Julius

Yep! Posted that on a short break I gave myself after Stage 4 because my hands hurt a little bit, and then went on to finish the rest of the game last night too The boss rush in Stage 5 was a lot of fun, lost a few lives to it but handily got through without seeing a Game Over screen (thankfully), think having some level ground definitely made the difference. The first stage of the boss fight against Wily was easy once I figured out I could just cling to the left, time my jumps well (and make sure to jump high enough), and shoot the window on his ship. The second stage was a tad trickier and had me on two lines of health left once it was over. That final boss fight was a bit weird. I changed direction whenever it shot at me, had to really nail the height of the jumps, and switched weapons constantly to figure out what it's weakness was, and of course Bubble Lead being my least favourite weapon, that was the weakness here once I figured that out it was then a case of getting a shot in at close range without getting hit, which was way tougher than it looked! But yeah, overall had a absolute blast with it I haven't even mentioned some of the boss sprites in this game! They look pretty astounding for an NES title!

Yep! I did the same for Super Mario Bros. when I played that through NES Online, and it's probably something I'll stick with where I can, just because it adds an interesting dimension to the experience. Saying all that, it's certainly not the most comfortable way to play for long stretches, but fortunately the NES games I've played through so far have been kind in their length, and the longer games I want to play from that system thankfully are going to rely less on reactions (like the early FF games). It's something I'm weirdly picky about, playing with the original controller where I can (it was an absolute treat getting to spend a long time with the SNES controller for long stints playing through Final Fantasy VI last year!), and even if it's not on the original hardware, I strangely still gravitate towards picking them up on their modern console counterparts (a big part of why I got the Mega Man and Castlevania collections on Switch). Yeah, I genuinely ended up walking around that first part of the stage trying everything except for scrolling over and trying the Transport Items out. Because of that I ended up killing a lot of those birds with Leaf Man's weapon, which was great to replenish my weapons! Yeah, it was a genuine nightmare, especially once I realised that I wasted most of them bombs on breaking down those walls at the start! one of those bosses where it feels less like a challenge and felt genuinely unfair. Locked-on shots with absolutely zero heads-up coming from every direction? Crazy! To push that point even further, after my first few deaths I managed to get to the last few of those domes, and I was really curious and wanted to test if the Rewind function included in the collection might trivialise the fight, so I tested it for five minutes and genuinely felt like I was going insane, so the short answer is that it really doesn't make a difference there, which just speaks to how poorly done it is. Easily the boss I spent the most time on, I really enjoyed the game, but it doesn't inspire me to return to it because of the stress of that one section if I'm being honest. Yeah, took up a decent chunk of my evening! I'll admit there were one or two instances when I used the Rewind function early on getting used to the game on one or two daft mistakes. It took a while to get used to controlling the height of the jump, so I mainly used it on practicing that and testing things like weapon direction - figuring out diagonal attacks and things like that - and shooting on/jumping from ladders. Yeah, Heat Man's stage with the Item-2 would have been so much less stressful than what I ended up doing. Jumping from one vanishing block to another was pretty intense, especially the deeper into the stage I got! Especially that one room where you jump onto a vanishing block, and have to jump up and around onto another vanishing block, then jump to the left, and then onto that ladder, it was a nightmare! Those lasers on Quick Man's stage are almost comically deadly, those and the spikes I think on Wily's Castle Stage 3 - I think? - where the walls are lined with them and you're just dropping from one screen to another with the drop twisting all over the place, it's moments like that where the game shows it's age a bit I feel, because the difficulty is a bit more artificial than it is skill-based. That being said, obviously I had a huge grin on my face every time I got by one of those challenging parts, so it was totally worth it in the end Yeah, the Metal Blade I didn't really get used to late on, it took me a while to get it going diagonally with any real consistency. Wasn't the biggest fan of the Bubble Lead if I'm being honest (apart from using it on Heat Man), which was probably my second least utilised weapon, miles ahead of the Time Stopper (which I tested at different points and just really didn't get to grips with). I'd probably say that the Quick Boomerang was my favourite weapon by some margin, just throwing that over and over at a boss and taking them out so quickly made me feel very overpowered, which was a great feeling in a game I found to be really challenging!

