Julius

Discord to be integrated into the PlayStation experience as of next year. From Jim Ryan's post on the SIE blog: Interesting stuff considering all of the rumours not too long ago about Microsoft looking to purchase Discord. Look forward to seeing how this ends up being integrated, at its best I think it's a strong next step towards cross-platform play becoming the norm, as this will further help gaming communities to flourish.

imnotcryingyourcrying.gif Well, guess I'm not avoiding the cinemas this summer like I was planning to after all! Had me tearing up, boy have I missed the cinema (ahem, Lucasfilm, it's your turn to put something like this out tomorrow)

Some might say I'm a bit too young to be feeling this way, but I've been feeling this way too for much of the last five years, but the past couple of months in particular. I'm totally going to ramble and I know it, so get out while you can, seriously There's never been a concrete plan for my life direction, and so I'm not surprised I've ended up feeling this way. I cruised through the latter years of high school knowing I was all but guaranteed a place in the "best" local college, and the aim since I was young had nebulously been to attend a prestigious university, because that's just what you do when the world is telling you that you're smart and you're taking part in "Gifted & Talented" events which have you visiting said universities a few times a year. Looking back, it was so counterintuitive, and some of the other students in my year group attending these events have crashed out or had to retake years just as I have. I then got ill, likely due to lack of direction draining my resolve to aim forwards at college, and stress got the better of me. Having a clear direction was The one time I had a burning desire and aim for something was actually after failing out of AS levels, when I was being told I could stay at my college but had no business studying maths, and so I made the choice to leave for a "lesser" college to prove to myself that I could do whatever I put my mind to and get a good grade in maths, telling myself I'd go to university to study physics, which is a step further than I got with my life goals previously. I turned a U (yeah, from an A at GCSE, but my first college brushed that off and said it meant nothing, which I still find myself chuckling over sometimes) into an A by that Christmas, aced AS, but having taught myself how to study effectively but not having any other real reference points in my life, I completely burned myself out and missed much of my first attempt at A levels. I had some unconditional offers for universities and some interviews lined up, but knowing full well even at that point that my results wouldn't reflect what I was actually capable of (and my doctors being absolutely useless throughout), I pulled out of the application circuit. Since then, I guess things had started to improve. I was unemployed for a while before getting my current job at Big Bank™ two years ago now, I got lucky in that other people in my team were also brand new and I've made some great friends, I asked a girl out for the first time in my life (I really shouldn't have based on how quickly she moved on from her ex in hindsight, but live and learn I guess), things got awkward after it turned out she was already with someone else, things started to get better between us and me and my friends were doing well and then...the pandemic hit I should be grateful, and I guess I am. I moved out for the first time last year and though there are things about my current situation which are inhibiting to a degree (been growing apart from my sister for years, we've both been through stuff, I took the chance of us living together for her to get on her feet and took most of the financial responsibility and, well, we haven't grown much closer, sadly), my general mental health and relationship with my parents have improved quite a lot. I'm in one of the most secure teams in Big Bank™ in that the pandemic has made us one of the fastest growing departments and increased my level of seniority pretty rapidly as a result, I'm getting paid well, and my friends who went to university at the first opportunity and did a 3 year course came out last year to there being no jobs for them to do, so if I went to university at my first chance I'd likely be without a job, and if I did at my second chance I would've spent the third year being beaten down by the pandemic. And yet...I'm still unhappy with where I am. Personally the last month or two has actually been quite good, as I've taken up mediation and have started getting back into shape, but the question looming over my head of So, what am I doing? has become greater than it has been before with the increased mental clarity which comes from making myself healthier. Then there's work, where I've been moved temporarily (but I'll likely get the offer to move permanently) to an internal projects team, which has given me more exposure to higher-ups and by all means would be great for getting my name out there and moving up the chain. But I have zero interest in doing that. Even with my temporary role being a cakewalk when compared with my old role - only having to sit in on meetings, send a few emails a day, and complete a few forms vs going 100 mph through a spreadsheet, fixing other people's mistakes and the stress of calling customers - I look at the higher-ups in these meetings and realise how passionate they are about the mundane things our work involves, and I roll my eyes, knowing I really couldn't give a damn less about what I'm doing now. I then thought about the hypothetical scenario where I try my ass off for the next decade and a half and become CEO of Big Bank™ - would the pay at that point make me happy? Well, short answer: no. This isn't what I want, and I realised how little I cared about this job. You could give me the CEO's pay for what I do now and I'd still be just as unhappy and lost. I'd just be able to distract myself from that more. There was a time a year or so ago when I was flirting with the idea of putting the grind in to get through medical school, because if nothing else I care about other people, and love to help people, and could devote my life to nothing else but helping people; that I'd rather go back on the phone to help customers in a much more stressful role almost cruelly proves that to a degree I didn't realise before. I know that if I can stay healthy I have the mental capacity to see jt through, but seeing how healthcare staff have been treated over the course of the last year, knowing how gruelling that process can be, would I just find myself burning out again? Sometimes it feels like I'm split between Julius the Academic (aka who I was half a decade ago and have been told is the person I am my whole life) and Julius the Creative (the person I've grown into more over the last half a decade, but has always been there deep down). I love games, film, writing, and storytelling - could I not find something in there that could help people but also selfishly give myself some kind of satisfaction and purpose? But I type that and almost feel silly, which I'm ashamed to admit.

