Julius

Did you play Curse of the Moon 2 already? I imagine you might have, but I'm just wondering because I really feel like that game swooped right under the radar amidst the chaos last summer.

I was waiting for someone to say something like this

A Spanish outlet called Vandal, with some clout from their previous reports, has apparent info on the Switch Pro/Whatever™ from Chinese accessory manufacturers. Below is a translation, original article here. Ethernet port would be big, right?

Some pretty nice deals at the moment on big last-gen games: - Red Dead Redemption 2 is down to £14.85 on Amazon UK for the PS4, and a bit less for the XBO. - The Last of Us Part II is down to £9.99 at GAME. It's £5 for shipping, but I think a way around that might be to price match over at Curry's?

Weird that they didn't mention this during the State of Play, but development is apparently on track and there'll be an update very soon... Wonder if that means that - at the moment - it's still on track for a 2021 release? Because that's how it reads when you consider that they said that was the aim. But yeah, weird they didn't mention it in the State of Play. They did the same with the mention of a 2021 release last year too, saving it for a post-show video. I want to say that it's so no-one makes a massive deal out of it and less people pick up on it, hopefully meaning less pressure on the team, but in this day and age that's just not possible.

Weird that they didn't mention this during the State of Play, but development is apparently on track and there'll be an update very soon... Wonder if that means that - at the moment - it's still on track for a 2021 release? Because that's how it reads when you consider that they said that was the aim. But yeah, weird they didn't mention it in the State of Play. They did the same with the mention of a 2021 release last year too, saving it for a post-show video. I want to say that it's so no-one makes a massive deal out of it and less people pick up on it, hopefully meaning less pressure on the team, but in this day and age that's just not possible.

Wow, not even a release window. I understand playing it safe due to potential delays, etc., but still, that's pretty wild. Looks good, though going to need to watch it again outside of the stream to get a full grasp and appreciation of the visuals. Underwater looked particularly stunning. Also: a grappling hook, a glider, and wearing green? We see what you're doing Guerrilla quite like the designs of some of the new machines, and you at least know that they've done a good job with outfit design in the last game when the opening shot has Aloy helping that guy get up and from just seeing his armour I suddenly remember Erend is a person. I understand why they went with a mission that mostly followed stealth for the purpose of this gameplay video, but considering how it's an open world game, I do wish we got to see more of that side of things. Reminded me a whole lot of TLOU2's E3 2018 demo at times, and I feel it did one or two things we'd expect to see in Naughty Dog games ("oh hey there's the bridge") that I can't remember them doing too much of in the first game. Feel like there were some weird cuts in there, but I'm putting that down to being a demo and wanting to get other perspectives that we might not necessarily see in the game, as well as getting through it at a decent clip. Overall I'm left a touch more excited, but I'm not foaming at the mouth for this game based on this. I kind of just want to see some more, especially of the open world.

Coming December 7th, new gameplay trailer:

Mine has arrived also! Though I haven't checked for damage yet, so we'll see what shape it's in Feel like this is great timing for a book like this seeing as we've got this Bank Holiday weekend. Look forward to digging in!

Bezos needs to recover from his divorce somehow

I watched a few of the reactions to the livestream and had it on in the background today, and there are a couple of things we haven't talked about. I think the biggest one is the massive focus on player choice/agency? It's in the title to an extent when talking about "Fate", and even more so in the Japanese title ("Selected Flame of Fate"), but I'm really curious what that will end up meaning, as they talked about it more during the stream. A voiced protagonist, surely? Some kind of impact on the story? Maybe some level of self doubt in the story, with morality mechanics? It's another part which makes me think about how this does seem to be a push for popularity in the West. Also really glad that Takeshi Uchikawa is returning to direct this, he did one hell of a job with XI. That was my first Dragon Quest game and I instantly felt like I knew what the series was about, and this shift to a darker tone had me a bit concerned that someone else might be at the helm, but with him returning, I'm pretty confident that we'll end up with something great. It also sounds like they're only just prototyping their battle system. Commands aren't going away, but I'm anxious to see what exactly the changes are when it comes to the combat this time around. I would imagine it's building off XI's free-roam, like I said before, and could become an FF VII Remake situation (though with more of a focus on your menu-based options perhaps?), but it really could be anything. Also watching the trailer back, if not for the darker tone and apparent shift to make it more "adult", I would've guessed this was a sequel to XI or maybe linked in some way. A big part of marketing is your initial message, and so having "XI" shown for as long as they did before adding the strike through to make it "XII" does make me wonder if there might be something there? Makes sense, this seems to be much earlier in development than pretty much everything we'd heard about it (very little) made it seem. Doesn't UE5 run on the Switch though? I know they could push it further with new hardware, and I imagine the Switch has either been replaced or is on its deathbed at that point, but I could've sworn I'd read Epic say something about it. Also I just hope that Square Enix aren't stupid enough to do what they did with XI again this time around, so I hope it comes to everything on Day 1. A definitive edition is fine, and yeah we knew about the NX/Switch version early on, but it was absolutely a slap in the face to people who supported the initial PS4 release; I know there were technical reasons for this too, but that doesn't exactly make it any better. This series needs and deserves better, especially seeing as it looks like they're pushing the boat out to get more reach over here.

