Julius

I found this week’s podcast especially funny at times. Highlight had to be from 57:05 up until the introduction of podcast half time; Kyle’s such a troll (Side note: I was also a big fan of the food raps)

Teaser trailer for PIXAR’s highly anticipated Incredibles 2.

Trust me, those few games only scratch the surface! And thanks for the heads up! I was sort of expecting some outdated controls going into it, to be honest; I loved FFVII’s story when I played it earlier this year, but walking around rooms with a bird’s eye view was an absolute nightmare... I’ll be sure to post my thoughts on Prime once I’ve played it!

So...I’ve only recently dove deeper into gaming in the last year or so, and haven’t been able to play as much as I’d like for personal reasons (in that last year or so more than ever before). However, I have greatly enjoyed finding some footing in the community and grounding myself in some gaming knowledge (mostly through listening to a number of gaming podcasts). Growing up, I didn’t play too many video games, so the odds of me playing games which are appreciated as “greats” were very, very low. This year has been a bit of a conservative effort to play some newer games (such as Horizon Zero Dawn) as well as some older games (such as Mother, Final Fantasy VII, Super Mario World, and Ocarina of Time...which are all older than myself). I’m hopefully going off to university next year, and so plan to bring a few consoles with me: I plan to get a PS3, as I’ve only really played games for the Wii from that generation, and also plan to get a Switch next summer after my exams are out of the way (I pray to Mario that the Virtual Console is up by then). I’ve started writing a (very, very long) list of games consisting mainly of games released on either PlayStation or Nintendo consoles, and it’s safe to say that the list is going to be difficult to work my way through, and could take a few years beyond university to complete. I’ve really found that I’ve enjoyed some of the older games (even if they can be difficult to navigate), so I’m planning to start from a series’ first release and continue from there. With a lot of unnecessary exposition out of the way (I wonder if this is how George Lucas felt writing the prequels? I’m only kidding. Sort of.), here are some of the games I’m most excited to play from my list. Metroid Prime I greatly enjoyed playing Super Metroid earlier this year, and have had this game recommended to me by quite a few here. I’m really interested to see how the franchise plays out from a first person perspective, compared to the ‘Metroidvania’ platforming of Super Metroid. Metal Gear Solid This will be my first step into the franchise, so I figured that it’s best to start from the beginning (especially after being told about how nods to past games are pretty noticeable in its sequels). In particular, I’m interested to see how it’s stealth mechanics hold up after all these years. The Last of Us I’ve only heard good things from fans and friends, and with the sequel only a year or two away, I thought that it would be best to get to grips with the game’s mechanics to give myself a greater appreciation for Part 2. I also heard that it has a terrific story, so of course I’m looking forward to seeing that play out too! The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask In a weird position with this one, as I haven't completed any other Zelda games, but this is the one which calls to me. Not quite sure why! Persona 5 Playing Final Fantasy VII has filled me with the confidence to dive much, much deeper into JRPGs (as you’ll see, there are quite a few I want to play). The art style of the Persona series immediately caught my eye, a quick listen to the soundtrack caught my ear (and then some), and a quick look into mechanics and gameplay convinced me that this is definitely a game I want to play. Xenoblade Chronicles Easy Allies’ Ben Moore, Michael Damiani and Daniel Bloodworth have all testified to the greatness of this game. One of a few games where I’ve listened to the soundtrack before playing the game, but I don’t regret that for a second. Seriously excited to dig into this game’s story! Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch So, to give some context, I rounded out my Studio Ghibli collection last summer. I didn’t know it before, but Ghibli and Miyazaki have me convinced: I love the stories that they’re involved in telling, and the humanity depicted in their art style. This game looks beautiful, supposedly has a great story...pretty easy choice Super Mario 64 So, I only have to play what is supposedly one of the best 3D platformers of all time to give myself some additional context to the 3D Mario games before playing Super Mario Odyssey? Count me in. Red Dead Redemption I’ve never played a Rockstar game, and GTA isn’t really my sort of thing, but this is a game I’ve only heard great things about, and it adds some great variety to my list in being a Western, at the very least! Chrono Trigger I heard about this game a whole lot from a cousin growing up, and he played some parts of the soundtrack for me a few times – it was wonderful. I’m really hoping that the SNES version of the game comes to Switch’s Virtual Console (if and when it gets it?), as I heard that some of Frog’s dialogue was changed between the SNES version and the DS version, and that just sounds like a whole lot of fun. If any of you have any recommendations (given my situation, odds are, I haven’t played it!) to add to my list, I would greatly appreciate it!

Confirmed: the film will be 150 minutes long, making it the longest Star Wars movie to date.

I think the music for this game is a selling point in itself, it’s crazily well done. Honestly, I think what people have found so far is just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, this is composed by Yasunori Mitsuda (who’s first video game work was on none other than Chrono Trigger), and he’s stated in interviews that simply hearing pieces from the composition has brought him to tears on occasion. From everything we’ve heard, I’m as interested in the soundtrack as I am the game!

Four weeks to go

The Japanese red carpet premiere is set to take place on December 6th, two days prior to the world premiere on th 8th. So yeah: leave the Internet two days earlier if you want to avoid spoilers, I guess. Also, AMC has revealed what I would argue is the most stylish and visually striking of all of the TLJ posters to date: Beautiful.

