February 2020

Right before the weekend, the English version of Dragon Quest Your Story landed on Netflix. Given the film industry’s recent epiphany that movie adaptations of video games can be good —or at least decent— I gave the Dragon Quest movie a shot. While I mostly enjoyed the film, the ending simultaneously fixed the movie’s problems but almost undid the goodwill it had built up.

Spoiler warning from here on.

At first glance, Dragon Quest Your Story is an adaptation of Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride. A man’s wife is kidnapped by an evil bishop and the man takes his son on a quest to rescue his wife and stop the bishop’s organization from summoning an evil demon.

Along the way, the man and son gather a fellowship of warriors and wizards, and the man is eventually killed. His son continues his quest, later marries, and has children of his own. Finally, the family and their allies band together to defeat the bishop, his organization, and the demon.

However, Dragon Quest Your Story takes some liberties. It cuts out a good chunk of the story and playable characters —including one of the protagonist’s children. Then the movie drops a huge plot twist bomb at the end and reveals this particular retelling is actually a VR game. Feel free to make comparisons to Roy: A Life Well Lived from Rick and Morty; I sure did.

Sea of Thieves’ Crews of Rage update is live, and Rare has released a new launch video detailing everything players can expect to see from it.

Streamed via the official Sea of Thieves YouTube channel, the video details some of the new features and activities the update offers. On the new content front, players can find new bounties from Duke which will send them out in search of new bounty targets and the Chest of Rage, which burns with the anger of dead pirates’ souls trapped within.

Sea of Thieves players will need to keep the chest cool as they transport it to the highest bidder, dropping it in the sea or dousing it in water with a bucket. If they don’t, the chest will let out an explosive wave of flame, burning ship and crew members alike to ash.

There’s also a new opportunity for challenge and adventure through the Molten Sands Fortress. Ashen Skeletons have gathered there for an unknown purpose, and it’s up to players to stop them and plunder their fortress for everything it’s worth.

Players can likewise now find Sea of Thieves’ final five Ashen Tomes, which will grant them the ability to deck their ship out with special Ashen Cosmetics.

Speaking of which: There are a slew of new cosmetics for players to unlock or purchase from the Black Market. Some, like the Deep Ocean Crawler cosmetics, give players and their crew a style perfect for flexing on others in multiplayer.

Others, like the Reaper’s Heart cosmetics, grant players a more fiendish vibe to their appearance and weapons, and even grant their pets an air of dark magic given form.

Should Sea of Thieves players want something less scary to dress their pets up in though, they can find a slew of new pet outfits available as well.

Today’s issue of Weekly Famitsu included an interview to PlatinumGames’ Hideki Kamya and Atsushi Inaba focusing on the Bayonetta & Vanquish 10th Anniversary Bundle, but they had some additional teases to share.

First of all, we hear that PlatinumGames will make an announcement next week on Famitsu itself. The new issue will release on February 27.

Secondly, Kamiya-san acknowledged that it has been a while since the latest reveal of Bayonetta 3, and he hears voices on social media from fans who are anxious about it.

He mentioned that development is proceeding smoothly, and that there is various information hidden in the trailer released in 2017.

Kamiya-san hopes that fans can wait for the next reveal while trying to read a variety of things in that trailer.

It’s worth mentioning that the announcement coming next week is likely unrelated to Bayonetta. The wording on Famitsu clearly indicates that it’s an announcement from PlatinumGames, while reveals about Bayonetta 3 are likely to come from Nintendo.

This is likely related to the three unannounced new project that PlatinumGames has been teasing, which will likely be self-published.

We’ll probably know more with next week’s panel at PAX East, with Kamiya-san and Inaba-san in attendance.

If you really enjoyed the music from The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, then this newly announced Japanese soundtrack might blow your socks off. This soundtrack collection for Link’s Awakening features over 200 tracks that are combined from the classic Game Boy title and the remake that came out on the Switch last year.

It comes with four different physical CDs with two of them featuring music from the remake of Link’s Awakening and the other two featuring music from the Game Boy version with artwork depicting their respective games.

It’s going to be released in Japan on March 18, 2020, and you can pre-order it now from Amazon Japan for 4950 yen, which is about $45 USD (and yes, it ships worldwide).