Played through Mega Man 2 for the first time tonight as my first Mega Man game after @Jonnas recommended that's where I start when I was asking about platformers back in the summer (thanks!), and really enjoyed it. Especially playing it with the NES Online Controller (though I'll admit my hands are a little cramped now!). Took a bit of getting used to, and I didn't really understand the Transport Items until Wily's Castle, when scaling that first grey wall (the first time in the game you're forced to use one?). Took a good 5 minutes for me to realise the controller wasn't set up right (B was set to jump and A wasn't doing anything), which meant I was just trying to get by on jumping alone, thinking the weapons - even the starting weapon - came along later . Anyways, that soundtrack is absolutely God tier ...but what the hell is up with that boss on Stage 4 of Wily's Castle?

I haven't had the chance yet, but yeah, that's certainly the impression I get.Going from a £70 game at launch to getting delayed to be a PS+ tie-in just a few months later really drained the little interest I had in it. Really doesn't instill you with much confidence. Still, it's free (well, you get what I mean), so I might hop on for a couple hours just to see for myself. Have you had the chance to give it a spin yet?

Delayed from March 18th to an unspecified date. Which was originally delayed from January 21st.

Finished this Tuesday night and think I've finally digested it enough to share some deeper thoughts here.

So not exactly related to the game, but...I love gaming music, and figured this was worth a share, seeing as it's aimed at replicating what the trailer music for Part II might sound like, and I'm sure some others here will appreciate it: Honestly, it got me really hyped just to play through this game again

Yeah, agree, it looks great! I mean, I think their process is normally to have LEGO designers work off the initial idea, so it wouldn't necessarily be a 1:1 thing. For instance, the Medieval Blacksmith set has some pretty drastic changes from Idea to reality: I think more likely to get in the way of it becoming a reality is Nintendo's overprotection of its own IP, though in this case, considering they worked together on last year's Mario sets, and that this year is the 30th and 35th anniversaries for Metroid and Zelda, respectively, I don't think it's too crazy that we see sets for them this year. Even if it's not necessarily those Ideas, because I wouldn't be surprised if we found out they've already got stuff in the works!

I don't know if this will be the set which gets me buying LEGO again (I really don't have the space these days), but that looks great. Absolutely love LEGO Ideas, I really need to spend more time voting for sets on there The next round of LEGO Ideas reviews is definitely going to be worth keeping an eye on, too! Because it's going to include these:

These are shipped numbers and not sold-through, so that shouldn't impact it I don't think? Great numbers, but obviously limited by production, and I can't help but wonder what it might have topped out if not limited in such a way. I saw that this was the highest quarterly revenue in video game history somewhere? Which is really crazy. The PS4 dropped off really hard, but besides holiday sales, I imagine that could still be boosted by a healthy price cut at this point. Honestly, I'm a little surprised they didn't do that already, but it's probably down to wanting something solid to fall back on in the face of COVID, which is fair.

Insaneintherainmusic dropped his Sinnoh cover album, Sinnohvation, around Christmas time, and I've been listening to it pretty religiously. I'll link the video playlist here: It's insanely good, and does an excellent job of recapturing a jazzier and higher fidelity take on the soundscape of Sinnoh. I absolutely love it, it's now probably my joint favourite video game OST cover album alongside Malcolm Robinson's orchestral Chrono Trigger album. It's an album filled with great takes, but here are a few of my favourites: One of my absolute favourite tracks isn't in the album, Route 225-227, but he's covered it before: I've also been watching and listening to Alex Moukala quite a bit lately, and he's definitely worth checking out if you want some great mish-mash covers which are a bit more daring and outlandish, where he takes music from one game and tries to fit it into another (or just straight up makes it funky, in the case of One-Winged Angel) and a further breakdown of his music writing process, if you're into that kind of thing (and there's a lot of Final Fantasy, so of course you should check it out). Well worth diving down that rabbit hole! He also recreated the Final Fantasy XVI trailer music's choir and rounded it out with some inspiration from Soken's XIV work: Alright, think I've shared enough greatness for now