I agree. I think a much fairer reflection of opinions would be given if voting was allowed for up to 3 nominees per category, with your first choice earning 3 points, second choice 2 points, and third choice 1 point. That way votes wouldn’t be so easily split between the two games which are probably going to be the favourites for GOTY: there would likely be one pretty clear winner. Doesn’t help that you can vote in each category once every day until the awards are presented...

Really interesting article put up on AV Club about how Nintendo’s 2017 has been about trying to fix open-world gaming. Well worth a read.

Disney and Lucasfilm are that pleased with the job that The Last Jedi’s writer-director Rian Johnson did with the film that they’ve given him the freedom to create his own trilogy outside of the episodic Skywalker Saga (so not X, XI and XII), the first of which he will also write-direct, prior to The Last Jedi’s release next month. No wonder he turned down the opportunity to direct IX. He gets to take control of an entire trilogy instead! I don’t think Hollywood’s ever seen a larger endorsement for a film’s quality than this. My excitement for The Last Jedi is through the roof

A mere 38 days to go... and a TV spot for me to avoid...

And I mean, Hoopa’s rings in ORAS were more-or-less other dimensions too (or at least they felt like it) :/ I can understand why they make every Pokémon available with every generation of the core series, but there are just so many Pokémon now that I think that there are better ways to go about doing this than just shoving them in for the sake of it moving forwards, such as having 50% of non-native Pokémon available in one generation, the other 50% available in the next generation, etc. I thought that this was the main reason why Bank was produced.

Well, I was talking specifically about villainous team leaders, not gym leaders or champions (in any case, though, PWT also had a sense of finality to it in how it brought all of those characters together in one big tournament that takes it well beyond the point of just being a nod to the older games). My point was that I’m glad that they didn’t just rehash the PWT from BW2 and went with something similar, but with a twist (that we can face all the past evil team leaders, though I won’t be too surprised if this comes with the caveat that Archie and Maxie are exclusive to different versions). My wording that this was the best way to do that is very much an absolute statement that I don’t think I even agree with; perhaps the best way to word it would have been that it’s the next best thing after the PWT Sorry, perhaps I should have been clearer (I forgot that quite a few of Pokémon’s musical titles literally have the word “theme” in them); I was referring to musical themes, not tracks titled specifically as “Themes”, such as how the piece Vs Champion begins with the battle theme found at the beginning of Pokémon Red and Blue’s piece Opening. Also...all of the tracks that “returned” were remixed to some extent (i.e. altered and re-recorded, whether that be added to, taken away from, changed in tempo, etc.), not just “Red’s Theme” (I know what you’re referring to here, but there isn’t a track called Red’s Theme in any case ). Reusing them would imply that they literally used the same recording from GS in SM. Even the theme that I used as an example was remixed. Another example: the Champion Blue Encounter track in SM is clearly a remixed version of the original Blue Encounter in RGB.

By bringing back all of the evil team leaders, this feels as close a conclusion as we can get for the last 21 years of core series Pokémon being exclusively on handheld before it makes the move to Switch in a year or two. Probably won’t be picking this up for a while now because there’s just too much going on with gaming and other things in the lead up to Christmas, but I hope that I can jump in by Easter at the latest and give the franchise one last whirl on a purely handheld console before, I hope, we see some slightly major and minor changes when it comes to Switch when the time comes. Can’t wait to see what they do with the evil team leaders’ music too, if anything; I loved what the SM OST did with some of the older themes which were reintroduced in the game. Kind of hoping that they go orchestral when they make the Switch....

So, the international poster could have a potential spoiler in it which I’d rate as medium-to-high, but it could be a strange and misdirecting photoshop. Goodness knows: they’ve been pretty weird when it comes to international marketing, in my opinion. Also, here’s the international trailer (which shows barely anything new, and in my opinion, is cut terribly, both visually and musically; I found it to be rather janky): Nice to know that they’re keeping a lid on things worldwide, even if that means the trailer doesn’t hold a candle to either of The Force Awakens’ international trailers (seriously, I thought that those things were masterpieces):

Totally guessing from the trailer, but I think he’s a rōnin-turned-ninja. It seems that he was a Samurai before, until whoever his master was gets killed; a rōnin is a Samurai who’s lost their master (literally translates as “drifter” or “wanderer”). It seems like he tries to get avenge his fallen master as a rōnin, which fails, and so he turns to alternative techniques with ninjitsu. I honestly just hope that we get to play as all three types of warrior throughout the story.

It’s possible that the game might not be as Samurai-oriented as it originally seemed, and could be a ninja game instead (or as well as?). From the official site (and included in @drahkon‘s original post too): I was really looking forward to a Samurai game, but I’d be happy to see a AAA Tenchu too! It would also explain the ninja look of the character in the trailer:

No idea why it wasn’t included in either of the trailers, but we have a release date: February 6th 2018. Ueda has also said that he proposed some changes to Sony for the game, but it’s still unclear if they’ll be included.

Odd that they split the cinematic trailer from the gameplay trailer considering how it went on-stage. Here’s the gameplay trailer:

It’s got to be dead if it’s not at PSX in December, right?

That confused the heck out of me. I heard the strings, and it sounded like TLOU. Cool. But then it not only looked like Days Gone, people were being hung and possibly left for their version of zombies, as we saw in the Days Gone stuff at E3 this year. Very odd. Perhaps we’ll get an update following the showcase?