Julius

The time is nigh for (hands-off) previews. Well, guess I'm already sick of that particular promotional image Game Informer also have a few videos up where they talk with Insomniac:

Haven't received mine yet. I ordered with Amazon, but they've been very hit and miss lately (they've delivered a bunch of manga for my younger brother days - if not weeks - late over the last few months), so I'm not that confident that it'll actually show up on the 27th if I'm being honest. Fingers crossed though!

Vive Pro 2 announced, releasing 4th June 2021. 2448 x 2448 pixels per eye (5K), 120° field of view, 120 Hz refresh rate. Special promotion in the pre-order period where it will cost £659 for the standalone headset, which will be £719 after launch. A fully kitted-out Vive 2 with Base Station 2.0 and controllers will cost £1299.

EA Play Live is coming back Thursday 22nd July. Not like it was ever the highlight of E3 week if I'm being honest (remember when they managed to spin the Battlefront II screw up into a charity drive?), but with others seemingly in agreement that spreading things out too much wasn't great and many either turning up at or having events of their own next month...EA, come on guys. Hope we start getting the E3 schedule confirmed soon. I'm still on the fence about taking that week off for it, but knowing what's actually going to be there in terms of shows will probably sway me. Don't think we know anything concrete about the Summer Game Fest plans at this point either.

Previews for the game look like they're dropping on Wednesday! While only previews, a whole month out seems quite early, I think that shows a lot of confidence from PlayStation in this game (no surprises). Imagine this means actual reviews for the game won't drop on or just before release date as has been the case with some other exclusives so far, like Demon's Souls and Returnal, but maybe a week or so out instead? Also, full transparency, I have no idea who Joe Miller is. Buuuuuuut Kinda Funny's PS I Love You XOXO podcast has apparently been delayed from today to Wednesday, and apparently there was also a Swedish site last week saying that previews would be going up this week too.

I've been feeling the urge to go back to The Last of Us lately, but knowing that I've also got the urge to return to half a dozen other games, on top of new games coming out and plenty still sitting on my shelf, I've been putting it off. This evening I knew my gaming time would have to be set aside as I waited around for my apartment's gas to be checked and oven to be fixed, so I went hunting for a way to satiate that urge, and that fix came in the form of the Naughty Dog 30th Anniversary documentary, and Grounded: Making The Last of Us. Both fascinating watches. As someone who had brief run-ins with Crash growing up around friends' houses, completely missed out on Jak & Daxter, only got to the first three Uncharted games a couple of years ago, and played through The Last of Us (and Part II) and Uncharted 4 last year, the anniversary documentary did a great job of fleshing out the history of Naughty Dog for me, either shining a light on things that I was only vaguely aware of before about the studio, or bringing things to my attention I was completely unaware of before. As for The Last of Us documentary, what can be said? I already loved the game, and peeling back the curtain made me love it that much more. Something that really struck me is that it's nearly been a year since I played that game, and I only played it through once, yet every single scene from the game shown in the documentary I instantly found myself returned to that moment in the game. If that isn't a testament to just how well designed that game's world is, I'm not sure what could be. Really glad I checked them out, and it's a shame that Part II doesn't seem to be getting a similar treatment; I know that there are shorter videos covering certain aspects of the game, but it just doesn't flow as well or reveal as much as a dedicated documentary does in my opinion. I'm saving my next watch of Raising Kratos for after I replay God of War at some point before Ragnarok releases, but I'd be curious to hear if anyone else has enjoyed those documentaries, or if you have any other behind-the-scenes documentaries on games I might be interested in. The part which sucks the most is knowing that there really isn't anything like this out there for Japanese developers of some of my favourite games I want to hear what Asobi have to say about Astro, darn it!

The Coalition have confirmed that they are moving next (well, current?) gen development to Unreal Engine 5. Right now that means that they're only the fourth studio outside of Epic to do so, and the second from under the Xbox umbrella (the other being Ninja Theory for Senua's Saga: Hellblade II). Would imagine that their first project for it would be Gears 6, and we'll be seeing that UE5 branding a lot more come E3 next month.

