February 2022

A rare Pikachu Illustrator card has been purchased for a heady $900k, making it the most expensive Pokémon card ever sold.

The card in question features a Pikachu adorably clutching a paintbrush as it stands over a painting of a Charmander (via Kotaku). The card is then offset with a holographic background. Its layout is much like that of a Trainer card, however the writing across it instead says "Illustrator".

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The gameplay clips don't reference this too much - although we do see a few orange trees in the new open world - but the live-action portion of the trailer shows mounted shields featuring the two fruits, and a fruit bowl full of them too.

Fans therefore think that developer Game Freak was teasing Scarlet and Violet in Sword and Shield by including the cordoned-off area. Other theories go as far as to presume the area will be opened up and include cross-generation interactivity when the new games are released.

One of the things that I learned about Elden Ring very early on came to me during the closed network test. This epiphany didn’t hit me until a few boss battles after repeatedly banging my head against the wall that was Margit, the Fell Omen.

After hours of struggling against an early main story boss, the smaller ones helped me realize that their purpose goes beyond being secrets to discover. In fact, they’re more like warmups for the bigger battles. And that’s exactly why these smaller bosses are a great way for newer players to get accustomed to the controls and overall movement speed.

One of the best examples of a fight that teaches the basics of Elden Ring bosses is the battle against the Mad Pumpkin Head in the Waypoint Ruins cellar. This boss battle happens in a small enclosed arena that forces you to learn how to dodge roll, block, parry, and figure out weaknesses on the fly. Mad Pumpkin Head has a giant pumpkin-shaped helm that blocks most physical and magical attacks from the front. You quickly learn to time dodges properly and how to adjust your approach to combat on the fly.

Most importantly, the Mad Pumpkin Head boss fight and the other small bosses are some of the most forgiving battles in Elden Ring. One of this boss’ most damaging attacks is a massive stomp where he also slams the ground with his giant helm. It definitely won’t kill you if you keep your HP up and there’s just enough cooldown on the attack animation to let you get up and heal if knocked down. What’s more, his very few weapon attacks have extremely obvious tells that give you plenty of time to dodge roll behind him or parry for two or three big hits.

As a huge fan of both Dungeons & Dragons and the Borderlands series, I’ve been paying close attention to Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands ever since it was announced. There is simply so much potential for fantastic chaos when it comes to a marriage of these two ideas. 

I recently got a sneak peek at what awaits in this fantasy Borderlands adventure via a hands-on preview, and so far, it feels like Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is shaping up to be a natural 20.

In the demo, I got to try out two classes: the Graveborn and the Stabbomancer. 

The Graveborn is your typical necromancer class, featuring plenty of abilities that channel the damage you deal into more health and attack power for your character. The Stabbomancer is a critical-hit-focused assassin who can summon magic whirling blades to the battlefield and disappear into the shadows at will.

That up there is Ivan Ivanovitch. He's somewhere between Walter Mitty and Scheherazade. A man who invents successive tales of fantasy in an effort to stay his likely execution by an impatient general interrogating him in a dark room. Ivan is the little guy in every sense, small in stature, a hunching underdog to forces beyond his control. As the likeable hero of Little Orpheus, a vibrant modernising of the cinematic platformer, he builds a rapport with the general that carries the game as best it can through eight beautiful but ultimately formulaic levels. This is a light game, unchallenging by design, and for me, sleepily so.

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Shadow Warrior 3 continues the series tradition of completely rebooting the style of each game. This time it’s going for a more linear arena shooter style, similar to 2013's Shadow Warrior, and it’s got generally the right idea. You play as the former freelance mercenary Lo Wang, and mainly just try to get from A to B. This means jumping through hand-crafted levels, and generally shooting and slicing your way through the various demonic mobs and mini-bosses that spawn in front of you. Whenever you’re not clearing out enemies in an arena setting, you’ll be parkouring between them, or using your skills to navigate some setpieces. That's basically it, that's the game.

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As an owner of two cats who regularly bring home all manner of half-eaten wildlife from the neighbouring bins, hedgerows and overgrown student gardens, I often wonder how these adorable murderers are perceived by the local mice and rat population. If it's anything like ginger puss cat Tiger in Jeremy "Aviary Attorney" Noghani's turn-based RPG Small Saga, they're going to be in trouble, as these rodents come bearing switchblades and cigarette lighters to fend off their deadly foes. It's an intriguing take on the classic Final Fantasy-like job types of other RPGs - the switchblade is to protagonist Verm what Cloud's Buster Sword is to a regular human, while Siobhan's lighter allows her to cast fire 'magic' as the party's mage - and based on its hour-long Steam Next Fest demo, it's shaping up to be just as grand a tale as its lauded genre mates.

