his second phase harkens back to the original Final Fantasy in a really fun way. It does a great job of forcing you to balance multiple aspects, for example if you go in with ranged magic attacks you don't have any items to replenish your MP (at least that I came across in the demo), so you need to use Soul Shield to build your MP back up, but be careful to not get greedy as he can break your stance pretty quickly if you parry him a lot and then don't manage to dodge away. Charging a Thundara, having him lunge at me from across the room and then dodging it, backing away, him throwing a fireball my way, using Soul Shield to absorb it and throw it back at him just before dodging away because he follows up instantly with a flame-coated sword charge felt so great. I want to reiterate for like the twentieth time: this absolutely feels like a natural jumping in point for these games because, as I mentioned, Cubes are plentiful throughout; unlike Souls there's a Cube right outside Garland's room, so you don't need to really worry about making your way through any of the Temple again. Sure, that comes with its own missed elements from those games (like not learning the level inside and out), but I think it's great that there will be more options, and I also just love the process of learning a boss fight (as much as I loved it in Demon's Souls, I loved learning attack patterns the most when it came to the bosses). I would hope in the actual release it didn't happen until after a number of attempts, as it happened after my first in the demo, but boss hints turn up next to the door too after losing, which again, will help a lot of people to adjust I feel. The demo ends pretty abruptly after that, but I really enjoyed it from a gameplay perspective. As I mentioned above, if you've played a Soulsborne game to completion before, it's probably best to play this on Hard; my biggest difficulty with Normal is that regular enemies felt like relative fodder (at least after I learned how to best handle Bombs!) compared to Garland, and so I wasn't as prepared to slow myself down, as I didn't really have to do that throughout the rest of the demo. I want to play through it again on Hard to see what that's like and to try out the Dragoon, and would be curious to see if the windows for dodging and using your Soul Shield are a bit more cruel at a higher difficulty than they are on Normal. Downside is, as I mentioned above, the characters themselves (at least in the demo and trailer) feel very one-note, I feel the game might be more enjoyable without your two companions in the way half of the time, and the dialogue is pretty atrocious. Scale it back, get rid of this plain Jack guy (by the way, don't understand why they showed him off in the trailer like the Scalebound guy in a plain t-shirt, because you pick up armour almost instantly in the demo), get rid of his friends: make this a create-a-character game with more elements of classic Final Fantasy and less edgy and aimed at teens (it's PEGI 18, for crying out loud), convey your story through the cutscenes if you have to, but I hope Team Ninja heed the feedback from the survey and realise that the biggest thing getting in the way of this game being great right now is pretty much everything we've learned so far to be directly attributable to Square Enix.

Presentation on the 28th for Kazuya will be 40 minutes long and have no info on the next challenger (not unexpected at this point):

Nintendo UK have confirmed it's coming over here

It's absolutely crazy to me, especially after what Mario got last year and because of how much growth Zelda has shown across the board since Breath of the Wild, so much being money left on the table (making this a truly Nintendo move). In the case of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask it makes me wonder if they are considering adding N64 games to Switch Online, but I guess I'm tracking those down for 3DS, and maybe considering getting a Wii U for Wind Waker and Twilight Princess when I get to them? So this was their redemption plan for the Wii U all along...

