Julius

More news on Online coming early May. Smart move by Nintendo. This should get them way ahead of the curb for E3 and Online’s launch, so I hope they go into as much detail as possible. Here’s hoping for some more information on what they plan to do with Virtual Console! EDIT: Greninja’d

Uh oh...

Got back a few hours ago, and WOW. You’ll find no spoilers ahead, just a few things I think deserve your attention during your first/next viewing of the film. I do want to talk about a few things which are totally unrelated to the story, but will likely be completely brushed under the table by most popular reviewers/those with hot takes. Firstly, the film isn’t just visually and audibly impressive: it’s absolutely gorgeous. Sure, that’s to be expected from it being the first film released shot entirely with IMAX cameras, but the CGI quality is just as good as anything seen in James Cameron’s Avatar, and that’s saying something when the primary antagonist, Thanos - who you obviously see a whole lot of throughout the film - could easily appear to be a wrinkly grape that grew some muscular arms and legs. The sound design paired with the visuals of this film gives a real heft to an enormous Titan like Thanos, as well as to the whole Black Order. The film is framed incredibly well - which shouldn’t be too surprising, considering just how good The Winter Soldier and Civil War were too in this regard - and it shows that they didn’t just throw money at it for the sake of making more money. Alan Silvestri returned to score Avengers: Infinity War after being on the sidelines since the first Avengers, and he does not disappoint. Many - myself included - complain about the subdued score and musical themes of the MCU, which, besides the main Avengers theme, hasn’t offered a whole lot, but Silvestri’s return gave us what is, in my opinion, the best score in the MCU to date. Emotions, physicality, and moments which I’m sure will be remembered for a long time to come are perfectly matched by his score. I’ve been with the MCU since the start, but I’ve always found the narrative that “oh, it’s the next Star Wars” to be completely blown out of proportion. For me, these have always just been fun popcorn flicks with well known characters who are easy to invest in and not much more, as films, beyond that. And I really love, and have strong nostalgia for, these films. But this film has changed that. Not only is Infinity War a great popcorn flick, it’s a film of substance which is elegantly paced and beautifully composed, managing to successfully tell a story which is - surprisingly - undeniably relatable in every one of its wrinkles and folds. Just like the very first Star Wars.

From what I’ve seen of the games (probably a couple of hours from reviews and some short gameplay sessions), I actually think that your idea would work really well, @RedShell; it definitely seems like the right type of game for that mechanic/feature I mean to get into the Yakuza games too - they’re on my list of games that I want to play which is, by my own admission, waaaaaaay too long (I’m sure many of you here share my struggle) - but I think I’ll take to it after I’ve played through Shenmue I & II and Shenmue III. I know that they aren’t exactly the same style of game/s (or storytelling) in many ways, but I do feel like there’s an evolution in concepts from Shenmue to Yakuza, from everything that I’ve read/heard/watched about them, so I’d like to take that approach to them. It’s the same sort of way I’m planning to play the 3D Mario and Zelda games (prior to BotW for the latter)

This isn’t surprising at all, but S-E need to get ahead of the curb and do something meaningful to turn around their PR fortunes, because it’s very quickly becoming a mess. Talking specifically about their JRPGs: They’ve been toying with fans about the idea of Remake for far too long; Versus XIII/XV was in development for far too long (yes, I understand they built an engine or two to do so, but it still came out undercooked); and, more recently, Secret of Mana remake/remaster was poorly received, and they somehow messed up porting Chrono Trigger to PC, thinking that the mobile version would do. I don’t know where they go from here, but they need to take it a step at a time, and stop promising titles of world-changing proportions way before they’re ready. And they really do need to stop milking consumers for all that they’re worth, when they are the ones making the mistakes. I understand that they have a bottom line, but any game which is shown and then in development for a further 5+ years should come with free DLC, not annual season passes. They don’t seem to have a problem with games of a relatively smaller scale - such as the Dragon Quest series (admittedly they take too long to be localised, but still), the Bravely series and the upcoming Octopath Traveller - when compared to Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts, so maybe they have delusions of grandeur, because they’ve aimed for the stars and failed to reach them several times now.

Absolutely, and games like Fire Emblem will also serve to attract something of a niche audience (if they haven’t already invested). E3 can’t come soon enough Oh, for sure. Not trying to take anything away from what it’s done already, I just saw many expecting it to have sold upwards of 1.6 million units after it’s amazing start — if I’m remembering right, wasn’t it something crazy like 1 million units sold in its first month?!

Also, it’s worth noting that they’ve made Kimishima’s previous 20 million Switch units sold estimate for the financial year ending 31st March 2019 official. Makes one wonder what wonderful games they’re saving for E3 to announce and release within the following nine months.

Yep, it’s nuts. Shame that ARMS and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 have really slowed down. Just over 200,000 units sold for each them in the space of three months is way below what many were expecting.

Still listed as “2018 or later” in Nintendo’s financials. It makes me a little nervous that they really are just trying to rush something out if they’re not sure when it’s coming out by this point, but yeah, the official aim still seems to be to have it out by the end of 2018.