Well, talking about PS5 stock, unsurprisingly, Sony are expecting it to stay in short supply through 2022. From Bloomberg: Elsewhere, and completely unrelated to the stock issues, it seems like two more DualSense colours are on the way: red/black and black/grey. From Eurogamer: I hope that means grey as a primary colour and black as a secondary colour, as the reverse looks tacky in my head. I'm hoping it's something like the 20th Anniversary DualShock 4's. I'm still hopeful for all-black controllers and consoles/panels being made available, but the controller as it is has grown on me a lot, and I haven't the issue of the white fading that I've seen some people have had.

I ended up putting quite a lot of time into the game today, and have now passed the 15 hour mark and recruited 60 characters. Want to quickly shout out some things I keep forgetting to: the funny quack noise when you try to select something in a menu that you can't (e.g. trying to buy something but not having enough Potch), the animation for your character clambering over a ledge to go up or down a ladder, and the subtle humour in these games. Just out of the blue something funny will happen and I'll be so caught off guard that I end up laughing hysterically. A lot of the time it's being in an intense moment and having a really funny dialogue option Today it was... Other than that, the story has started twisting and turning a bit more, and there are certainly one or two moments where it felt like the game was dropping a mic, and I genuinely didn't see something coming which had me stunned and very excited to see where things go. Something else I wanted to mention was how great the world is with contextualising so much. By the way, I'm throwing a lot of these things in spoiler tags mainly because I think it's something best appreciated if/when you play the game for yourself, even for something like this where it doesn't spoil the plot of the game. So, here's the spoiler tag Obligatory music mentions: Heart-Softening BGM3, which feels extremely pained and sorrowful; Lakewest's theme, Carried on Rippling Waves (a delightful and light take on the main theme); the excellently named Kobold settlement theme, We are Number Wuff!, which is dizzyingly playful; the theme of the Wingers Den; and Greenhill's theme, which at times reminds me a lot of Final Fantasy IX. At this rate I think I might end up with a Chrono Trigger situation where I end up losing most, if not all, of the tracks, the soundtrack is just that strong on every front. Cannot wait to continue playing tomorrow!

I think it's worth remembering that last year Sony originally projected 15 million units of the PS5 shipped by the end of March, and considering how projections are all about undercutting demand to some degree to impress investors and boards, they likely expected even more than this. Then in September that got cut down to 11 million when the SOC shortage became more apparent, and then that got cut down again to an estimation of 6.5 million sold a couple of months ago, before we got the news a week and a half or so ago that they'd managed to ship (and let's be honest, likely sell through) 7.8 million units. It's crushed records despite the fact that - conservatively - Sony were originally expecting double the number of units to be shipped, and I guess we could say that from their perspective, there was twice as much demand than their supply (but let's be honest, it was probably more). So I'm not surprised at all surprised by the demand far outweighing the supply (even if there was no chip shortage and they did manage to ship 15+ million units by the end of March, I can almost guarantee that we'd still have people waiting), I'm surprised by the stupidity of retailers, and next to that, Sony not putting pressure on them to make the experience easier for consumers. But they didn't do anything when they all tripped their way over the starting line and put pre-orders up early, so I doubt they will now

Yeah, unfortunately it's one of those where you have to do more than just keep your ear to the ground if you do want one at the moment. There are Twitter accounts to follow which might help you keep track of when and where stock goes up, but like the others have said, they're stilling selling out almost instantly. It's unfortunate, as the more people playing these games, the better (for the community, for the game itself, and the developers and publisher too), but like Happenstance mentioned, there's not much else they can do about it. While PlayStation have been trickling them out as and when they are shipped and make it to shelves, Xbox were supposedly taking a different approach, saving stock and having large shipments in June and having a smaller number trickle out until then, but I haven't been following that too closely. I've helped a few people get them, but to be honest, I can totally understand those that don't want to keep their ear to the ground on this one. I was drained just tracking it for myself and others the day pre-orders went up initially, don't want to imagine what that's like for months on end. Why there isn't an option to stick a pre-order in to get a ticket, with these retailers knowing full well that there will undoubtedly be stock at some point, is beyond me. Sticking the onus on the consumer to be tracking this stuff 24/7 just to be in with a shot of getting one is one of the most stupid things to come out of this.

