S.C.G

Game, Set and Match for Bayonetta there...

That last match was a train wreck for me.

fudge phew!

in

@Josh64 I meant to say a little while ago that I did end up watching Kikujiro by Takeshi Kitano based on your recommendation and I thoroughly enjoyed it, a very unique film indeed with some really great moments in it and the two characters make a surprisingly good but unlikely pairing at times, plus all the supporting cast are brilliant and entertaining as well, I can't remember if I mentioned watching it at the time as it was a few months ago and I haven't found the time to watch many films but this is one which stuck with me so thanks for posting about it. The only film I've seen recently is Dave Made a Maze by Bill Watterson which is a fantasy adventure, comedy film with mild horror elements which stars a guy called Dave who make a maze out of cardboard inside his apartment, the setup is that his girlfriend comes home to find him in the maze and it's one of those Tardis type deals where the maze is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, so there are lots of 'rules' which work just inside this film which add to the credibility of it even though it's pure fantasy... it works well within its own created parameters is what I'm trying to say, anyway Dave is stuck in this Maze, other people go in to rescue him and well... if you want to see what happens then I'd advise watching it as it has some great moments with some inventive set design.

Another fantastic podcast, I really enjoyed listening to it this afternoon, some really good talking points and a good flow of conversation. I'll take a guess at the music tracks... they are from the same game at least I believe? I couldn't name the tracks individually but they're from Cadence of Hyrule I think. I've also got a question for you which you could use on the next podcast... How do you manage to divide your time between playing the latest game releases and your backlog? I'm sure this latest edition of N-E Café will be promoted on the front page soon but I'll leave that to Dennis.

Pokémon Sword and Shield spirits are coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate From this Friday, the spirits and the board will be there for five days but after that you should be able to encounter them during normal play. (That's the way in which I understand the spirits system to work anyway, I haven't really played the single player for the best part of a year) For those of you who already have all the currently available spirits, get ready to go for the one hundred percent completion again!

I really liked watching Happy Console Gamer share his first thoughts on Shenmue III and it just makes me think that I'm really going to enjoy the game.

Sega Lord X with a video titled 10 Times Sega Got It very Right Also... Another video... 25 Years of the Sega Saturn Both well worth a watch, especially if you remember a lot of these moments in Sega's history from back in the day.

Introducing A Smashing Cast, an N-Europe vodcast! And it's up on the main site! Thanks again to everyone involved, I think we've done a pretty good job on this overall. I think it might be time to change the name of this thread to A Smashing Cast now @LazyBoy Just a month from idea to reality, that's a pretty decent turnaround. I think with this and the N-E Café Podcast it's going to be a busy time for N-Europe and our community. Here's to a good few episodes of both hopefully and I look forward to being involved helping out where I can and hopefully getting better at Smash.

... I see...

See that creature up on top of that mountain? You can climb up there and catch it!

My copy arrived today as well, I'm not that excited by the 'backer-exclusive' slip-case, it's nice enough and it's a memento of the Kickstarter campaign but I don't really go in for slip-cases or steelbooks for my PS4 games, plus it got damaged in the post anyway and the disc is loose in the case which happens with a lot of PS4 games so this will be the copy that I open, I'll save the other limited edition as a collectable. Anyway, the main thing is... Shenmue III is here, it's real, it exists and is playable. I didn't think I'd see the day this would happen if you'd asked me more than five years ago, but here we are. With the said though, as for timing... this turns out to be one of the busiest times for game releases in general but if I can't make time for Shenmue III then that would be pretty terrible. It has been quite an exciting four years though since the game was officially announced as being in development and I don't regret backing the game at the tier I went for. I don't think there was anything mentioned about bonuses carrying over from the PS4 release of Shenmue I & II when starting Shenmue III though, but I'd always thought that would have been a nice idea if they were able to have something carry over, especially as there was some data carried over in the original DC games. However you play the games though, Shenmue is definitely a series worth investing time in I'd say and I'm glad that many people will get to play these games now.

Mine are still in egg form from when @Glen-i kindly traded me a Sobble and Scorbunny earlier, but once they've hatched and once I get to where you can breed Pokémon and assuming that I can find a Ditto, then I'll gladly pay it forward and breed some more starters for @Blade or anyone else on the forum who wants one, assuming I get that far between now and Thursday that is... waiting for Glen might still be your best bet knowing what I'm like with playing games at the moment. But I will keep you updated as I do intend to play some more of the game soon as I am enjoying playing it when I get a chance.

Yeah, I really thought I had it there. I managed to catch that Vanillish though, so thank you to @Ugh first aid and yourself. I just wanted to see what these Max Raids were all about, turns out they;re pretty fun, I think I need to level up some more though. Thanks again for the starter eggs, they haven't hatched yet but I'll run around the wild area some more until they do.