I don’t think Kimishima gets enough praise for the great work he’s done in turning around Nintendo’s fortunes. Iwata laid a solid foundation - I don’t think that can be argued about - but Kimishima has been nothing but professional in executing the plans for Nintendo’s revitalisation. They needed an intelligent, hard-working, and quiet veteran to serve as the face of the company after Iwata’s passing - may he rest in peace - to offer them such much needed stability in a period which could have very easily become a turbulent one for Nintendo. Very interesting that Shibata is heading back to Japan, I’m curious to see who’ll be replacing him. It’s worth noting that, according to Nikkei, Kimishima is stepping into an advisory role, which I’m glad to see. They’re also reporting that 68-year-old Kimishima thought that Nintendo’s management needed to be younger to better understand its customers, and that Nintendo had been looking for a way to pass the baton to the next generation but decided to wait until sales had made a comeback to make the change. Seems a smart time and a smart move to make these changes considering that they only just started a new financial year earlier this month.

Not related to Yakuza 6, but related to Yakuza: in an interview with PlayStation Access, series producer Daisuke Sato has talked about how Yakuza 3, 4 and 5 could come to PS4 — if there’s enough demand (though I’m under the impression that the performances of 0, Kiwami, and 6 in the West have already shown that there’s plenty of demand). He also said that it would be hard to localise Yakuza Ishin (the samurai game, I believe?) because of how the Western audience won’t completely understand the era that it’s set in, though I’d argue that the West’s embrace of recent Yakuza games shows that there’s clearly an audience for the game. Plus, samurais are cool.

I’ve never really been a fan of Wilshire, to be honest. His attitude is often questionable, and he’s very inconsistent, and I’ve always been surprised when he’s been called up based on performances in previous campaigns. Shelvey has radically improved under Benítez, so I’d be glad to see him going to Russia. I do agree that they’re not good replacements for Chamberlain, though. Neither of them strike me as being particularly bullish. Also, I think Navas’ performances in this game and against Juve have dramatically increased the odds of Real making a massive bid for De Gea this summer.

It was the same case when we were up against Courtois in the semi-finals a few seasons ago. I think it was supposed to be the case that the club which has the player on loan paid the parent club a fixed sum, but I think that was abolished as a result of it being argued for a semi-final. It’s allowed because a player can only be registered to appear for one club in Europe currently, so they’d just be register to the club that they’re on loan at. I don’t think it’s too much of a conflict of interests (though I do think it walks a fine line), considering that the player out on loan will presumably want to prove themselves to their parent club (hence why they’re on loan) - even if it means proving themselves against them. Plus, I’m not a fan of how James was handled by Real, so I’m glad that he might get a chance to prove himself to them over the course of this tie

Not Zelda, but the next Boss Keys analysis up and it’s about Dark Souls. I’ve never played any of the games before (it’s on the list!), but I found EZA’s Soulsborne retrospective thoroughly interesting, and this is a great watch too.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an attacking line-up from Bayern before.

The Iron Spider Infinity War suit looks great in action.

Sonic Mania Plus is coming July 17th.

Disney Japan have put out what is, without question, the best Infinity War trailer...

I could be wrong, but wasn’t production running until the very end of 2012/start of 2013 for the PS2? So around six years?

Man, that’s some good looking box art... Also, the 4-disc OST will release on the same day as the game in Japan; no news on a Western release date for the OST yet (as far as I’m aware?):

Just a heads up that the review embargo has lifted, so steer clear of...everything, I guess? Apparently Forbes had a review up which spoiled much of the film — again — but it’s since been taken down.

Disney’s 2018 - 2019 slate from Cinema Con: It’s silly just how stacked next year is. Can’t wait for Avengers: Untitled

I think I agree with @Hero-of-Time that they’ll continue to release two versions. It’s been such a large part of Pokémon’s success, and I think that Pokémon GO in particular highlighted that the social aspect of the game is still something that they’re interested in having players engage in. Box art legendary Pokémon often sell a particular version to a consumer, so narrowing down the option to choose, I think, could only be to their own detriment. Plus, they’ve been designing these games to have two versions for over twenty years (either through intricacies in location or Pokémon available, for example), and I don’t see them wanting to sway from that particular approach. For me, personally, I think the more pressing question would be if we’re going to be able to have multiple save files (either in-game or through the use of multiple system user accounts). And I think that the answer will probably be no, and that the game will be saved locally to the cartridge.

Oh yeah, I think I actually heard about that. Was it in Gates to Infinity? And yeah, I get what you mean, it probably would end up being a bit frontloaded in that regard. I think I get what you mean with that last part, but did they really only just alter that code for evolutions in Gen VII? That seems...an odd thing to change so relatively late on. I probably didn’t mean to be as specific as I did (honestly, I just meant when Combusken evolves into Blaziken), but that’s nice to know: I wasn’t aware that they had moves learned by evolution coded in that way before