Julius

Just finished watching Soul, and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I enjoyed Onward earlier this year as well, so hopefully this means Raya turns out well too! Something I do have to say about Soul, though, is I think it might be the least child friendly Pixar film so far? Deals with heavy topics like purpose and the concept of souls, and while it does have some funny parts, most of its comedy is referential (and specifically aimed at North America, a couple of times where the jokes went over my head too!). I feel like a lot of it might go over a younger viewer's head, or make them worry a bit (I know a film discussing things like this when I was younger might have distressed me a bit). Pretty much the opposite of a normal Pixar affair in that way, where it's normally aimed at children with a good message, and there might be some more subtle comedy for adults watching with them. Just might be something to consider for any parents who are thinking about watching it with younger children?

Merry Christmas all

I got to the end of 2-1 on Saturday, lost to the boss once, and then called it a night. It was quite late! But I got back to it today, and yeah, Armour Spider is now down! had a similar issue with Tower Knight (...though for nowhere near as long) where I kept locking on and finding myself in weird positions, or too slow to react. It might be the new camera for the remake now that I think about it too? But anyways, first attempt back on Saturday, I got in close and then was pushed to the side by it's pincers, trapped in some webs, and got doused in oil before being set on fire. Fun. First few attempts today I didn't use as many healing items, to give myself a better idea of what I'm up against (getting over losing Souls has really freed me of the burden of dying), and got used to timing some of the dodge rolls. Final attempt I didn't lock on unless I was backing away, either from the sea of flames or when in close getting some attacks in, but had a blast just dodge rolling into attacks (pincers, fire balls, and webs), the only real issue I had when in close to the thing was avoiding it's body slam (would kind of lose my bearings a bit because of the camera). Really enjoyed the boss fight in the end! Much easier to say when it's over, mind you Really liking the atmosphere and visual storytelling in this game so far, the little description of the level before jumping into an Archstone, and then seeing it all in action, really just makes this game feel so grand and epic in scale. The lighting has been phenomenal too, the yellow eyes of the miners piercing through the darkness, the occasional fire lizard dude pouncing down from above and lighting the place up (as well as setting me ablaze once or twice too!). I did a little bit of grinding and farming at the start and end of my session today, mainly because I remember I didn't find many healing items in 2-1 when I last played, so made the decision to hop back to the end of 1-2. This game is weirdly fun to farm items in, considering that you're put in a position where sneaking up on guys who gave you trouble before, and stabbing them in the back, is a very real option to go with. Got quite a bit of grass now, should do me for a little while, but it's a nice way to familiarise with the controls again. Also upgraded my sword a couple of times, so now returning to the end of 1-2 definitely let's me play out the power fantasy of annihilating those blue-eyed knights and archers who gave me troubles before Busy the next couple of days (for obvious reasons!) but then off for a week from work, so I can finally sink my teeth into this. No rush to it, but I would like to have it completed by the time 2021 rolls around; I'm enjoying it, but it's so damn tense!

Time for Beastars Season 2 news! New OP looks great, though I'm definitely going to miss the stop motion we got in the first OP. Also been confirmed that the series will be releasing on Netflix Japan on 6th January 2021, whereas the international release is being saved until July 2021. Quite the wait, but I'm sure it'll be worth it! EDIT: totally forget to link the trailer for it

Also, just to clarify, The Mandalorian Season 3 isn't going to be releasing next Christmas; The Book of Boba Fett is what Kathleen Kennedy was referencing when saying that the next chapter would release at that time. Looks like you were right, @Ronnie Bit of a shame in my opinion - and that phrasing they used for an Investors Meeting seems risky at best! - but doesn't seem like we'll be waiting too long after then, seeing as the show's already in pre-production. I'm thinking we probably get it somewhere between late Q1 and early Q2 2022? That year is going to be stacked. We could then get Cassian in late Q2/early Q3, Obi-Wan Kenobi firmly in a summer blockbuster position in Q3, and then Ahsoka and Rangers of the New Republic later that year too, if they wanted to fill that year up completely, and not to mention we'd probably be getting a second season of The Bad Batch - if they plan to do one - in that time too.