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Atlus will add rollback netcode to Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. It is confirmed for the PS4 and PC versions. The company and Arc System Works opted to improve its online performance through the implementation of the protocol, now preferred for fighters who play online matches. The team noted it was considering the idea back in December 2021.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax Producer Kazuhisa Wada delivered the rollback netcode announcement via a brief message, which was then posted by Atlus West's Twitter account.

https://twitter.com/Atlus_West/status/1498133354016755712

In the announcement, Wada noted that the addition of rollback wouldn't be instant. At the game's re-launch in March 2022, the standard netcode will still be the default. The PS4 and PC patches to add rollback will be deployed in Summer 2022.

The Octopath Traveler mobile game will receive guest characters from NieR Automata. Square Enix revealed the in-house collaboration between its popular game IPs on the Japanese Twitter account for Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent. The three main characters from NieR Automata — 2B, 9S, and A2 — will be recruitable.

The NieR Automata crossover content will appear for a limited time in the Japanese version in March 2022. Square Enix will add a one-time free 10-roll gacha that guarantees someone will get 9S. It will also hold a multi-step paid gacha that lets players randomly recruit 2B, 9S, or A2. A special request involving virus removal will also appear for the duration of the event.

Square Enix also published new trailers showcasing the NieR Automata guest characters in Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent. These videos show that the original Japanese voice actors — Yui Ishikawa, Natsuki Hanae, and Ayaka Suwa — will reprise their roles as 2B, 9S, and A2.

[tnm_video layout="mnmd-post-media"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reL996vFugQ[/tnm_video]

[tnm_video layout="mnmd-post-media"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spznxrCRAZA[/tnm_video]

[tnm_video layout="mnmd-post-media"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYxck1YvCNk[/tnm_video]

The official PS3 repair service will soon be a thing of the past in Japan. Sony Interactive Entertainment will cease accepting after-sales services for the last available PlayStation 3 CECH-4300 models. It will also stop repairing any peripheral accessories related to the console. The company made this announcement through its Japanese Ask PlayStation Twitter account.

On the Japanese important notice web page, Sony set April 30, 2022 as the general deadline for accepting repairs of the "super slim" PS3 and its accessories. Those who have made prior reservations will have an extra week to deliver the products until May 7, 2022. However, the company may also stop accepting orders earlier if it runs out of spare parts.

Platform: Switch
Publisher: The Pokémon Company
Developer: Game Freak

It's been nearly three years since the release of Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield, which began Generation 8 of the long-running pocket monster-catching series. And now, following yesterday's reveal of Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, we'll be diving headfirst into Generation 9 later this year on the Switch. 

Click here to watch embedded media

Platform: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Gearbox Software
Release: March 25, 2022
Rating: Teen

The Borderlands series has made a name for itself with excellent gunplay, zany stories, and more, popularizing the looter-shooter genre over the last decade-plus. But with three mainline games and a plethora of spinoffs, many have wondered where the Gearbox Software posterchild would go next. The answer is Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, and we're showing off some brand new gameplay in today's video!

Welcome to the blog post surrounding the publication of the 50th edition of Digital Foundry Direct Weekly, meaning that we're swiftly coming up to our one year anniversary of the show, something we may have celebrate in some way! I wasn't able to be involved with this particular episode owing to the commitment to the Steam Deck review, but rest assured, you're in good hands with John, Audi and Alex tackling the key topics of the week.

That kicks off, of course, with Elden Ring. Our coverage has been somewhat piecemeal to date as code arrived late, plus both Namco and ourselves wanted to put out performance data related to the day one patch - though it appears that not much changed from prior versions: there have been some tweaks from the network test code we looked at last year, but ultimately, there is the sense that both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series versions should be smoother than they actually are in their respective performance modes, while it's difficult to fathom how the PC version released in the state it did.

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Civilization creator Sid Meier, a veteran of games development, has spoken out about the industry's ongoing push towards further monetisation.

Speaking to BBC News on the 30th anniversary of the original Civilization's release, Meier issued a stark warning that progress in game development was beginning to forget about gameplay itself.