Finished a pretty short but wonderfully done game this evening for the Video Game Club. I'll keep it brief and just be posting my initial impressions here, trying to steer clear from any major revelations in the game, before posting my further thoughts after I've let it ruminate a little longer in the Club's thread (which I'll throw in at the end of this post in a spoiler tag for my own future reference). WHAT REMAINS OF EDITH FINCH | 2017 Developed by Giant Sparrow and published by Annapurna Interactive, What Remains of Edith Finch is a great example of how effective interactive storytelling, brilliant writing, and a well-designed space can come together to form something much more than the sum of its parts. As Edith, we make our way through the Finch family household, learning about the ways in which a perceived curse has long afflicted the family through the generations. Edith's words artfully populate the house and its surrounding environments as you explore many nooks and crannies, a place filled with character in each room which consistently characterises the Finch family members with aplomb. Throughout you'll find yourself lightly interacting with objects, locks, and doors, as you dive deeper and deeper into some form of understanding of the curse, eventually finding diary entries which recounts how the curse affected a particular family member, putting you in their shoes as their lives are changed permanently. Each family member feels unique, from their handwriting to the layout of their room, the way they sound, sometimes even how their story is delivered visually, and, most importantly, the way in which their recounting of the events of the curse unfold: one moment you'll be making a wind-up frog jump around, the next you'll be flying a kite across a beach, or soaring across the sky. Whatever it is, these short vignettes allow you to peer - however briefly - into the lives of the Finch family's members, and sometimes, even into their own psyche. I've spoken before about how video games and interactive storytelling can be a great way to instill empathy and share an experience others might be without, and at its highest points, this game delivers on that promise. The game is brief, coming in at around 2 hours long, yet manages to get a lot done in that time in its illustration of these characters and the atmosphere of the Finch house. While there are no standout tracks, the music in this game is pretty much exactly what it needs to be, ambiently imbuing scenes with the right emotion or atmosphere time and again, though there is one standout scene in particular involving music which comes to mind which had me grinning from ear-to-ear; if you've played the game, you'll have no doubt what I'm talking about. Lighting, the placement of objects in a room, how tidy rooms are - or aren't - and the narrow spaces connecting these rooms all feed into this game developing a unique atmosphere which reminds me of returning to a place without a loved one around anymore: while there's a melancholy and emptiness to the Finch house, it was very clearly once a place of warmth and a lot of love. As much as there is to praise about this game, it does have some shortcomings, which I'd be remiss to mention. Most noticeably on my playthrough, the framerate would occasionally tank in a very noticeable way. It wasn't anything game-breaking, mind, but it would occasionally take me out of the experience and shatter the illusion of immersion that a first-person game is normally reaching for. While the events brought to life from diaries and letters are often very well done, and I love the variety of gameplay styles and the way in which they are uniquely framed, there were one or two which fell a bit flat to me, in that they were a little janky at times to control where the game had otherwise done a brilliant job of leading you through its controls by intuition, and one felt rather uninspired when compared with the rest. Maybe it's not a particular weakness of that story but rather speaks to the strength of others, but my initial impression is that it was a small step down from the rest. Those small nitpicks aside, I think What Remains of Edith Finch is nothing short of a masterpiece. If you haven't played it already, I heartily recommend that you do; turn out the lights, stick some headphones on, and put yourself in someone else's shoes for a couple of hours. You won't regret it.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at And it's name is @Hero-of-Time

Just seen it in the description, weird that it wasn't in the trailer, but thanks for the heads-up! Seems like a pretty good date for it, look forward to digging in

New trailer: Looks pretty good to me, and damn, that music got me hyped. A bit odd we still don't have a release date, I hope we get one soon, because I'm really hoping this releases before things start picking up!

Perform a ritual to summon the strength to get good Drahkon right now: But all jokes aside, I'd just lower the difficulty (personally, I know I'm not going to stand much of a chance at Give Me God of War). I don't think there were any NG+ trophies or difficulty related trophies, unless I'm remembering wrong, so all you're missing out on are bragging rights if that's the case. From what you said and how it seems to have surprised you, it sounds like they went the worst route of increasing difficulty in my eyes where they just extended enemy health bars and made them hit harder, which would suck

