Julius

Now that I think about it, they had something that was not too dissimilar to this at the start of last year when the Final Fantasy VII Remake demo was torn to shreds months before release, difference obviously being that it was a leaked demo rather than an event. The entire thing was played through and datamined for pretty much all of the full game's content. S-E has had things leaking pretty consistently before events since then, so maybe it is them, but the wording of the tweets make it seem like it wouldn't be someone who has been leaking fairly consistently the last few months. I do wonder how much is left that we don't know about now that Final Fantasy Origin (the Soulslike) has seemingly leaked, so I imagine if this is for an E3 event (we still don't know if they're holding their own conference yet which is the only thing giving me pause) that the only thing holding them back from dropping the event now would be the DQ 35th stream later this week and agreements with the ESA. Because I seriously don't think they can have too much to surprise us left, right? In terms of FF we know that XVI and XIV Endwalker are on the way, we might start hearing news about more ports ahead of the anniversary next year, VII Remake Pt. 2 is out there somewhere, and then there's the potential for the aforemention Final Fantasy Origin to turn up. In terms of Dragon Quest we'll likely hear about XII this week, other ports and updates on previously announced projects (like the new Monsters game) and maybe one or two new titles, but I'd imagine nothing as major as XII, especially not saved for a potential E3 showing. And then, what else is there that would be worth holding out on? A new Tomb Raider game will have its fans but its far from their biggest IP, I guess we haven't heard about Babylon's Fall in a while, and at a bit of a stretch, maybe a Kingdom Hearts game? But again, for me, nothing else would seem as big as what we already expect and would be worth holding onto known quantities for. It'll be interesting to see who it is regardless. Now give us some E3 event times people

It seems like a publisher has some leaky pipes ahead of E3 next month. The fact that they say it's massively out of character for them in particular pretty much eliminates EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft, and Capcom going from the last few years. Navtra has had some bits and pieces of Square Enix and PlayStation info on ResetEra, but never anything quite like this, so, dare I say it... ...is this going to turn out to be Nintendo? I hope not, as them keeping things under wraps so well is what normally makes their Directs/E3 events so great to see, as there are actual surprises in store. In fact, regardless of who it is, a few weeks out from E3 and other events, I hope it doesn't leak. But I'm struggling to think of any other big publisher that does a great job of keeping things under wraps, besides maybe Sony's first party? But even then, as we saw with the TLOU Remake/Days Gone sequel denial, they don't seem to be totally infallible either.

Tweet from Yuji Horii about this week's Dragon Quest 35th Anniversary stream: So, uh...XII? Looking forward to it. Don't know if I'll watch it live, as it's a bit early for us, but I hope they deliver! Fingers crossed all the way for more ports, namely IV - VI and (PLEASE) a HD remaster of VIII for current platforms with the orchestral soundtrack and the bells and whistles from the 3DS version!

The outpouring for Miura since Thursday was great to see. The Final Fantasy XIV tributes in particular really hit me hard when the lines just kept going, and going, and... A lot of tributes from the gaming and manga world too, one particular highlight was Saito Kenji from Platinum saying that he wanted to push harder for a Berserk game to be greenlit over there: It remains to be seen what will happen next. Many think the series should end where it got to, as it won't live up to its previous heights without Miura, though others are optimistic that his team of assistants at Studio Gaga can take on the challenge if Miura left plans for the story's direction and wanted them to carry on with it. Miura supposedly only worked on storyboards for Duranki, with his team responsible for the art, and I think it's actually very close. Now, whether or not they have the chops to continue with the story in line with his vision and voice seems an impossible task, but I do think the art is more or less there: My copies of the Berserk manga that I ordered last week got split into two separate deliveries, and the second one still hasn't dispatched from what I can tell, so I've only got volumes 6, 12, and 14 on my shelf. I think my order might have been delayed initially, but stock is probably going to be the bigger issue now, seeing as Berserk is taking up most of the top 10 spots in the manga section on Amazon and other places, but I don't mind waiting! Instead, to get my Berserk fix in the meantime, today I watched the first movie in the trilogy adaptation of the Golden Age arc, Berserk: The Golden Age Arc I - The Egg of the King. I went in knowing it would be something of an abridged version considering just how much they'd need to condense it down, and even though I knew this, it still felt very poorly paced, to the point that if I hadn't seen the 1997 anime a couple of weeks ago, I would be well and truly lost when it came to a few scenes. In fact, I know one or two of the things the 1997 anime cut out from the manga, and seeing as they haven't turned up here either, I'm starting to wonder if it's a movie retelling of the 1997 anime adaptation? Which would be weird, so perhaps I just haven't got to that point yet. The use of 3D CG animation in a number of scenes is impossible to go without noticing throughout, often swapping back and forth between that and a more traditional 2D look for certain characters multiple times per scene, and filling the background with these lifeless dolls. It's a shame, because the 2D stuff actually looks really nice, so while I know that they went with CG for budget reasons, I think they should have just taken the time to bring it all to life in 2D, as the CG is jarring 90% of the time. The other 10% of the time, in key scenes where they've clearly taken extra time to adjust the lighting of the scene (such as with Nosferatu) or the pacing of the scene so that you aren't focused on it for too long (the events that transpire the night of the first ball), it actually works quite well! The music has definitely been the highlight so far, which isn't much of a surprise considering the involvement of Susumu Hirasawa. The opening for this is much more suitable in tone than the English opening for the 1997 anime (though that was clearly in line with the times!): My favourite scene in the film was the one on the night of the first ball, and boy did it deliver musically with Blood and Guts. That scene in particular is probably the only one in the film that I think was handled potentially better than it was in the 1997 anime so far, strengthened tremendously by the music in this instance, every bit as haunting and tragic as the scene called for. Naturally, I've had it on a loop pretty much since then

