Julius

Yep, really looking forward to it! And finally! Yeah, the movie and some parts of the first few seasons can definitely be rough, that's for sure. I've seen the whole show through a few times now, so when I return to it in comfortable just sticking to the essential arcs. I've had a quick flick through and if you are going to do any skipping of episodes mainly to get to The Bad Batch, I'd go with Gizmodo's essential arcs. It was put out before the seventh season was released last year, so I'd watch that based on the chronological order, then also add the first four episodes of season 7 (the introduction of the Bad Batch) as well as the last four episodes of season 7, which is the climactic finale to the show, to the end. At a rough count that's probably still some 70+ episodes, so a bit over half of the series, and I've already noticed one or two episodes missing which I'd probably stick in myself as personal picks, but aren't really all that essential. All of this being said, once you've seen 70+ episodes of the show considered essential, I personally think it might be difficult to do a more complete rewatch of the show later on, knowing that what you left out is likely weaker/not wholly necessary to the plot. Personally I think it highlights how great a job Lucas, Filoni, et al did in turning the ship around just considering how weak some parts of the earlier seasons (and the movie) were, you see the growth of the team and Filoni in particular has his identity as a director comes through more and more as the series goes on. No greater case to make for this point than considering how many weren't Ahsoka fans in the earlier seasons and film, and I think you could be missing out a bit if you care about the development of the production/writing/etc. of the show in that sense; I think sticking to only the "essential" arcs could make it seem like Ahsoka was better written than many make out from the outset. But, I guess you could also just take my word for it!

Bah, looks like you're right, I got ahead of myself. The wording of the translation I was reading made it seem like it was adding a lot. My interest has tempered, but looks like it's being received positively at least! Still, cool that it got an update now, and so far out from release too. Gives me hope that Nintendo do the obvious thing (which probably means they won't) and get some new content to other games of theirs with large install bases, like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe; nearly 35 million copies out in the wild, sell a nice package of stuff for £15 a pop, even if they hit only a fraction of the player base with it they'd be absolutely raking it in. Especially depending on how badly some games have been hit by COVID, it's an easier way to keep your fans happy.

Wow, they actually got around to adding stuff to it nearly two and a half years after release - I really thought it had been left for dead a long time ago! I held off on picking it up purely because I heard how little replay value there was compared to other Super Mario Party games. I'll wait for impressions, but what they're adding sounds like a lot of fun!

Continued my journey this evening and just finished up at Fort Mercer. Game's definitely got into its groove a bit more and continues to grow on me. At the moment, I've changed my approach on quests and am talking to all of the Strangers I can find, and just pick away at whatever chooses my fancy and is in the general direction I'm heading anyways. What I've learned is to not pick flowers at night, because a cougar leaping on you out of nowhere will scare the crap out of you and make you bite your own tongue What I'm quite liking is the size of the map that I've experienced so far. Everywhere feels a stone's throw away from the next, so I've found myself using the fast travel option less and less - unless it's on the other side of the map and there's nothing else to hit on the way - and just taking in the vibe if the game more, running into helpless people whose wives keep getting hung and who die the moment I arrive. Oh well Other than that, I do have one major (minor) complaint, and that is the shotgun. Every other gun I own gives at least as much feedback through the DualShock as the shotgun, and honestly, most of them make it vibrate more. It's very jarring, and gives the shotgun I own at the moment no reason at all to be picked up, because it just doesn't feel great to use. Also been some weird NPC interactions. First time I arrived at Thieves' Landing I started walking towards the saloon only for this guy to rush out with a shotgun and kill me in a couple of hits, completely unprovoked and unrelated to any of the quests I had on me. I saved a guy from a cougar who then kept running, and running, which meant the music didn't go away, which meant after my earlier run-in with a cougar I was on edge after accidentally killing my horse. Yeah, I slipped and pulled R2 for the first time ever in a video game and ended up shooting my own horse at night surrounded by a pack of cougars. Go figure! there have also been one or two times where the writing just went off. Bonnie lecturing John on being a murderer after very kindly and calmly asking for some help with tracking something down just felt really out of the blue. The game continues to grow on me. It's still rough around the edges, and I think it could definitely do with being modernised in some way, even at this early point. I know the Xbox backwards compatible versions are the best way to experience it, but forgetting all of the technical issues, it just feels a bit clunky at times, like it's getting in it's own way (such as with the map like I mentioned before), and that is where it shows its age. Whether it's just a new coat of paint or being remade to stand proudly alongside it's sequel, I think it would benefit greatly from it, because I do get the sense that there's something special there.

Developer message: Had no idea it was the 25th anniversary of the series, there are so many of them this year!

