Julius

accurate

Honestly, could've been a bunch of tweets and the DLC and Detective Pikachu trailer thrown onto YouTube. Not for the first time, either. Paldean Winds, the web series from WIT, was the only real worthwhile new announcement as far as I can see here, and even that could've been a tweet or just a trailer on their channel

That was the emptiest 35 minutes I've experienced in a long time. I don't know how they do it, but they manage to say so little about so few things in a not insignificant amount of time in the most lifeless ways devoid of all emotion and imagination. Much like most of their 3D main series games, ahem. But also wth is this

I'm glad you pointed this out, I logged in to save the list to my Tiermaker account and it seems it refreshed to a time I'd completed it in the past. Fixed list (used this Tiermaker instead to clearly include more of the titles at a glance): So Grave of the Fireflies bumped up to an A from a B based on my most recent viewing (last year I think?), but yeah I don't think it belongs in the top tier of Ghibli films for me. It's a beautiful movie about cruel things and it hits hard (I'm an oldest sibling and was a bit stubborn growing up so that's a huge understatement), I just think those above it are better made films Haha sorry, not to call you out! The only reason I knew we had a thread from some point in the past was because I thought about making one and then learned we already had one! And then it just turned out you made it, which was funny I respect your respect for Ghibli in any case haha

Ghibli has probably supplanted Pixar overall as my favourite animation studio since I started watching their films (I will say this is partially Pixar's fault too for what I perceive as a pretty steep dropoff in the consistency of the quality of their films since Toy Story 3), so I'm always down to talk about them. Funnily enough it looks like you started the last thread on Studio Ghibli too, @Ashley I respect it! Very excited for How Do You Live? / The Boy and the Heron, of course, and though I'm hopeful that we do see it release this year in the West, I will add the note here that they've not actually announced a release window at all for it over here. In fact, the film has been barely marketed, which Ghibli purposely did to take a stance of sorts against trailers and to save the magic for the silver screen. My favourite Ghibli film (and potentially animated film, period - if not, then alongside Toy Story 2 and potentially Paprika) is Princess Mononoke. Quick shout-out here to Joe Hisaishi for always absolutely crushing the scores for his Ghibli films. To give a better idea of where I stand on the Ghibli films, rather than listing them all, I'll just throw my Tiermaker list up: (if anyone wants to complete one, I made my list using this Tiermaker) I own all the Ghibli films on blu-ray (I might add a pic here later) but have a few I've still got to watch, as you can see from the list above. Unfortunately missed out on watching Princess Mononoke last year in cinemas for it's 25th anniversary, but will be keeping an eye out for an opportunity to see it on the silver screen moving forwards, for sure! It's funny, I didn't enjoy The Wind Rises all that much the first time I watched it either, but the second time around I thought it was absolutely stunning. Really speaks to being in the mood for a film and how your current state impacts whatever you consume. As for Oppenheimer, having watching it a couple of weeks back, I can totally see that, I'll need to give it a go as a double feature when it's released on blu-ray! They do strike a somewhat similar tone and hit similar beats, but when I think about it, the differences in director and the final product really underline the different approaches the East and West have to covering that period of turmoil. Also @martinist that 30th anniversary box for Kiki's is stunning, I really hope they bring something similar out for Princess Mononoke at some point!

Just to add, there were also some other games delayed too: Bit of a shame, but 2023 has been and continues to be stacked, so I say let it cook. As for having a dedicated showcase for delays...

