Julius

Berserk mangaka Kentaro Miura passed away two weeks ago on May 6th due to aortic dissection I watched the 1997 anime for the first time last week over a couple of days and was blown away. Sure, the animation was a bit clunky at times and I know quite a few things were cut from the manga, but the quality of his story writing, worldbuilding, and character arcs shone through. I actually ordered a few volumes of the manga which are still on the way, because it grabbed me that much. Guts' speech in Episode 14, what we learn about him (like how he clearly cares about the people on his company), and the commentary on his purpose as well as theirs, struck deep with me, as I'm sure it did many others. That the 1997 anime is timeless is a great testament to how legendary his work is, and I found myself reading through what I could find about his career and life after watching the show. The guy was writing manga at 10 which was being published for his school, I mean, that's pretty insane! I know many in this thread are fans from what I've read in this thread before, and I know that he's had a profound influence on a number of people in a number of industries, particularly in video games, manga and anime. I'm grateful that I'll get to experience his work for the first time, and that he has so much out there from his career, but that pales in comparison to the loss of a great artist, man, and most likely the completion of his life's work in Berserk. May he rest in peace.

Completely missed that Digital Foundry put up a video on the PS5 upgrade as it went up just moments after the announcement! @Sheikah @Goron_3, hope you enjoy it! Though I think the game has its flaws and some very vocal detractors (for some legitimate reasons, and some not so much) it was still one of the standout games of the generation for me. That I played it on the base PS4 last summer and was blown away at how great it looked and ran on that means I'm a little envious of you diving into it for the first time with this patch on PS5! ...inevitably, this means I'll have to replay it at some point

! PS5 free upgrade lands TODAY! Days of Play sales tie-in I guess, which is pretty cool? Because otherwise at this point you could have also saved it until the next State of Play, or the anniversary of release next month.

Buuuuuuuuump. Game is still slated for 2021 and will be this month's cover story for Game Informer: Release date at E3?

Hands-off previews have gone up:

Summer Game Fest kicks off Thursday 10th June, most notably with PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam in attendance: It would be cool if there were some reveals here and then deeper dives from what we see at E3 as they're running alongside each other, like a blown out E3 Coliseum, but why do I feel like we're going to see a lot of overlap? Just my gut feeling, but PlayStation could absolutely just be dropping a launch trailer for Ratchet & Clank, with some developer interviews. Should be interesting to see how it pans out, that's for sure, especially going up so directly against E3!

Nice! Any particular plans for what you want to play on it first? Depending on your budget, at that sort of size, maybe a monitor would be more suitable?

5 more games being added 26th May:

Zelda & Loftwing amiibo inbound, launching alongside the game on July 16th: Pretty heavy on what would be deemed Quality of Life stuff, though - as someone who hasn't played the game before - it seems like it might go a bit too far? Imagine it'll shake up speedruns for this game considerably.

So, GTA V only sold around another 15 million units in the space of a year. No biggie. That means it likely only outsold the overwhelming majority of AAA new releases in 2020 for the fiscal year. And the news of upcoming updates and the next-gen version releasing on November 11th was shared today too, so that's not stopping anytime soon. See you in 2026, GTA VI.

Maybe? But having not played a Ratchet & Clank game before, I'd rather start with the most recent in this instance mainly as a crash course entry into the series more than anything else. I think it'll probably give me a better idea of modern Insomniac's take on R&C, plus it'll be much faster than going through all of the (earlier) games - because if I did plan to go back to games earlier than the 2016 one, knowing me, that's me playing through all of the games from the start Not to say that I won't go back to them at some point, but yeah, it's just to get familiar with it more than anything. I don't mind some of the story/nods going over my head, and hearing that the PS3 games might be better just makes it more likely that I'll go back to them at some point

No E3 announcement on the cards: Good on them for getting out ahead of it. While I'm excited for E3 being back, it'll definitely be a lean one by the sound of things.

I swear this game wants me to fall out with it. Beat what is by far the longest boss fight in the game to this point? Game crashes to a black screen. Progress continues to be made, albeit quite slowly compared to how I normally get through games at a steady clip, as I just wasn't in the mood for a lot of things at the start of last week, and then had a fever that stayed until Sunday I played it on Saturday when I first got to that aforementioned long boss battle, and feeling under the weather and it being quite late, I didn't prepare properly at all, so it ended up being a nice show of what I would be up against as that boss stomped my unprepared party as I ended up scouting their overpowered moveset. Which made taking the time to prepare for it and then getting through with relative ease feel so, so good the second time when it didn't crash, I mean! Although I also learned that I missed out on one of the rarest (and most helpful) items in the game after having to go back to an earlier save and speed through as I mentioned last week, which I know I picked up on that first run, which sucked. Anyways, game is still kicking ass, story continues to have its hooks in me firmly as I'm entering the final act, and it still feels like there's plenty to left to play out. I'm aiming to chip away at it through the week, so hopefully see credits by the end of the coming weekend. There's a lot I've been taking notes on, especially with how messy and vague the recruitment guide has got, but 25+ hours and 80+ recruits in, I've only just picked up on the fact that you don't need to have someone in your party when at a shop to equip them with new gear, runes, etc., which I only noticed because there would occasionally be an additional name at the bottom, but I thought that it was either a bug or to do with having someone in your convoy. Turns out I somehow missed the arrow which goes over to another screen for you to view the rest of your recruits! Anyways, some noteworthy stuff to add in a spoiler tag: Still loving it, look forward to seeing how this last act plays out. Soundtrack continues to be insanely good, think it's in contention for being one of my favourites. That second overworld theme captures the sense of adventure wonderfully, and I swear I've probably listed upwards of two thirds of the tracks so far in my notes!