Looks like we're going to have to go back to saying "A new God of War title (Santa Monica Studio)". Rolls off the tongue better anyways Pretty much every insider is saying to keep expectations tempered going into E3, so...

...this actually looks passable? I feel like this has to be coming to the West. I know Dragon Quest isn't as big over here as it is in Japan, but that looks like way too much effort to not just half-heartedly release it over here.

We're in the bad ending timeline.

Sony projection for this financial year is to sell 15 million PS5's, and then 23 million the year after. For reference, at the same point in the PS4's life cycle that they expect to reach 50 million with the PS5, there were 40 million units sold.

Zidane is off again: Guess we'll see him back there in a year or two once they've bought Mbappé. This is going to start the circus of manager transfers this summer. Conte looks to be leaving Inter as they won't let him make some big buys (poor guy always seems to have this issue), Allegri has been sitting out for a long time now...should be interesting to see what happens!

PlayStation Direct is coming to Europe:

So turns out Horii straight up said during the stream that they might get to Dragon Quest I and II remakes after this The whistle is hilarious. Horii gone rogue!

I don't mean to put pressure on Team Asano, but...just do it for all of the 2D FF's and Chrono Trigger! HD-2D Frog, are you kidding me?!

The mention of a new battle system makes me think that they're going to take that extra step forwards with the free-roaming you could go during battle in XI? I'm half expecting something not too dissimilar to what we saw in VII Remake, but this is DQ, I kind of feel like offering a classic way to play turn-based is a big part of the appeal. This feels like a last ditch effort to finally see the series do well in the West, so it has me a little nervous, but I'm sure they'll deliver.

It looks to me like this is what the new Dragon Quest Monsters that they originally announced in 2018 has pivoted into? Producer Taichi Inuzuka said this today: The exact same character art shown in the trailer is the same as that shown for the new DQM project back then, which also had Erik and Mia planned as it's leads: Inuzuka said at the start of last year that development on the new DQM wasn't going well...at all. So I'm guessing that's what the mention of "twists and turns" is about. Quotes from Siliconera (Jan 2020): From what I'm reading it sounds like a new Dragon Quest Monsters is still in the works, but this isn't it, and it's probably a ways off.

This looks great! I think a concern when transitioning anything to a new look like this is that some of the original charm is gone, but it all seems intact. I love the look of the battles in particular. Can't help but wonder if we might see something similar for next year's Final Fantasy anniversary... Honestly, I feel like that's why I've been dragging my heels on playing the port of the original DQ, it looks horrible. All part of Square Enix's plan to drum up hype for eventual HD-2D remakes I guess

GOTY 2023. Bets on how often we hear "It's the Dark Souls of Dragon Quests" with a title like that? Also, just seen that it's a worldwide simultaneous release

Ragnarök has seemingly been confirmed to be the title of the game in the Game & Network Services Segment of Sony's recent info release to investors. Think this is the first time we've seen this title treatment for the game too. Think we all expected it to be the title after the teaser we got, and I always found it kind of odd that they didn't go with this as the title at that point.

Easy Allies are going to be back in the studio on June 10th! Awesome timing given E3 kicks off that weekend! I know they sometimes say that it feels like the views that their reactions get undermines some of their other work, but man, after the last 12+ months feeling so stilted, I can't wait for them to be back in the studio and reacting together. The last few months it felt like the energy was draining and now they can feed off each other once again