PlayStation 2020 Wrap Up stats are rolling out. Was stuck between putting this here or in the PS4 thread, but yeah, I'm just sticking it here. Because The link. You'll probably need to change the locale to /en-us/. My 2020 Wrap Up Yeah okay, so I can already tell just looking through that some of these are a little off, but oh well, it's just some fun! Yeah, so this one hurts. GTA V not so much, because that's just Friday night with the guys from work, but that's the least FIFA I've played in a year by far and it still totalled 50 hours. Yes, I'm a corporate shill. Oh, and I swear I'm not too far off the same mark for FIFA 21, and I only started playing that about a month ago. Definitely going to have to delete it after this next Career Mode season. Gah, I hate it! From what I've seen this is probably falling on the lower end of anything, and holy cow, that's easily the most hours I've put into gaming in a year. Yeah, no hour and a half morning and evening commute seriously adds up, and this is just on PlayStation; considering that I have over 70 hours in Xenoblade and 50 hours in Animal Crossing, as well as a few PS3 games which wouldn't be included in this too, I'm solidly over the 1000 hour mark in gaming for a year for the first time in my life. I don't know whether to be proud or concerned. Yeah, single player gaming or get out is how I roll. Well, besides Fridays, which are long sessions, clearly! Again, kind of crazy for me. Let's hope it passed the 200 mark this year Yeah, there it is. The Wednesday dip doesn't surprise me so much, but Sunday is clearly higher than Saturday just because I'm trying to get a game finished before returning to work on the Monday I've just checked and this is nearly half of my current trophy count (1348). Holy cow. Just checked and I've soared by a lot of my friends in terms of trophy levels who have been on PlayStation Network since early on in the PS3's life. Which makes it abundantly clear I don't have anyone on here on PSN Yeah, so this and the next part is making me question if all of the stats I've shared so far are just based on my time spent with the PS4? Because I got three Platinum trophies this year (Ghost of Tsushima, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Astro's Playroom) but only one was on the PS4. I don't know anyways, that's the most Platinum trophies for me in a year since 2018, when I think I picked up 5, but maybe I'm forgetting some? Off the top of my head being Shenmue, Shenmue II, Spider-Man, Dragon Quest XI, and a super short game called Burly Men at Sea I played that Christmas. PS5-specific stuff: Yeah, that checks out. As does that. Yeah, okay, but this doesn't. BRING THE PS5 THEMES ON YOU COWARDS.

