Julius

Key art and a release date of November 12th it is!

Over 3 million copies sold worldwide within its first 24 hours of release. (Source) Well, damn.

Oof, South Kalos apparently being a thing but never getting a chance in the games hurts. Especially because it's kind of reminding me of the Battle Zone in DPPt, just with the way it expands the map, seems pretty obvious it would've been host to the post-game. Got a chance to put that right with Z-A I guess

Microsoft has settled its Antitrust Games Lawsuit:

Another unreleased title, Super Yoshi / Yoshi's Egg: This thing just keeps going deeper and deeper, huh? My favourite reaction to all of this: Also Beta Zigzagoon is just the best: Also really appreciated someone putting frames of Typhlosion's walk cycle together, looks so cool in motion: I mean, yeah, it's pretty clear to me that the leaks around the purported myths would be that they were the initial works which they boiled down further and further until we got what was in the games (DPPt). Kind of surprised, though I know I probably shouldn't be, at the backlash to those supposed myth concepts – they weren't included in the final game, they're clearly in parallel to and pulling from actual IRL myths and legends, and yet I'm seeing some people call it pedophilic? Which...uh, how? What? It's a concept which was never going to see the light of day and was clearly intended as lore, reminds me of those people who call certain films and shows and the people behind them misogynistic just because they have a character in it who is misogynistic Definitely some misinformation starting to go around though, like you say. If nothing else it keeps us on our toes, but why must people be like this?!

Xbox Partner Preview this Thursday (17th) at 18:00 BST;

Demo trailer – for a demo which is live right now! I doubt I'll be playing this but man, that music is hype The backend of this year is seriously so stacked for JRPGs. Not that I'm complaining! This is on all platforms the game is releasing on, by the way

Nintendo coming in with their overview trailer, really ramping stuff up in marketing now that there's only 1 month to go! Love these overview trailers they put together. First of the Erdrick Trilogy (I - III) chronologically, yeah, and would set you up wonderfully for the I & II HD-2D Remakes next year so a perfect diving in point I think, without the crazy long runtimes of VIII and XI. They're very cozy and warm games, absolutely perfect for this time of year See, this is how you end up with @Ike on your doorstep giving you one of these:

Well, while the official DQ account is busy lying through their teeth (I jest ), here's a good bit of new footage to look at courtesy of the PlayStation channel! That music, those sound effects... Some details from the PS Blog: We're all Follow Orders people here, right?

Same I really wanted to know what happened to the battle screen, maybe there were some larger sprites where they just couldn't get the look right or whatever, but some sort of justification would've been nice to hear Surely we see an indie game adopt this style of battle screen sooner rather than later?

Okay, not exactly what I was expecting these to be, but the first of the "evolution" videos has dropped: So jolly

We're going to be getting some footage on the evolution of this game in the coming week, with Square Enix releasing daily videos to showcase this at 10:00 BST. Very much looking forward to this, and serious Chrono Trigger vibes from that wonderful concept art – for obvious reasons I suppose! Where's everyone's hype at for this? We're now just 1 month away from its 14th November release date. I'm getting my fill of JRPGs with what I'm playing now so I think I'm at like a 7/10? But imagine that hunger is going to grow once I round the game I'm playing off and switch it up a bit to grow that JRPG appetite back

