March 2020

Square Enix’s remake takes hours to do what the original did in just minutes

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Earlier today Square Enix announced that downloading the demo of the Final Fantasy VII Remake will net fans a free PS4 theme, and they just revealed what it looks like.

The Japanese branch of the publisher reached out with a press release including an image of the theme, which reproduces the key artwork revealed for the game at the beginning of February.

It’s not like we need a further incentive to download and play the demo, but can’t complain about additional bonuses.

You’ve read our impressions of Final Fantasy VII’s remake, sure, but if you want to try out (part of) it for yourself, good news: as of right now, a demo is available on the PlayStation Store.

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Previously known solely as the League of Legends studio, Riot showed us last year that they’re now working on all kinds of new stuff. The first of which is Valorant, a team-based shooter.

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If you’ve played Final Fantasy VII, you’re probably familiar with the Air Buster, a floating robot who resembles a vacuum cleaner. Air Buster, the game’s second boss, takes roughly two minutes to kill. He’s more of a tutorial on enemy weak points than a genuine threat (hint: use the Bolt spell). So it’s more than a…

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Seeing the reimagined opening of Final Fantasy VII Remake for the first time really is something special, if the original is something you're familiar with. The establishing shots of Midgar, the train, the first couple of battles--there's definitely an unavoidable nostalgia, no matter how reserved and wary you're trying to be. I'd certainly been very skeptical about how Remake was going to turn out, and that's partially on me--I generally avoid watching pre-release coverage of things I know I want to experience myself. But after getting the chance to spend somewhere between three and four hours playing the first two chapters and some mid-game stuff, I'm feeling much better about letting myself be very excited about Remake's impending release.

You're likely already aware that Square Enix is blowing out the Final Fantasy VII saga to encompass multiple releases. The first part is set solely in the corporate-owned slums of Midgar, and will extrapolate greatly on the beats of the original. Having started a replay of the PS1 FF7 shortly before I dove into the Remake demo, it's a little shocking how much more detailed the new game feels. The original Final Fantasy VII was in no way a small or unambitious game, but if I were to imagine the same kind of treatment being given to the rest of VII--well, I hope I live to see it all happen.

Until Final Fantasy VII Remake was officially announced in 2015, the frenzied fans that had been whipped up by a reimagining of the game's opening, shown a decade earlier, had basically lost all hope that it was ever going to get off the ground. But developers at Square Enix had been working on it all along. Key members of the original game's development team, including director/scenario writer Yoshinori Kitase, character designer Tetsuya Nomura, and Kazushige Nojima, also a scenario writer, were trying to get the ball rolling on the project for a long time. But other Final Fantasy projects, as well as the limits of console tech, were always a roadblock in making sure Square Enix had the right team to successfully revive and reinvent one of the most iconic games of all time.

Yoshinori Kitase, now a producer on Final Fantasy VII Remake, told GameSpot that even before the team started production on the original Final Fantasy VII, they strived for the already-popular series to both do more ambitious things and reach a broader audience than before. "When we finished doing Final Fantasy VI and moved to start work on Final Fantasy VII, there was that idea in our heads that we wanted to go outside of Japan for this game," Kitase reminisced, through a translator. "I don't think we had the expectation that it was going to be as big as it was in the end (Final Fantasy VII remains the series' best-performing entry with over 12.3 million units sold) but we did have that passion to make this go out to the world--rather than VI, which was a much more domestic-focused title."

Square Enix has released a demo for Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

The demo is live now on the PlayStation Store, where it weighs in at 8GB.

The demo includes the first chapter of Final Fantasy 7 Remake - the Mako Reactor 1 bombing mission. Of note: progress cannot be carried over into the retail version of the game, which, Square Enix warned, may end up differing from the demo. There's an exclusive theme to download from 10th April if you download the demo before 11th May.

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The Final Fantasy 7 Remake is just over a month away - I know, pinch me - and we just got our most comprehensive look yet at Square Enix's bold undertaking. And who better to guide you through everything that's new - and everything that's pleasingly the same - than Final Fantasy 7 superfan Aoife Wilson as she runs through 17 big new details we picked up from the latest demo.

There's info on how Aerith and Tifa play, contextual summons, some surprise Crisis Core references Cloud and Aerith's first meeting and how it's been expanded upon, the extended flavour text and all the many, many details that are combining to make the Final Fantasy 7 Remake look so special.