Well, that didn't take too long! Back up to 9.5 hours of progress and have all 36 characters that I did before - having seen the cutscene I needed for the 37th - even stumbling across some rare items I didn't get the chance to go back for in one of the dungeons on my previous save. Think that says a lot about smelling the roses and talking to NPC's in JRPG's, but I love it, text speed is back down to Normal There's a weird silver lining to this, in that I found myself wanting to pay attention during cutscenes, despite having already seen them. Some of the character interactions, animations, and story beats are absolutely top tier. Speaking of which... And then one of my favourite cutscenes so far... And then there's Heart-Softening and Heart-Softening BGM2. This game's music is seriously something else. Glad to be back to where I was, going to take a short break, sort out my runes and equipment, then venture forth

Oh yeah, for sure. And then you hear about games like Earthbound where it essentially came with a guide to some of it's more confusing mechanics, and I can understand why many of these games end up being cult classics rather than big hits. I was listening to a podcast the other day about how Final Fantasy XI is practically impossible to return to now without a guide, which is even more silly considering how it's an MMO and would have been in a position many of these others game wouldn't have been where it could get patches and updates. I don't really mind it in a lot of games, I'd heard about some of the stuff in VI and IX ahead of time so had a rough idea of what to do in certain situations without having things outright spoiled for me. Missing rare items, weapons, and secret bosses isn't too big a deal for me as someone who is coming to many of these games for the first time, but knowing how integral finding and recruiting all 108 Stars of Destiny was to capping off my experience with Suikoden with the much better (and canon) ending, it's something I knew I'd have to do for Suikoden II as well. At least it's better these days for the most part. I'm all for secrets in games, and to be honest I don't mind returning to older games and having to look something up like this on the odd occasion as it adds to it a bit, but the more obstacles you put in the way of uncovering those secrets these days, the more and more likely it is that you're going to put off the potential for a wider audience. Then again, the same can also be said for some trophies/achievements, so maybe to an extent that stuff still persists, it's just in a way where it isn't likely to impact the average player's experience?

Yeah, it sucks. I'm not even exaggerating when I say that I had to go back to what was my earliest save! And even after triggering the cutscene I was questioning if I'd seen it...but thankfully I've since got to the city where I'll eventually recruit him, now I just need to wait to get my boat (again). I put an hour or so into getting caught up last night as soon as I figured out what I'd done, and don't think it will take me too long to get back to where I was at in the story. Knowing where to go, setting text speed to Fast, not speaking to every NPC, setting my team's runes up earlier than I did before (Nanami + Double-Beat is OP and I love it)...I'm kind of surprised how quickly you'd get through this game if you were to speedrun it. I've definitely been smelling the roses and talking to everyone (as you should, there's some great flavour text in this game!). I think this does give me a pretty clear idea of what I want out of Eiyuden Chronicle, though: no missable characters (having several opportunities to recruit in different locations and points in the game, as is the case in Suikoden and Suikoden II, I think is fine, so long as their levels scale up nicely!), and a better way to track where you are with each recruit. That private eye I mentioned before, Richmond, can actually be paid to learn secrets about your friends/recruits, which is a lot of fun, but more importantly can be used to gather info on potential recruits, such as where they are and how to recruit them. Unfortunately the process isn't that quick, so it could take a while to get them, so what I think might be better in Eiyuden is if your character keeps some sort of recruitment book which gets filled out as you speak to NPC's in the game and learn more about potential recruits, such as what they look like, where they can be recruited, etc. These are things we're going to be doing in a JRPG anyways, so it would feel like a natural and rewarding way to end up with a complete army without needing to resort to a guide. It's tough, because the recruitment is so integral to the story in Suikoden, and it's genuinely great seeing your castle fill up. But realising you've lost a lot of progress because of the guide you're using can definitely sting On the topic of speedruns, while figuring out where I went wrong with recruit #37, it turns out that there's an entire missable quest line revolving around him which depends on how quickly you get through the game. You need to get to a certain point within 20 hours, which I doubt you're doing on a first playthrough as you take in the sights and talk to everyone. It doesn't need to be done for a recruit (thankfully), so I'll probably just look it up on YouTube, but yeah... ...what was up with some of those SNES and PS1 JRPG's?! Also some pretty obtuse ones which could be easily missed in the heat of the moment (*cough* FF VI *cough*).