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Hello! Over the next few days we hope to be bringing you impressions of a few of the demos in the Steam Next Fest. You can view them all in our 2022 Next Fest archive.

Oh, to economise. This is all I've done so far in Ixion, one of several gems in the Steam Next Fest.

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Nvidia has reportedly been "completely compromised" by a cyber attack.

As reported by The Telegraph, parts of the graphics chip business - America's largest microchip company - have been offline for two days.

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I am by no means a Souls expert. The opposite really. I played Dark Souls a bit and loved it - but I also struggled with it, as a foolish, cowardly, flighty kind of person and player. By the time I almost knew what I was doing - or rather, by the time I started to make any kind of real progress - I had started to play in a very specific way.

So specific I can almost remember the physical sensation of it. Most of the time, I played Dark Souls as if my head had been partway retracted into my shoulders. Sunken neck, everything tense, slow, tortoise-style forward movement, always expecting the blow on the head, always expecting the ground to fall out from beneath me. Which, granted, it sometimes did.

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There’s a new Pokémon game, which means there are also new Trainers in addition to new starters. Whenever a new entry is announced, there’s always a split between those who think they’re great, and those who find them wanting. But with Gen 9, it feels like there are more who aren’t exactly blown away.

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ELEX II on PS5

In an open-world game, freedom is everything. But, many open-world games interpret player freedom differently. Usually you are given one area at a time to explore and the explorable territory increases parallel with the story. ELEX II handles it more as an Elder Scrolls or Fallout game which give the player as much freedom as they could possibly want. However, just like those two examples, it’s a double edged sword, as you could just as easily wander into the wrong area and get completely demolished by a monster out of your league. At the same time, that system makes it fully dependent on the player which it will be, sink or swim.

ELEX II opens on a short recap of the first game, but doesn’t really help much if you never played the first game. You are told of the biggest events, but they lack any sort of real context so it doesn’t quite prepare the play as it should. Understanding the story of ELEX II certainly doesn’t hinge on knowing past events, but the lack of solid background undercuts some of the tension that exists.

The main takeaway is that you play as Jax, the protagonist of the first game, who has been living in isolation for the last several years. After the previous game’s big bad was defeated, none of Jax’s allies would listen to his alarmist warnings of a further threat coming in the near future. So with that, he retreated into his self-imposed exile to prepare.

Today Atlus released a new trailer of its upcoming fighting game Persona 4 Arena Ultimax.

The trailer focuses on the characters introduced in Persona 4 Arena, Labrys and Sho Minazuki, showing them in gameplay action.

We also take a look at their story, providing a nice overview for those who haven’t tried the original fighting game.

It’s worth reminding that earlier today Atlus announced that the game will receive an implementation of rollback netcode after release this summer, but just on PS4 and PC.

You can check them out below.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is coming for PS4, Switch, and PC on March 17.

Here’s how Atlus officially describes the game:

Gearbox has just released a new gameplay walkthrough for its upcoming shooter, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. The video is about 20 minutes long and it gives us an in-depth look at the game ahead of its Mar. 25 launch date.

The focus here is co-op gameplay, as two Fatemakers team up to take on an optional area of the game known as Mount Craw. You’ll get a chance to see the overworld, some special skills, and a few of the unique guns that the Borderlands main series is known for.

There are six classes in total and you’re able to choose both a primary and secondary class. The walkthrough below actually provides details on the six skill trees that’ll be available to you.

You can check out the Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands gameplay trailer right here to see a good chunk of what you can expect in the full release:

Whether it’s cartoons like Star Wars Rebels and Clone Wars or live-action like The Mandalorian and Solo, the last few years have been kind to fans of Ahsoka Tano and Darth Maul, as we’ve gotten to see a lot of their backstory unfold. That doesn’t even include the pending release of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka on Disney+, which is set to give both characters even more of the limelight.

To celebrate the return to prominence for Ahsoka Tano and Darth Maul, Sideshow Collectibles has just revealed a diorama that depicts their battle from Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The epic duel measures 20” tall and 14.55” wide and is set against a Mandalore.

You can check out the official description for this Ahsoka Tano vs Darth Maul Star Wars diorama below:

“I see the Padawan needs one … last … lesson!”