This is a win for anime: Replicant has topped the UK sales charts. Suck it and weep, FIFA I'd been looking forward to this for a while, but it was one of the game pre-orders I cancelled a couple of weeks ago after I noticed just how many games on my shelves I still hadn't touched. I went to pre-order it a few times at the start of last week but managed to stop myself Do hope those playing are having a great time!

Yeah, definitely! Between this and the Switch I'm sorted on just new titles, then you their in ports and remasters of games I haven't played and suddenly my backlog doubles in size And then if we think The Last of Us' Factions could well be aiming for the latter stages of this year (depending on how much they've fleshed it out) in October/November, it's a pretty solid year all things considered, especially seeing as there's likely more to be announced. Horizon internally is probably aiming for a Q4 2021 release, and I genuinely think, internally, that has been the aim for Final Fantasy XVI too. Now, do I actually think that either of them will actually hit this year? Forget my usual optimism, and forget COVID impacting development and every other reason to delay them, because PlayStation have seemingly shipped just over half of their reduced projected shipments (6.5 million of 11 million, reduced from 15 million) as of the end of last month. It just straight up makes zero financial sense for Square Enix to be launching a new Final Fantasy exclusively on a console with an install base a fraction of what it could be. Horizon I suppose you could make the case is cross-gen and so doesn't need to rely so heavily on the number of PS5's in the wild, but unless XVI becomes cross-gen, I think Square Enix will wisely hold out, even if they do manage to finish it by the end of the year.

Right?! I did the same, read the tweet and was like "oh cool, that's a nice trailer", then I started doing something else before seeing everyone else's responses! Would love to see some more of Little Devil Inside, agreed that it's probably a bit too early for Kena as I imagine that would be saved hopefully for something bigger in June/July?

Only mentions extended gameplay for Rift Apart and updates on indies, but still, a State of Play is a State of Play

New gameplay trailer: And looks like we'll be seeing more in this week's State of Play!

I haven't, I'm guessing that would be Red Dead Revolver? I think I've seen it a few times before while going through the PS Store sales, but it never clicked for some reason or another until just now I hadn't really heard too much about it, but you've put it on my radar now so... *adds to wishlist* Yeah it seems to have taken its time reducing to be honest! I've been wanting to pick it up to just add it to my shelves, as I'm sure I'll get around to it at some point, but after cancelling a bunch of pre-orders recently I figured I should play the one that's already on my shelf before I pick it up. Am I remembering right that you skipped RDR2 at launch because of the news that came out about Rockstar's crunch and staff treatment? I remember being excited for that game but not planning to play it at launch (as I hadn't played the earlier Redemption), but that certainly went some ways to souring some excitement for it at the time.

Spielberg rolling up his sleeves for some Oscar bait with the West Side Story teaser. One of the few shows I saw in a theatre growing up, and I remember really enjoying it, so I'm looking forward to this

Buuuuuuuuump. I've traded in the Yakuza-laden streets of Kamurocho for my first foray into Rockstar's take on the Wild West. I'm only a few hours in, and I think only a few missions away from returning to Fort Mercer. I'll say that it's been interesting so far. While I've played other Rockstar games before, and play GTA V on a weekly basis with friends, I haven't experienced their storytelling outside of a couple of hours put into GTA (which I bounced right off of). Going in, I'd heard about the PS3 version - which I'm playing - being the worst version to play, but in general it hasn't been any more rough in my experience than other big, ambitious, realistically art styled PS3 games I've played before this. Now I say this, in large part because when you're out in the areas between settlements, which is most of the time, the game runs and plays well...but that hasn't really been the case in settlements. At all. Having the first time you take control of John Marston in Armadillo be consumed by the frame rate tanking hard was extremely distracting, almost to nauseating if I'm being honest. So far, I'm enjoying the gunplay, because the auto-aim is something I'm used to now thanks to GTA, and though it lowers the difficulty of the game in terms of gameplay, I'm mainly here for the story and the setting. Plus, head-canon, John Marston is an experienced dude, I don't mind him being so skilled. Also, dead eye is awesome (even if very overpowered), I'm finally starting to adjust to the horses, and I'm quite happy at the moment picking away at the missions I can find. But the standout thing so far for me so far has to be the atmosphere: when the music kicks in and the sun is setting while you're chasing guys down on horseback, it's hard not to smile. I grew up watching a handful of Wild West films thanks to channel-hopping, and it just nails that vibe to its core. And I swear that the sky and lighting still adds more to the atmosphere of most games from the following generations, experienced my first thunderstorm in the game earlier and I was taken aback by how great it looked. Something that's been a little jarring is the dependence on the map built into the moment-to-moment gameplay loop so far, whether it be finding where to go next or setting a waypoint, it does feel a little archaic. To be fair, I feel the same way about GTA V too, so maybe it's just me I think I'll take on a few of the side quests as I go along, but I won't go out of my way for them, as I think they haven't been implemented too greatly from what I've experienced so far. The first side quest I think you get access to has you go to an area and press triangle to investigate, go back to speak to an NPC for the next part, go back to the same area as before and press triangle to investigate again, go back to speak to a different NPC for the next part...you can see why I'm bouncing off it a little so far. Anyways, I'm glad I'm getting around to this game now. I've been meaning to play it for a long time, so look forward to seeing where it goes from here. Very early days, but I feel positive on it so far.