Time for my first update of 2021! Unfortunately, I only have one game to talk about completing in January after being ill the last couple of weeks, and before that just chipping away at Monster Hunter: World a little bit with friends (imagine that will be the case throughout the year), and investing far too much time into a FIFA 21 Career Mode (I know, I hate it too). But, fortunately, there's plenty I want to say about that one particular game. Without further ado: SUIKODEN | 1995 Produced, written, and directed by Yoshitaka Murayama, developed by Konami, and originally released in Japan in 1995 as one of the earliest JRPG's to grace the first PlayStation, Suikoden tells an epic yet simple tale of betrayal, greed, and honour, in search of the truth. As Tir McDohl, son of a renowned general, players are given a chance early on to see first hand the corruption and tyranny eating away at the heart of the Scarlet Moon Empire whilst working as an Imperial Guard. After a friend becomes mortally wounded and passes on the Soul Eater rune, one of the 27 True Runes, Tir and his servants must flee the golden city of Gregminster, along the way finding themselves tasked with leading a rebel army against the Empire and gathering the 108 Stars of Destiny. The game's story and the gathering of the 108 Stars of Destiny is loosely inspired by a 14th century Chinese novel called Shui Hu Zhuan, known in the West as Water Margin or Outlaws of the Marsh, or, in Japan, as Suikoden. In the story, 108 outlaws gather to form a sizable army and maintain peace, and in this game, a very large part of the story is the gathering of the world's 108 Stars of Destiny, with whom the destinies of those in the Liberation Army are deeply intertwined. These characters can be found throughout the game's many locations, all with unique sprites and excellent portraits which I think do an excellent job of providing a lot of character to them, and once recruited, almost all of them are able to fight alongside you in your party, while others will stay at your castle to help out in any way they can; for example, Marie, the innkeeper from Gregminster, sets up an inn in the castle for you to rest and save at once recruited, whereas some others will set up shops filled with items and armour, play mini games with you, or offer services such as sharpening your weapons (the game's way of upgrading your weapons), storing items and equipment, upgrade your boat for faster travel, or to attach runes (which determine the elemental attack type and rune type of a character). As you collect more characters throughout the course of the game, more rooms and facilities will become available in your castle, as the size of your castle grows and the reach of the Liberation Army expands. However, as great as it is to see the growth that collecting characters and building your castle up has, the ending you see will be determined by how many Stars of Destiny you have gathered before the game's final battle, and the true and canon ending - which can be carried over through a save transfer to Suikoden II - can only be seen with all 108 Stars of Destiny gathered. And, as you can imagine, this unfortunately isn't a straightforward process, with different recruitment requirements for characters ranging from simply talking to them, to grinding for a rare item they've asked for which drops in battle, to beating them at an RNG-based mini game which involves rolling dice (though, once this character is recruited, it's the greatest high risk-high reward way to earn an insane amount of money!), to being locked behind Tir being at a certain level, having a certain party member with you when interacting with them (or, in one extreme case, as many as four requested party members - your maximum party formation is six!), in a hidden room in a dungeon, or, perhaps even worse: in the final room of a dungeon which you are kicked out of before you get the chance to recruit them, meaning you'll need to instantly go straight back in and through that dungeon - in its entirety - again. In quite a few cases, too, characters are only available to be recruited during short windows between story beats, meaning it's very, very easy to miss some characters if you aren't careful. Because of this, keeping multiple save files is the best way to go, and unless you are willing to drive yourself insane going through potentially multiple 20+ hour playthroughs, I think it's worth looking up a spoiler-free recruitment guide for this game; I did, and trust me when I say that there is zero chance you will have gathered 108 Stars of Destiny organically in a blind playthrough, it's just far too tedious at times. This all being said, the reward of the true ending is worth following a recruitment guide for, so I would highly recommend it. Unsurprisingly, you journey between the towns, villages, mountains and forests of Toran through the use a world map, the scale of which honestly reminds me a lot of Chrono Trigger, what with its super tiny character and detailed depictions of miniaturised locales. The world map theme is literally called Tiny Characters in a Huge World, which is a very light and charming track to bob up and down to (and hum along with), as you make your way from one town to the next. While there are encounters on the world map, something I thought was really interesting was something I read about the design of the encounter rates on the world map: if you beeline from one location to the next, taking a relatively straight path along the way, the encounter rate actually reduces to allow for exploration; this is something director Muramasa included in the game to reduce the stress of getting lost on the world map. However, on the other hand, if you start walking in circles or start frantically changing directions at the drop of a hat - like I know I do when I want to grind - then the encounter rate will actually remain higher. I think that's such a cool addition, and logically it makes a lot of sense for a JRPG when the habits of players are known quite well now (clearly even some 25+ years ago too!), so it's something I'd like to see someone else include and refine a bit further in modern JRPG's with random encounters. Something which is really strong when it comes to Suikoden is the visual and musical identity of its locales, some of which are influenced by the West and others of which are clearly inspired by the East. It adds a whole lot to the scale of the world, keeps things fresh, and really breathes some life into some areas and the characters you can find there, every place having its own bit of history, or hinting at another location in the world. Dungeons throughout the game are pretty linear, though I'll mention here that it's always worth keeping an Escape Talisman to hand, as, unlike many more modern dungeon designs, you aren't kicked out of dungeons after completing them, meaning that you'll otherwise have to backtrack through an entire dungeon to get out. Similarly, something I didn't notice until far too late in the game, is that an item called the Blinking Mirror can be given to a character (I would suggest Tir) to teleport back to your castle from anywhere on the world map, and that a certain character, once recruited, acts as a means to teleport you to locations throughout the world, Hopefully that will save someone some backtracking! The writing of the world is simple, but there are some excellently executed parts throughout, with smaller subplots feeling almost episodic in how they give you another character to try to fit into your party and dealing with the various aspects