Not really sure what I expect going into this, but it's a meaty one, so hopefully that means there's a fair bit to chew on here. Or just 35 minutes of apologising for Scarlet & Violet running how they do, who knows? To save going over already announced things that we expect to turn up, I'll just focus on potential new announcements: • still don't think the main series GB and GBA games are coming to NSO, firstly because of the whole cloud save thing, but secondly (and probably more importantly) because of the silly amount of money they would make with individual releases on the eShop instead. I could see the GB games shadow dropping with Gen I tomorrow and Gen II announced for October or something, with Gen III/GBA titles kicking things off next year with Ruby, Sapphire, and then a staggered release for Emerald (because it's superior thanks to the Battle Frontier and they'd be silly to release them all at once with that in mind). I feel like business logic would be that FireRed and LeafGreen cannabilise sales for RBGY, but I agree with @Glen-i and know we've both been asking for the Gen III Kanto journey to be re-released for a few years now, so...please? I think the absolute best case with these GB/GBA games tomorrow is for Gen I (RBGY) to shadow drop, Gen II (GSC) to be announced for later this year, and Gen III (RSE and FRLG) to be announced for 2024. More realistically I think you get that and FRLG just not talked about until next year after sales for the GB games have waned. • yeah, just give me Explorers of Sky DX already you cowards. I'm in the mood to replay that game too. Hurry up. • Pokémon TCG Live to be made available through Nintendo Switch Online subscriptions, it just makes too much sense. I know Yu-Gi-Oh has been doing great as of late, so I can't believe they haven't done this yet to be honest. • I could see them doing something with Trozei/Link? I'm not sure what but it seems like a game suited for Switch, could see that getting a new entry or collection, or even an online VS type of thing along the lines of the 99 games. • a new spin-off which is a farming game. A Pokémon farming game would destroy every other farming game. Even more so if there's a multiplayer component. Co-developed by Square Enix because they seem to have a farming game fetish going on as of late. • a return to Johto, either in Let's Go or Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl form, I don't know if I mind I just miss those vibes. If it's the latter, I pray it's just been given more time this go around, and I think the latter is my preference simple because I feel the completely overpowered EXP solution in that game fixes the glaring level scaling issues that Johto has had in its previous releases. Maybe you tack this onto the back of the Gen II re-release news? And I think that'll do it, along with updates on what we already know about is on the way or updates on existing games. I don't think we see anything related to a Gen V remake or Legends entry here, honestly after the messy way they handled Gen IV, just let that cook

I mean, I'd argue that Xbox is a bigger miss then either of those when it comes to simply listing platforms a game is available on, so I was explaining that As for the others? The original game never came to PC, so whatever supposed (I would imagine technical) blocker was in place there seems to still be in place here, which makes perfect sense to me with how it's just a straight port. I imagine it's got to be something like that seeing as the GTA Trilogy Definitive Editions made their way over to PC. I do also wonder a little if it coming to the Switch and the Steam Deck being a thing made Nintendo speak up about not wanting it available there by any means (and thus Rockstar have just skipped PC altogether), sure their sales numbers aren't a drop in the ocean compared to the Switch, but it'd be such a Nintendo move to be that petty. All total conjecture on my part, of course. The PS5 not getting a straight native port makes perfect sense in the context that the PS5 (generally) runs PS4 games at boosted performance in line with the PS4 Pro, and with the game playable via BC on the One X and onwards for Xbox, I imagine that's more than enough horsepower to match the 4K30 it gets there. If 4K30 is as far as this goes then there's simply no reason to offer a native PS5 version with the console being backwards compatible for PS4 titles, but if it's sub-4K on PlayStation (which I guess it would be on a base PS4 by default, probably just matching whatever it's going to be at on Switch when docked) and doesn't match the performance on Xbox? Then yeah, I'll have questions too. That price is daft and the lack of multiplayer seems par for the course with these Rockstar re-releases.

For how long this has been rumoured, man, what a letdown of a remaster. Played through it on PS3 a couple of years back and is perfectly playable - even with a bunch of screen tearing and frame rate drops - to just enjoy the story. It's a terrific game by all means, but this is such a lazy remaster. Then again, after the mess Rockstar made of remastering the GTA Trilogy, maybe this is something of a blessing. @Dcubed I was confused about it not being available on Xbox too at first, but seeing as it's just a straight remaster and the game is already available on Xbox through backwards compatibility (I believe it ran at 4K 30 fps on the One X? Don't think it's been touched since then, and it doesn't really need to be), I imagine that would be why. There's simply nothing new or differently here to make it need a new release on those consoles, whereas that's not an option on the PS4 or Switch. Unfortunately, yeah, this is a letdown for very obvious reasons if you've played the sequel. Disappointing. I'll probably pick it up on sale at some point if I ever need to scratch that itch again or finally check out Undead Nightmare, but otherwise, Rockstar just seem to be biding time until the GTA VI hype train is ready to start rolling

Rated in Germany and Australia over the course of the last week or so... ...and South Korea today. As noted by Gematsu, the Summer Live Stream takes place tomorrow (5th August), so we could we'll get a release date for the game tomorrow if it is still targeting 2023. If not, then it could be Gamescom later this month or, perhaps a bit more likely than Gamescom, TGS next month. Where- and whenever we get the release date, we're getting awfully close! (unless it gets delayed in which case don't talk to me or I'll burn you)

