Julius

Another trailer: Still looks solid, even if some of the voice-acting early in the trailer seems a bit much

Music in this trailer seems a bit more up my alley compared with what we've heard before, which I'm very glad about. Still very hard to take characters like chibi Cyrus and chibi Volkner seriously, but hey, I'm sure I'll continue to complain about this game being chibi until well after launch Seriously though, I do wish they would've kept it fixed camera and basically just had the in-battle models in the overworked similar to Let's Go. Let's just pray Black and White don't get done dirty in this regard like these games have. The Platinum outfit being an early purchase bonus and Manaphy being our early Mystery Gift this time though? Sigh I'm buying this aren't I?

2.0 update adding Suspend Cycle and Photo Mode! Suspend Cycle is pretty much exactly what I was asking for, so I guess I know what I'm keeping an eye out for next month!

@Ike was right, nothing to worry about, N64 controller arrived safe and sound I've got to say, holding an N64 controller for the first time was certainly an experience

A new Wii U owner is on the horizon! So as I've mentioned a lot over the last few months, I've been increasingly interested in picking up a Wii U to plug the gaps Nintendo has left so far with the Switch. I can be pretty anal about wanting to experience things in some sort of order when it comes to my enjoyment of entertainment, and that's no different when it comes to games, as I love to see mechanics, gameplay loops, and tech evolve while going through a series. This has put me in a weird spot with Nintendo the last few years, as titles in both big and small franchises are currently trapped on the Wii U, and I just can't bring myself to venture forth in some games I already own knowing that there are games I would want access to afterwards trapped on an older console I don't have under my TV. Other than the GameCube (where I know Nintendo games are often going for a fortune these days), select GBA titles that weren't ported (like the GBA Pokémon games), and other select titles from older systems which were not ported, a Wii U would give me access to most of Nintendo's catalogue alongside my Switch and 3DS. This all culminated in me finally ordering a Wii U the other day, which is set to arrive by the start of next week. I've bought one in large part due to its Virtual Console offering like I mentioned before, but also because of some of its HD efforts and Wii backwards compatibility. Yep, even though I had a Wii to play on growing up, I feel like I completely missed out on some games on the platform just through a lack of awareness at the time of the wider range of games up for grabs. My Wii U hasn't arrived yet, but honestly, I'm really excited to set it up and dig in! So, N-E, I come to you in search of your Wii U recommendations to add to the wishlist of games I've compiled so far. I'm not going to go nuts and buy everything at once, because I feel like that would bring along a headache I'd rather not deal with, and also because unless they announce that the Wii U eShop is closing in the next year or so, I'm in no real rush. For starters, my wishlist is split between games available natively for Wii U, Virtual Console games, and Wii games, but there are some caveats in writing this list I've though about that I'll mention now: if a Wii U game has been ported to the Switch and has a Deluxe version available which is considered the definitive version, I'd prefer to buy it there. E.g. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Super Mario 3D World, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, etc. along similar lines, for Wii games, if it has been ported to the Switch (or even the 3DS) in a generally agreed upon improved version, I'll likely pick it up there. E.g. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Donkey Kong Country Returns (I hated the shake to roll and slam on the Wii version!). if a game is already available as part of Nintendo Switch Online's base tier as part of the NES or SNES apps, I'll try to save myself some money and play it there. for Wii and Wii U original games I'll probably try to track down physical copies rather than buy the game digitally, unless the physical copy has an insane mark-up. E.g. Metroid Prime Trilogy Essentially, I'm looking for recommendations that I wouldn't have had access to before this Wii U arrives. I suppose there's also the question of N64 ports or games that you think have a best version on Wii U, as I know @S.C.G has mentioned Majora's Mask's N64 port on Wii U might be preferable to the 3DS version, but in that specific case, I'll hold fire for now. Which brings me onto my wishlist so far: Wii U The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD Xenoblade Chronicles X Nintendo Land Virtual Console Metroid Zero Mission Metroid Fusion Advance Wars Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising Fire Emblem Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap Golden Sun Golden Sun: The Lost Age Earthbound Earthbound Beginnings Wii Super Mario Galaxy 2 Metroid Prime Trilogy In terms of hardware, I've ordered a Wii U Pro Controller and Wiimote Plus + Nunchuk, but I'm open to any other hardware suggestions people might have. Is the Wii Classic Controller Pro worth looking into, or will the Wii U Pro Controller cover my needs there? Cheers in advance N-E

Yikes. That would have been unacceptable even if this were available at the base NSO tier, but at the launch of a new tier which they're effectively charging double for? And yeah, the button remapping options (or lack thereof) are terrible from Nintendo across the board, but man, it really does look uncomfortable here. Hopefully they get on top of this sooner rather than later.