of being at war. No, it doesn't dig that deep into it, but it's how it characterises these moments and brings them to life in the pixel art of the sprites which makes you swear that the character portraits change at times; nothing is black and white here, and the director clearly had a vision of painting this world for you, but giving players the opportunity to colour it with their own interpretations of events. While there are certainly some fantastical elements present - such as the inclusion of elves, dwarves, and kobolds - it stays grounded in its character's intentions and the political landscape of Toran. Of course, an essential component of any JRPG is its battle system. But Suikoden's battle system, while turn-based, is actually a bit different: a maximum party of six at any time, with two rows of three characters each, where you choose all of their commands at the start of each round before watching it all play out, with turn order - as ever - being determined by a character's speed. In terms of commands, there are genre staples here, such as the option to Attack or Defend. Depending on their weapon, characters have access to either Short Range (swords and axes), Medium Range (spears and staffs), or Long Range (bows and arrows) standard Attacks (which, by the way, can be infused with an elemental type if a rune piece is attached at a blacksmith). Short Range attacks can only reach one row in front, meaning you want to put that character on your front line; Medium Range attackers have a range of up to two rows, so can reach the enemy's front row if placed in the back row, or the enemy's back row if placed in your front row; and lastly, Long Range attackers have an unlimited range, meaning they are able to hit the enemy's back row from your own back row. It's a simple thing to add range to turn-based battles, but it keeps things fresh, and means you'll be left figuring out a new preferred formation when your party is changed up (which happens quite a lot throughout the game's story as characters come and go). In addition to the above, though, the game also makes use of Rune Attacks and Unite Attacks. Rune Attacks are determined by the character's equipped Rune (note: these are actually referred to in Items as Crystals; also note that not every Rune is one of the 27 True Runes I mentioned briefly earlier), which allows the user either the use of magic (the higher their magic stat, the more abilities they have access to with a given rune) or a powerful physical attack, whereas Unite Attacks are like Chrono Trigger's Techs, allowing certain characters to team up to perform a team attack. Though magic Rune Attacks are balanced somewhat by having a set limit on how many times you can use a certain spell between resting (note: there are no items to replenish these spells between resting, either at inns or as part of the story), and is only increased either through an increase in your magic stat and/or character's level, there are powerful physical rune attacks, such as the Falcon Rune, and Unite Attacks, such as Tir's and Kai's Master-Pupil Attack, which are very overpowered and do not have such a limit, meaning they can be used as many times as you like. There are two other types of battles, which I'll just mention briefly here due to how closely tied they are to the story: Army Battles and Duels. Both depend on rock paper scissors mechanics, the former being a mini game between the Liberation Army and the Empire during major battles where the aim is to reduce their numbers to zero. Tying back to the 108 Stars of Destiny, the more you have available for Army Battles, the merrier, as you'll have greater attacking options (attacking options are grouped in threes, and some aren't complete until late in the game), and other options are available too, such as using a strategist to boost the attack of your soldiers involved in a Charge attack, or using a ninja to get accurate intel on what the enemy's next move will be. It's worth noting that in Army Battles, you can actually lose Stars of Destiny permanently (which is why it's so important to win with casualties kept to a minimum), so remember to save frequently and beforehand; don't worry about missing it being said, as the game couldn't be clearer when it tells you that a character has died in battle. In Duels, major one-on-one confrontations take place between key players on both sides, with the phrase uttered between rounds by the enemy subtly hinting at the type of attack that they'll be using next (a certain guy with a red bandana is someone you'll want to have in your party at all times up until his duel, trust me). If I'm being honest, I think I only had trouble with one or two bosses throughout the course of the game, the first time being against arguably the hardest boss in the game, Neclord, this hundreds of years old vampire who lives up in this castle and takes girls away from local towns and villages to marry them (greatest jump in HP from the last boss, multiple attacks which hit a number of party members, and the ability to poison you; also an awesome rendition of a typical wedding theme in minor when you go to his castle, which I really appreciated!), and the penultimate boss, who is faced shortly after another boss with a high HP count but before you get the chance to rest (meaning no chance to replenish your magic Rune Attack slots between battles, which for me made some characters almost useless). The only other real downside to battles I guess is that if there's one enemy left you need to work your way through all of the character command menus when you might be able to take them out with just one, but otherwise I think it has aged really well, comparable even to modern Quality of Life expectations for JRPG's: enemies move up a row once the first row is cleared, meaning more party members will get the chance to attack as the battle goes on; when engaging in battle with lower levelled enemies, you can decide to use Let Go to escape with a 100% success rate, which becomes Run, which has a less than 100% success rate, if their level is equal to or greater than your own; and instead of missing the target if they faint, it just aims at the next enemy instead. I didn't wipeout once during my playthrough, save opportunities are plentiful throughout (apart from one time, where I swear I couldn't save for over an hour), and the game has one of the best designed levelling systems in a JRPG with more characters than there are party member slots that I've ever played. Yes, you read that right, and no, it isn't hyperbole: Suikoden's levelling system, with its insane number of playable characters and its constant want to swap people in and out throughout, is extremely well balanced and designed, to the point where I didn't need to grind once. How? Level-scaled experience gains. Each level-up requires 1000 EXP, whether that be going from Level 5 to Level 6, or from Level 55 to Level 56, but it scales against the level of the enemy you face; for instance, taking out a Level 10 enemy with a Level 5 character provides more experience than a Level 7 character would get for the same battle, as the experience multiplier is greater, due to the greater difference in levels. Now, this isn't something unique to Suikoden, and has been around in JRPG's for a long time, but what makes this stand out to me so much is how they evidently bumped up that multiplier not just for when you are underlevelled, but even when you're overlevelled, too. For example, about 70% of the way through the game, I found myself being forced to use a character I had not used