Julius

Continued the journey today...after a few hours spent grinding I remember there being difficulty spikes when the world opened up in VI and VII, and though IX had been very good up until then with no need for a grind, I figured why not? I'd probably end up grinding way more at the end of the game otherwise (literally spent 5-10 hours grinding in VI before the final dungeon), and with some characters in the high -teens and others in mid-to-late twenties, yeah, just seemed like the time. Spent a couple of hours grinding the core cast to around LV 40 (kind of last track when listening to the soundtrack and podcasts on the background!) before I caved and looked up the Grand Dragon grind to bring everyone else up to speed too. So suffice to say I shouldn't need to grind for a while Story is still awesome, characters are still great, and man I just love this world and this soundtrack so much. Have no idea how long is left, but still having a blast

Some new info on Legends from the recently released artbook: Key takeaways: - exaggerated landscapes and enemies - new enemy types and bosses - a tease of the multiplayer menus Going to be honest, so much going on in the world, I had pretty much forgot about this! Feels like the announcement was back in June looking forward to checking it out!

I'm pretty sure they have actually said that before though at other events (that there'll be no new PS5 news). Yeah they mentioned it last week as part of PSVR week, that's where it came from Am I the only one that finds it kind of funny they then dropped the PS5 Showcase date and time as early as they feasibly could on Saturday? Would've been been first thing at like 06:00 in LA think I even saw some journalists complaining about it, can't remember who though

Had a busy second half of the week so didn't get back to the game, and only put in a couple of hours in yesterday, but sunk a lot of time into it today to make amends. Love this game. Just got the Blue Narciss... I'm loving this game. Such great towns with awesome layout variety making them fun to explore, a killer soundtrack I'm sure I will continue to rave about long after I've finished the game, and a splendid cast. Everyone is getting their time in the limelight, and everyone has an interesting backstory and intriguing goals, with a lot of character development. Probably going to do a bit of grinding before I move ahead with the plot, just so everyone's on a level playing field after so long apart. Can't wait to spend some more time with it

A lot of people with (potentially) more knowledge about what's going on Wednesday coming out of the woodwork to tease things. I'll throw it in a spoiler tag just in case anyone wants to avoid it And then there are plenty of other rumours swirling around from months back about various other projects. Should be fun to see what comes to fruition and what these insiders will surely say has been held back for a later event if it doesn't turn up here Speaking of whom, I'm curious if anyone has a particular stance one way or the other on insiders? These days it seems like we get more and more legitimate leaks as time goes on!

Got the icon, just the cover art, but still looks quite nice: Also got our first look at the title screen and menu today during Nintendo Minute (~0:21 and ~0:57 respectively), looks really clean! Also apparently the menu music is from Galaxy 2, but I can't verify that as I've never played the game

What I'm guessing has happened is that the retailer had their first supply of 3D All-Stars completely bought out in pre-orders, and haven't heard from Nintendo UK about when the next supply will be due. Which is still a bit concerning. I have two copies pre-ordered from different retailers to get one for myself and another for my brother as a Christmas present (would have been the same place, but they sold out, and not expecting price to go down at all between now and then). We've seen how poorly Nintendo has handled supply and demand before (Mini consoles, for example), and while I'm sure there'll be more in stock soon, I'm still expecting the total number produced to be limited, just considering that we have an end date on when they're going to be selling copies. I think if you're interested in getting a copy, even at Christmas, you're probably going to be best off snagging a copy as soon as you can.

If I'm remembering right, it's very similar language to what we got with the PS5 Future of Gaming event back in June. Heavy focus on games in all their promotion, but we still ended up with a (very brief) look at the startup UI, the console itself, and accessories. With pre-orders going up live next Tuesday for Xbox's next gen consoles, I do genuinely think that anything but a price and release date announcement on Wednesday would be Sony shooting themselves in the foot. Selfishly I would want pre-orders to go live at the end of the event (mainly so scalpers aren't given a date and time), but I just don't see that happening unfortunately. Not saying you were suggesting other things weren't going to being there drahkon, just seemed like a natural segue Realistically, we've got Astro's Playroom and I would assume Spider-Man: Miles Morales at launch. They don't need anything else beyond that, but with everything going on with Demon's Souls lately, I think that's the only other potential AAA launch title from what we saw in June. We have the box art going up for pre-orders, but also ratings in both South Korea and Japan if I recall, as well as in-depth descriptions in its listings compared with other games which also received box arts on the same sites. Forget Xbox, I think them waiting this late to announce things has been heavily riding on potential delays . We've just seen Kena get delayed, and Deathloop was a few weeks ago (not launch titles as far as were aware, but worth mentioning I feel), so I think wanting to confidently come out and say "Yes, we have Astro's Playroom pre-installed, Spider-Man: Miles Morales at launch, and one more thing [Demon's Souls?]. Also, here's what to expect by next summer" had a big hand in this. I'm sure this news is ready to go and has been, so this is them getting in the race now, but I feel it justifies them holding out a bit more than Xbox did, as they have massive first party games to deliver at launch. But yeah, I'm super excited too! Hoping it's not just a rehash of what we saw in June with more gameplay (though I'm sure we'll see some for Spider-Man: Miles Morales and potentially Demon's Souls, amongst others). Not expecting an update on Horizon at this point, feel like they'd be best off waiting on that one. One or two surprises big third party surprises would be awesome - for me, this would namely be anything from over in Japan, like Final Fantasy XVI, a potential Konami team up, Dragon Quest XII, Persona 6, whatever Ueda is working on, etc. I'm already in and very excited, but news on one of those would send me over the moon!

PS5 Showcase at 21:00 BST this coming Wednesday!

