Julius

Who's that Pokémon? It's... Chameleon!

Finally got back to this today, completed the fifth dungeon. I'll admit I think that's probably the weakest dungeon I've completed so far; it's not bad, by any means, it just felt like so much of a chore to traverse compared to the four earlier dungeons because it felt like each room had an obstacle which was placed there purely to slow you down, which is fine the first time through, but not so much when you're backtracking as much as you (rightly) end up doing in some of these dungeons. Yeah, some of the stuff they seemingly decided to keep in the transition from 2D to 3D continues to be pretty odd, I agree with the idea @Jonnas that they've perhaps chosen to be too faithful to the original game in some regards, so it feels a bit weird when the GB-ness of it all comes to the fore when there are so many QoL improvements made, like how a certain enemy which looks like a Bidoof with a rock tied to its head needs to be hit from behind, so you hit it from behind, but you go for another hit when it still hasn't turned around and – suddenly, it has turned around, and it's rock tied to its head has protected it also encountered a bug where the music from the overworld followed me into a cave and both tracks decided to duke it out in a cacophany of confusion, only happened once, but again, it just jumps out purely because its Zelda and this feels below the level of polish I've come to expect from these games. And yes, the frame rate issues have persisted; no, it's not the end of the world, but it is a bit annoying. Elsewhere, the overworld exploration just keeps getting these layers added to it with every new item unlocked, and while it's not my first Zelda rodeo, it being my first 2D Zelda, I feel like you have a much more explicit sense of when and where to start using these new tools after getting them, purely because the game is, obviously, smaller than, say, Ocarina of Time. It's the condensed nature of the game that I'm liking quite a lot, actually, because it just helps to keep pushing you forwards – in fact I think it's because of this that the fifth dungeon feels comparatively weaker than the ones before it, it just doesn't feel as well paced. Anyways, game is great. But the real highlight for me so far has been the soundtrack. Oh. My. Word. (that picture he got sent has me dying btw) What a soundtrack. It just feels so intimate and diverse in how silly it allows itself to get, which is very different to the subtlety of the music in BotW and TotK, and the very delineated OoT score, which has plenty of nuance but is much more traditionally bombastic, heroic, and, well, legend-evoking. I realise I've still got a good bit of the game left but, well, I know thanks to placing a phone call that the Face Shrine is next up, which I have heard before and am very much looking forward to experiencing in the game, and with the game mentioning it so much, I'm expecting a nice payoff when I finally get to hear the Ballad of the Wind Fish in all its glory. Feels obvious where this is all going and has been for some while, but to put pen to paper (pixels to screen?)... No-one confirm that, obviously, I don't want to be spoiled but I would also like to be wrong and have it noted for all eternity if I am

Per Collider, The Acolyte is set to release this summer: Feels like it's been virtual radio silence on the show since Celebration last year, and even that was just an event-exclusive trailer and a handful of interviews. It was a pretty damn good trailer, mind you! Would be reeeeeeeeeally smart of them to put a trailer for this in front of the TPM 25th anniversary showings, could really lean into setting it up with "100 years before The Phantom Menace" (so it's almost certainly not going to happen )

I haven't read the manga but I have watched the two seasons of the show released so far, and it's been superb. It's one of those lovely cases where everything I've heard about the manga compared to the anime suggests that any differences are miniscule, and so it really is just a preference for how you'd like to approach experiencing such an awesome story!

Had been looking ahead to next year (Revenge of the Sith's 20th and The Force Awakens' 10th) that I'd completely forgotten this year was the 25th for TPM! Man I really hope RotS gets a re-release next year and I don't need to wait another 6... Anyways, yeah, I'll be there, absolutely (assuming the re-release arrives over here, which I'm assuming it will). Going to see ROTJ in cinemas for the 40th last year was really special, but to experience Duel of the Fates in cinemas? Can't wait Absolutely an S-tier poster Matt Ferguson never misses with Star Wars, loved his ROTJ 40th one last year: ...and just like that, I find myself in a Star Wars mood again