Oh, and there's also the chance for you to try it yourself as a new playable demo has just stealth dropped on PlayStation Network. Needless to say, we'll have plenty more for you on Final Fantasy 7 Remake over the next few weeks.

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The long-teased demo for Final Fantasy VII Remake is now available to download on PS4 via the PSN store, finally giving fans the opportunity to check out one of the most highly anticipated releases of 2020 before its official launch next month.

The demo weighs in at around 8GB and contains roughly an hour of gameplay, namely the famous opening of the 1997 classic where grumpy protagonist Cloud Strife and freedom fighters Avalanche undergo a dangerous mission to sabotage a reactor in the heart of the city of Midgar.

First word came of the FFVII Remake demo during the Holidays, when it was spotted on the PlayStation Network's database. Smart tech-types were later able to get in on the action via crafty means. But now, this taster for one of the hottest remakes of all-time is officially live and - it what has to be a SICK JOKE - on a Monday morning, so you behave and get off to work/school now, y'hear?

Oh, and don't forget to grab your free Tifa PS4 theme via this sugar-filled promotion.

The first episode of Final Fantasy VII Remake launches on PS4 April 10.

Final Fantasy VII Remake demo [PSN]

Riot Games, the gang behind League Of Legends, today gave the big reveal-o to their mysterious multiplayer shooter formerly known as Project A – their one upcoming game not based on League. Valorant is its name, and ‘Counter-Strike meets Overwatch’ is its game. A reductive comparison, sure, but an unavoidable one after Riot released a gameplay video showing one full round. Valorant will launch free-to-play sometime this year, and for now we have this video:

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You know your deals herald loves a good SSD deal, and today’s offer on the 1TB Crucial MX500 might be just up your street if you’re looking to expand your PC’s storage banks. Now available for £92 at Amazon UK, this is the cheapest this SSD’s been in almost a year according to my CamelCamelCamel price tracker, making it a good time to snap up one of the best gaming SSDs you can buy today.

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Red XIII will not be a playable character in Final Fantasy VII Remake. However, he will still join your party as a guest character during certain segments of the game. Utilizing classic skills and attacks, players of the original title will still get that feeling of nostalgia while playing alongside this AI-controlled companion. [Thanks, VG24/7!] In an interview with Final Fantasy VII Remake co-director Naoki Hamaguchi said the reason for Red XIII appearing as a guest character and not a playable character was this: “We felt the point at which Red XIII joins the party in the story is very late […]

The post Red XIII Won’t Be Playable In Final Fantasy VII Remake But Will Join As A Guest Character Instead appeared first on Siliconera.

Today Black Desert Online developer Pearl Abyss released a brand new trailer of the game, focusing on new content coming soon. 

The trailer focuses on the new region of O’dyllita, that will be released on March 4 on the Korean servers.

As for the western servers, for now, we know only that O’dyllita is coming in the first half of 2020, at least on PC. The console versions will likely get the region at a later time. 

You can check out the trailer below and see the usual gorgeous environments that are pretty much the trademark of Black Desert Online.

More content is coming to the game in the first half of the year, including succession updates for more classes, the island of Papua Crinea, and the ability to compose and perform music in game. 

The PC version of Black Desert Online just received the new Guardian class and her awakening.

Gaming chairs? Been there, done that. I’ve seen the future, and it’s gaming beds.

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The best value SSD for gaming, the Crucial MX500, has reached a new low price on Amazon. Right now you can pick up this 1TB SSD for just £92, down from £110. That works out to 9p per gigabyte for one of the fastest and most popular SATA SSDs on the market.

In our testing on PC, we found that upgrading from a hard drive to an SSD reduced game load times by up to 60 per cent. That makes running your games from solid state storage one of the most cost-effective upgrades you can make to your gaming rig.

Console gamers aren't left out of the fun either. You can also put this 2.5-inch drive in a cheap (£8) USB enclosure to boost game load times significantly on both PS4 and Xbox One.

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FIFA 20 is doing the business for EA, but it's having a particularly tough time right now after a week of server woes, PR disasters and unrest within the pro player community.

Over the weekend, two professional FIFA players said they were forced to settle an official EA qualifier via a game of Rock, Paper Scissors because server issues prevented them from creating their match online.

Red Bull-supported FIFA pro Shaun Galea took to Twitter to complain about the situation, declaring: "I am done."