You can check out some of the photos down below that shows off exactly what comes packed with the soundtracks:

The ATLUS West YouTube channel just dropped a new English trailer for Persona 5 Royal, and in it, Morgana gives us a few details on a number of new and returning features that players can expect to see this time around.

Morgana is joined by new Phantom Thief, Kasumi, as he gives her (and the audience) a crash course on what’s to come. He covers a number of topics as the trailer shows them off in-game, including the following:

• What is a Persona?
• New foes/New Persona
• What does a Phantom Thief do? 
• New puzzles in Palaces
• Grappling hook feature
• Jose/Mementos 
• New confidants/Maruki 
• New locations: Kichijoji
• Thieves Den

Some of what Morgana explains in the trailer will be old news to those who already completed Persona 5, but the new confidants, locations, and activities are a few of the major differences found in Royal.

Jose is a new character who provides additional activities for the Phantom Thieves in Mementos, while Dr. Maruki is a new staff member and confidant at Shujin Academy that needs help with his research. That sounds pretty similar to Dr. Takemi’s situation, but we’ll have to wait to see more.

As for new locations, both Kichijoji and the Thieves Den were on display in this detailed Persona 5 Royal trailer. Kichijoji is a large area that contains enough activities, both day and night, for Morgana to even let you stay up late to experience them all. Thank goodness.

One week ago, Square Enix teased the Final Fantasy VII Remake’s first three summons: Chocobo Chick, Carbuncle, and Cactuar. None of these summons appeared in the original game, even though the latter two are iconic to the Final Fantasy franchise. Now, Square Enix is ready to reveal what these creatures are made of, as well as use them as pre-order bonuses.

The Square Enix Twitter account was recently updated with short snippets of each summon and their abilities. Also, turns out each creature is a piece of DLC.

The first summon, the Chocobo Chick, just floats around, occasionally summoning lightning and creating explosions.

Today Bandai Namco released a new trailer of its upcoming anime soccer game Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions.

The trailer showcases the Tsubasa Episode mode, which is basically the story mode of the game. 

This mode includes the middle school arc from the original anime, featuring some of the most iconic matches that have basically forged the childhood of many in my generation. 

Depending on the score and on what’s going on during a match, certain cutscenes may trigger, some reproducing the original story, while other completely original.

We also see many familiar characters and their special shoots. Basically, this is as epic as it can be.

You can watch it below.

You may not be familiar with the franchise, as its popularity varies a lot from region to region. 

While in North America the original Captain Tsubasa anime never rose to similar prominence, I don’t think I’m exaggerating by arguing that in many European and Latin American countries (and of course, Japan) almost every kid grown up in the past forty years knows about it. 

In the countries where it has been airing regularly on TV for decases, Captain Tsubasa is an absolute legend, and likely one of the most well-known and loved anime of all time. 

Every Place of Power in Novigrad

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Sony is the only company to pull out so far, cancelling the first public showing for The Last of Us Part 2

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Magical Girls have a logical place in the superhero era

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Percy and Kubert’s kickoff is a good start, but could be better

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See Cats (2019) over and over and over again!

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Hardspace: Shipbreaker is a sandbox space sim headed to early access

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All 9 films are on 4K UHD for the first time

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The Netflix series shifts genres and casts, but maintains its continuity

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Things have been quiet out of the Desperados 3 corner for several months, ever since the closed beta in 2019. Sometimes a cowboy’s got a feeling though and I had a good feeling we’d see Mimimi Productions’ next tactical game in 2020. Looks like it’s time to put another news in the chamber and cock it because Desperados 3 has a new trailer today and a release window of “Summer 2020.” There’s lots of real-time death-dealin’ and party management shown off for the deadly Doctor McCoy.

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Sea Of Thieves‘ monthly content update has dropped anchor and it’s a hot one. We already got a look at some of the changes from Rare’s Crews Of Rage preview and now it’s all officially live. There are hot potato chests that explode, sizzling skeletons, and a lot of other stuff that’s too hot to handle.