Always love a @Glen-i Pokémon thread, so thanks for this! No question for me: it's Bulbasaur. First Pokémon I chose the very first time I actually played Pokémon - at a friend's house, LeafGreen on his blue GBA SP, got up to Mt Moon and evolved the little guy. It was also the very first Pokémon card that I owned, given to me with a few other cards by an older kid on the playground back when I was in Reception (pretty sure I got a Charmander, Chameleon, and bloated Pikachu, along with some other cards, from them, too). Did that card get pretty much destroyed when my parents threw it in the wash, not knowing it was in my pockets? Yes. Do I still have that kind of crushed and water-damaged card to this day? Absolutely. Bulbasaur was also my favourite Pokémon of Ash's, based partially on its look, but also it's personality. Weirdly one of the earliest instances I can remember of relating to an animated character. I just love him. Unfortunately, I think Ivysaur is a slight step down in design and Venusaur even more so from there, but Bulbasaur is definitely my favourite of the original trio. Second would have to be Squirtle. Again, just another great design, but also: Squirtle Squad. Urgh, someone give me a Squirtle Squad game in the style of Yakuza pleaseeeeee! Another one where I've got a memory tied to the card, too. While I had a base set version of Squirtle, my friend gave me his Team Rocket Squirtle... ...which his sister had actually gone over Squirtle's main lines with a silver glitter pen. It honestly still looks great to me to this day (yes, I still have it). I actually think Squirtle has the strongest line of the original trio overall in terms of design, as I'm a huge fan of Wartortle too, and though Blastoise is great, it's similar to Venusaur for me in that it's just kind of bit more ugly and blocky than it is cool. As for Charmander...yeah, I think it's the weakest design of the original three. I'm not a huge fan of Charmeleon's design either, actually, but Charizard is - and it is not close - by far the coolest of the final evolutions of the Kanto starters. To this day it's fight against it's clone is still one of my favourite in the entire anime: As for Pikachu...look, Pikachu is awesome. Classic design. I love Pichu and Raichu too (and Alolan Raichu is S-tier), but yeah, it's never been one I've really put side by side with the original three starters, despite them all appearing together with Ash and obviously being a starter in Yellow and Let's Go, but yeah...I think for me it's last when stacked up specifically as being a Kanto starter more so because it becoming a starter just feels like an afterthought, and it also just doesn't really fit in with the trio, as there was certainly a little theme going on when it was just them. It's one of those instances - and I know we still get them, but I don't think to the same degree - where it seemed like Pokémon just knew what they had. Gen IV Pokémon like Munchlax and Bonsly getting into the anime and marketing a year or two ahead of the release of Diamond & Pearl was great, and so many of the Pokémon shown off before that transition to Gen IV was awesome, but Lucario got SO much love even outside of Smash, and personally - as a Lucario lover - it's not hard to see why. Mystery Dungeon of course, but then being front and centre for Lucario and the Mystery of Mew – it was a surefire hit way before we first stepped foot in Sinnoh I'll argue it was one of the coolest bipedal Pokémon we'd had since Mewtwo, the aura/energy stuff around Riolu and Lucario seemed to lean more into shonen anime type coolness which we'd only occasionally get to see in Pokémon, and never for too long. So yeah, love Lucario I can't be too hard on you for this because of your love of Wii Music and Bulbasaur, but hey: Squirtle, Totodile, Mudkip, Sobble and Froakie are S-tier starters! S-tier!!

Bosman nailing it as always, this gave me a good chuckle: The last point about a very vocal subset of fans wanting Xbox to return the loyalty they've shown them is a bit too accurate

HideoTube has returned after 7 years! Think I might check it out this weekend, but I'll see if anyone has the cliffnotes

It's up: Man, love hearing the orchestra take on Tears of the Kingdom's Main Theme shame they went with the Reprise though, I wanted to hear the second half known for the sax

Reminder that The Legend of Zelda Orchestra Concert will be available today from midday:

Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts on this one, @drahkon. Haven't bit the bullet and picked it up myself (I think in large part because my group still has our BG3 campaign running), but it's really tempting to just pick it up and play through it a little mindlessly when our entire group isn't available but we just want to hop on and talk. I've said it before but the way this game has been handled has been super weird, to me at least. No beta or open demo for people to hop in and get a taste for the game ahead of launch, really weird trailers which I think marketed the game terribly and a strange cadence of trailer releases (I mean, releasing more trailers after your launch trailer? Really?)... ...but it still seems like it's doing really well, at least based on early Steam CCU numbers? Seeing a lot of buzz for and conversation around it, the early reviews/first impressions seem positive, there's a definite Zeitgeist around this game right now, and I won't lie, having delayed multiple purchases already based on the huge influx of games we've had at the start of the year and this game being half the price of those other titles...it's mighty tempting. If nothing else, I am SUPER curious. It seems like a bit of mindless, over the top fun, which I don't have much of going on with the games I'm playing at the moment. I think I'll see what the impressions/early reviews are saying when I get up in the morning and figure it out from there think we all know where this is heading... EDIT:

"special attention" given to the back of Eve the man has no shame, I'll give him that

Been thinking about the news we've had since last weekend a lot today, and I've got some particular questions I want to throw out there to get some other thoughts: • is Phil Spencer still at Xbox this time next year? So the word going around has been that there's something of a schism internally at Xbox, which isn't hard to believe at all given the mixed messaging we've had from interviews given by different individuals high up at Xbox and Microsoft. I would assume Phil was on the side of seeing the vision of Game Pass as a reason to buy into the Xbox ecosystem through, whereas it would seem like Microsoft folk have been pushing back against this in different ways (becoming platform agnostic, focus on service and cloud, etc.), so if he's not ousted, well, it wouldn't create a great atmosphere. It's also a case of the latest round of leaks seemingly coming from someone on the side of Xbox and seeing the vision through, not being happy about the decisions being made. • will next week's update be a video or a post? I'm 50/50 on this one. Xbox has had bottom tier communication for YEARS, to the point that while I think the normal and better decision would be releasing a video to put a face and emotion to the news, they don't have anyone to deliver news like this anywhere near the level of their "rivals", so maybe a post would be the smart choice. • is this part of the reason why we've seen them bleed talent as of late? Mikami. Hines. Ibarra. All left within the last 12 months, Ibarra following the ABK acquisition and Hines following previous leaks which showed some tension over the thought of Starfield coming to only one platform. Mikami's seems like a standard retirement, but also – if you were smart, you'd contractually tie that talent down, right? • what do you actually think is going to be said next week? I think they confirm some of the earlier leaks which have become more solid as of late, like Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves coming to other platforms, maybe even offering up a release date for Hi-Fi Rush. I think there's a good chance they reveal an actual window of exclusivity for Bethesda and other upcoming titles, and I think the sweet spot is 1 - 3 months after launch (but the real sweet spot would be day and date purely for the zeitgeist if Game Pass isn't coming to other platforms and they'll be available as individual titles elsewhere, which they'll probably pivot to eventually), but realistically I think it's more like 6 - 12 months. I think there's a small chance that they mention plans for legacy titles to come to other platforms are in the works, and to stay tuned for news on that. I think they dispel this current line of speculation that Xbox hardware is going away, confirming new hardware is in the works (if this is a video I think you get the digital Series X announcement, if not then I don't think it's announced for now). I think if this is a video that they do all of this under the guise of "we here at Xbox see a unique opportunity with the talented studios we house to bring our games to all gamers, everywhere" and "Xbox Series consoles will remain the best way to play Xbox games, and the best way to experience Game Pass". Curious where other people might land on some of these.

Yeah, "it's the Stranger Things problem" isn't really something you can get away with here. It's not like they had any way of knowing that the entire story took place within the space of a year, it's not like they're adapting a story finished over a decade and a half ago or anything I totally agree that they should've filmed it back to back. It doesn't really move the needle on how I think the show will turn out when all is said and done - I'm kind of curious to see what changes they'll have to make to address the different timeline - but, I mean, it doesn't scream that they have full confidence in the project if they don't plan to see it through all the way to the end from the outset. What are they waiting for? They have the viewing numbers of the animated show to support the idea that there's an audience for this, AND that's exactly what got the adaptation greenlit in the first place! The fact that there's already an incredibly famous example of a work being adapted with simultaneous shooting from two decades ago makes this all the more embarrassing, and yes, I am implying that Avatar (TLA, not the blue people) should be treated with the same respect and reverence when being adapted as The Lord of the Rings.

We have release dates planned for the next three Star Wars movies, courtesy of the latest Disney slate: 22nd May 2026, 18th December 2026, and 17th December 2027. First film is almost certainly the recently announced Mandalorian and Grogu, meaning we'll have had three years between the finale of S3 and the release of the film continuing the story, which is wild to think about. Star Wars turns 50 in 2027, so I'm guessing that'll be the film in the first Jedi, and that the 2026 film will be Rey's? All makes me question...what will they have to show at Celebration next year?

With 1 million units sold in its first week, Persona 3 is the fastest selling game in Atlus history: Obviously the asterisk here is that it's the first mainline Persona to have a simultaneous release worldwide, but still: damn. SEGA going two for two critically and commercially with both Infinite Wealth and 3 Reload, while releasing them just one week apart, is one hell of a feat. The Year of the JRPG indeed

A first look at Moana 2:

NG+ and new suits arriving 7th March: Surprised it's taken this long, but great to see it finally coming!