After playing the first entry in the Suikoden series earlier this year, I was surprised to find that the only thread on the forums for the series is from 2005, when the PSP ports of Suikoden and Suikoden II were announced. I'm starting up Suikoden II later today for the first time after finding myself increasingly pulled back towards playing a JRPG, and thought it would be nice to have a space to record my journey with the game as I like doing with other threads, before I eventually get around to a more thoughtful and concise update for the Gaming Diary thread, and would like to get others onboard too to join the discussion, so I'm thinking of updating this post with things like the recruitment guides I use, any tips or tricks I pick up along the way, and so on, for reference if anyone else dives into the series too. I'll update this later with the recruitment guide I used and my notes from my time with the first Suikoden, but for now, it's onto Suikoden II! Alright, without further ado, highlighting the games in the series, some of the names of key staff who worked on them, and I'll add helpful links or information as I make my way through the series for each entry that I can. I'll add the main titles for now and the spin-offs later, when I'll clean this post up a little more. For availability, I am mainly looking at this from an EU perspective, given that most on here are Europeans. Main series titles SUIKODEN Original release date: December 15th 1995 (JP), December 1996 (NA), April 1997 (EU) Developed by: Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo Published by: Konami Director: Yoshitaka Murayama Producer: Kazumi Kitaue Designer: Junko Kawano Artist: Junko Kawano Composers: Miki Higashino, Tappy Iwase, Hiroshi Tamawari, Hirofumi Taniguchi, Mayuko Kageshita Most accessible on: PlayStation Network (PSP, PS3, PS Vita) Also available on: PlayStation (note: will cost a small fortune); was also released on the Sega Saturn and Microsoft Windows in Japan Suggested recruitment guide: this one from GameFAQS as it contains minimal story spoilers SUIKODEN II Original release date: December 17th 1998 (JP), August 31st 1999 (NA), July 28th (EU) Developed by: Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo Published by: Konami Director: Yoshitaka Murayama Producer: Yoshitaka Murayama Designers: Fumi Ishikawa, Junko Kawano Artist: Fumi Ishikawa Writers: Yoshitaka Murayama, Junko Kawano Composers: Miki Higashino, Keiko Fukami Most accessible on: PlayStation Network (PSP, PS3, PS Vita) Also available on: PlayStation (note: will also cost a small fortune); was also released on Microsoft Windows in China Suggested recruitment guide: this one from Suikosource which I am testing currently in my playthrough; unfortunately I could not find one as concise, detailed, and as spoiler-free as the one from GameFAQS for the first game, and so this does contain some story spoilers SUIKODEN III Original release date: July 11th 2002 (JP), October 24th 2002 (NA), June 23rd 2015 (EU - PSN) Developed by: Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo Published by: Konami Directors: Yoshitaka Murayama, Keiichi Isobe Producer: Noritada Matsukawa Artist: Fumi Ishikawa Composers: Michiru Yamane, Takashi Yoshida, Masahiko Kimura Most accessible on: PlayStation Network (PS3) Also available on: PlayStation 2 (JP and NA only) Suggested recruitment guide: this one from Suikosource, which I have yet to test myself SUIKODEN IV Original release date: August 19th 2004 (JP), January 11th 2004 (NA), February 25th 2005 (EU) Developed by: Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo Published by: Konami Director: Masayuki Saruta Designer: Junko Kawano Artist: Junko Kawano Composers: Masahiko Kimura, Michiru Yamane, Norikazu Miura Most accessible on: PlayStation Network (PS3) Also available on: PlayStation 2 Suggested recruitment guide: this one from Suikosource, which I have yet to test myself SUIKODEN V Original release date: Developed by: Konami, Hudson Soft Published by: Konami Director: Takahiro Sakiyama Artist: Kaori Fujita, Kizaki Sub-zero, Mikisato, Riya Hozumi Writer: Kazuyoshi Tsugawa Composers: Yoshihiro Tsukahara, Takashi Watanabe, Kuniyuki Takahashi. Chiharu Mukaiyama Only available on: PlayStation 2 (unfortunately, for whatever reason, this never made its way to PSN) Suggested recruitment guide: this one from Suikosource, which I have yet to test myself