once since he was introduced some 10+ hours earlier, and my part's levels were all at 48 or thereabouts, and he was down at Level 23. In almost any other JRPG, I'm finding out at that point that I need to backtrack to level up this character to a point where he's actually of some use. But in Suikoden, I knew I could power forward into the next dungeon, keeping him protected on my back row for just a few minutes as I made my way through. SIX battles later and he is already at Level 44, and I can move him to the front line in battles now; by the time I completed that dungeon, he was just 1 level below my other characters. That's pretty insane and, genuinely, an awesome way I think to keep every character in the game viable, even late into the game if the story calls for it. General rule of thumb throughout my playthrough was to just make my way through an area and battle until battles seemed easier, the EXP I was getting reduced significantly (signalling that I was now overlevelled), or heck, just paying attention to when the Let Go option becomes available in battle. Because of this, I feel I can genuinely recommend this JRPG to anyone, and the genre is just that much more accessible; in fact, I'd go so far as to say that this might be an ideal first JRPG, alongside Chrono Trigger. Oh, and you're going to flush with money throughout. Start running low or want to save up for the next best gear? Don't grind, just go play some Chinchirorin, that RNG-based dice game I mentioned before. Just like almost every other game, Suikoden has its flaws, and while I've mentioned some of them throughout, one I've been saving until now is the item management. It's really quite a mess. To put it simply: each character can carry up to 9 items each, which is where the nightmare begins, because up to a maximum of half of those slots per character are going to be used on keeping defensive gear equipped. There isn't a shared inventory, either, meaning that it's probably best to keep healing items on every other character, and then you'll need some items to heal status ailments too; that Blinking Mirror should be kept on Tir, like I mentioned before, meaning he's basically out of slots already. There are no items to revive during battle (you can use medicine outside of battle), the only way to do so is to equip a Sacrificial Buddha. Oh, and people will come and go from your party without much of a heads-up, and there isn't an option to swap items out when they do, which means you could potentially end up losing access to any worthwhile Runes or pieces of equipment you just so happened to have equipped to them for a potentially long time. Again: equip that Blinking Mirror to Tir! Now, odds are, Miki Higashino isn't the name of a video game composer you've heard before - but I can tell you now that it probably should be, because the quality of her work as the lead composer on this game is pretty high. Prior to Suikoden, the soundtracks of note Higashino had worked on - all for Konami - are probably Gradius, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Contra III: The Alien Wars. I can't speak to the quality of her work on those titles, but she really does not pull any punches on this game's soundtrack, every track being so unique and doing a great job of portraying a certain emotion or place in the world. She's on the record as saying that she wanted to avoid doing something like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, and instead made a soundtrack which uses influences from the East and the West, painting every location's soundscape to near perfection in my eyes (ears?). It's so rich and diverse, it adds a lot of texture to these 2D spaces; I highlight music a lot, but I really think it's brushed aside sometimes just how important music is when nailing an atmosphere or moment in a show, film, or game. I've just finished listening to the soundtrack again, and have some twenty tracks written down which I would highlight if given the chance, but instead I'll just mention a few which stand out to me. Royal Palace Consultation certainly lives up to its title, offering this almost funny level of over the top snobbery which few tracks in my mind come close to, yet some of those violin strings still strain with excellence. The eerie repetition and the synth or strings (?) coming in over the top (the sound of which really reminds me of Metal Gear Solid) hang this palpable tension over you in This is Just a Rumor. I think Forgotten Days might be one of my very favourite tracks, because what the strings hint at at the beginning with their repetition isn't at all what the flute leads it towards, and once that main melody is solidified and those natural sounds start to creep in, I can almost imagine myself in some lush field sat on the steps of some countryside house. Passacaria, which is Neclord's theme, goes all-in on organs, as you might expect for some vampire lord of the night; it's sinister and foreboding, yet almost nuanced with a tinge of regret and questioning - maybe hesitation? - like he's driving himself crazy, pacing back and forth in his castle after living through so much for hundreds of years. I'm a bit of a sucker for main themes which are incorporated well, and that there are multiple arrangements of the main theme throughout this game - epic, light, a guitar solo - the Ensemble Arrangement of the Main Theme is my personal favourite, capturing the lost innocence of many of the Stars of Destiny, but looking ahead together with a warm sense of comradery and hope. Island Fortress, the theme of your castle for much of the game (there's an updated version later on, but this one I personally prefer), stays true to that, and I find it very hard to not smile or hum along to its jolly melody. I love the brass opening of An Old Irish Song, and then how it softens and ascends in this ethereal-sounding melody. Theme of a Moonlit Night is one many who have played this game seem to agree to love, and it's not hard to hear why, with its optimistic solo harmonica sound then joined by others to give this great sense of togetherness and reassurance. Theme of the Advancing Army is probably the most Final Fantasy-sounding track in the game, what with its swashbuckling call to adventure, and textured main melody. I think my favourite track, though, is probably Avertuneiro Antes Lance Mao / After the Battle, which is charged with emotion, and almost sounds pained, before a triumphant choral section which reminds me a lot of Victory Celebration at the end of Return of the Jedi. That all being said, of course I have to leave the final track as A World of Illusion, just as an excuse to show the awesome opening credits and resounding epic version of the main theme: From what I've read and heard, Suikoden can't seem to shake this reputation that it was a warm-up for something better - something grander - in the form of Suikoden II. It might well end up being the case that I do enjoy its sequel more, but even if that is the case, I only think this line of thinking serves to diminish the accomplishments of what is in its own right a well-crafted JRPG, clearly overflowing with charm and heart, and which served as an excellent directorial debut for Yoshitaka Murayama. Well-paced and well-crafted, Suikoden is well worth your time. It celebrates differences - in cultures and in ideologies - with a large cast of greatly realised characters on both sides of war, a wonderful soundtrack, and a timeless story about the courage of humanity in the face of adversity. Even at his most powerless, man's existence is never without meaning.