Enjoyed playing this the last couple of weeks, and in the early hours this morning, I completed the game. Could have finished it last weekend, but I spent the last week or so playing a lot of minigames and chipping away at what I could to get my hands on... As soon as I saw the completion rate for the Plat was substantially higher than it was other games in the series, I looked up a guide to understand why, and yes, being able to not play through the game a second time definitely made me want to go for it, especially seeing as I'd done most of it already. Unfortunately, the ones I had left had some major grinding elements to them (maxing out stats, certain substories, and the Clan Creator especially), but I didn't mind buckling down to get them. For a series that now means so much to me, it felt like showing my appreciation for what they've achieved. Because man, this freaking series! I finished Zero a bit over a year and a half ago, and another six games later, the Kiryu Saga is complete. It's been such a great escape, especially throughout everything that's been going on in the world over the last year, and the fact that I've gone out of my way to save some of them for tougher times, knowing just how much they can boost my mood, and really strengthened my love for these games. They're embedded in my mind as getting me through this last year: Kiwami and Kiwami 2 back-to-back when everything started really picking up with COVID; Yakuza 3 after a couple of months of working from home was starting to wear me down; Yakuza 4 was the first game I played after I moved out of my parents' house and into my first apartment; and now Yakuza 5 and Yakuza 6 back-to-back over the last month or so, after what felt like a never-ending winter which really did a number on my mental well-being, and I've been feeling a bit lost when it comes to my own direction lately. It's taught me to never dare to underestimate the power of putting a smile on someone else's face. The substories and main story walk this very fine line between being as serious as The Godfather and making you break out in fits of laughter, it puts you through the emotional wringer with how well it draws you in with a laugh, puts tears in your eyes, then leaves you grinning wistfully. But there's so much more to the substories than just being hilarious detours, there are important messages to take away into your own life. Seek out the opportunity to help others, embrace the weirdness around you, and always stay true to yourself. Yakuza 6, perhaps more than any other game in the series, drives home the secret truth strength of the series: just how great the character writing is. They have mastered controlling your emotions, the ability to instantly attach you to characters, to make you want to protect someone like a brother or to want to seek rage-filled revenge. It's the strength of the character writing and how great a job they do of making you invested in the cast of this world which makes the twists and turns of Kiryu's story hit so damn hard. I highlight 6 in particular because it's more of an epilogue to the story than the epic culminations that we saw at the end of 4 and 5, which both felt like finale material, and for better or worse, it relegates key characters from the earlier games to the sidelines to return the limelight back to Kiryu. It's funny, because so deep into the series, it's hard to comment on the game, because it feels so familiar every time that I pick up the controller to play one of these games now that I feel like I've said my piece on a lot of it in the earlier games. To be clear, though, I think that's not a weakness of the series, but a strength, and it's what allows them such freedom in their creativity. But, returning to the Dragon Engine after being away from it since Kiwami 2, I have to say, boy, are these games serious lookers. Though, it can be a bit rough at times - when ragdolls are flying about, heck the karaoke of all things is the most technically flawed thing in the game for some reason with its weird frame rate drops/screen tearing which only impacts the input bar and not the background footage - and having certain areas from earlier games cut out definitely felt a bit odd (especially when one of those areas was only completed in 5 after being teased since the second entry!). I really didn't want this game to end. The melancholic jolliness of Today is a Diamond (don't read those translated lyrics, because they hurt) perfectly encapsulated what this game was all about for me. I feel like I could play another game from RGG - I actually have Judgment already installed on my PlayStation - but I'm wary of burnout, and think I'd rather save it for when I truly feel I next need to escape to Kamurocho. Plus, I'm still waiting on that standard PS4 version of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, damn it!