Remember the other day when it was revealed Nike and PlayStation were teaming up to put out a shoe? Well, now Adidas and Xbox are too. More fuel for the console wars Nintendo x Puma when?

I've been loving my time with Suikoden II up until now, but the recruitment guide I'm using - the one from Suikosource - has managed to make me miss the only missable recruitable character in the entire game. Basically it's stuck him in at a point in the guide where you recruit him, but fails to mention that there's a cutscene you have to trigger 20+ recruits before. Edging towards 13 hours in, looking to recruit #37, it says "Speak to ______ in [city we left a while ago in the story]." Uh-oh. Maybe I triggered that cutscene in that alleyway without realising? I go to the place to recruit #37 and he's not there, so yeah, I missed that cutscene. Yeah, I've been keeping saves from each session...but this has just taken me back to the 6 hour mark. I've down a few dungeons since then, recruited 36 characters in total, and now I'm back down to 10. It's extremely frustrating, especially seeing as I've been loving the game so much, but this is the second time I've had to go back (to be fair, the first time was kind of my own fault due to the memory card situation, but still). Guess I'm just lowering the volume and sticking on some podcasts as I rush through back to where I was, recruiting everyone again. I was seriously considering just playing something else for a moment as I went back through save by save attempting to trigger that cutscene, and it was on my earliest one that I was able to trigger it. Gosh dang it Suikoden II. I had my castle, I just got a boat, you've been killing it. And then this happens. I'll update the original post with this info, hope it doesn't happen to anyone else. It's been a good guide otherwise, but it seriously should have had a note under the 10th character saying to trigger that cutscene when you got to that city, rather than squeezing it in and being like "hey, you did trigger that cutscene, right?".

Season pass details courtesy of The Tojo Dojo's translation of the Japanese PSN details for the game: Day 1 DLC and substory DLC isn't great, to be honest, though the additional story stuff has me the most intrigued. I had wondered if they might have some substories as part of the DLC, but didn't want to put that out there, and well...I think that part sucks, to be honest. Connecting over substories is such a huge part of the conversation around these games I feel, and locking some behind a season pass fragments a pretty dedicated audience. Guess I might end up waiting until a complete edition down the road

Watched the second episode of The Bad Batch, and think it was a very solid second episode, though it definitely hurts going back to a more typical episode length after a glorious 70+ minutes on Tuesday. Whereas the first episode spent a lot of time setting the scene and the overarching narrative for the rest of the show, this episode did a very good job of making me care more about the cast, and added some valuable emotional depth to them. Really solid episode, so glad The Clone Wars effectively gets to live on through this. Roll on next Friday!

Wow. Epic offered $200 million to get some first party PlayStation games on the Epic Games Store. They aren't wrong at all about Nintendo, but that doesn't make it any less funny

Oh man, you're in for a treat when you get to the latter half of the season, I'm getting chills now just thinking about it And yes, the movie is canon, which I think is such a great move - hope we see other anime follow suit. It adapts the Mugen Train arc which starts at chapter 53, so where Season 1 ends leads straight into it