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If I had to choose a single incident to sum up my time in physics-y medieval build and destroy ‘em up Besiege, it would probably be the time I got 15 steps into its 33-part guide to making a plane, saw that it was asking me to access the “advanced build” menu, despaired for a second, and then realised that I didn’t need a plane at all: I could do what I wanted to just by making a really tall, leggy mess of a thing. This was my quintessential Besiege moment for a lot of reasons, but the main one is this: Besiege lets you do a lot of very complicated things, but it’s actually a lot more fun when you’re just messing about.

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Dead or Alive 6 recently added the option to change a character's hair colour on PS4, but it costs money each time to do so. Players must purchase a Premium Ticket in order to pick a new hair colour for their fighter. However, purchasing a new hair colour doesn't unlock it forever, as it also costs a Premium Ticket to revert hair back to a previous colour.

The Premium Tickets can only be purchased at a minimum of two, which costs $1.99. They can also be bought as a bundle of 10 at $9.99, or you can get a discount if you purchase them in larger quantities - specifically 20 at $19.99, or 50 at $44.99. That means to change a character's hair even once it costs at least $1.99.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/03/01/dead-or-alive-6-launch-trailer"]

The new hair colours were added to the PS4 version of Dead or Alive 6 on February 25 with the v1.20 update. Part of this update removed the limit on the maximum number of Premium Tickets that can be purchased - previously it was set at the number of Tickets needed to purchase all the game's costumes.

The FAQ also reveals that "hair color change data is stored in the save data and any hair color changes you have purchased will be reset if you clear your save data." So if you lose your Dead or Alive 6 save then your characters' hair colours will return to their defaults and you'll have to buy each hair colour again.

The price of changing a Dead or Alive 6 character's hair colour has not gone down well with some of the game's fans.

Soundcore Vortex Wireless Headset by Anker | $35 | Amazon | Clip the coupon on the page and use the promo code KINJA3031

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This weekend I fell in love with a blueberry. Then I realised it was a grape, so I guess I fell in love with a grape. In Garden Story, a sort of town-rebuilding RPG for PC and Mac, with dungeons and beautiful chunky pixel art and a sweet nature, you play as Concord, a grape with a mission of regeneration. The demo was available on Steam over the last few days, while the game itself is out sometime in Spring.

This is fairly well-travelled territory by now, but it doesn't stop Garden Story being wonderful. Your job is to restore a town to prosperity, harvesting stuff, clearing stuff up, knocking about gooey purple enemies known as the Rot. In the demo, you visit a new area that has fallen into ruin, do a few favours for a few people and then rattle through a mini-dungeon where simple combat combines with sokoban puzzles. Push those crates!

Combat and harvesting are all handled the same way: you have a weapon of some kind and you hit stuff. There's a stamina gauge to watch and enemies strike back every now and then, but the demo at least is very gentle. Alongside the stick I was hitting stuff with I also got a sickle by doing a solid for a lazy tomato, and there's a dowsing rod, which is essentially a fishing rod, that allows you to do damage too. Damaging people with a fishing rod!

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Trailer hints at a movie mixing the first and second books without the whole kidnapping a fairy bit

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Complete tasks to get a Ferroseed, a thorny Pokémon from the Unova region

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Try the first chapter of the long-awaited remake

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Monster Hunter World: Iceborne's third free update arrives on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on March 23. The PC update will hit just a month later in April, yet no exact date was given. The free content includes two new monsters: the Raging Brachydios and the Furious Rajang.

Iceborne is the massive expansion for Monster Hunter World that released last September. Capcom has continued to support Monster Hunter World like a living game, and it'll be interesting to see how much more content we get over the span of 2020.

You can see both of the upcoing variant beasts in action in the video below:

And if you have two hours to kill, you can check out the replay of the Monster Hunter World: Iceborne USA Championship livestream, which is looking for the fastest hunters across the globe:

Gotta Go Fast! – Full Circle Podcast #89 Read More »

Hideki Kamiya, director of Resident Evil 2 and originator of such franchises as Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101, is no stranger to seeing his characters in the hands of other developers. Dante from Devil May Cry, Amaterasu from Okami, and of course, Leon and Claire from Racoon City are just a handful of his creations who have been taken in new directions without him.