I've always had a soft spot for Borderlands' looting and shooting, so anything new on its fantasy successor Tiny Tina's Wonderlands has me very curious. And judging by a fresh 20 minute gameplay walkthrough that shows off two new Fatebringers, locales, and questline, I'm thinking I'll rather enjoy its mixture of FPS silliness and tabletop antics, even if it doesn't look like a massive departure from Borderlands. You can check out the new gameplay footage below.

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Picture the scene: you are at the beach. It is a real-time strategy beach, where metaphors happen. A lawless-looking child hands you a bucket. When you look into the bucket, you find sand, paint, bread, pottery, chocolate, nails, and several crabs all speaking different languages. Isn't this fascinating? What the hell is going on? This is Hero's Hour, an untidy RTS sand bucket filled with so many ideas it's hard to see how this turbulent mix will have any structural integrity at all when you finally up-end the bucket to build a tower. And yet… it sorta does? I don't know. I'm lost. How do I get off this beach?

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Just a few minutes out of Elex 2’s, pleasantly brief, tutorial area I came across a radio. The broadcast was announcing a concert at the nearby amphitheatre. A Billy Idol concert. Yeah, you read that right. I immediately made a beeline for the concert venue and was treated to a rather unflattering rendering of Billy Idol and his guitar-playing chum performing a song. (Whiskey & Pills from his 2014 album, rather than anything you’re likely to have heard.) After the cutscene, you’re left in the empty amphitheatre, alone apart from a couple of guys talking about how great the concert was.

There is no context for this cameo. Billiam doesn’t feature as an NPC. In the 40-ish hours I spent playing the game, I had no reason to return to the amphitheatre. It makes no sense whatsoever and the only explanation I can come up with is that someone involved in the game really likes Billy Idol and just wanted him in their game. It’s the sort of random that I can respect, and I only wish the game had more.

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People will soon be able to create a custom Domain in Genshin Impact, as the Divine Ingenuity event is about to begin. On March 2, 2022, people will be able to head to Liyue to participate in the activity. If someone is at Adventure Rank 28 or higher and finished the Liyue Archon Questline, they can take part. However, you do need to finish the event’s preset domains to get the ability to make your own.

As a reminder, the Genshin Impact Divine Ingenuity custom Domain won’t be a large space to explore or involve waves of enemies. Rather, they will be like the ones shown in the event. The preset Domains offer an idea of how they work. You’ll need to get through each one’s area, collecting Adventure Coins along the way. Your goal is to reach the Destination before time runs out. There will be certain Blessings along the way to aid in the platforming, like one that makes the character jump higher than usual.

The custom element lets you place Adventure Coins, Blessings, mechanisms, terrain, and traps on the way to the Destination. Some of the mechanisms include Wind Currents, Wind Rings and both fragile and disappearing platforms. Terrain can involve things like platforms, slopes, and walls. You can also set limitations and requirements people must meet to “end” the challenge when reaching the Destination. However, players do need to beat a custom Domain in Genshin Impact before sharing it.

Ahead of the Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster debut, Square Enix announced the opera scene would be a bit different. It noted that there would be HD-2D elements and a voiced song available in seven different languages. Now people who didn't get the game can see how it looks. The company released two videos of the scene. They show how the English and Italian versions of the "performance" look and sound.

First, here's the video in English.

To celebrate the launch of Final Fantasy VI pixel remaster on Steam and Mobile, we have a special showing tonight: please enjoy this preview screening of the iconic "Maria and Draco" opera.

Get your tickets now: https://t.co/anV0H1WolO pic.twitter.com/JbyCV3CLJ9

— FINAL FANTASY (@FinalFantasy) February 28, 2022

And here is the Italian performance of the Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster opera.

Please enjoy this simply bellissimo rendition of the “Draco and Maria” opera in Italian.

During the February 2022 Chaldea Satellite Station Hokkaido stream, Lasengle unveiled its rankings for the top Servants that FGO players maxed out Append Skills for. There are three separate categories for the three Append Skills. Depending on the Servant, some players might have prioritized maxing out only one of them.

Every Servant has more or less the same batch of Append Skills to choose from. However, the third skill changes depending on the Servant and class. For Berserker Servants, it decreases the chance of an enemy landing a critical hit on them. Meanwhile, all the other Servants gain a damage boost against a particular class.