Honestly, same. I'm really excited for the new content and that Photo Mode, but with Rift Apart releasing the day after (seriously don't understand what they were thinking there) and me up to my neck in games these days anyways, it's not like I'm starving for it. I'll probably save the new content and my Platinum run until further down the road. Got loads of other Final Fantasy games to play for the first time too, so there's that Say what you might about Square Enix not being the smoothest-sailing ship out there, but they seriously know how to put together great trailers. I still watch the trailers for Remake every now and then, and feel like I watch the XVI trailer on almost a weekly basis! It's unfortunate a lot of the spinoff stuff goes over my head as I've not played them and the only other real alternative is to watch videos on them. Sucks there aren't easy ways to access some of them now, so hopefully Ever Crisis gets completed and comes out sooner rather than later, but with how they've talked about it, I imagine it'll probably finish up not too long before Part II is out

Launching worldwide on 24th September 2021 for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles. Stream was a good watch, worth checking out in my opinion: Instantly the best-looking school in a video game? And so, so close to being one of the greats... Also, in this interview with IGN, Nagoshi confirms that Yakuza will remain turn-based and Judgment will continue down the action route.

A new trailer for Intergrade was shown during today's stream for The First Soldier. Would be wary though, feels like the last shot might have been hinting at a bit too much from the Yuffie stuff? Though I guess it could be a little predictable, so maybe not. Looks like it will be PS5 exclusive for at least six months: Do feel a bit sorry for Xbox players at this point, but as I've posted before, I thought something like this might be going on where Intergrade would be considered a new version with its own marketing and exclusivity deal. Got to imagine it might end up on Game Pass when it does make its way over to Xbox on day 1, seeing as most of the sales for the game will have been made by then, and that'll be yet another deal. Square Enix would be cashing in big time three times on this game (PS4 exclusivity window for base version of 1 year, PS5 exclusivity window for Intergrade of 6 months, and potentially Game Pass day 1 when it does go over to Xbox). Crazy! Also, it seems like we were very close to getting some sort of announcement on Part II today, but I guess this little tidbit will have to do: Interesting that Nomura wanted to announce something now. If I'm remembering correctly, I think some of the leaks pre-release for Remake, from the demo, hinted that they'd already started work on some moments in Part II, so I guess it might be further along than we might think? Think it was smart of Kitase to not give the go-ahead, though, just given their history of long waiting periods between first trailer and release, especially since moving over to Unreal Engine 4 for a number of major releases. Once they brought these games back to show them off, it wasn't too long a wait, so I think they've learned their lesson. I thought we'd get them focusing on XVI until release either later this year or early next year, give it a few months, and then potentially see something from Part II next summer. Nomura seems to be itching for it, so maybe there could be a trailer at this E3, or at The Game Awards to finish the year off? You'd think the smart move would be to hold onto it until after XVI is out, but this is S-E and Nomura, so...

So according to this screen grab, it looks like there will be a season pass? Question is, is that going to be additional story content, or will it be like DLC in previous games aimed at a mini-game, like the Clan Creator Cards in Yakuza 6? I'd guess it's something along the lines of the former, I think a detective story just hands itself to being updated with more story content in a way which wouldn't necessarily impact the game in a major way. RGG have shown that they can pump great content out at a nice clip (now that I think about, surely they have to be one of the best managed teams in the industry?), so I'd always be down to supporting them through a season pass. I also wonder if this hints at either needing to stagger content somewhat as a result of COVID impacting development (maybe something originally planned as part of the base game was moved over to a season pass?), or if this is a way of elongating this game's presence to bide time for their next project? Or maybe they just realised they have earned a seriously loyal audience (case in point: how many of us here have Judgment on our shelves off the strength of our experience with Yakuza but have yet to play it?) and want to milk it a bit more considering just how quickly these games go down in price and what great value they would be even at full price, I wouldn't blame them! But it could also just be a weird translation looking forward to finding out what the deal is, either way!

As was previously leaked, LEGO sets coming for The Bad Batch: Shame about the shuttle, looks pretty rough (and is tiny). Echo's helmet looks great, weird decision to not give him the kama cloth though, and I really miss the old accessory holes the helmets used to have. At this point it's been a very long time since I've bought LEGO, and it would take something awesome to bring me back, but looks great all the same!