In recent weeks there were whispers of Kadokawa (the parent company of From Software) putting out an end of year report with high expectations under gaming for the fiscal year ending March 2022, leading some to believe that the game would be released within the next 12 months. Well, that now seems to have changed, as their end of year report has been published with substantially lower expected profits for FY2022 compared with FY2021 under gaming, even providing their reasoning for doing so: Unsurprisingly, the impacts of COVID and transitioning to working from home seems to have continued impacts on the game's development. Though it could still release within the next 12 months, that there's enough uncertainty that it's not being accounted for in their profits forecasts makes it very unlikely, so going off of this we're probably looking at April 2022 onwards for release. I've only been around here for the release of Sekiro from announcement to release, but I was under the impression that From had a surprisingly quick turnaround time for games based on how quickly that game went from being teased at The Game Awards to release, and looking at their earlier games, it looks like they came out at a decent clip. I know this is likely their most ambitious game given that it's open world, but it's crazy to think that it will have already been two years next month since it's official announcement at E3 2019, and there had been a lot of rumours and supposed leaks floating about before then too. I've got five other From Software games to keep me occupied until (and probably beyond) whenever this releases, so selfishly I'm in the camp of letting it cook as long as it needs, though I do imagine fans of From Software games would agree with that sentiment too. Genuine question having only played Demon's Souls: do any of the other From games have a map? Because this game being open world, it would pretty much have to have a map, right? Which is really weird to think about. Of course I can only speak to Demon's Souls, but I know what you mean about the light narrative direction, it's really clear just how much Ueda's works inspired Miyazaki. I'm imagining a largely Shadow of the Colossus-like open world which is virtually empty, save for skirmishes as you get closer to settlements, which would be more intricately designed in line with From's other games. I guess I'm kind of also imagining Hyrule Field from Ocarina of Time? Secrets in the open world of course (hidden dungeons, stuff behind waterfalls, caves, etc.), would be really interesting if there were a Nemesis-like system between settlements, and a massive, SotC-like boss in the open world would be cool too.

Finished this earlier today, probably got to sit on it a bit more before I hopefully update the Gaming Diary thread...but I really ended up liking it. It's very ambitious for a title from over a decade ago, and it shows a lot of the time. The frame rate, as I mentioned before, can be very poor on the hardware it was originally intended for; the AI is temperamental in more ways than I have fingers to count them on (it's a good thing Sakurai taught us how to count in binary with our fingers! ); and there are more bugs than I can throw rocks at. There was one in the penultimate scene to the "ending" where I followed two characters into a barn and one was frozen in place in-engine from my gameplay, standing next to the in-engine version for the cutscene. The camera panned through him at the end and I got a creepy look at the back of his eyeballs through his head, which was lovely. But take that away, and there's a strong Western story, a stellar cast (if a little exaggerated at times - though I guess that's the Rockstar touch), one or two excellent quests (and a stellar job of curating those quests, there are less than 20 in total but they feel purposeful), a whole lot of mission variety (some of which I've said before that I want to see in the Breath of the Wild sequel, in terms of structure and presentation), and a game I'm not surprised at all is as beloved as it is. It's rough around the edges, and perhaps would benefit from a remaster/remake in the Red Dead II engine, but I say that thinking that's the best way to make me like this game and appreciate it even more. It deserves to be brought to that standard. My favourite thing in the game is something I'll throw in a spoiler tag, but I wanted to push back and test something to see if Rockstar had thought of all the possibilities in a game which gives you a lot of control over your actions. And then I'll mention my favourite quest too. And while towards the end it certainly became very apparent what was going to happen, I sure as hell wasn't expecting... A great video game. Look forward to mulling it over in the coming days, and hopefully getting around to Red Dead Redemption II later in the year!

