Julius

Interesting stuff! Did Octopath also end up on PC or am I misremembering? Imagine that could also be a reason why. If this does end up being the case, I imagine we might end up with a year or two to transition from cross-gen development to seeing truly exclusive games for the next console, like we're seeing to an extent with some of PlayStation's bigger titles for the PS4 and PS5, and it will definitely make things easier for their third party relationships. In particular, I can't help but think of Dragon Quest XII and how the PS5 isn't doing so hot in Japan; for that game, I think targeting PS4 and Switch is a given, but this could make the process of releasing XII for a Switch Pro a much easier thing for them if it is at least on par with the PS4. Fingers crossed that could end up meaning it'll be landing day and date for both platforms when it does eventually arrive. Either way, it would definitely make the lines between console generations for Nintendo consoles murkier, if they weren't already before, but it makes the transition a much easier one for customers to make. Yeah, given how Aonuma said that they're aiming to share more about BotW2 later this year in Wednesday's Direct, I do think the Pro and BotW2 are pretty much going to be joined at the hip and have to launch together: I think they're still aiming for BotW2 to release this year, probably in November, but are likely in a position where it could slip into 2022 (COVID and any other potential development issues along the way), and the next few months will be crucial to figuring that out for them. If we get Zelda this year, then drop both in November and have it be their Christmas tentpole to promote the new system. I think the only reason to doubt that is the fact that Pokémon main series titles have all released in mid-November since the release of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire in 2014 (X and Y were in October when they released in 2013); that being said, it's tough to see them not being Diamond and Pearl remakes, and given that it's the original pair's 15th Anniversary this year in September for their Japanese release, maybe they'll make an exception and bump Pokémon up to the end of September (so you get Pokémon capping off one quarter and both it and Zelda headlining the next) to make room for the Pro and Zelda in November. I suppose they could swap that and have Zelda and the Pro in September to leave Pokémon for November, but I personally think they're ready to pivot both Zelda and a potential Pro to March 2022 if anything, and are probably picking between that and a November slot just because they aren't ready to share it with is just yet. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out for the launch of a potential Pro, but either way, you're right, everything seems very nicely lined up for them to take advantage of that system and push the "Play it best on the new Nintendo Switch Pro/2/Series Y with Knuckles and Dante" line with a strong lineup of first party games. Here's hoping, anyways!

Played through the demo this evening, and I thought it was fine, but nothing to really write home about. For some context, I've only played two SRPG's, and only one of them was a more traditional SRPG experience (that was Fire Emblem Awakening). I know it's a demo, and they kind of just drop you in the thick of it to test the gameplay, but they go out of their way at the start to have multiple cutscenes dump so many names, and so much history, on you before you get to take to the battlefield that it felt more like a "and this is why you should care about this character/place" rundown. Once a battle did start, you could tell they probably just grabbed the tutorial text from an earlier stage in the game and threw it in here, because it throws pages of stuff at you after each turn, but the battle was halfway done and I'd figured a lot of it out by myself at that point. So, just in terms of a demo experience, thought it was a bit weirdly constructed. It's an SRPG, and in terms of what happens in the battlefield, it played pretty much exactly how I expected it to. There are some cool animations (one in an optional cutscene where something happens with the weather was probably my favourite), visually it looks great, and once you get used to the button layout, it feels pretty snappy. The story definitely felt like I'd been there before at points, but I imagine this is placed between the middle and end of the first act, so that's probably not saying too much just yet. The thing is, the world and the politics seem interesting enough, but the characters just felt a bit generic, and the voice-acting wasn't super strong in my opinion, so I hope they can do a better job of making these characters expressive. I also feel like they chose a super weird point in the story to share with us, because it felt like some pretty major stuff went down, so I hope there's a lot more major stuff to come in the rest of the story. Also, there's an option to fast forward through cutscenes which just skips text with no option to rewind, why not have that option, or a transcription of the dialogue to the side to flick back through, or a skip button for the entire cutscene if you have one dedicated to rushing through the scene anyways? Found that a little weird to be honest! The highlight for me was the music, though, because some of it sounded super familiar to me with its heavy focus on using strings for tension, feeling melancholic, and the general melodies used, and I was delighted to find out my hunch was right when checking the credits: the music is by Akira Senju, the composer for Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood! So, guess I'll be giving it another listen tomorrow obviously some more generic wartime RPG music thrown in on occasion, but there are definitely some tracks which sound similar to some of his great work on Fullmetal. I might be wrong in saying this, but I've tried looking it up - this might be the first video game he's composing for? And if so I find that really interesting too. The UI is admittedly a bit clunky, but I know this isn't planned to be out until next year, so I imagine they've still got some with they want to do on that. It hints at some cools ideas, like the Scales of Conviction which we saw in the trailer, which has you trying to persuade other members of your group to side with you in making an important decision which they're saying will have a huge impact on the direction your story goes (though I'm not holding my breath on there being any truth to that). From the example in the demo, it throws you out into a town to basically dig up points which could be used to persuade the other characters, but the downside to this is that in the list of options it will show an animation of a third choice being "unlocked", which is very obviously the "correct" choice to get them to side with you. Even for persuasion attempts where I didn't have that third option unlocked, it was so blatantly obvious which I needed to pick, that it wasn't really a strong addition, even if it's a neat concept. Feel like they perhaps should've looked at Persona 5's negotiations on how to do persuasion through options the player picks. Overall, yeah, a fine demo, but it hasn't really sold me on it any more than the trailer did. Worth mentioning that I did enjoy the second chapter's battle much more than the first, but I imagine that's probably going to be the exception in that it has some more unique mechanics to do with utilising the environment and objects around you. Anyways, I'm looking forward to seeing how the game evolves after some more feedback, because I do think there's potential for something good here, it's just not clear in this demo how great that potential is. Yeah, you're totally right, looking back at the trailer and having played through the demo, not quite sure what I was getting at by saying the art evoked Fire Emblem. I think the thing that gave me a Fire Emblem vibe at the start, looking back at the trailer now, was just the look of the CG scales and walls (which is oddly specific, even for me). Do it Square, you cowards!