More leaks doing the rounds, and this time they revolve around some weird in-universe myths akin to the ones you can find in Canalave Library in the Sinnoh games, and it seems like Game Freak really went in on blurring the relationship lines between humans and Pokémon in the in-game myths based on their original ideas for these. There's one about the "Original Sin based on the Pokémon World", wherein a horrible woman who hunts the likes of Slakoth and Vigoroth ends up giving birth to a Slakoth who dies and she throws herself and the dead Slakoth into a lake? So, uh, yeah. There's another where some guy and an Ursaring end up choking each other to death, who was actually born from an Octillery having relations with a human (his dad), and another with, uh, a woman married to a Typhlosion after being kidnapped, gaslit, and giving birth to a half-human half-Pokémon. Similar weird story with a Lapras to the Octillery one, too, think it might have been that story condensed a bit? Oh and a dude marries a Rapidash who asks him to not kill the female Rapidash (his "sister-in-laws") or the female Ponyta (who are "like his children"). Female author for all of these by the way, and the same one at that. She's got a lot of answering to do for her hand in where the furry scene is about to go, I'm telling you Elsewhere there was a wonderful bit of hand drawn Rayquaza art which is well worth tracking down! And there's some HGSS beta UI floating about which I really like the look of! There's also a 3D model of Hilda from Gen V who was used in the early prototype stages for X&Y (similar to how Lucas was for BW), and something Game Freak referred to as the "Masuda camera" – a much more dynamic camera which looks real good but didn't make it into the final product for X&Y.

Wouldn't surprise me if they did considering the escalation we've seen from there just being mentions in project files, to mentions in anime plans, to "a complete build", to, well, the entire game's source code apparently being included – and they're claiming they have it for the Gen X games too (which last night we learned were codenamed K and N, what are we just the table of elements now?). As we all know, you NEVER screw with the money. Forget about the Nintendo ninjas, this guy's actually just going to turn up in an alleyway somewhere, chunks of his body looking like they were sucked off clean by an extremely powerful vacuum, and a Mario cap with eyes over his head. They're about to send in their best.

Looks like Z-A was originally planned for release this year, as well as some info on some Pokémon... Man, I can't wait for that game. The Mega Evolution reveal at the end of that trailer and it being a Legends game is so exciting to me!

Yeah, would love to see something like that. I can see why they don't just in case they have some idea they want to return to from way back, but a concept art book for Pokémon would be really special. Sugimori's sketches for the first game will forever and always be some of my favourites Ah, my bad for mentioning IGN, it actually took a little digging for me to find the article from them after you mentioned it, but boy do they go in. There's stuff in there reading through their reporting that I didn't even realise was in the leak, like the actual title of a certain leaked spin-off which was/is (?) planned for next year

Yeah, I think I'm in agreement with you. That Insomniac leak really sucked and while I'm all for solidarity in the industry and not reporting leaks, in my 8 years of posting on here, I swear it's the first time it's gone down that way, and I think it's incredibly two-faced to cover one and not another. Like you say, it's their job to report on these things – I think someone like Kinda Funny making the decision that they didn't want to talk about the [Insomniac] leaks is fine, as they're an independent company and let's be honest, not really part of the actual reporting side of things; they're an aggregator of news for their podcasts and that's about it as far as the mainstream, conventional form of journalism goes for them. But places like IGN and other big outlets? I was actually thinking last night when scrolling through the leaks about how it might go down over here, and I do think you're right in that it's kind of about having friends or knowing people at Insomniac (what's really weird is I really, really doubt PlayStation pushed people hard to not cover it too, it seemed like everyone volunteered to follow suit), but goes even further and is also down to this weird divide where Game Freak are, in large part, a faceless, foreign entity outside of the absolute top brass, which has been making games for close to 30 years thousands of miles away from what I see as the hub of the industry on the West Coast, at least in terms of media outlets and some major Western developers. People also love to dogpile on GF and I think them being seen as "lazy" reinforces this strange idea that maybe leaks like this are forcing their hand and somehow doing a weird public service? It sounds odd, I know, but hey, that's this corner of the internet for you I guess