Based on the footage we saw of Legends Arceus, I think we're hoping this is a miracle machine and for sure, a certain forested area in Breath of the Wild would benefit immensely from a performance boost! But yeah, I'd hope Xenoblade Chronicles 2 performs better, selfishly as I still have to play that game! Bit of a bummer grabbing a physical version of Torna looks to have become a bit of a nightmare in recent months with its resale price only going up now it seemingly isn't being printed anymore, guess I should've jumped on it earlier. I'm curious to see where they announce the Pro too, E3 feels like the logical place but it's Nintendo, which means it could also easily be announced pretty out of the blue a month or two later like the Lite was. Then again, that wasn't providing what we all assume to be a pretty noticeable boost this time around with the Pro, and if we're going to be seeing more of the Breath of the Wild sequel, why wouldn't you show gameplay off for the first time on your most powerful version of the console? Right..?

Yeah, I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing those numbers on Thursday! I have to agree with you that it's got to be in with a shot of reaching the heights of the DS and PS2 at this point, and I think that's why the timing of the Pro model could be so important to them. If they were to release a Pro model with the Breath of the Wild sequel (which would make the most sense), but if you were to combine that with a potential price cut of the original and Lite models, which like you mentioned somehow they've gone without up to this point, then I think it'd just get even crazier. Not that they need to, and I could see them sticking to their guns a while longer, but the original Switch model I think seems just beyond what I would consider pricing for an impulse buy, so the fact that there's clearly still potential to do even better is almost impossible to believe. I'm seriously considering buying a Pro model just for the Breath of the Wild sequel to make sure I get the best experience with it, and this is as someone who admittedly doesn't play their Switch nearly enough. It makes me curious about if it would see better sales numbers than we saw with the PS4 Pro/Xbox One X?

According to Nikkei, Nintendo are set to increase their production of Switch units to 30 million for this fiscal year (ending March 2022, not to be confused with the fiscal year that finished just over a month ago at the end of March).

As someone who watches their fair share of older films, watches a lot of films, and cares about film history, I'm weirdly also one of the people who can't remember what Rosebud is. Though to be fair, I haven't seen Citizen Kane as far I can recall either, and if I have it would have been when I was much younger, so there might be some sort of bias there. I have no doubt I've heard about the meaning of Rosebud at some point in the past, but I just don't think it's permeated my memory. The funny thing is though, I know I've seen that clapping scene, so I have no idea now if I have or haven't seen the film I think a large part of that is probably exposure to these "known twists" like Vader and what happens in FF VII. I can't name one person in my life who would be in a position to even bring up Citizen Kane to me in conversation! Whereas I truly think that Vader is inescapable - I knew it before I even first watched Star Wars, and that was when I was very young. Everyone I know - and their mothers - knows what that twist is. Star Wars and Vader are on the level that characters like Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man have been for nearly four and a half decades now. Compare that to say the events in Final Fantasy VII, and I think it's only inescapable if you're drawn to that corner of gaming in particular or go out of your way to seek more information on the history of gaming (I know I've got a few books on my shelves for instance which point explicitly explain what happens and what the fallout of that was). I play Final Fantasy games and have an interest in JRPG's and the history of gaming, and have played VII, but before I played VII, I honestly didn't know that happened. And while Final Fantasy is obviously massive for gaming history, given the recent history of the franchise and how sporadic mainline releases have become, I wouldn't be surprised at all if most modern gamers had no idea about that twist - I know for a fact many of my friends wouldn't. It does make me start to wonder about how many twists in film and other media are on that "No, I am your father" level, though. I think that given the size of the audience of the MCU, certain events in Infinity War and Endgame seem inescapable, but will they still be that way decades from now?

Digital Foundry's analysis of the State of Play footage: Looks insane. Watched their analysis on the PS5 update of the PS4 game earlier, found it really interesting learning more about how Insomniac defied what seemed to be their general direction just a decade ago after they moved away from delivering 60 fps. Good prep for when I get to it, soon I hope!

Konami have confirmed that they won't be present at this year's E3 (after the ESA sharing that they would be previously), but it does sound like they at least have some things in the works.

Not sure how I missed this, but Demon Slayer: Mugen Train is coming to cinemas in the UK on May 26th. Still no word on home release though

Great to see Insomniac carrying over a lot of what they did in the Spider-Man games with the Photo Mode in Rift Apart, should be fun to play around with! And hell yeah, accessibility options are the best and most important options

I noticed it and thought "maybe I should edit it to be clearer that I meant the game looks underwhelming." But nah. Those aliens out there ain't missing out on much

Completely forgot about this game, the only reason I remembered it before watching the trailer was because I'm pretty sure it was in a State of Play before and I thought that it looked like they'd taken weird presentation transitions and made them into a game but yeah, I agree, the timing of it would seem to suggest it'd be here? But it's a little weird that they wouldn't just wait for us to see it in the State of Play... Looking forward to seeing more of Ratchet & Clank tonight, imagine what we'll see will push me over the edge to finally play the PS4 game in the next few weeks so I'm at least a little familiar with it ahead of launch. If Humanity is one of the two indie titles, I really hope the other one is one that we've mentioned wanting to see, because no offence to Humanity, but it's a little underwhelming.