Yeah, totally agree, and think this makes the most sense. He's the most recognisable face and name at Nintendo (think that goes without saying), and for investors and the board, I would have to imagine he's the guy with the most clout on the international stage, so he's the guy they'd be pointing at to give such presentations outside of their usual sphere. Think it was a similar justification for why he was a pretty big part of the promotion for Super Mario Run (and Switch) with his appearance on The Tonight Show, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he played a role in the promotion of the films currently in the works too.

The Book of Boba Fett officially announced on the Twitter account, with the show's logo:

Episode 3 of Attack on Titan Season 4: easily my favourite of the season so far. Really, really looking forward the next episode! Also, My Hero Academia Chapter 295...

This is exactly where my mind went first too! So this is what became of Pikmin 4...

He's back

Season 5 of My Hero Academia is starting on 27th March 2021! I know it's just a promotional video, but from the little we see here, the animation is a big step up from Season 4. Looks like having dedicated teams for the films and TV series is already starting to pay off, because Shoto's Flashfire First looks awesome! We also got a look at the art for the characters' winter costumes: Really hope the animation is how it looks here when the season drops, it'll give me a lot more confidence in them animating some of the upcoming arcs. Not too long a wait!

Took a break since Tuesday and got back to the game today; it's definitely something which when I sit down to play it, I want to give it all of my attention. Imagine I might be playing it until the end of the year I stuck with 1-2, and a couple more hours later, I've finally beat Tower Knight! That might be the proudest trophy pop I've had. I decided to stick with 1-2 mainly because I had become so familiar with the level and didn't want to move on, and of course I wanted to see if I could get on the inside of Tower Knight. First time I got to him today, decided to start drawing him in to use his shield slam, step back when he starts the animation, deselect the heel I was targeting, sprint around and behind, centre the camera (but not target), let him react while staying behind him, and then target the heel and start slashing away. I think my problem before was trying to roll around his attacks with very little stamina, but sprinting right at and then around definitely worked. @LazyBoy thanks a lot for the advice - I tried to heed it when returning to the game today! Was careful to remain calm and not get carried away, figuring out attack patterns, and, in some cases, cheesing it a bit Other than Tower Knight, my biggest hurdle to overcome was the two blue-eyed knights just before the fog door. The first one is within range of some archers I wanted to take out to avoid being stunned, and the other is in a tight corridor, so I started drawing them out to the bridge far enough for the red dragon to swoop in and burn them (it backfired one time where I was on the wrong side to sprint away, and the last time I took them on before beating Tower Knight, the first one got toasted but then the red dragon didn't seem very interested in the second! ). On Tower Knight himself, once I figured out how to get on his inside, the main issue I had was actually with the space around me - I noticed I kept getting cornered against walls, and so would end up in awkward spots where I couldn't make an easy getaway. Once I noticed this, started waiting at the bottom of the stairs to draw him over, ran half way up for him to throw one of his blue magic spear attacks my way, and sprinted back down and around him to start attacking again. I'm really enjoying it now. I know I'm only 2 levels in, and I imagine there are many tougher enemies to come, but learning the level layout and how to handle different enemy encounters...is it weird to say it really reminds me of 2D Mario games, specifically the castles at the end of the world, in a pretty great way? You learn the level layout, if you lose a life you're sent back to the start (or the last checkpoint) and your learning of the layout is reinforced by dying, and then there's a boss who might send you back to the start/the last checkpoint at the end. It's a really hard loop of play to peel yourself away from! Worth mentioning I had one crash today, but what I love is that because this game is constantly autosaving after encounters, I lost only maybe two or three seconds of actual gameplay once I booted it back up. Even though the game is difficult, and I'm definitely still learning, it's surprisingly fair when it comes to this and enemy encounters. It just wants you to spend time learning it, and I'll be honest, other than a few times in JRPG's where I'll find myself underlevelled and purposely refuse to grind because I want to see if I can overcome something without levelling up, it's been quite a long time since I've found myself stuck on a level and a boss like this! It made me feel like a kid, in a super weird way, in that I appreciated the frustration and just stuck with it. The other great thing is that even if I did end up looking up strategies (quite proud I didn't!), it wouldn't really matter, because, unless it's something which might make it an easier encounter - a lot of the messages were saying to use ranged weapons and magic, so I imagine that's one way for Tower Knight I guess? - it so heavily relies on your skills and reactions to make your way through. Anyways, now that I have some idea of what I'm doing with my souls, I finally spent some on increasing some of my stats. I'm playing as a Knight so invested a bit in Vitality and Endurance, fingers crossed that's what I need to be investing in Time to take a break, and then it's onto 2-1!