Game Freak have released an official statement on the leaks, confirming it as an unauthorised server breach, and that it does indeed include a number details of past and present employees. No two ways about it, that really sucks. Like I said before, I'm really, really curious to see how the gaming media handle this considering that it was the inclusion of personal data in the Insomniac leak which had them avoid sharing details (even those pertaining to the actual games, which I still found cool as solidarity, but really weird in terms of, ya know, game coverage, or rather the lack thereof). Some more really interesting stuff has turned up, like opinions and concerns on the future of the franchise beyond Gen III, notes from Diamond & Pearl meetings, a transcript of the meeting where they decided Ash's journey had to come to an end, stuff on Pokémon Movie 24 (which might be in development hell?), and a Great Detective Pikachu and 'GameBoy' movie to round out the Detective Pikachu trilogy. The Netflix live-action show seems like it was planned for release this year and would have been 8 episodes long for its first season, and it seems like 5 seasons were planned? But obviously it hasn't even gone into production so goodness knows what's going on there. Again, just really interesting stuff. Also, Deoxys was a starfish, which makes some sense to me, with a single eye. So it was basically Starro?

Seems like there might have been some confusion over Synapse, as it is now being reported as being... (want to keep anything in the leaks relating to new and upcoming/unannounced titles in spoiler tags) The people I've seen aggregating these leaks - and seemingly some people involved in it? - are saying that they don't have plans to share more info on the upcoming projects, we'll see if that holds, but they're saying they'll hold onto what's in the leak relating to those until those games are officially released. Again - we'll see if that holds. They're saying that a build - likely not the final build, but a complete build - of Z-A is included in the leak. Anyways, I've been scrolling through some of this stuff before heading to sleep, imagine we'll be waking up to plenty more too. Now, some of you probably remember that Spaceworld 1997 demo prototype for Golf & Silver which included all of these new Pokémon in beta forms or concepts which wouldn't turn up in the final games, and we had all of these assets from it coming out a couple of years ago. Massive deal, absolutely huge. Alright, well now take that and multiply its scale several times over, because in this leak (some people are calling it the Teraleak, others are calling it Freak Leak which gave me a chuckle ) there are Pokémon and character sprites from betas for Gen III onwards are floating around (I have seen the funniest, made-in-Microsoft-Paint-looking Croagunk I'm probably ever going to see, and then there are things like a clear concept for Scraggy going back as far as Gen III!), there's concept art going back as far as Gen III (as in, pen on paper stuff), the Gen III map editor is in this thing (?!), hell the damn design doc for Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire is here too. There are audio and video files, one of which has some alternate footage to the opening of BW, there's an alternate opening track to SoulSilver which is kind of just divine. Plenty of WIP pixel art too, so things like slightly alternate takes on Gen IV guys going around, and the protags from HGSS. Think I saw someone say the SDK for BW has turned up too. Plenty of scrapped designs. Oh my goodness the lore! There are pages on inspirations for certain characters (such as Drayden from BW/BW2), things about legends, Arceus seems to be getting a full backstory which is mapped out on the triangles and circles of the Sinjoh Ruins cutscene they drew inspiration from for the final battle in Legends: Arceus – holy damn there's text too and it mentions the giants mentioned in one of the Plate descriptions! Just typing this out it might go back even further still because I've just scrolled past different title designs for Crystal? That original Blaziken/Latias concept art (as in, those designs kind of fused because they were one and the same) from aaaaaaaages ago gets done justice here with a sprite, front and back. Some really nice UI mock-ups. Just, damn. Seriously feel like a kid in Disneyland right now seeing so much of this. Surprised how much more I'm excited I am by the Gen III to V leaks and details than any potential news on the upcoming games, genuinely. Absolute megaton of a leak.