The following rankings used information and data from the Japanese server of the game. The rankings for FGO Servants who got their Append Skills maxed out the most are:

Append Skill 1: Increase Extra Attack card performance

1. Heracles
2. Morgan
3. Gilgamesh (Archer)
4. Jeanne d’Arc Alter (Avenger)
5. Space Ishtar

Append Skill 2: Starts battle with a certain amount of NP

1. Arash
2. Morgan
3. Habetrot
4. Artoria Pendragon (Saber)
5. Koyanskaya of Darkness

Append Skill 3: Increases damage against a specific class/Increases critical hit resistance

1. Gilgamesh (Archer)
2. Melusine/Fairy Knight Lancelot
3. Abigail Williams
4. Katsushika Hokusai (Foreigner)
5. Sengo Muramasa

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Season 2 of Final Fantasy VII The First Soldier has begun. To commemorate its launch, Square Enix distributed a special Bahamut-inspired Chocobo head piece to players. Additionally, the Final Fantasy VII Remake Cloud and Tifa skins have returned to the FFVII The First Soldier in-game shop. The new season's debut means that the Dragoon Job Class is now available in the game and Bahamut will appear as both a field boss and a summon. [Thanks, Gamer!]

Alongside the release of Season 2 and the Tifa and Cloud skins, a new FFVII The First Soldier Season Pass arrived. Players can obtain Bahamut-inspired cosmetics and accessories for their player avatar. Free rewards will also be available to obtain. These will includes a Bahamut inspired jacket, a skin for your helicopter, and the body piece of the Chocobo cosmetic.

The Final Fantasy VII Remake Tifa and Cloud skins first appeared in November 2021. The outfits are available to obtain through a bundle. Cloud's costume costs 3,600 Shinra Credits, whereas the Tifa costume costs 2,800 Shinra Credits. The Tifa skin is limited to female player character avatars. In addition to these more modern versions, classic Cloud and Tifa skins are also in the game.

Yahoo! Japan released a poll ranking every mainline Final Fantasy game, revealing the top 10 games within the franchise. The final results tallied a total of 28,000 votes. However, online mainline Final Fantasy games are included within the ranking. This means that spin-off titles or sequels, like Final Fantasy X-2 or Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, are not part of the list. Additionally, this list only applies to Japan. [Thanks, Yahoo! Japan and aitaikimochi!]

The top 10 Final Fantasy games within Japan are:

1. Final Fantasy VII
2. Final Fantasy VI
3. Final Fantasy X
4. Final Fantasy V
5. Final Fantasy IV
6. Final Fantasy XIV
7. Final Fantasy IX
8. Final Fantasy VIII
9. Final Fantasy XI
10. Final Fantasy III

Further down the list include the first Final Fantasy title, Final Fantasy XV, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIII, and Final Fantasy II in that order.

Platform: Switch
Publisher: The Pokémon Company
Developer: Game Freak

A rare holographic “Illustrator” Pikachu Pokémon card first released in 1998 has been sold for a record-breaking $900,000. 

This news comes by way of Kotaku, which first reported that auction site Goldin announced it’d be auctioning off the rare card. The owner of this now-$900,000 card remains unknown at the time of this writing, but the final auction price blows past previous records for a single Pokémon card. 

A Virtual Boy F-Zero spinoff game called Zero Racers “was done,” according to a former Nintendo Producer. 

However, as anyone who’s ever looked into the history of this spinoff knows, Zero Racers (sometimes known as G-Racers), was never released. This likely had less to do with the game and more to do with the Virtual Boy’s commercial failure. Yes, the Virtual Boy has garnered a fanbase over the past few decades, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t a success. That lack of success likely led to games like Zero Racers never becoming a reality…or so we thought because it turns out Zero Racers was complete and ready for play. 

“Zero Racers was done,” former Nintendo of America localizer and associate producer Jim Wornell told Did You Know Gaming, as reported by Nintendo Life. “We had a complete manual, package, and label done for the game. It went through LOT check, it had an ESRB rating. It was complete.” 

That’s not all that Wornell revealed to Did You Know Gaming, either. He said Zero Racers was never going to have F-Zero in the title, although it was set in the same universe as the famed Nintendo racing franchise. Zero Racers was showcased not once, but twice in the now-defunct Nintendo Power Magazine, complete with screenshots that showed off the tunnel-like nature of the game. It looks more like a Star Wars Death Star run than the racing game you might picture in your head when hear “F-Zero.” 

Elden Ring servers will undergo maintenance this week to improve multiplayer functions.

The official game account has tweeted dates and times for the maintenance on Steam and PlayStation.

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