It's just the time of the shipping email seems a bit late in the day for me to be optimistic about it turning up compared to the few other Nintendo Store orders I've made, would love to be wrong though plus my local delivery services have been a bit off the last month or so, which never inspires confidence! Yeah, seen this line of thinking a lot from other AC fans too, and honestly, can't blame you if you've got minimal interest in the N64 or Genesis offerings. Interesting point about online retailers seemingly not having codes, I wonder if that's at all down to the discount they're offering for existing members of NSO to transition over to the Expansion Pass? As I would have to imagine buying a code could potentially cause some confusion, for example if you bought a code for 12 months but were already 3 months into an annual NSO subscription, I'm not sure how exactly that would work without getting messy? I mean, more directly: I don't see Nintendo wanting to deal / actually dealing with that hassle stares intensely at Joy-Con drift videos Don't think of it as being part of the problem! At the end of the day when it comes to any buyer's remorse I may have - especially over things which are too expensive for what they are and "voting with your wallet" - I always come back to life being way too short to worry about things like that. When it comes to questions of ethics (Activision, Ubisoft) I won't touch it with a space elevator, but unless there's a seriously coordinated effort, "voting with your wallet" for most people I know becomes buying it on sale. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but if you want something and no-one is getting hurt, I say go for it As for Ocarina of Time, it's a good shout! When was the last time you played it? For me, it's definitely a game I still want to check out, but I'd feel almost guilty having the 3DS version on my shelf for years and not getting back to it, after getting about halfway into it a good few years ago. And knowing me I'll want some consistency, so unless anyone tells me the 3DS version of Majora's Mask is inferior, I'll probably end up tracking down a copy of that for 3DS too! Yeah, I recall reading the same. Am I misremembering or was that not mentioned in the Direct? As much as I did enjoy it, in hindsight, that seems like a pretty big thing to not mention in the Direct itself if it wasn't clarified there! I have very few memories tied to Nintendo home consoles and franchise characters prior to getting a Wii a few years into its lifetime (mostly related to playing games at other people's houses), but for some reason, Star Fox 64 / Lylat Wars is one which really rings a bell for me, which is funny because I don't recall ever even seeing an N64 being played in person! I've always been curious about it, so it's definitely a game I'll need to check out at some point or another. (and it's this kind of logic of mine which creates the mountain that is a backlog )

This basically ensures minimal price reductions, it's inclusion in sales, and the physical price not really budging, right? adds to PlayStation wishlist Nintendo publishing a remake of a Rockstar game is a match made in NPD heaven (or hell?), so I'm sure Mat Piscatella's going to be having a great day when we start seeing this turn up.

N64 controller has shipped this evening. Don't see how it could end up arriving tomorrow, but I guess we'll see. Not really in a rush for it anyways, as I'm not planning to move up to the Expansion Pack tier anytime soon. With the Expansion Pack going live tomorrow, is there anyone here who plans on picking it up? If so, what do you plan on checking out first?

Update from the PlayStation blog today. Looks a lot of fun! I'd been toying with the idea of playing through the first game again next year, but honestly, I think I might just wait for Forbidden West at this point. The Machines were a lot of fun to fight and the game looked beautiful, but things like combat against humans, the story of the past being far more interesting than the story in the present (shares that with BOTW I guess), and the repetition of certain lines (I still have nightmares about Aloy commenting on what felt like every herb she picked up) has really put me off and made me want to wait for this instead. So fingers crossed it lives up to the billing!