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No Man’s Sky continues to grow and now it’s grown something properly alive. It’s an egg that hatches into a sentient ship. Sorry, am I reading that right? Yup, the spacefaring crafting simulation game now has ships that are alive and you pilot them from inside their apparently spacious cockpit heads. Where’s the brain at, though? The Living Ship update is adding some other organic stuff to the universe and NPCs that can hail you from space.

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The world is crying out for Diablikes, or at least it seems that way from the rampant success of Wolcen: Lords Of Mayhem, a hacking, slashing, dungeon crawling action RPG that went into the top ten on Steam as soon as it released. It’s only climbed higher since, despite the fact that it’s only just left early access and is not issue-free. Also despite the fact that I have played it for several hours and have yet to identify who or what is Wolcen.

Wolcen: Lords Of Mayhem (which is, impressively, the game’s second crack at a title) is very derivative. If I didn’t know any better I’d say even the dialogue was procedurally generated by digitally pulping together Tolkien’s collected works with all three previous Diablo games, a recent D&D rulebook and the entire contents of one (1) Games Workshop store. But that’s okay. Nothing exists that is original, as they say. And, even as I write this, I want to play it again, because it is amazing.

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The latest Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds patch went live today, introducing a classic Team Deathmatch game mode. It’s being added as part of a new Arcade section in the game, which will start introducing more varied ways to play PUBG aside from the usual battle royale stuff. There’s some updates to that battle royale stuff too, though, including a few alterations to the new map Karakin, as well as some changes to how grenades and throwables work.

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Microsoft’s subscription-based stable of games just keeps growing like some cursed alien creature in a sci-fi show. It won’t stop till its giant, gelatinous self fills every corner of the ship, captain! Microsoft are adding five more games to the Xbox Game Pass on PC in the near future. Yakuza 0 and Two Point Hospital are on deck along with Wasteland Remastered, Reigns: Game Of Thrones, and Indivisible.

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So you’ve played a little bit of Wolcen and are now staring into the abyss that is the skill tree. Where do you even start? Luckily, there are some builds out there for new players looking for a bit of direction that cater to all types. From bloodthirsty warriors that spin axes repeatedly, to mages that want to see things explode. We’ve got a collection of the best builds right here for you to use, including one that we’ve found to be very handy indeed that we made.

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Blackbird Interactive, the makers of Homeworld: Deserts Of Kharak and the upcoming Homeworld 3, today announced another game they have on the go. Hardspace: Shipbreaker is a first-person salvager that will send us into spaceships to carve them up so we can sell the parts for scrap. I thought it sounded like nice, careful, methodical destruction until I saw hazards like fires, engine cores, and our old friend, explosive decompression. Have a look in the announcement trailer below.

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The Space Between explores the distance that still exists even when we wish to deeply connect with another, and the struggle of what that impossible distance means. ...

The folks at Wizards of the Coast are responsible for shepherding D& D (now in its 5th edition) towards a more immersive, inclusive design, and at GDC next month you'll see how they did it! ...

Sony Interactive Entertainment has made the call to back out of PAX East, pulling both PlayStation's own presence and SIE-owned studios like Naughty Dog from the show a week before the event†™s start. ...

Join Baba is You lead developer Arvi Teikari for a chat about the game's design and development on the GDC Twitch channel at 3PM EST. ...

The much-loved Mild Rumpus is back again with a freshly-designed space open to all GDC 2020 passholders, so stop by to relax for a bit and check out some cool games while you're at the show!  ...

Koch Media has agreed to acquire French music game developer Voxler for an undisclosed fee.  ...

When Grand Theft Auto 4 first came out in 2008, its multiplayer was a game-changer, allowing players to hang out together in the game's immaculate Liberty City together for the first time in franchise history. Well, if you were hoping to relive those glory days on the PC, we've got some bad news: the multiplayer portion of the game has been permanently disabled due to lingering issues with the now-defunct Games for Windows Live platform.

While this is a massive loss, considering how important those multiplayer modes were to the game's success, it's still an improvement on the current situation. Since January, GTA 4 has been unavailable for purchase on Steam due to the fact that Rockstar has run out of keys for the Games for Windows Live. Since the service is now dead, Microsoft has declined to provide any more, which has led to this situation. The single-player portion of the game will be playable starting March 19.