I didn't mind looking it up, seeing as it'll be a while before I get back to it, and so will likely forget by then anyways! Don't think I came across any spoilers anyway From what I've read, it does look like all side quests can be done after completing the main story

Second volume of the Season 2 OST, covering Chapters 13-16, is up: In case you missed the first volume, which covered Chapters 9-12: I have my new set of headphones arriving soon, can't wait to test them out digging into this!

Yes, it's so good! I had them playing in the background while responding to some emails earlier, I had to stop when the new arrangements came on Besides Aerith's Theme, think my other favourite new arrangement is the Main Theme; I've got so much love for what they did with it, it's pretty much exactly what I was hoping for! high tempo and energy, and a choir to boot! I know Final Fantasy isn't for everyone, and Sephiroth being the newly revealed character isn't something everyone was over the moon about, but man, if this means more people not familiar with the game can still end up appreciating the gold mine that is the FFVII soundtrack for what it is, then I'll take it

Finished Mob Psycho on Tuesday and finished Mob Psycho II (and the second OVA!) last night. I was expecting some goofy comedy with some witty lines, I did not expect the journey or introspection on society and friendship which I ended up with. This show is absolutely not what I thought it was going to be, but it is something I genuinely think people should watch, because it's got some really important messages. Such likeable and well written characters - I knew it was held in high regard, but again, I really didn't expect it. Just the interactions between characters is awesome to see, everyone has their own motivations, and it just feels right. I mean, is there really a more likeable bunch of guys than the Body Improvement Club? Excellent OP's too: This show bowled me over. I enjoyed One Punch Man for what it was, but this is on a whole other level of enjoyment for me. The animation is hilarious in its simplicity at times, and overall variety, whereas it's gorgeous in its fight scenes - genuinely has Akira vibes at times, down to all the psychic stuff I guess, but it's not afraid to get dark and go big either. The OST really surprised me too, I found myself humming along to quite a few tracks! Favourite is absolute Special Training Montage, because, well, it feels like 80's action movie training music, and it's awesome. Favourite use of it, and favourite fight, definitely has to be in... Absolutely loved this show. I know the first OVA is just a recap of season 1, but it's from Reigen's perspective, which means I'm definitely going to watch it this weekend speaking of, his special attacks had me rolling Strong recommendation from me. Only thing I would be wary of is the first three episodes or so of S1 being a bit slow, but once it finds its feet and you start to get a feel for the show and what it's about, it's really hard to put down. Now to just hold out hope that the next few arcs end up animated! UPDATE: Yeah, didn't take that long for me to get to it. It was hilarious for a recap with how Reigen made himself the protagonist (and just about every other character who says or does something cool), and way more than I'd normally expect from an OVA. And when he just edits himself over the characters he's replacing himself with!

Yeah, I think this is a really good point, and probably the main one. When was the last time Bethesda Softworks gave anyone the impression that they gave a damn? The lead up to Fallout 4 maybe? It's been a whole lot of smoke and mirrors since then, at least that's how I feel. Let's not forget the cheering squad at E3... Still a little odd it's still not pulled from the Xbox store, curious to know why that might be. I wonder if, as @Hero-of-Time suggested, it is to do with their marketing deal, maybe they're having issues figuring out how that would be impacted by this? It can't be easy to pull a bunch of ads on such short notice telling people to go to Xbox to play the game, only for them to not find it on the store. It's a weird one. Regardless of what happens next, like I said before, I just really hope CDPR learn what they can from this. They've worked their team into the ground for this, so I hope developers have the security to walk away from the company now if they want to.

So, Chapter 16. That's a thing. That was a solid episode. Make sure you stick around for the credits music, we get a new orchestrated arrangement of the show's main theme and I think it's awesome...and also because, well, look at how many minutes are left when the credits start So yeah, season 2, that was a thing! Now we get hyped for season 3, because anyone who's watched any of the other Star Wars shows Filoni is part of knows that's where it really gets good!