I do agree it would be disappointing, but it also suggests to me that the Switch 2 announcement might come before the next Direct proper? There are still absolutely games for them to put windows and dates to releasing this year on the Switch, but with their financial year end just seven weeks away at the end of March and their fiscal report typically dropping at the end of April/start of May, I think you could bundle a lot of those announcements into a Switch 2 event eventually, assuming that there's some backwards compatibility going on ("and here are the games coming to both Switch and Switch 2"). Wouldn't be the first time someone's announced a new system only to double back in a following event to their current one. Remember that PS4-only State of Play towards the end of the summer in 2020? Not saying it's a good idea and that Nintendo is going to be that silly with it, mind you I'm imagining a scenario with Banjo popping up to confirm a Nuts & Bolts port and that being it from Xbox, would love to see the fallout from that But yeah, I'll be shocked now if they don't turn up in a Direct (mini?): Partner Showcase, that was a good shout @Dcubed! Man, it's hard to imagine what that could look like. Over/under 70% on the odds of a Phil Spencer cameo in the Direct if Xbox do turn up?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts @Jonnas and @Ike, think you've convinced me that watching Z is probably the best way to go about it for me got to imagine if I ever rewatch it that going from Z to the shorter Kai would help too. Let's be honest though, this was the real turning point: So, I hate that I already knew about the driving lesson episode, and I hate even more that it sounds EXACTLY like it's up my alley. It being exclusive to Z seals the deal I think

Stuff from the State of Play inbound. Demo is live: Final trailer, which I'll put in a spoiler tag to save people a potential mis-click, the final trailer for Remake showed *a lot*. Also: thumbnail is a super cool shot probably best saved for first playthroughs. The gameplay video shared: PS5 immersion trailer: Some previews have also dropped, including - for the first time that I've seen - a...music preview, by Alex Moukala on the game's battle theme?! Awesome! 22 days to go

Yep, same here. We're so close as is, waiting a little longer won't hurt

Who am I kidding, you're probably right. Even if Shiren hadn't just released I genuinely think they wouldn't be doing Explorers next. Because the world sucks (let's pump all that energy into GBA Pokémon re-releases instead, then )

Glen, I'm lighting the beacons. It's time. (also FireRed and LeafGreen because it's the 20th anniversary please&ty no seriously it's fine to skip the GB/GBC games just hurry up and re-release the GBA ones already)

Nintendo's earnings report dropped this morning for Q3, covering the period of 1st October 2023 - 31st December 2023. The Big Takeaways The Nintendo Switch across its different SKUs sold 7.14 million units this past quarter, bringing sales for the FY up to 13.98 million units, meaning that the total lifetime sales of the Nintendo Switch now stands at 139.6 million units. Total software sales for the platform now stand at 1.2 billion units following software sales of 163.95 million units year-to-date. The Switch is now the best-selling system ever in Japan; with 33.34 million units sold, it has surpassed both the DS (32.99M) and GB/GBC (32.47M). Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa has again seemingly all but confirmed that news on the Switch's successor isn't far away; per Bloomberg, while the existing Nintendo Switch will be Nintendo's "main business" heading into 2024 (as should be expected if its successor launches in the latter part of the year), he shared that the company's plans for the next fiscal year will be shared at its next earnings briefing. I think that gives us a bit of a rough timeline for when to expect us news on the Switch's successor, with the financial year wrapping up on 31st March 2024 and the results to be shared soon after during the subsequent investor's meeting. In terms of software sales figures to highlight, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has now sold 60 million units sold (!!!) with a total of 60.58 million units; Pokémon Scarlet & Violet have sold 24.36 million units, making them the 3rd best-selling Pokémon games ahead of Gold & Silver (23.7M), and behind only Sword & Shield (26.17M) and Red, Green & Blue (31.38M); Pikmin 4 has reached 3.33 million units sold; Super Mario Bros. Wonder sold 11.96 million units between its launch on 20th October 2023 and the end of last year, and Super Mario RPG sold 3.14 million units between its launch on 17th November 2023 and the end of last year. There have been a total of 24 million-seller titles on the Switch year-to-date (17 of which are Nintendo titles, and 7 published by third parties). Top 10 Best-selling Switch titles Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - 60.58M Animal Crossing: New Horizons - 44.79M Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - 33.67M Breath of the Wild - 31.61M Super Mario Odyssey - 27.65M Pokemon Sword/Shield - 26.17M Pokemon Scarlet/Violet - 24.36M Super Mario Party - 20.34M Tears of the Kingdom - 20.28M New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe - 17.20M