Tears of the Kingdom selling over 18 million copies in just over a month and a half is absolutely mental. It's a huuuuuuuuuge step in the right direction for me from Breath of the Wild (I think some of the changes made to TotK make it difficult to stomach the thought of going back to BotW, despite it being a generation-defining game), but it's still got potential areas to improve, so I'll take playing it on a Switch 2 with better performance and waiting however long for a potential third entry to round off this trilogy of open air Zelda games please. Hate to imagine how well it's going to do this Christmas for them. Just mental. Still no real clarity on whether it overtook Scarlet/Violet as the best global launch on Switch, so I'm guessing it didn't take that crown? I think the race to overtake the PS2 could be tight but certainly doable, and I think it really comes down to how they handle the launch of the Switch's successor. If I were Ninty, I'd go quiet on it through until the end of the year (besides just saying "oh, hey, the next console is in the works and we'll let you know more next year!" and potentially having third parties announce titles for it, like we saw for the NX well ahead of the Switch's release) just for the Switch to have one final Christmas period at RRP/on Christmas discount. Release the Switch 2 by the end of June 2024, £350 RRP, don't touch the base Switch's RRP (£260 now I think?) or that of the Switch OLED (£310) because so long as it's within £100 of the base Switch, most people buying a Switch 2 in its year of release are going to take it over the Switch (because they likely have a Switch already), whereas anyone paying £260 for a base Switch with the Switch 2 out has somehow likely escaped the news that it's even landed. Then, come Christmas 2024, permanently nuke the base Switch price to £199.99, OLED to £259.99, and Lite to £159.99, while keeping the Switch 2 at £349.99. The Switch and Lite fly off the shelves, from what I've seen the OLED hasn't moved enough units compared to the base model to make it a priority, so just let it sit in limbo to make the Switch 2 look like an even better deal. Bing, bang, boom, by the end of 2025 at that price I reckon the Switch (and it's variants) can overtake the PS2. And I don't think it gets in the way of the Switch 2 being a runaway success (I think that's going to be much more dependent on the titles released in its launch window this time around if the Switch is going to be staying on shelves, as it likely will and really should).

Yeah, agree with @Grazza that I think that there's going to be some element of truth to this, and I'll be shocked if the Switch successor isn't released next year. Them seemingly forgoing a Pro model in favour of the OLED makes it seem much more likely to me: being on the shelf 7 years as of next year without any real type of upgraded offering? We've seen some wizardry on the Switch by third parties to this point, but I genuinely think that any further delay to a successor would start to piss third parties off a good bit. I'm not even one of those people that cares about performance/fidelity on a Nintendo console, at the end of the day that's not what I'm here for. I wanted the upgrade in power purely so that they can just make wackier games for me to love. Takes me back to my early days on N-E seeing this. Remember when the rumours were that the Switch would have games with portable and console modes? Good times That sounds about right for those places! Personally, I'd be shocked if there was no backwards compatibility, because recent Wii U > Switch transition aside, this seems to be something Nintendo has always tried to fit in where they can, and where they can't it's oftentimes seemingly been down to changing the type of physical media they were using between generations. Then there's the potential paid-for patches (think I agree with @Ashley here in that I'd love for them to be free but struggle to see it) to take in some cash, I'm curious how that's going to work for something like Prime 4 though, as at this point I'll be shocked if that's not tied to the Switch successor in a big way. Will they release separate versions for each console? Will the Switch be forwards compatible to some extent early on during the transition period and just not have the bells and whistles of the game playing in 4K and/or at 60 fps? The only real reasons to not be backwards compatible seem to be purely business reasons in my mind, and that's to chase down the PS2/DS sales figures and release separate versions of games for the Switch and it's successor during the transition period. That latter idea would not go down well at all, I imagine. I am really curious to see, if upgrade patches are indeed a thing, what the plan is. It feels like there's been very little consistency amongst third parties on PlayStation and Xbox when it comes to this so far this gen. A £5 upgrade patch applied across the board to Nintendo first and second party games? Sure, I could see that. But do third parties want to peddle GOTY/Deluxe/Definitive Editions more than they want to offer upgrade patches, I wonder? Because I'd bet they do. It's an interesting time to be in, I just hope we aren't kept in the dark as long as it felt like we were for the Switch. A six month window between announcement and release is great, but it can be very confusing if purported leaks become overwhelmingly accurate and then details in those leaks don't make it into the early stages of marketing, or vice versa.

Of course, seeing as

Where's the question mark, Glen? Where's the question mark?!