If you're unlucky enough to have bought a physical edition of GTA 4, you'll have to either use your physical key to update to the new Complete Edition, or connect your Rockstar Social Club account in place of Games for Windows Live. It's a throwback to the days of "CD keys," but, hey, that's what happens when you want to play a retro game like GTA 4. Feel old yet?

Sony won't be attending E3 this year, and now it has confirmed that it will not make a scheduled appearance at this month's PAX East event. On the PlayStation Blog, the company cited the coronavirus epidemic as the cause for the sudden cancellation.

SIE content communications manager Justin Massongill said that avoiding the event was the "safest option" in the face of the erratic nature of the coronavirus (officially called COVID-19). The virus has affected more than 75,000 people and the death toll has risen above a reported 2,000 cases.

"Update: Today, Sony Interactive Entertainment made the decision to cancel its participation at PAX East in Boston this year due to increasing concerns related to COVID-19 (also known as 'novel coronavirus')," Massongill said. "We felt this was the safest option as the situation is changing daily. We are disappointed to cancel our participation in this event, but the health and safety of our global workforce is our highest concern."

If you dream of crane kicking anthropomorphic squirrels in the face, your wait is almost over: The open-world RPG Biomutant has entered the last stages of development, according to a tweet from developer Experiment 101.

Published by THQ Nordic, and first announced in late 2017, the martial arts RPG made a splash at industry trade shows like Gamescom with flashy trailers that show off its unique world and cartoonish combat. Still, as the tweet says, there is no release date to announce as of yet. The game's Steam store page references a planned release window of 2020.

If you're looking for more games starring bipedal mice, check out Ghost of a Tale, a stealthy adventure RPG. If eking out an existence in a mutated world is more your thing, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is an excellent tactical shooter with plenty of depth. In our review, David Wildgoose called it "a superb tactical combat campaign that you shouldn't let sneak past."

If you're a gamer above a certain age, you're probably well-familiar with the NES Zapper, the electric orange light gun that served as one of the most popular accessories for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. While you could use it to blow away bad guys in a variety of games, like Hogan's Alley and Wild Gunman, it's often associated with Duck Hunt, the bird-shooting game that starred one of video game's most annoying canine companions.

Well, Japanese gamers looking to blast some ducks these days will need to fork up some serious cash for the privilege. According to a tweet by Kotaku features editor Chris Kohler, the humble Zapper has climbed in price in Japanese markets in recent months. For comparison, the cheapest orange Zapper in the image had a price of 6,000 yen (~$54), whereas Amazon postings for a US Zapper start around $15, including shipping. This can be attributed to two main factors: the Zapper never came out in Japan, since the Famicom had its own light gun that bore a strong resemblance to a real-life revolver; and the gun's appearance as a weapon in Splatoon 2 has raised its profile significantly.

Dangerous Driving developer Three Fields Entertainment is back with a sequel, and it's taking a page out of the Burnout Paradise playbook this time. Dangerous Driving 2 will arrive later this year, with support for Nintendo Switch and a new open-world environment.

Also coming to Xbox One, PS4, and PC this holiday, Dangerous Driving 2 features racing events as well as a free driving mode that lets you cause massive wrecks in classic Burnout fashion. The first Dangerous Driving was a spiritual successor to games like Burnout 3, while Dangerous Driving 2's open-world should allow for experimentation like in Burnout Paradise.

The PS5 is set for release at the end of the year, but we're only a few months away from Final Fantasy VII Remake and The Last of Us Part II--not to mention Ghost of Tsushima this summer--and if you want to play the best versions of those games, then there's a great deal on the PS4 Pro at Amazon. The PS4 Pro is currently $300, down from its original price of $400, and it comes with free Prime two-day shipping.

The PS4 Pro is the more powerful version of the PS4 Slim. It's capable of playing enhanced versions of the PS4's games, displaying them at higher resolutions with better performance. Of course, developers can take advantage of the extra power in different ways, so the results vary between games. The PS4 Pro is also capable of streaming 4K video from services like Netflix and YouTube.

The indie Diablo-like Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem had a big launch on Steam, but quickly hit server issues and other launch hiccups. The studio has now delivered a promised hotfix, which addresses some of those problems along with several other bugs.