Game looks goooooood. Three and a half weeks away and I've yet to play the 2016 game...guess that's what I'm playing next

Bit of a tough one to explain without spoiling it (and imagine finding it naturally was a big part of why it landed so well with me), and it's totally possible that you've come across it to some extent already. I'll split it up into two explanations, one with vague instructions on how to come across it, and one pretty explicitly stating it Hope that helps

Don't know if anyone caught the Fanfest this weekend, I caught some of the highlights and the opening ceremony (more because I'm interested in what that team is doing and Yoshi-P, rather than playing XIV itself), but thought it was worth highlighting that composer Masayoshi Soken shared that he is in remission after being treated for cancer most of last year, and continued writing music for the game from his hospital bed. One hell of a man: Also, Endwalker is releasing on 23rd November, here's the full trailer: And Yoshi-P walked out as a Hunter Reaper, seeing him carry around that scythe was hilarious Pretty much puts to bed the slimmest of hopes that XVI will release this year (I still think this was their original goal before COVID became an overwhelming factor), and honestly seems unlikely it'll be out before the end of this fiscal year. Not to mention the lack of PS5's in the wild, though that's clearly not for a want of trying, so I think it makes sense. Also, not strictly related to XIV, but it was revealed at Fanfest: Yoshinori Kitase is inheriting the role of brand manager from Shinji Hashimoto. Don't think he was as involved with XIV as the tweet makes out, but you know

New overview trailer: Such a good job with the voiceover casting for this game's trailers. The right balance of condescendingly over-the-top and pretentiousness

Finished Episode 3 of The Bad Batch, and it was great once again. Still getting into the groove, but it looks like we're inching towards what I've mentioned wanting to see in my previous posts come to fruition. Also, it had quite easily one of the darkest scenes in Star Wars. Looking forward to next Friday, but this show has me adamant now more than ever before that Lucasfilm Animation (and Filoni) is the go-to when it comes to Star Wars storytelling. The show looks incredible, and I think it's a bit of a shame to a certain extent that their plans for the Rebels sequel seem to have been woven into the live action plans instead. Been a while since I've read any of the canon stuff if I'm being honest, I was pretty much up-to-date at one point, but after I missed a few (and wanting to collect the hardcovers, but missing out on some) my interest kind of fizzed out. I might end up going back to track some down, but can't imagine it'll be easy! As for where to start, though, I think Claudia Gray's Lost Stars is the best jumping in point into the new canon novels. It reads more like a YA novel, and there is a romance at its core, but there's a lot of mature storytelling and character development going on. It takes you through from before A New Hope up to the end of the Battle of Jakku, showing you both sides of the rise and fall of the Empire, with some excellently worked moments where it ties into the films, which I won't say too much about, but this is a book where it feels like it adds more to those films rather than its own separate entity. So that would be my recommended place to start!

Amazon UK will reportedly be restocking around 10,000 consoles on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week at 08:00/09:00. Probably one of the largest restocks since launch, so if you're still looking for a PS5, that seems like it might be your next best shout. Apparently the GAME drop yesterday also took an hour and a half or so to get through, and ShopTo took a good few hours today, so it's either things are starting to look up, or these are just going up at very awkward times when there's reduced site traffic

Game went gold yesterday... ...and will come in at just over 42 GB (before the day 1 patch):

I've had nothing but good experiences with them if I'm being honest, they saved me last year after Simply Games completely botched my Final Fantasy VII Remake pre-order, and I've been mostly using them for my physical games since. Being able to pre-pay on pre-orders whenever I like definitely helps with managing finances, rather than wondering where £50 randomly vanished to one day, that's for sure I've also had positive experiences with their customer service. Can empathise if you've had issues with them though, after what happened with Simply Games I think I've only used them twice since, which was for Judgment (which was £10 cheaper than everywhere else) and Mass Effect Legendary Edition (which wasn't available physically on ShopTo for whatever reason). I remember reading about ShopTo not doing the greatest job with how they handled PS5 pre-orders too, though. Customer service and experience is a really fickle thing, one of the few certainties in life

The new controller colours are now up on Amazon UK: Midnight Black - £59.99 Cosmic Red - £64.99

Just seen the same, good luck! Seems to be for some bundles on back order, but it could be worth getting your name down even if that is the case (don't know if this will be of interest to you @Hero-of-Time, or if you'll see it in time )

One of my favourite Easy Allies videos in a long time: the EZX Bonus Food Reviews. No surprise here that Don steals the show, but I was surprised by just how natural Brad was. Would love some more stuff from them like this, it's nice to get a bit more variety, especially when I think the Allies have struggled more than most other places since starting to work from home as they don't get to bounce off each other, this was very cosy!

Today's PlayStation Blog entry focuses on how the features of the DualSense were utilised in Returnal, and will be utilised in upcoming titles Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Subnautica: Below Zero, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Life is Strange: True Colours, Scarlet Nexus, Mobile Suit Gundam Battle Operation 2, and Kena: Bridge of Spirits.