The game will be centre stage at San Diego Comic Con this year, stepping up on Hall H on Thursday 20th July:

Huh, we don't have a thread for this. Well marketing is starting to ramp up with an overview and gameplay trailer dropping today, so here it is. (Re-)announcement trailer: Co-op and combat trailer: Still no date as things stand, just arriving this year, but hope this turns out well. Been waiting patiently for a worthwhile co-op game to convince my friends to try and love then for us to never return to it

Honestly surprised they haven't announced a tie-in PokéFlute that doubles as an alarm clock to wake you and your Snorlax up But sure, just release a Pokémon Go Plus+Plusle++ instead

Emile Morel, the creative director for Beyond Good & Evil 2, has passed away suddenly at the age of 40. Per IGN: Looking at his mobygames page, he also notably served as the lead game designer for 2013's Rayman Legends at Ubisoft, as well as being a lead designer for 2008's Alone in the Dark at Eden Games. RIP.

An EP, featuring five tracks from the game (including the previously released Find the Flame) has dropped on major streaming platforms ahead of the full OST release on 19th July: Soundtrack hype it's so good!

We got patches baby, and you know what that means? Finally? MOTION BLUR OPTIONS WOO LET'S GO Around the same area, hoping to finish the game by Friday before I fly out on Saturday...please pray for me (and my burning eyes lmao) The boss fights are honestly the most outrageously pure fun boss fights I've experienced in a good while. From Software bosses are the gold standard of what I would consider a fair, head-to-head boss fight, but this really takes the cake when it comes to pure anime-esque hype and spectacle. I've said it before, but it needs to be said again: I think the boss fights blow everything else out of the water when it comes to pure scale and spectacle, delivering in a way I think some were hoping Ragnarök would (and did at times! But maybe not quite this consistently) Anyways, got a fair bit of game to go...so back to it!

Nintendo, Xbox and Bethesda will all be turning up to next month's Gamescom. Nintendo (per VGC): Xbox and Bethesda: This and Tokyo Game Show are starting to look real promising as things stand. Fingers crossed for some cool updates and announcements!

Feels like a bit of a nothing story: it's just an internal doc of Microsoft/Xbox taking stock of the rumours for the hardware and release timing that have been floating around for both pieces of hardware over the last 6-12 months, and anticipating them accordingly. They do the same internally (or via third party review companies) with documents on Sony's and Nintendo's first-party games to assess the strengths/weaknesses/expectations/results of some major releases. It's simply a case of them trying to predict where things are going - apparently leaning on the rumour mill - and not a case of them actually knowing anything. Obviously it's going to gain a lot of traction because of the court case, and, well, IGN sprucing things up with statements like: Jim Ryan is way too busy trying to make a hash out of PlayStation's first party studios to have his feathers ruffled by this. And it doesn't "out" anything about the console's existence or price, it just repeats what has been rumoured and couples it with some sense (the price for Project Q or the modular Slim haven't leaked, far as I know, but Xbox will have the analytics to back their assumptions on price). Shame on you IGN, how far (some of) your reporting has fallen. Anyways, PlayStation 100% have similar documents anticipating Xbox's and Nintendo's next moves. Goodness knows about Nintendo, though, it could be either they're that deep into understanding Xbox and PlayStation that they can then recognise markets that their competitors don't seem to really be going for... ...or they play Jenga and have a fortune teller use the smell of the blocks they pull to guess where things are going. "This one smells fresh...hmm, well, after 5 comes 6, but what no-one will be anticipating is that they're going to skip ahead to the PlayStation 7"

List of exhibitors for this year's TGS has been released!

Gameplay featuring the first look (listen?) of the English VA has been released at Anime Expo, and sounds great! Seriously, please don't release too close to VII Rebirth...

Kind of? It's certainly not an open world in the same way that XV was, or how games like Zelda BotW/TotK, Ghost of Tsushima, Skyrim, etc., are, but it's also not linear in the way XIII was (from my understanding of the game from documentary-style videos and just general chit chat about it). There are certain linear sections earlier on to ease you into the game's flow or to lead into key story beats, but I think it's most comparable to something like Dragon Quest XI, and would describe both as having wider zones rather than an open world (XV)/zone (something like Xenoblade) structure. There is a world map to access locations from, with local maps clearly defined in their borders, with some key landmarks peppered into a zone, and oftentimes open stretches to challenge the local fauna in. For reference – Dragon Quest XI (world/local maps): Final Fantasy XVI (world/local maps): Hope that helps there's a demo available (with save transfer to the full game) which is roughly 2 hours long and I think gives a great taste of the game, would definitely recommend checking it out for yourself if you get the chance!