OK, I've got two Pokémon with items attached ready to trade @Glen-i and I've got a link code set which I'll send you now... Ah, you're not playing Pokémon at the moment, no worries, let me know in a bit if you can trade and I'll start up the trade with the same code I sent you I'll carry on with the story for a bit.

Right, I'm only now starting up Pokémon @Glen-i as its been a busy morning/afternoon so far but I'm going to go catch two Pokémon now and see if I can attach some useful items.

The new and improved version of A Smashing Cast - Episode 1 is now available in the post above, it fixes the audio sync and video quality issues and seems a lot better overall. That will probably be the version which we go with for the N-Europe YouTube channel, with one or two other possible tweaks and additions, that's all for now though.

Thanks Glen, I meant to trade with you yesterday but I wasn't in a position to as I didn't start playing Sword version until late last night. I did make enough progress to get the Y-Comm though, so I've got that far and then a little bit further in the story after that. I'll catch some extra Pokémon in a bit so I should be ready some time in the early afternoon if that's good for you? I'll keep you updated and thanks again for this.

Here it is... A Smashing Cast Episode 1 Hosted on my YouTube channel for now but this is essentially the finished article which we intend to put up on the N-Europe YouTube channel. Everything seemed to go pretty smoothly, the captured footage is of excellent quality so thanks to @Dcubed and @Glen-i for handling that, the conversation went well so thanks to Glen again for contributing in addition to @Vileplume2000 @Jonnas @Nicktendo and of course @LazyBoy for hosting as well as organising most of this. Fun was definitely had in the battles, this week it's Smash 64 themed celebrating the origins of Smash, so only original characters and no final smashes (mostly) in this episode. Let us know what you think, as we'd be happy to hear your feedback so please check it out if you've got the time to watch and/or listen to us play Smash and talk about games for a short while, it was deifnitely a lot of fun to put together either way but it you've got any suggestions on what we could add to the show or improve on for next time, that would be appreciated. (I've now reuploaded the video again after various improvements; I synced up the video with the audio again which is a lot closer this time, then adjusted the game audio to be a bit lower to balance things out, then after I got that far I went looking for the best way to render in at 1080p 60 and I found a useful video which showed me how to do that, also I found that I had some extra options in my rendering resolutions due to my graphics card, so now I can render a full 1080p video at 60fps but cut down the render time from nine hours to just two and a half hours)

Yeah, I noticed this... especially annoying as I disabled wireless because I use the Switch exclusively in wired mode unless forced to do otherwise by the game for whatever reason. Monster Hunter Generations did this and thankfully you could turn it off moreorless immediately but in thid game, it's tied to getting a certain item. Once you get the Y-Comm apparently there is an option in there which will let you switch back to online mode or something similar to that to make it how it was before.

Oh snap! Nicely done to you both. I guess I should get to the part in the game where I can actually trade, I only ended up putting an hour or two last night as I've been sorting out video and audio stuff, all good though. I tell you what... I only really need a Sobble and Scorbunny for now please, my brother will need two starters as well at some point but... if I already have three starters then I can just get to the point in the game where you can breed them and capture a Ditto, right? Especially as he likely won't be starting the game until December. I'll try my best to make some more progress before this evening then, also are there any Pokémon either of you need from Sword version in return that I could be looking out for?

Sega Lord X with a video titled Saturn vs. Playstation Round 2 - X-Men Children of the Atom which is a really interesting comparison between the two versions. I've had this game in my Saturn collection for a little while but it's one I need to check out in more detail at some point I reckon as it looks fantastic for a 2D fighter of its era.

My backer copy and sleeve have been sent out as well. Will probably have to wait a little longer for that capsule toy and the other stuff though... But erm... Shenmue III will soon be available in physical, playable form... I donlt think it will properly sink in until I have the game. Looking forward to it though.

Ah OK, thanks for the tips. Yeah... it won't be until December though so that's why I was going to start my main file on Sword (for keeps) and then on the same Switch and ID start Shield, do the trade and restart as many times as required (trading all the starters to my main file on Sword) and then I'd wipe the data one last time so that Shield would be ready for him to start for real and then I'd trade him the extra starters. But I haven't even started playing Sword myself yet so let me know when you get to the breeding part if you get to it soon because that would probably make more sense, I still intend to start for keeps on Sword and get the extra starters from Shield though... with the earlier Pokémon games generations ago my brother and I used to trade for extras of the starters locally but being that we don't see him that often now and that neither of us have been quite as into the games in recent generations the tradition has kind of fallen by the wayside, but I'd love to bring it back with Sword and Shield as I reckon he'll probably play Pokémon again this time and it's a chance for me to get back into the series as well a bit.