The television adaptation of Console Wars is dropping on CBS All Access on 23rd September. Haven't yet found word on a UK/global release date, but looks good all the same!

Oh yeah, for sure. We've already seen developers a bit concerned by the limitations of the Series S. Was more talking about how the Xbox Six would be a better and funnier name for marketing purposes 'the Series X is more powerful, so yeah, bigger number than it our main competitor!'

Yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at. The only games I personally want to play on an Xbox at the moment are their legacy titles, like Banjo-Kazooie and the Halo games, which isn't much of a reason to pick it up at launch. There also isn't anything they've announced yet going forward which has me saying "I have to play this game!", but hopefully that will change in a couple of years. Even the newer games they have like Ori and Cuphead that I do have a slight interest in checking out are on the Switch, so I'm happy with my Switch and PS4 for now, and still have plenty of games I want to check out (not to mention a few PS3 and DS/3DS games too), to the point I'm not even sure if I would have the time to fit a third ecosystem's catalogue in!

Oh wow, looks like Jeff Grubb was on the money with what he'd labelled 'Xboxing Week'. The following four-part Xbox News Briefing, which was scheduled for this coming week, has just leaked, giving us a look at how Xbox were likely planning on unveiling all of this week's Xbox news to partners, content creators, etc., before it hit Xbox Wire. I'm getting the feeling that whatever they had planned probably wasn't anywhere near as good as the info dump we ended up with. With no other news attached, I feel like the way it was handled is probably the best way to do it. Also @Cube regarding the thread title, I think I've seen it officially denoted as 'Xbox Series X | S' as the X is the primary console, but at the same time, I love that it reads as 'Xbox S I X' (Xbox 6) as it is, I mean I suppose it is a bit more powerful than the PS5

Been listening to a lot of gaming music at work (still doing a lot of manual work at the moment, a whole lot of spreadsheets, woo). Last few days has been listening to everything I can on lara6683's channel, she's insanely talented! Favourites were Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy Compilations, but there's so much more which is well worth checking out! And in case you needed any more evidence of her talent, there's this insane offhand medley from a while back she did melding together game, TV, and film music - all suggested to her by her Twitch chat - which actually went on for a total of around 2 hours on Twitch from what I've read elsewhere! Insane always a big fan of people just showcasing their passion, hard work, and talent for others to enjoy!

Virtually impossible to tell, but we saw the Series S way back in July on Phil Spencer's shelf: Gave me a chuckle

Yeah, that totally sucks, but understandable. Sucks even more so perhaps because they were literally just Game Informer's cover story, and I'm sure that might have helped get more eyes on the game too with a prospective Holiday 2020 release. Fingers crossed they don't end up with a weird release date where they butt heads with a bigger game in Q1, but regardless, still can't wait to play the game when it does make its way out. Hopefully this is only a small bump in the road, and the rest of development is smooth from here on in

...and now box contents and model numbers have leaked from Hong Kong. Any month now...maybe...

There ain't no party like a GameXplain Analysis party:

So, there's a mysterious PAX event scheduled to start at 00:00 BST next Saturday (the 19th), currently titled 'Sony Holder'. Could be nothing, could be VR-related, could be anything. Could be a placeholder time. But with TGS starting the following week, as well as Xbox's Series pre-orders going live that week too, you would think something is on the way, and this seems to be the biggest hint so far that there might be some sort of event next week for the PS5. Again: could be nothing. But fingers crossed that's not the case.

My question is what the penalty is you do go to another household? That there aren't fixed fines and other potential penalties for breaking these rules just shows how much of a mess it's all been over here compared with other countries, we haven't taken things all too seriously. Also the fact that I'm only just learning this and am close by to Birmingham...there have to be better ways to keep people in the loop. The British summer mentality shines through in the strangest ways, didn't think it would in a pandemic but That's pretty much what the UK needs in a nutshell. I'm amazed no country has pushed surveillance harder than seems to be the case at the moment around the world when it comes to tracking COVID (apart from countries which were already unfortunately at that position pre-COVID). If there was ever a time(/excuse) to have comprehensive surveillance installed, now would be the time. I don't think we know either I'm guessing it's some politician who knows absolutely squat about control measures for a pandemic, and didn't pay enough attention when they were advised to not relax things, or pay much closer attention than they have done. But seriously, aside from all that, what a surprise that our figures spike when we force people to go back to school/college/uni in the middle of a pandemic, where they also have zero enforcement of rules relating to face masks, distancing, etc. Not to mention everywhere they pass by/through on the way to and from school, with all the small shops that have tried to open back up now they've gone back to school, to try to stay in the black. Who could have possibly known?

The update on the 26th will be part of Koei Tecmo's Tokyo Game Show panel, with that segment of their panel starting at 14:00 BST: The panel actually kicks off at 21:00 JST / 13:00 BST, but the first half is dedicated to KT's new Atelier title, with the second half turning the focus to Age of Calamity. I have to imagine that Nintendo/KT will release a separate summary video after the end of the panel.

Gone gold! Just a few weeks now. Not sure how long I'll put into the online, but looking forward to digging into the campaign - however short it is - all the same!

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, Ewan McGregor has said that Kenobi - as far as he's aware - will only be a standalone season, with shooting starting in Spring next year. I really hope that's the case. A focused, standalone season, with a set story to tell about Obi-Wan at this point. That's what I've been hoping for since it was announced, so fingers crossed!

Longer walkthrough with some gameplay: Some previews have just gone up too:

Switch version coming down the road..? Apparently got deleted shortly after, but it's been spotted elsewhere on the site and during the game's promotion too. Also, this is pretty neat. Comes with the original 1989 game! And those screenshots look a little better.