I think there are certainly influences from both, some bits that they pulled off well, and some others that I think left something to be desired. I do think there are two very distinct sides to Fallen Order. To me it felt like the general exploration was more in line with what we've seen in "modern 3D Metroidvanias" (I hate trying to pin a game's genre down as much as the next guy, but here we are), and when I was playing it I distinctly felt that it was somewhat similar to 2018's God of War, which is funny because as far as I'm aware Stig had nothing to do with that game, but worked on earlier God of War titles, so there's certainly a through line there I think. The general combat loop and mechanics, especially with regards to death as far as I can remember, to me at least, is where it felt the most like it was trying to draw from Souls, but floundered. I guess that the game felt like two very distinct parts to me highlights what a Final Fantasy Souls-like would need to focus on, which is making something that is consistent across the board. Fallen Order wanted me to explore at my leisure as you might in a Metroidvania, but wanted to have the intensity in battles of a Souls game, and in the end - for me at least - wound up in this weird middle ground where the combat was pretty uninteresting. I haven't played Nioh but I've only heard good things about it, and besides From Software, it doesn't really seem like anyone else is well equipped to tackle a Souls-like at the moment. The only From game I've played so far is Demon's Souls, but it definitely feels like a Metroidvania at times with how the world and level design all connects, and how certain elements need to be returned to later in the game (though it's not usually an unlocked ability but a found key, having beat a certain boss, or something like that). It's a shame you didn't have a good time with what you played of them from the sounds of it, though I get that they aren't for everyone, and if it wasn't for me sticking with it and catching a bit of a break which saw me jump 10+ levels at once after dying at the same boss over and over again in Demon's Souls, amassing souls, then I might not have been saying that I look forward to playing another game of theirs in the future.

I'm hoping that it's more of a "hey, we see what you tried to do there, we'd be interested in giving that a go too with our own big property, with the necessary tweaks" rather than following the same path as Jedi Fallen Order, because yeah, I totally agree that it might be a point for concern otherwise. Thought that game had some good moments, and I really enjoyed it from Dathomir onwards, but it needed more time in the oven, and the Souls-like aspects of it in particular just didn't feel at all baked into the actual design of the game. I think we've talked before about how getting access to easy backstabs on the way back to the ship on certain planets felt kind of pointless given how troopers (and most other generic enemy types) were nothing more than cannon fodder anyways, so it didn't feel all that rewarding to be handed these easy kills. When I think back to one of my favourite places in Demon's Souls, a place where you can farm healing grass, what made it so great was getting to backstab these knights who had been giving me a seriously hard time before getting to the end of that "level". Heck, occasionally I'd mess up sneaking up behind them and I'd be caught off guard before we entered an intense fight, so even though the option for the easy backstab was there, the game still demanded my attention. Again, enjoyed most of JFO for what it was and thought it really picked up towards the end, and I'm excited to see where Respawn with it go next, but even though that game pulls from elsewhere too (like God of War), the Soulsborne influence looking back on it now, with only one From game under my belt, seems pretty clear. I think it's getting the balance right of making something that can be accessible like Jedi Fallen Order was, while not pulling any punches, like having a single difficulty the game is designed and balanced around. You can always come out with a harder difficulty post-launch to push things even further (or you know, maybe just throw some DLC stuff at us that's tougher).

Finally managed to find a source on where Team Ninja's name being attached to this came from, this renowned French leaker who was apparently one of the only ones to leak the Ghost of Tsushima post-launch updates: Found some rough translations of the video, in which he goes on to talk about: - it apparently being called Final Fantasy Origin, or something along those lines - developed by Team Ninja - Souls-like, mentioned Jedi Fallen Order as a point of reference - PS5 exclusive (as H-o-T mentioned) - most interestingly, to me at least: there will be a demo on the PlayStation Store this summer to gather feedback

Lost the FA Cup final and the last game of the season against Villa, yet because Leicester lost we luckily scraped into 4th place. Seriously unfortunate for Leicester, they deserved it more than us for most of the season, but dropped off towards the end. Safe to say I have very little confidence going into the Champions League final next week. To be fair, it feels weird that we're even going to be there, I know you can only beat what's in front of you, but I think we're the least deserving team to make it to the final in a long time. Our 2011/12 win felt romantic and like recompense for our woes in the years prior, but this just feels off to me. I don't know what it is. Yeah, it's a one-off game, but that and the fact that Pep hasn't beaten a Tuchel-managed Chelsea yet is pretty much all that we have going in our favour (and the latter point doesn't bode well for us, because everyone gets toppled by Pep eventually, especially in finals).