Those Silent Hill rumours are back. Again. Honestly, as someone who hasn't played any of the Silent Hill games, the big reason I want to see this come to fruition is just because it would mean Konami are willing to play ball with their IP's and let others have a go at it. EDIT: And an update on this already; as had been widely rumoured and speculated on for some time now, Metal Gear Solid and Castlevania are planned to be outsourced. Important to remember that VGC has had a pretty strong track record over the last year or so, so while as always I'd say take it with a grain of salt, their word is probably going to be as good as anyone else's on this; most prominently, they were the first ones to break actual news on Mario 3D All-Stars last year (that turned out to be accurate and wasn't just wishing of a collection), I'm pretty sure they were on the money with Warzone and its release date soon, and I feel like there was something else that's slipping my mind right now. All hypothetical, but what would people want out of Metal Gear Solid and Castlevania being outsourced, if they were? I don't have much of a connection to the latter having not played any of those games (though I imagine many would love a From Software Castlevania), but the obvious choice for Metal Gear Solid would be for it to get the Bluepoint treatment, though in this instance, I'm not exactly sure what that means? I can't see them giving it an awesome new coat of paint and then just leaving it essentially top-down like it originally was, because I don't think that would be marketable (as someone who would love to introduce MGS to my friends, I don't see them being the types of people to want to play a PS1 game), or even worth doing (as someone that played the game for the first time last year, it holds up surprisingly well apart from its camera). Heck, maybe toggle between third person and top-down. I think you could take everything from that game exactly how it was in terms of story, mechanics, etc., but I think you pivot to third person, maybe using the control scheme and feel from MGS V as a template for that? As far as third person games go, the series is really unique in how it feels (at least to me). Maybe that means recreating it using the Fox Engine (though that seems unlikely now it's seemingly being binned as PES is moving on to Unreal Engine for its next entry), but hopefully it wouldn't mean just making it a generic cover-based shooter. Because of the challenge involved in such an undertaking, I would think it's the logical next step for Bluepoint: recreate the atmosphere and look of the original game - and don't dare touch the story - while modernising it's controls for today's audience.

Mortal Kombat trailer:

Fall Guys is also coming over to Xbox this summer! Great for them and the community, hopefully numbers pick up and more people have a fun time with it!

So an update on this already: the game's director is looking to release a version for Europe! I'd be super onboard, fingers crossed! Shin-chan covers nude scenes better than TLOU2 confirmed

So, as revealed in the Japanese Direct, they're making a Shin-chan game which looks charming as heck, but will probably never make its way over here I don't even have that much familiarity with the series, but it looks so warm and cosy that I would definitely be interested if it did come over here. I'll just cross my fingers and hope I guess...

Multiple insiders saying that the lack of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess in yesterday's Direct is nothing to worry about, as they're still planned to be brought over to the Switch later in the year. I'm still a little surprised they seem to be releasing Skyward Sword first of those three, but assuming that there's truth to this, do we think they will be bundled together, or sold at full price separately? Personally I had been hoping for a bundle, but these did get a lot more work than the versions of the games included in 3D All-Stars, so I'm probably leaning towards them being sold separately at full price.