Next-gen version inbound, with the games also coming to Series X|S and Stadia, as well as the PS5. From IGN: Sucks that there's no free upgrade, I'd be curious to hear the reasoning besides "money" (because there absolutely isn't one). I haven't got the game on PS4 yet, but given that I'm waiting for Yakuza 7 to get a standard edition PS4 release, think I might just get this on PS4 too anyways so that they're all in the same case (for now).

Let the installs...begin.

Yep, been thinking the same lately, definitely want to try getting around to it this year in preparation for whenever Ragnarok does drop. This game was a little daunting originally when I played it back at the end of 2018 (just in terms of some of its darker design elements, hadn't really played much like it by that point), so I'm really curious to see how I gel with it next time around. A load of 2017/2018 games I already find myself wanting to return to, to be honest, so I think I'm finally starting to see the bigger issue with tackling a "backlog", because it's definitely not just a case of playing games I haven't before now there's this, Shadow of the Colossus, NieR:Automata (in preparation for Replicant), etc., and that's just a cursory glance at my shelves. I've even had to stop myself from picking Breath of the Wild back up at times, because when I returned to that to critical path it and finish it off, thinking it'd be only 5-10 hours, I found myself seeing credits roll some 30+ hours later. Need a time machine to stick myself into for a year to do some catching up at this point oh well, so long as we're having fun I guess!

Free PS5 patch is dropping tomorrow! Heck yeah.

New trailer for Cris Tales, which is now coming in July:

Finally! Been waiting for an update on this, really curious to see when it ends up landing (it's a pretty quiet start to the year in terms of games, I'm kind of hoping it lands in March before things start picking up a bit) and if they plan any major changes for the first game in particular; a lot of the rumours seem to be pointing to that getting the biggest overhaul of the three. Never played these before and held off from getting them on PS3 hoping this was waiting in the wings, hope it's turned out well!