Yeah, I'm rewatching this a bunch. Still feel like this game has yet to have a trailer of the calibre of Breath of the Wild's E3 2016 or January 2017 Switch Presentation ones, but I'm stoked. Some stuff from rewatching it: • love that shot of Link falling after the light emerging from the darkness, very Skyward Sword. Was hopeful in my post this morning that the castle going into the sky was a sign of the map expanding vertically (in the skies and underground), and very happy that seems to be the way that they're going with this. • the more and more Breath of the Wild stuff we see, the more and more difficult it's going to be to convince me that Fujibayashi and others high up in the creative process are not MASSIVE fans of Princess Mononoke. How the first game ended, the arm here from the first trailer, the fact it appears to be cursed but also provides some sort of benefit (strength or otherwise), the melancholy of the open world...gah, it's got that vibe. If any of you haven't seen Princess Mononoke before but are big fans of Breath of the Wild (or are just a big fan of cinema in general), it's on Netflix, so you have now excuse! One of my absolute favourite films. • that ancient golem looking thing with the Sheikah eye looks cool, and bokoblins camping out on a Stone Talus is absolutely hilarious. • I can't remember if Link's nails were that apparent in the first game, but that shot of his arm being taken over makes me think he needs to cut them. Dude's bearing some claws! • that new Rune which seems to reverse time (?) by stopping and setting that rolling spike ball back up the hill looks cool as heck. • dragon head flamethrower gauntlet looks awesome!!! • when the weird chant-sounding stuff from the first trailer comes in, it sounds much more pronounced than before. Imagine playing it backwards will probably say some more stuff! • Castle Town seemingly confirmed to be fine, looks like it's strictly the castle that's taking off and was a pretty clean break • I'm guessing I wasn't the only one left waiting on that shot of the castle against the sunset for a title, right? Also, really need to shout out the music in this trailer after we transition to the light. I LOOOOOVE that melody and how it builds and then crescendoes from 0:39 to 0:50. And I adore the erhu, that lonely erhu at the end sent chills down my spine (just like when we occasionally got to hear it in the first game). Really hope this makes 2022, which if we don't see too many delays is quickly stacking up. Between this, Final Fantasy XVI, Elden Ring, God of War Ragnarök, Starfield, and probably some others I'm forgetting...hoo boy. If none of them get delayed I think we could see one of the most split years for GOTY across the industry, it's absolutely stacked!

I really think it is. Three and a half years and nothing other than what we saw at The Game Awards in 2017, even if they only started then and we factor for COVID, that's potential 2.5 years of development time, I would have expected an update by now. Platinum have been going through a rough patch seemingly with other games too (getting booted off Granblue Fantasy, Babylon's Fall looks insanely rough), can't help but wonder what's going on over there. Think H-o-T is right with Fatal Frame, but we also saw the Doom Eternal DLC too, and I believe that game's an 18. Don't know if they necessarily showed enough in the Direct itself to warrant that warning for that game, but imagine it just having that rating for the base game might be enough of a reason?

Development history video from Treehouse: I had absolutely nothing invested in this turning up, but very happy for those here who have been hopeful so so long that this would be making a return! Fingers crossed it delivers, I'm interested for sure, pretty soon too which is great!

Can I just say, even if it is only 3 hours this year, I'm so glad we've rolled off a great Direct straight into Treehouse. Seeing more of Dread and learning more about its development (and as someone who knew it only by name and that Samus suit) is great, and it just lets the hype continue, helps that it looks great for sure. This sort of thing is exactly what everyone else has missed this year. Genuinely the best of the major shows by 20 minutes in after Warioware (agree with @Ganepark32 that some of the indie shows were excellent this year). Not only that, but you get the sense they've held back on a lot too (no Pokémon, though I guess it could be at Treehouse; no Fire Emblem; barely any BotW sequel stuff and not even a title) which makes looking ahead exciting, but they basically filled out most of the second half of this year, thankfully.

Weird that the first trailer was very much focused on underground and this one was very much on the sky. Best way to expand the map is vertically, for sure, but definitely a weird showing. 2022 and showed so little, not even a title (still). A little nervous to be honest, but then again, their Direct was packed, hopefully they're saving it for something down the road.

Treehouse Live link by the way, not sure why they didn't keep it in the same stream. Metroid Dread talk first.

Takahashi and Koizumi have both said "one more thing" before. Cancelled each other out damn it!

They did it, the skies! Hell yeah!

HELLLLLLL YESSSSSS WE'RE SEEING BOTW2 LET'S GO

ZELDA PICROSS LET'S GO! He said "some" which I take to be more than two... anniversary collection and Breath of the Wild sequel inbound? Please?

Aonuma deliver damn it! Please! Don't just be here for HW!

Nintendo won E3 about 15 minutes ago by the way, and there's still more

Is this Advance Wars..? EDIT: it was, I can finally play one!

Been a string first half so I was going to say the same, but thought it'd jinx it. Breath of the Wild sequel is getting cancelled now, damn it @Dcubed!

Oh cool, we get to break windows playing golf in New Donk!

Bets on how many more quick montages/looks of upcoming games we'll get? That's already the second one!

"We brought back Metroid Dread so please stop asking about Mother 3"

Metroid Dread dream coming true for some of you, hell yeah

Oh hell yeah, now everyone can stop complaining about the lack of Metroid (I'm kidding, probably)