Ah okay, don't know how I missed that, but that's pretty cool! Not that I'm complaining about Triangle Strategy yeah, they'll totally incorporate 'Tactics'. It'll be Triangle StraTactics and we will regret everything In terms of the gameplay footage I think it looks alright, I do feel like Octopath had a bit more oomph to it in its reveal trailer, but that might be down to their overuse of depth of field on that particular trailer. I think the character art does look pretty generic, though, even when compared with Octopath's. If not for how flat the colour palette was as well as how plain the character designs are, I would've thought it was a Fire Emblem game. And that's not a sleight against Fire Emblem (although it kind of reads like it!), I'm more just knocking how this game has a similar shape to it's characters and their faces when it comes to the art style, but just seem so unremarkable by comparison. Soullessness might be a little harsh, so I don't know if I'd say that, but I do see where you're coming from. There's just a bit of a lack of expression to it, at least in the little gameplay we see and the voice acting being so monotone. I'll see how I feel after checking out the demo, but I imagine it's just early days and they've still got some ways to go to hopefully breathe a bit more life into it.

Yeah, I'm not all that surprised, it does seem like they've put a lot of effort into this, just from the fact that they have a new controller layout incorporated. As someone who hasn't played it before, personally I don't really mind and just want to play the game, but whether or not that will fly with those that have... and, I mean, rightly so. Ports are a part of every gen, but it does feel like Nintendo takes the mick a bit at times. I am interested to see what else they might have included in terms of new features though, any QoL improvements are always welcome!

A pretty middle of the road Direct for me, but I'm still glad that they're back. Seeing as we didn't see Star Wars: Republic Commando here, which was found on the eShop, it's possible we get something else in a month or two, but that could totally just be a Partner Showcase, or even elsewhere. Loved the Pyra/Mythra Smash reveal, they totally got me. I knew it was Xenoblade-related just from the clouds and the first note, but wow, they really committed to framing it like new DLC was coming with how much of it was running in Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Kudos once again to Sakurai and team, I know it's not necessarily what people wanted (and another sword user ), but I thought they handled it really well. Fall Guys coming to Switch is great, I think it's seen a bit of a decline since launch, so it'll be good for it to be in a fresh ecosystem with plenty of new players. Doubt I'll be checking out as I played it for a good 10 or 15 hours back when it launched on PS4 last summer, but I imagine it'll be right up the alley of a few folks here! Was really interested in the Famicom Detective Club games until I found out that they were £49.99, maybe it's just me, but that seems a bit on the hefty side. Added it to my wish list for now, will probably wait to see how it reviews and hopefully pick it up on sale at some point. Funny that the Mana games have been getting more love and attention than legacy Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest titles, what the hell is that about S-E?! My wait for the Final Fantasy I - VI Collection (or even just individual releases of those games) continues...honestly, at this point, I think they might as well wait to release it next year (alongside a XIII trilogy remaster and probably XVI, if it doesn't make it out in 2021, and heck, if they do that, they could do a great collector's edition with all of the main series single player games. as they'd then all be on modern platforms). Thought Legend of Mana looked fine, interest was piqued, but doubt I'll be picking it up, mainly because of just how packed the summer is based on this Direct (never mind whatever might be coming to other systems). Still, though, do appreciate Square Enix turning up with that and Project Triangle Strategy. I love the HD-2D look of Octopath, and I've got on well with strategy games so far, so I'm looking forward to checking out the demo; fingers crossed that the music is like Octopath's too! I was definitely surprised by Miitopia coming over to Switch, but if H-o-T says it's worth checking out, it's probably one I'll be keeping an eye on when reviews drop to see if I should be checking out the Switch or 3DS version. Were those also Miis in Mario Golf Super Rush? Because if so, and Miis are back on the table (I feel Nintendo were pretty smart in distancing them from the Switch's advertising and games in the first few years to help draw the line between it and the Wii U), then I could totally see us getting a Wii Sports Deluxe package at some point, maybe later on in the summer? Might as well throw us Wii Music while you're at it too Having not played a Mario Golf game, apart from 5 minutes on a friend's GBA while waiting in a queue somewhere for something a long time ago, Super Rush looks like a hell of a lot of fun, especially Speed Golf! Seems like it's excited a lot of people here, which is always great to see, and definitely has that great summer game vibe to it...hopefully things have improved enough by then so that we can enjoy this with friends and family in-person. I think this might be one of the few titles shown here that I actually end up picking up! Aonuma shooting down there being BotW2 news here was hilarious, happy he confirmed we're getting more info on that later this year - says to me that they're aiming for 2021, which I would love! Glad to see Skyward Sword is coming in July, that I'll be picking up for sure having not played it before. Interested to see how well the game translates to being played with a more traditional controller input, but I greatly appreciate the MGS2-style use of the right stick for swiping things down (I know that's not the only game with it, but it's the one that came to mind, so I'm sticking with it ). Quite like the look of those Joy-Cons, too, but mine are working fine for now, so I'll probably give those a pass. A bit gutting having not completed any Zelda games besides BotW that they didn't end up putting any of the earlier games out before this, the Wii U remasters of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess in particular. I got Spirit Tracks when I was younger (still have it, too!) based almost entirely on the art style, as I saw footage of Wind Waker when I was younger, and it continues to elude me. Does force my hand a bit into playing other Zelda games before July, though, so that should be fun! Colour palette looks a little muddy, but it's really crisp, and that frame rate looks good too, so fingers crossed it turns out well. Splatoon 3 isn't for me (haven't tried the series, and I'm not really one for live service games anyways), but I'm glad that it's in the works for fans of that franchise. It was due a new entry! Didn't seem to be any direct acknowledgement of the 35th Anniversary for Zelda, which was a little weird, so it does make me wonder if they have anything else planned (games or otherwise) for the series this year. And, if we are getting one, the decision to not confirm a Pokémon 25th Anniversary Direct for next Friday here is one of the most Nintendo things ever, but that Pokémon had zero presence here all but confirms it to me; even New Pokémon Snap wasn't here, when other Nintendo published titles releasing before and after were mentioned in rundowns if there wasn't much else to say. So...roll on next Friday, probably Overall, I think it was a solid Direct to return with. It didn't blow me away, but there are a couple of things I'm interested in picking up (Mario Golf Super Rush and Skyward Sword), and I'll be checking out the demo for Project Triangle Strategy, with an eye on it moving forwards. I would score this one a 7/10.