Oh man, to each their own I guess, but I'm not sure that I agree. Definitely some pacing issues, some character arcs weren't nearly as fleshed out as others, but it felt very much in line with The Winter Soldier and Civil War in a lot of ways, both of which I really enjoyed. It endeared me much more to the returning characters in the main cast, an advantage longer form entertainment has over films. Add me to the camp also surprised by just how much freedom Disney clearly let them have when it came to things like how race was handled, I wasn't at all expecting it, but the fact that it's 2021 and things like this are still happening means that it's absolutely a message that we need to see more taking up the opportunity to clamp down on. What made this more substantial to me was that it clearly wasn't the only thing the show shined a light on. I really enjoyed it, but again, the risk it took to say something actually meanwhile - in a show which, let's be honest, didn't have to for it to be a success or get eyes on it - really boosted it in my mind. @Happenstance rightly mentioned that Marvel has a history of doing this in the comics and animated shows, but them doing it here almost shines a light on how little that opportunity has been taken elsewhere, even elsewhere across the Mouse's empire. Also, loved the music, especially the callbacks (both direct and subtle) to the Cap films. Henry Jackman is great! But I've got to highlight my favourite scene in the show, because the music plays such a massive part in it... While I enjoyed WandaVision, it fell off hard for me in the latter episodes, so I'm just glad this show was pretty consistent in quality from start to finish. Look forward to seeing how Loki turns out!

Just had my first haircut at my barber's in over a year. Greatly underestimated just how much I needed that! Also the weather's been nice lately, which has definitely given me a much-needed boost after what felt like the longest winter (working from home and not being able to go out much due to lockdowns and the weather). Look forward to walking around a bit this summer, I've gone so pale over the last year

There's a new trailer for Shin-chan. You know, just to cruelly remind us that it isn't coming to the West this summer. Hope we hear something about it sooner rather than later, rarely do I get hyped just to experience a game's vibe.

An announcement being teased for May 7th... I wonder what it'll be? The lower stakes thing here would probably be a PC announcement, as it's only on Stadia at the moment, but that deal only started today with the release of the next-gen version. So it's probably going to be a sequel, or (hopefully not) something like a film/TV series, right?

Kyle Bosman is back with a new show and a Patreon: Delayed Input. Enjoyed Bosman at Home, and feel like this has a Final Bosman vibe to it, so look forward to seeing how this shakes out!

Had a look again, that might be my bad! I was using the translated version of the Japanese site earlier, seems one or two things got arranged weirdly on the page and November is actually when they're releasing some nice (but completely unrelated) frames I was thinking it was a long wait! Didn't mean to misinform, sorry! All editions of it can be used with the Switch, but you're right, the new Ash White version is launching next Friday. I can't see anything official on the site for the Pikachu bundle, but the US PCMag article for it says it's coming in May, and TechAdvisor UK is saying it is nebulously arriving sometime in the summer. The latter has a price of £124.99 for the Pikachu bundle, but I'm not having any luck finding out where they pulled that from either... EDIT: found it, everyone's seemingly referring to the press release...which is on the Fujifilm website, not the instax one...and not even on the front page at that? Super weird. And there isn't a product page or anything like one for it. But serebii.net is saying the Pikachu bundle is coming to Europe in June? So we'll go with that

World overview trailer: The world looks super cosy...buuuuuuut the lack of extended gameplay footage since it resurfaced feels like a bit of a red flag. I really hope I'm wrong, though, because again, it looks like a super cosy time, especially in the summer!

Interesting! I would say that PlayStation's own first parties have been lacking a bit when it comes to putting out multiplayer experiences, and Firewall's involvement suggests to me that it could be a first-person shooter, which is another department they're lacking in a bit at the moment. Also: glad they stated it's a new IP. Otherwise I'm sure everyone would be screaming from the rooftops that it's Killzone

Interesting stuff, I'm intrigued to see what's so unique about PlayStation's cloud strategy!

Crossing my fingers and toes! As I've learned over the last year, Metal Gear Solid is way too unique and captivating a series to be left to rot by Konami. I try to not get too excited by the possibilities, but seriously, a Bluepoint remake of the first game and a collection coming to modern consoles just makes way too much sense to not happen at some point. Konami can continue cashing in, and I think a ground-up remake from Bluepoint would be a good proving ground that they aren't just making old games look better, but that they can revitalise them to the standards of modern game design. Weirdly I feel like 4 would need the most work, just because of some of the product placement with Apple products? I can imagine Bluepoint implementing both the top-down perspective of the original MGS, and the third-person perspective from later games, so that you can swap between them, and it makes me very excited. Also, the possibilities with Psycho Mantis and the DualSense are endless! And then you've got David Hayter saying he thought it was a pretty baseless rumour but has heard from an insider it might be on the way... ...take all my money.

So now we have asobu, asobo, and asobi? Well, this isn't going to get confusing at all Two birds with one stone here though, supporting Japanese indie devs?! The utter madness okay, but in all seriousness, this is good news, guess we'll see how it turns out!