I think they do? Going off the end of this ad anyways: Compare it with the same one uploaded to the PlayStation channel and it doesn't have the PS opening/closing or the additional "play it on" part, so yeah, have to imagine Xbox have the marketing rights to it. I think it might be the reason, but I'm not too sure. The fact that PlayStation discussed this with CDPR first at least makes it feel open. I mean, does it really run that much better on the original One than the base PS4? Surely not? I don't have an Xbox so can't comment, but for anyone that does: how is their refund policy compared with PlayStation's? I know PlayStation can be hit and miss when it comes to refunds at times (before the confirmation today of what would be done, I read some accounts where they were able to get the game refunded, and others where they were denied), so it might just be that they're overwhelmed with complaints and refund requests for the same game and decided they've had enough, especially considering the size of their install base.

Yep, have to agree with you here. It blows my mind that third parties (especially the massive ones) manage to get this so consistently wrong, and the times where they get it right, of course, it's brushed under the table - perhaps as it should be! Isn't the expectation that when you buy a game it works? I've said it before, but I played Ghost of Tsushima on a base PS4 in the summer, and though I feel it could've done with a little more polish (only issues really were general open world game launch issues), the loading times and the way that game looked on a base PS4 is astounding. Same goes for The Last of Us Part II, which I don't think I encountered any issues with at all? You can tell that game has been polished well beyond what they could have got away with. And look, I know Naughty Dog is a first party studio and so the expectation is that they'll optimise the game for the console (as they should), but looking back at the delays and talks of crunch, at least it was seemingly being spent mostly on crushing bugs and polishing the game further. I think back to Breath of the Wild and how we never heard about crunch (yeah it was in development for a while, but Cyberpunk was - well, they say - in development even longer!) and the only technical issues in that game of any real note were frame rate dips (in a certain forest especially). Not ideal, but for the sheer scale of that game it's astounding how polished it was, and ditto for most other Nintendo games. And PlayStation Studios games. As you mentioned, they just get it right. But even when it comes to third parties, again, there are some who get it right. I played Final Fantasy VII Remake at launch on a base PS4, and again, it ran great. I think there was one game-breaking bug you could trigger towards the end in the vents (which I'm not sure is fixed...but the game auto-saves just before, so as long as you have that turned on, not too big an issue), one or two frame rate dips, and one or two instances of poor texture pop-in (that door ), but again, nothing which is going to kill the experience dead in its tracks. I look at CDPR now and I'm concerned for their team: they've been crunching for nearly a year now, the game has launched a mess compared to where it objectively should be for a game to launch, and so now they have multiple, big patches in the works and the next gen upgrades being developed too. Assuming we still get the latter by the end of next year, that's still going to be nearly two years of crunch - so I hope some of their employees have the wisdom (and offers) to bounce. I imagine it's because on PS5 you're playing the PS4 version through backwards compatibility? So would still need to buy the PS4 version of the game, which would be weird I guess to not have on the PS4 Store and the PS App, but have it only exclusively on the PS5?

Well...holy smokes. It's the right move, though. Even forgetting how it runs on the base PS4 for a moment, and looking at the Pro and PS5, when your ability to play the game to a level where you can actually consistently enjoy it is based on the sheer luck of the draw that is the game's bugs and crashes, it's absolutely in a state where this is warranted. I can't speak to how it runs on Xbox, but I believe what I saw on the Series S and original One looked very poor too. I'm not sure if Xbox's refund policy is already in a place where they're confident to continue with the game on their store, though, but it'll be interesting to see if Xbox have anything to say. Also, for those playing on PlayStation: the updates will still be coming, per the latest statement from CDPR. This whole thing is absolutely nuts.

I love how he calls out Square Enix in a pretty roundabout way there, when it comes to trying to get other Final Fantasy tracks in the game Song List (9 tracks in total): Pretty solid all around, would have love another variation of JENOVA, and of course for Birth of a God and Those Chosen By The Planet to get some love, but...swept under the rug, once again! Also, that victory screen!

I noticed that too still trying to hold out hope that like One Winged Angel it might have the original and AC version, but I doubt it (and it makes me sound greedy )... And it does, it looks fantastic! I might not play Smash Ultimate as much as I played Brawl growing up, but it's hard not to appreciate just how much love and passion goes into these games when we end up with things like this. Sakurai is one of those rare developers I always get excited to listen to...even in cases when he's teaching us how to use our fingers to count with binary

We have JENOVA. We win. Please Birth of a God and maybe some cool take on Those Chosen By The Planet? Please..? And we've got the Main Theme! Ahhhhhhhh it's all happening!