I'd been racking my head the last few days as every possibility seemed to slowly get shot down in that thread as I thought of them, but thankfully they've come forward and it sounds like it'll be a Soulslike: I mean, I'm in, regardless of exactly what that entails. Potentially in development by Team Ninja (Nioh), which would be interesting to see some of their Souls interpretation applied to an existing IP. Some are floating around the name "Final Fantasy Origin", so...I guess that means crystals? Definitely sounds like a 35th anniversary project for next year if that's the title it also makes me wonder if it's something of a retelling of the original Final Fantasy but with a focus on action, though I guess I don't know if they'd want something else like that going on with VII Remake ongoing. Also, I've always thought that the Dragoon Armour would suit the style of a Souls game, so that'd be neat to see potentially pop up if this is the case! They also went on to say: So basically a budget somewhere between AA and AAA, but not AAAA (like a main Final Fantasy title like XVI or VII Remake would get) I guess? It's intriguing all the same. Puts me in the mood to play more FF (and heck more From Software games too), that's for sure! Maybe I'll get around to X and/or Dark Souls later this summer

Finished Suikoden II yesterday with over 35 hours on the clock, though I'm sure that'd be closer to 30 if not for how much fun I started to have with some of the castle mini-games. Spent a few hours just waiting for the next cooking contests to unlock I want to let it sit a while, and I want to make a concerted effort to write something worth reading about the game, but I will say that I loved it. A whole lot. It builds on the foundations of the first game wonderfully (mechanically and in terms of its story), it is very much a sequel (so do not think you can skip the first game and go straight to the second!), and though it does tend to trip over itself once or twice, it's a brilliant game. The fact that you can do everything right and still accidentally pick the wrong dialogue option for the best ending left me a little annoyed, though I just went back to my save a moment before and watched that scene instead after watching the other "good" ending, and, well, the ending I saw is infinitely better than the other one. But there's a whole lot for me to say that I need to think about some more, but I'm glad that despite the game seemingly not wanting me to see it through, that I've managed to get there in the end. Very much looking forward to writing something up for it and digging into Suikoden III at some point in the future! And yeah, got a lot of notes to sift through to add to the original post with tips and especially regarding the Suikosource guide for the 108 Stars of Destiny, because boy did that thing turn out to be a bit of a thorn in my side, but unfortunately there don't seem to be any guides on the same level as the GameFAQs that I found for the first game. Going to throw some of my notes on music (swear I'm literally listing most of the soundtrack at this point...) and the latter stages of the story into a spoiler tag:

Sure, I'm just saying that a Quality of Life feature is one of those things that shouldn't be locked behind something like this. An outfit or something? Sure. But this seems a bit much; everyone's time is limited, and often QoL features like this go some way to speeding things up. My question would be if this was intended to be part of the port originally and was moved over to the amiibo after, or if they constructed it with the amiibo in mind? My money would be on the former. It does me curious to see just how much it might change the game's pacing, as I've generally heard that Skyward Sword can get a bit long in the tooth at times.

It's crazy. I want to play this game at some point, but paying effectively £25 for a QoL feature which would make it into most other remasters anyways is not something I really want to support. Something I'll have to think about, it's not like there are plenty of other Zelda games I haven't played yet! Nintendo gets the same pass as Disney in my eyes from most of their audience and can do no wrong. I get that many grew up with them and have an attachment to their IP - which is pretty much unrivalled across the industry in the sheer variety, quantity, and consistent quality - but I don't understand how overlooking such glaring issues does anyone any favours. Like you mention, EA and Ubisoft would catch a lot of heat for something similar, and the fact that I can see the articles in my mind's eye in the event that PlayStation did something remotely similar to this tells you just how much bias there is out there for and against certain publishers/developers. This annoys me immensely, just for the comedic level of hubris it takes to pull this off. Nearly 10 million copies sold in 6 months is something 99% of the industry will never achieve - it's the reason why we're seeing great teams over at Activision-Blizzard be sucked in and swallowed whole to become part of the Call of Duty pipeline - and they manage it with what many see as a bit of a half-arsed collection. That they then pull that off the shelves when there's clearly the potential for it to sell at least 50% more over the lifetime of the Switch? Can you imagine if Avengers Endgame got pulled after its opening weekend?

Official broadcast next week on 27th May at 12:00 BST. Next week is pretty packed between this, the PSO2 event on the 25th, Monster Hunter Rise on the 26th, and Dragon Quest's 35th anniversary stream on the 27th!

Digital event on the 26th for you hunters

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