It's less often than he has one of his games recreated scene-for-scene, but that's exactly what happened with the Resident Evil 2 remake. I asked him what he thought of the new game, and he said "There are some videos of me playing it somewhere, but you have to know that the director of the Resident Evil 2 remake is actually a friend of mine. We were coworkers, we used to go out drinking after work, so before the game was announced, he let me know of his intention to remake it. He asked if I have any recommendations or advice, and I told him 'You're the designer. It's up to you.' and that was the last time we talked about it before it was released."

So, what did Kamiya think of it? "...after it was released, I was like 'Holy Shit, this is really scary!'" he told me. "The next time I see him I'm going to ask 'Can you make some DLC that's a little less scary, with maybe some cute zombies or something like that? (laughs)"

If it was me that remade the game, I'd take that as a compliment. I'd buy that cute zombie DLC in a heartbeat.

Resident Evil 2 is available now on PS4, PC, and Xbox One.

Capcom has announced via Twitter that the third update to its mega-selling adventure title Monster Hunter World: Iceborne will arrive on PS4 and Xbox One on March 23, with a PC release to follow on an undisclosed date in April.

The new update will bring two frightening new variant creatures for you to hunt, (or be hunted by), in the form of the Raging Brachydios and the Furious Rajang, (as opposed to the regular, super-calm Rajang?). The gargantuan prey can be seen in action in a new video embedded in the tweet below.

This will be the final time PC players are left waiting to get in on the action. As of April, Capcom will be making concerted efforts to ensure that all future Monster Hunter: World updates arrive on console and PC platforms simultaneously, as noted in the MH:W 2020 roadmap.

Monster Hunter: World and its Iceborne expansion are available now on PS4, PC, and Xbox One.

I forgot how much I loved The Wonderful 101. Though I only got to play the upcoming remastered version on Switch for ten minutes or so, it still left me impressed. Some of the puzzles that were specifically designed for the Wii U's dual screen set up are almost painfully easy on a single display, and I miss the optional touch controls, but those are easy things to look past when a game is this bursting at the gills with other features to gawk over.

Using your team to transform into a ball, then a hang gliders, then a giant sword, and eventually, a giant piece of jello all in rapid succession? Often times it feels like the only thing limiting you is your own imagination, making The Wonderful 101 feel like the best Green Lantern game never made, just begging to be replayed. 

From the sounds of it though, we were very close to seeing the last of these underdog heroes. If it weren't for Kickstarter, and what could be a one-time deal with Nintendo, The Wonderful 101 might have been a one-and-done.

The Analogue Nt mini is one of the best devices I've ever gotten my hands on. It's basically a perfect NES re-creation, right down to the most nuanced hardware, with 100% compatibility, no lag and upscaling for newer output devices.

If you've been on the fence for one since its release several years ago, you might want to know that Analogue is holding one final run for the device. The company says that you can pre-order now (with it shipping in July of this year), which will run you $500 for the device, an 8BitDo N30 2.4 remote, an HDMI cable, a USB cable and a multi-region power supply: basically, everything you need to play it out of the box.

The original MSRP for the standard edition was $449.99, but it's no longer available; so you're paying a bit more for the limited edition run. If you're curious, read our original review and think on it. It's a lot of cash, but it's the perfect device for immortalizing your NES collection forever.

Nt mini Noir [Analogue]

Key art released in February 2020 will be used for the Final Fantasy VII Remake demo's free PS4 theme.

The post The Final Fantasy VII Remake Demo’s Free Theme Features Aerith, Barret, Cloud, Tifa, and Red XIII appeared first on Siliconera.

New psychic combat abilities and new quests are among the features that might be added to RimWorld‘s Royalty expansion, lead developer Tynan Sylvester has said. Today he issued a wee update on plans for the sci-fi colony management sim’s first expansion, which launched last week alongside Update 1.1. He explained that while he’s tended to operate quietly before rather than raise players’ expectations and risk dashing them when plans change, now he’s going to be a bit more open. He also noted that big-numbered updates for RimWorld aren’t over, with at least an Update 1.2 coming at some point.

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Valorant is the upcoming team-based tactical FPS from League Of Legends developer, Riot Games. Yeah, I’ll just let you read that sentence again, and ruminate on the fact that Riot Games have, after over a decade, created something that isn’t League Of Legends. You good? Good, because now we’re gonna bombard you with absolutely everything we know about the game, from news of the Valorant release date and upcoming beta to details on the roster of characters, abilities, and weapons you’ll get to play with in-game.

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