Julius

I KNOW RIGHT?! Okay, so it's also coming to Switch on Jan 23rd too, so I guess it was just for the eShop link that they were waiting on: So weird with this delayed trailer nonsense for other platforms. First up on PlayStation and Aspyr's official channel, then up an hour later on the Xbox and Nintendo channels. Nowhere near as bad as whatever deal Xbox think they're benefitting from with Atlus, but it's just so strange

Overview trailer: That's a chunky boi of an overview trailer right there

List of games confirmed, but still nebulously arriving at some point in the remaining 2½ months of 2024: And some further details: Shaping up to be a really nice package. With no date and just 2½ months left, this has to be shadow-dropping during or after an event, right?

A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one: Enough colons to make you think it was a Kingdom Hearts title. Coming to PlayStation, Xbox and Steam on 23rd January 2025 – Nintendo release (or maybe just the link to the eShop page?) currently listed as 'Coming Soon'. They'll really do anything to avoid bringing the Knights of the Old Republic port to PlayStation, won't they?

Seems like some details went under the radar from TGS this year which might go some way to explaining the released order of the HD-2D Erdrick Trilogy. Per Automaton, reporting based on Famitsu: Very curious. Like @Ike mentioned, the remake of III was teased in XI, so perhaps some sort of tie-in to the Zenithian Trilogy (or later games) in order to tease those games being revisited in a similar way? Or heck, maybe it's even setting up XII in some weird way?

If anyone needs to chuckle through the tears of this being announced instead of the Switch 2 this morning: Feels like a missed opportunity on the last one for Reyn Time

Yeah, I wasn't joking about the Activity Log idea, please let it be that Nintendo The other thing I think there's a very small chance it could be, but might make some sense just considering that they're testing it in such a weird way that we haven't seen before – is maybe some form of modern Miiverse equivalent? With Twitter/X uploads being removed from the system a while back, there's an additional barrier to sharing now than there was at launch, and I feel like that's something Nintendo would want resolved ahead of the Switch 2. And that just feels like the sort of thing you'd want to have tested rather than launch cold turkey with a new system? The method of sharing as it is now just kind of sucks

If anyone's interested in being involved in a test for an upcoming Nintendo Switch Online feature, here's your chance – open only to NSO + Expansion Pack members, with applications opening tomorrow at 16:00 BST: Seems like a neat opportunity, wonder what this is all about? Did someone say Activity Log? Seemed a bit weird to put in one of the NSO threads with how those have been split up (seems like it's open to Expansion Pack members for the Playtest, but will be a potential wider NSO feature?) – hence why I'm dropping it in here

Guess they're just waiting for the unlimited power and potential of the Switch 2 in order to cleanly bring over some 25+ year-old PS1 games

Huh, well there's that Siren re-release which showed up a little while back. Assuming this is a new release (considering it has both PS4 and both PS5 versions), I'm curious to see how they treat customers of the game who have it as a PS2 Classic from back in the day? Yeah, the treatment of the games being put up by Capcom on PS+ are so strange. Dino Crisis we've known about forever yet it's taken years to release, the lack of trophy support, etc. – it's October, and yet I'm still scratching my head still as to why the old RE games haven't been released in a classics compilation on modern systems by Capcom themselves, there's absolutely an audience for it

Launch trailer: Sponsors Haas at the F1 in Singapore and then a Radiohead cover in the launch trailer – look, you really can't say they haven't tried to push the boundaries with their marketing

Yeah I found my sunrise alarm clock genuinely fantastic, I still use it now but during lockdowns when I couldn't tell left from right it was one of like four things helping me keep somewhat sane. Can't recommend them enough for anyone who struggles with sleep/waking up

They delayed the Switch 2 not for games or to have millions of units ready for launch, but for the return of the Activity Log, Themes and (actual, can-be-placed-in-the-menu) Folders

So I went to the Birmingham Toy Collectors Fair two Sundays ago, and totally forgot to post pics of my gets, because yes, I guess I'm collecting Pokémon cards again still need to sort out replacement sleeves, toploaders, and a binder, so for now I've left them in their sleeves with the price stickers which refuse to come off without a fight, so sorry if it looks a bit tacky as is Still figuring out the shape me collecting again will take, but I think the focus on characters I like in Trainer and Trainer Gallery cards (well, honestly just there cards in general, think they look ace), my favourite Pokémon designs, and just nice artwork is going to be my general guiding star. To save anyone awkwardly zooming in to tot up the total that's £81.50 I ended up spending on cards – we walked by a few vendors and I flicked through their binders but there was nothing which was really calling to me (though in hindsight the matching Electivire card ft. Magmortar was one I feel I missed out on), and so as I thought would be the case, when a card did call out to me, I ended up flicking through the binders at one seller and taking out card after card without much care to add up how much it was coming to I think there was a bit of a limit I put on my spending just by way of "oh, I really like those cards, but that's a bit rich for my blood" (I'm looking at you, Ralts/Kirlia/Gardevoir aging up trainer set) and so £18.50 was the most I spent on any individual card, being for the Trainer Gallery Umbreon V card ft. Karen, aka one of the coolest Elite Four members going purely off her speech before your showdown with her as the final member you face off against of the Johto Elite Four. I spent so much at one place (the place where I pulled out like 15 cards flicking through quite quickly) that they shaved a bit off for me, which was kind of them As I went to leave the second seller I bought from, I noticed two figures, and not really being sure where to throw them in figured I'd bundle them into this post, even if they aren't related to the cards Steven and Cynthia are two of my favourite Champions, so had to have these, which were £16 together (as opposed to £10 each). The lad managing the stall then said they had more behind the counter but I told him to not bring them out for the sake of my wallet So that was close to £100 at face value that I'd spent on Pokémon in a single day...I really should've just started up Scarlet to feed my appetite, shouldn't I? Then as I went to leave him again (poor guy bad to keep calling his dad over to take payments, my bad), I spotted something I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for as a shelf piece because I wasn't aware it existed and so figured some might here also might be interested: There are Pokémon Scale World sets, and although looking them up now they seem to go for quite a bit (really glad I stopped myself from asking about them), I thought it was gorgeous and had to share. So yeah, I think generally I'll probably try to keep my spending on cards limited to IRL events (keeps it more fun and limits my spending a good bit that way, I think), with the next one probably being Birmingham Comic Con at the end of November/start of December, but it was really fun to pick these up, and I look forward to putting a nice little collection together for myself