Looks over at the sequel trilogy l Of all of the things they managed to mess up in those films, not seeing Anakin's force ghost at the end of IX and never seeing him actually talk to Ben or Luke is high on the list of things that deeply irk me. Kylo was on Mustafar at the start of IX, for crying out loud! Hurts even more when they had some interesting concept art for him potentially turning up in the trilogy, such as: But yes, absolutely agree it would be great to see him talking to Ahsoka, though I'm not quite sure what could be so important for him to turn up here and not in the sequels if it is as a force ghost and not a flashback (and I doubt I'm the only one who would question it). For that reason I'm probably a bit more excited to see him in Kenobi at the moment, even if I am way more nervous about his inclusion there.

The Christensenaissance continues. As originally reported by THR: And then all but officially confirmed by Rosario Dawson: Done dirty by the execution of the prequels which pretty much killed his career, I'm glad that Hayden is seeing the love from fans he deserves, such as when he was at SWC 2017 for the opening 40th Anniversary panel and got a standing ovation. Finally gets the chance to prove those who hated Anakin in the prequels that it wasn't entirely down to his performances, which I always thought was obvious. I really don't think it's a coincidence that some of Anakin's best scenes in the prequels are scenes where he's not speaking, such as the staring off into the Coruscant skyline after the Siege of the Jedi Temple in ROTS, or when he slaughters the Tusken Raiders in AOTC. Also gives another show where we can hope for a live-action flashback to The Clone Wars era stuff, and seeing the actors in live-action versions of their animated counterparts' costumes would be awesome.

Well, that blows, but like you said, the writing was on the wall. I would have been more concerned if it had managed a December release, I know it seems like a pretty faithful remake, but not giving it much of a push in terms of marketing seemed like they were sending it out to die! At the same time though, Q1 2022 is stacked, so that might still be the case Genuine question for those who have played the original: I'm thinking of picking up a Wii U in the next few weeks, is there any reason that I should wait for this rather than picking up the GBA versions based on what we've seen so far?

20 minutes seems rather lean, so I hope it's paced well and filled with impactful announcements and updates. Worth noting that this is a pretty significant heads-up compared to what we normally see (5 days compared to the 2 days from a Tuesday announcement to a Thursday State of Play), so I hope that's for good reason. That new page was created for Final Fantasy XVI on PlayStation's website the other day...is it finally time? Then again, Endwalker is three weeks following this, so maybe not, but they did also say they originally thought of showing it at TGS, and it's been over a year since our last update on the game... (It's probably not happening here, but I would love to be wrong) Those Nvidia leaks included potential other smaller Square Enix projects that were in the works, though, so maybe we'll see something from those? Hopefully nothing from Forspoken this time around, we saw it last month in the Showcase and I think all of their showings of that game since the first have informed us less and less about what the game actually is. For similar reasons to XVI, what with Elden Ring coming in February, I can't see the long rumoured Bloodborne remaster showing up here, even if it just a few days before Halloween. Would love to see an update on Little Devil Inside, we haven't heard anything about that game in a good while at this point. Going to set my expectations firmly at 4 minutes of Call of Duty, a smaller Square Enix project, maybe a trailer for the Oddworld Soulstorm Enhanced Edition (urgh), a reminder of the GTA Trilogy Definitive Editions coming on the 11th, and last but not least: another trailer for Deathloop

Please be excited and pre-order this game you haven't seen yet for full price! £54.99 on PC, PS4, and Xbox; Switch and PS5 price TBC. Releasing 11th November digitally, 6th December physically.

Our government's handling of both *grabs pitchfork* (seriously though, why do they actively seem to be trying to break COVID records instead of steering well clear of them?)

As someone whose first God of War was 2018's, I think it's a really good place to jump in, and I'm sure many others here who jumped in with this game would agree. There are some references and nods to the earlier games, so maybe a quick look up of an IGN video on the events of the God of War timeline (I'm sure they've got one) before this might help a little, but the biggest "oh wow" moment was still effective for me as someone who knew bits and pieces about Kratos from what I'd heard and read growing up / once I got more into games. Not to say that playing the other games wouldn't add to certain moments, as I think @Hero-of-Time and @drahkon have attested to before, but I don't think it's vital for your enjoyment. I still thought it was GOTY-worthy that year with little knowledge of Kratos and the events of earlier games going in, so you should be fine!