This one's for @Glen-i! £17.99 on our trusty old UK eShop. I still need to go back and check the base game out

Well, at least we learned from Aonuma that we'll be getting more information on this later in the year during today's Direct. Hope is not totally lost in my mind, though, because I don't think they'd be preparing to reveal more this year (and share that with us so early in the year too) if they weren't at least aiming for a 2021 release...but whether or not that comes to pass, well, we'll see.

Yeah, I think you're right, it's probably a translation error. Also, around £30 each in Japan?! Man, they might be getting that collector's edition, but Japan is getting fleeced! Only other alternative I can really think of is that they originally had them available separately here too but decided a bundle might be best, just given how graphic novels generally perform much better in Japan than they do in the West? But that seems like a stretch I feel. Oh well, bit of a shame it's so high, I feel like it might put a good few people off (myself included) from picking it up at launch. Hopefully it'll be included in a sale later in the year!

Oh yeah, you're totally right, forgot about that! Guess hearing about Galaxy of Heroes for so long threw me off

Yikes, yeah, that's higher than I was expecting too, guess I'll be adding it to the wish list for now and hoping for a sale at some point. I was thinking maybe £19.99 each or £29.99 for both? Also, been left a little confused by the trailer, which clearly when showing the logos of the games at the end says 'Games sold separately', but I can only find them on the eShop bundled together? Small mistake I guess, but weird that wasn't picked up on by someone.

Maybe I missed this in the Direct somewhere? But it's also coming to Android and iOS... ...which does lower my interest quite substantially, as if it being only on Switch wouldn't have already (for me personally I just don't have many friends with the system, so it would be hard for me to get excited for it anyway). I could be totally wrong here and maybe this is being done in partnership between EA, Zynga, and naturalmotion, but no EA logo or mention of them in the small print is a strange one, and no mention about it on EA's Twitter either. Weird.

Demo is already up and ready for download from the first page of the eShop for those interested! Think I'll be giving this a spin tomorrow afternoon after work. Still haven't played Octopath Traveler, because although the music is great, I've just heard middling things about it, and given its length, there are quite a few other JRPG's and longer games I've prioritised getting to. Also, this is totally just going to end up being called Triangle Strategy, isn't it?

They're taking forever to put the English trailer up so I can't update the original post, typical S-E I'm pretty interested in this. Not something I'd commit to being there Day 1 for - we'll see what else lands around then, or if there's something else I'm in the mood for at that time - but it's certainly on my radar now. Crazy though that we've had not one, but two Mana remakes, and still not much for S-E's bigger franchises. Smaller undertaking I guess, but still, a bit odd. Visually, that's the kind of treatment I'd be okay with for an FF Collection. Would much prefer the original sprites, but what constitutes the best version for those games isn't necessarily their original release.

Once more unto the ink, dear friends, once more.

Splatoon 2 DLC expansion they hinted at during the New Year celebrations that I've read too much about for someone who doesn't play Splatoon? Oh wow they're just going straight to 3. Alrighty then!

Joy-Cons. Oh. Oh no... Woooo new button layout for controller play

Well, it's happening! Can be played through motion controls with Joy-Cons or on a controller with a new button layout. Joy-Cons landing the same day.

Hell yeah. So interested to hear more about how they've translated this to the Switch!

Aonuma shooting down BOTW2 immediately is hilarious