So, uh, this was the other hardware we were due to hear about I guess? Retailing at $99 USD. Nintendo going head-to-head with Pokémon Sleep wasn't on my bingo card for the year

New key visual from Bandai Namco:

Reviews for this have gone up in a very weird fashion - IGN seem to be the only ones with a video review? - so I think it kind of got buried in the ReFantazio hype, but they are about as expected. IGN's review and Digital Foundry on the technical aspects: There are some real choice quotes going around from the written reviews, just flicking through. Yeah, yikes. Very curious to see how some of the other rumoured future PS4 remakes/remasters/whatever we're calling these, such as Gravity Rush 2 and Days Gone, land after this.

Tequila Works, the studio behind Rime, has announced layoffs and the cancellation of a game. Per VGC:

While I'll agree that it's shocking that it took this long to come to PC and I'd really love to know the reasoning behind it, but..."stupid?" Hold on, let me reach out to Rockstar for comment. Oh wait, I got them – Come on, I think it's simply a case of Rockstar having other things consistently in the oven for so long, if there was a gap the size of GTA V to Red Dead Redemption II, or Red Dead Redemption II to GTA VI, between Red Dead Redemption and GTA V? I think it would have been ported to PC earlier. Instead, focus switched to GTA V after Red Dead launched. Then GTA Online – then the ridiculous success of GTA Online making GTA V on more platforms more of a focus. Then Red Dead Redemption II. I think it's clear as day to anyone who has played Red Dead II what Rockstar's original plans were for the first game, which I think would have likely included a PC release, but then they went and messed up by getting the GTA Trilogy remade by a mobile dev and it all went a bit sideways, then they probably cancelled whatever plans they had for Red Dead and dumped a barebones remaster on a porting company just to get it out there. Sucks that it's taken this long, but I don't think it's too hard to see why it would have reasonably panned out the way it has

The game and ALL LittleBigPlanet DLC (including DLC released for the first two games on PS3) will be delisted from the PlayStation Store as of October 31st: Going to have a look through the DLC myself as I know there were Final Fantasy and Iconic/Shadow of the Colossus costumes – the LBP games are ones I haven't gone back to since enjoying them at a friend's house back on the PS3, but losing all this content kind of sucks. Really wish when games and DLC were delisted like this they'd slash the prices on some of this stuff.

Confirmed for PC, coming October 29th:

Damn, 10 million units sold – hell of an achievement! Now, the real question: where's the remaster?

Yeah, this is my plan too. There are probably other JRPGs cosier for me to catch up on over Christmas, but it's easily the most free time I'm going to have, so makes sense to dedicate it to the longest game in the backlog of this year's releases Yep, definitely, and 2025 looks to just pick up where this year is going to leave off. Say what we might about first parties outside of Nintendo right now, third parties are seriously carrying a lot of the momentum of this gen at the moment – and I'm loving it which JRPGs are sitting in the backlog at the moment H-o-T? I've written out a rough outline of what I think I can realistically get to between now and the end of the year to "catch up", already been some hard cuts, but it provides a bit of peace of mind just already saying "no" to a couple of them – I'll either get back to them next year or whenever the mood strikes. Three massive JRPGs I'll be catching up on are included in that (those three include Metaphor), and of course my pledge games are on the list of priorities too, but as the temperature's cooled off I'm already playing games a lot more and having a blast doing so again. Think I've finally figured out over the last few months that I'm a bit of a seasonal player in terms of hours I invest, which is great to know and plan going into next year, but not so helpful when it comes to wrapping this one up

Physical release incoming: Love the tweet before it, 14 hours ago:

Can't say this was on my bingo card, but I know the first game has its fans: Kind of hilariously, SEGA also collaborated with Lofi Girl on YouTube for a lofi Alien beats video: A lofi video and a sequel announcement – certainly makes for an interesting 10th anniversary celebration