In an update posted to Steam, Wolcen Studio thanks the audience for its patience with the admittedly rocky launch, including a data loss issue that occurred last week. It says it is halting its previous approach to hotfixes to prevent another data loss issue, and instead it will slow the pace of fixes and coordinate with partners more carefully. As a result, in the future it will cap server capacities and only push out one patch per week.

This week's patch, version 1.0.4.0, fixes an issue that would prevent offline characters from being saved, along with several other bugs. It states that it fixes an issue regarding network load and unretrieved data, but it's clear Wolcen Studio still feels it has a lot of work to do. In a future patch, it plans to make more bug fixes, including issues with the Act 1 and Act 3 bosses, a Korean language option, and PTBR localization selection.

Pokemon Go's latest Legendary, Tornadus, won't be around for much longer. The Cyclone Pokemon is scheduled to leave Raid Battles on Tuesday, February 25 at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET, making this your last chance to catch one in the game.

Until then, Tornadus will appear in Gyms as a five-star Raid Boss. Before you can catch it, you'll need to team up with other players in-person and defeat the Legendary in a battle. Tornadus is a pure Flying type, making it vulnerable to Rock, Electric, and Ice Pokemon like Rhyperior, Zapdos, and Glaceon.

If you don't yet have a Rhyperior, you'll have a chance to get one during this month's Community Day, which takes place this Saturday, February 22. The featured Pokemon this time is Rhyhorn, so there will be plenty of opportunities to catch some during the event. If you can evolve Rhyhorn all the way into Rhyperior up to two hours after the Community Day ends, it'll learn the Rock-type attack Rock Wrecker, which should prove to be very helpful against Tornadus.

Despite one of the biggest games of the month--Final Fantasy 7 Remake--getting pushed to early April, March is still packed to the gills with releases. And two of those upcoming games are seeing some unexpected and wholesome cross-pollination: Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Doom Eternal.

Both titles launch on March 20--Animal Crossing: New Horizons lands on Nintendo Switch, while Doom Eternal comes to basically everything else (Google Stadia, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, as well as Switch sometime this year). And both subreddit communities are cheering each other on.

Over in the Doom subreddit, fans are posting a variety of artwork featuring the Doomguy and Isabelle, Animal Crossing's adorable little Shih Tzu. The crossover art is rendered in a bunch of different styles, from traditional Animal Crossing fare to memes and everything in between.

The PlayStation Store has been handing out deals left and right in a series of great PS4 sales this month, and that streak continues with the latest sale kicking off on PSN today. The Essential Picks PS4 sale is live now with up to 70 percent off some of the system's best games, including The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition and last year's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, so this is a great opportunity to snag some games on your personal wishlist. The Essential Picks sale is live now until March 3 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET.

It's been nearly five years since The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt first released, but there's no question it's one of the most acclaimed and influential games of this console generation, and with the popularity of the new Netflix Witcher TV show, its audience continues to grow. The Complete Edition is on sale for just $15 and includes all DLC and expansion packs as well as the base game.

You'll also find Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which just released in November, on sale for $45. That's a great deal on the action-adventure game, which follows the adventures of a young Jedi named Cal Kestis. Quite a few older PS4 hits are discounted as well, including Bloodborne - Complete Edition bundle for $17.49, The Last of Us Remastered for $15, and Until Dawn for $15. We've seen these games on sale for cheaper--PlayStation discounted its Greatest Hits collection to $10 each for Black Friday--but any one of these games is still worth picking up for a few bucks more if you've never played them.

If you enjoy streaming Fortnite you're likely annoyed by its emotes. It's not that they're bad, but rather that many of them feature music that could get you into trouble on Twitch, YouTube, and Mixer. But with the latest update to the Battle Royale game, that won't be an issue anymore.

Fortnite is getting a handy options toggle on PC, allowing you to use emotes without playing any licensed audio that may be attached to it. That means no accidental mutes or content strikes on your streams and videos. Just the same silly dance moves, without some of the audible fanfare behind them.

That will definitely come in handy if you're a fan of Rick Astley, who Epic Games struck a deal with recently to have his now infamous dance join the growing collection of emotes.