Decided to stick this in General Gaming to first and foremost keep it separate to the Nintendo Gaming section so that people don't accidentally find themselves stumbling in, but also because it's unclear at this point if this will only be relevant to Pokémon/Nintendo stuff or if potential projects on other platforms might crop up. If any moderators disagree with me doing this, then feel free to move it over. Someone call Mario and Luigi, because leaks be abound... Reading elsewhere it seems as thougg over a TB of data has been leaked. I won't link the leaks or a source of it directly, but it's not very hard to find with a little snooping around; the usual suspects of ResetEra, r/gamingleaksandrumours, I imagine somewhere on 4chan is going nuts right now... Obviously, it's a tricky one where the source of the leaks seem unclear, but unlike what happened with Insomniac towards the end of last year, so far no-one has come forward looking to take ownership and sell info – I imagine because of someone forgetting to take their phishing scam training seriously. Curious to see how and if the gaming media report on this one with that in mind, especially if no-one comes forward to take ownership of it being a malicious and focused hack, as it was this aspect of also leaking personal details which seemed to be a sticking point for a lot of major outlets not going ahead on discussing the Insomniac leaks. Similar to what happened with Insomniac, though, I'm going to suggest just being respectful and keeping things in spoiler tags because these things are likely to turn up in the coming months and years; this is obviously a bit of a nightmare with how they aren't working properly right now, but the old spoiler tag method of opening and closing a spoiler seems to work, as H-o-T pointed out a few weeks ago. This can lead to weird formatting following the closed spoiler tag, mind you, so uh, yeah - or just copy one from elsewhere like some others have been. With that being said, to compile the leaks so far... The Leaks So Far... Sucks for Game Freak, but also, damn, what a time for this all to come out - just weeks after the lawsuit against Palworld going ahead? Very strange. Also very curious to see if any of this info forces Nintendo's hand over the Switch succesor's marketing, because I really doubt that its codename is the only thing in these leaks.

You guys remember Christopher Dring of games industry.biz, the guy who had us sweating bullets over Astro Bot's sales over here in the UK and Europe? Well, the U-turn is now complete: he's now saying that Astro Bot has had the best start to sales for a non-Mario 3D platformer in Europe, which 1) is huge, 2) is very much deserved, and 3) is completely the opposite of his initial tone and concern for the game's sales last month!

Thanks for sharing @Helmsly, watched it on my lunch which was a big mistake because it was just kind of a gutting watch. I'm convinced that you can mute that video and remove the subtitles and it'll still be crystal clear from Sakurai's face that he's talking fondly of someone he both still misses and holds a lot of respect for. I need to go back and catch up on some of the episodes I've missed, but really think it's great that Sakurai has released this series, and really appreciate just how well he's communicated so many different concepts across the series. Appreciate even more that he dedicated the final episode to sharing some of his memories of Iwata. The really gutting part for me was watching and realising "oh damn, this was 10 years ago", and then the second realisation which came after Sakurai mentioned that he was roughly a decade younger and a decade removed in terms of experience in the industry from Iwata. That means, within the space of the next year or so, he'll be older than Iwata lived to be, and similarly, will have been in the industry longer than Iwata was.

@RedShell thanks for sharing, this looks excellent! Just started watched the first couple of minutes to get a feel for it and it feels really high budget and well done. Going to need to make sure I watch the full episode over the weekend Very curious to see the other series that they dig into, I feel like a Dragon Quest episode is a bit of a must and an obvious one if they've done Final Fantasy, especially with Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake (or DQIIIHD2DR, for short, of course ) just around the corner. Assuming no Nintendo or subsidiaries (would loooooooove something like this Pokémon though ), would really like to see if they've got the likes of SEGA/Atlus, Capcom, Konami onboard too. It's such a weird one though where it feels like so many creators left things in a strange place, like Kojima with Konami, whereas Sakaguchi seems to still really love being known for and involved with FF where he can be. I feel like talking Yakuza without Nagoshi would also just feel weird, him turning up like a Lieutenant is half the vibe of the game! Will definitely be keeping an eye out for more of these

Just going to cover it here rather than revive every relevant thread. Limited Run have announced that they will be handling the re-release of all the games in the Kiryu Saga, starting with 0 (and Kiwami, covered in the Switch thread) – these are returning physically to PS4 and will be available for the first time on Xbox physically, which is pretty neat. Pre-orders of Yakuza 0 will come with a special slipcase to hold all of the games they are releasing "premium physical" versions of, from 0 to 6. Each release looks like it will come with a special slipcase/cover to match. Seems a neat idea but not really interested in LRG stuff after what I've heard about them here and elsewhere, so