Oh wow, they look way better than I thought they might! Was a little worried about the yellow and red eyes getting into Litten territory, but they look great! I actually forgot to mention this in my original post, but another main reason I feel like Zoroark might have been suited for a reveal like this is because of it using illusions, imagine that'd give you a spook. Since I originally posted I also saw some pretty awesome posts elsewhere pointing out other things which made it seem even more likely, like the guy saying "It's 7:06...no, 7:07 PM" being a reference to Zorua and Zoroark's Unova Dex numbers being #76 and #77, respectively. When the Pokémon fandom wants to figure something out, boy do they! Also someone's got to mention just how terrifying those Snorunt looked Looks like these Zoroark got some pointers from Piers Correction: Zorua > Riolu but it's Lucario > Zoroark

Uncharted prequel. Goes on to steal story threads, scene composition, events and costumers from across the games (rough examples: the black tie event and brother storyline from 4, the outfit from 1, the scene of Nate hanging somehow managing to melt together the opening of 2 and the plane scene from 3). I wasn't confident going in anyways, but damn, this is how you really put me off. It seems really, really desperate to throw scenes and threads very directly from different games together into a prequel movie which is now even hard to consider a prequel? Avi Arad producing and very little - if any - involvement from Naughty Dog based on what I can find kind of spells out why that's the case I guess.

Mob Psycho 100 S3 was announced yesterday! Not totally unexpected as their official Twitter had been doing a big countdown since July, but great to see all the same. And Bones is back. And Kenji Kawai for the OST. Poster: Hype: Yes

A tease of the settled systems:

God of War coming to PC on 14th January 2022. Steam page here. The tech side of things: It's yet another title from September's Nvidia GeForce Now leaks.

Same! Though in Cloudy White (I never could pull off gold ) Always loved the look of the panda Pixel 2, so very happy with the look of the Cloudy White! A bit nervous leaping from a 5.5 inch screen to a 6.7 inch screen, I'd probably say I have medium-to-large hands but normally prefer something a bit more compact, so the specs and the colour choices for the Pro got me this time around. My Pixel 3 was up for an upgrade at the start of the year, but I decided to wait for the Pixel 6 before getting a new phone as it wasn't faring too badly back then. The last few months, though, the battery has really started struggling, so I'm glad this has finally come when it has -- been an excruciating wait since the reveal in August as I've seen my battery get drained faster day on day Is anyone interested in any of the accessories? I'm not a huge fan of the frosted plastic look of the official cases to be honest, seems like a bit of a step down from the old fabric cases (at least visually), so will probably be waiting to see how the phone feels in-hand before committing to a case. Will definitely be keeping an eye out for a 2nd Gen Pixel Stand though, I've been thinking recently about buying a second stand to have one in my living room and the other on my desk, so hopefully we won't be waiting too long for that. It's really nice to see Google going hard with the Pixel, the prices seem aggressively competitive, and the pre-order promotion for the Bose headphones is great, even if it will probably end up with me trying to sell them on, as I got myself some nice on-ears that I'm still happy with last year.

Pokémon: "Welcome to Hisui, the ancient predecessor to the Sinnoh Region" Also Pokémon: "And here's some found-footage 90's horror set in the ancient Hisui region" In all seriousness though, fair play to them, probably the best tease we've had of a Pokémon in a long time, and a great way to separate the marketing of this from the Sinnoh remakes. I kind of want a Pokémon horror game now... Pretty sure everyone who has played the Mystery Dungeon: Explorers games was worried for this guy when Snorunt turned up and the possibility of a Froslass being around came to mind. The last time that I can really remember being teased like this was Zorua/Zoroark, and honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this was for a Hisuian Zorua or Zoroark styled after a Kitsune Mask. The hint of it being small, like a Vulpix or Growlithe, feels like the biggest hint of it being something like this.

PlayStation in Canada and Japan testing out the ability to share screenshots and clips in the PlayStation app. Must be nice. Hope we don't have to wait too long to see it over here!