How are fan made Yakuza Miis selling me on this game?! Now I demand Nishiki, Goda, Mr Shakedown, Akiyama, Saejima (it was at this point I realised how long the list was about to get), and fake Kiryu!

Xbox unsurprisingly continuing to push hard on PC, cutting their fees from sales down to 12% from 30%, bringing them in line with the Epic Games Store.

Free next-gen upgrade coming this summer:

Yeah, that's totally fair, especially seeing as you're already on-board! Main reason I want to check some out is to get a better idea of the length and general flow to decide if I'm ordering it to play after Red Dead or if I'm fine leaving it a few months. Something interesting I heard in the previews and seems to be sprouting up in the reviews is just how skill-based the game is. Wouldn't be surprised if we see the discourse over game difficulty come back if that is the case.

Reviews have just started going up... Generally seems to be landing on 8's and 9's. Looks like Housemarque have done a great job, time to start watching some reviews!

Seems like some DLC might be on the way...

DC Fandome is coming back on October 16th. Seems a little on the early side compared to last year's events, I know the first one in August was a bit of pivot due to them having to cancel their E3 showing and not being at Comic Cons, but still. Hopefully a sign that there's a lot in store!

I hope he does a good job, but I'm pretty mixed on Greg to be honest. Think he and the people over at Kinda Funny can have some good discussions on stuff that they're knowledgeable about, but they seem pretty clueless at times on other things. And his work at certain shows at E3's previously has been pretty...meh. Blessing is the main reason I watch any Kinda Funny stuff these days, because there's a genuine enthusiasm there to learn more about games and the industry. Some of the other folks at KFG though, I'm not big fans of. Gary Whitta especially makes me want to bounce my head off a wall sometimes, he's Mr "I have zero bias but I only play on Xbox and will pull the most stupid arguments out of my ass to make PlayStation look silly when I don't play a lot of their games anyway". Sucks because obviously he worked on Rogue One and so as a Star Wars fan it's hard to not be envious of anyone who's worked on the franchise, but if you're covering games I think you have a responsibility to share your passions and interests - of course! - while being fair to others. Would he shout Star Trek down because he's worked on Star Wars? Also the guy swears more than all of the other KFG cast combined and I think detracts from the shows he's on greatly, even more so when the focus is on any of the platform holders other than Nintendo (which to be fair to him he does manage to stay level-headed about). I know Greg plays it up for the shows, and I mean he's getting compensated to do it so fair enough to him, but Tim is the one who grinds my gears when it comes to this. Other than a select few games for which you can tell he's actually excited, you can tell he plays up his opinions to be the hype man on their team, but unlike someone like Michael Huber from Easy Allies who clearly is genuinely hyped for just about everything but is honest and pure in doing so, it feels like Tim's lying half of the time, at least to me. It's super weird to watch. I probably sound like I'm hating on Kinda Funny, but it's just not for me. I soured on IGN somewhat to be fair too, so maybe it's just a through line from that, but there's a weird vibe to it sometimes that I just can't nail down. I think someone like Ben Hanson (Minnmax, formerly of Game Informer) deserves the success that we see these guys get, he's probably the only person in the industry I feel could walk into my favourite podcasts not in Easy Allies and is guaranteed to make it a better experience. I've actually been thinking of doing the same lately, I'm mainly just holding off on confirmation of when the shows are going to air. Though, I'm working from home as it is now, at the moment my job has shifted as I'm on a projects team rather than customer-facing for the next few months, which is mainly meetings and then just sitting around waiting for email responses, and I finish mid-afternoon. So I guess I could always just stick it on in the background, but then I won't be as consumed by the hype, but unless they're changing things drastically, normally there aren't many conferences overlapping with work hours anyways. But now that I think about it that's normally because they can be held at stupid o'clock, PlayStation especially when they were showing up. With this year's event being all-digital and likely pre-recorded, my biggest hope would be that they schedule things so that it's relatively friendly to a worldwide audience rather than just the US.

Hosts for this year's E3 have been revealed: