April 2023

Magical Drop VI is, in many ways, a fairly admirable entry. It features six single-player modes, with solo competitive, puzzle, and survival options and a story mode that essentially combines elements of all three. You can play locally or online. However, it also features drastic unlocking elements

To start, you only have four characters available out of 15 available to you in multiplayer at the outset in Multiplayer. (These are Fool, Justice, Lovers, and World.) If you want the others, you need to complete certain modes or hit various milestones. However, in Single Player you only have Lover initially in Match. Fool, Justice, Lovers, and World are open in Survival right away. Given how critical multiplayer is to the game, it’s so disappointing to not immediately have every character available to use.

[caption id="attachment_961283" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot via Siliconera[/caption]

Bloober Team has dropped a new Layers of Fear "showcase" teaser to show off "the power of Unreal Engine 5" and its "advanced technological tools".

The team says that "the Lumen, Ray Tracing, and Niagara effects" help "create visuals and effects that are beyond words and feel lifelike".

The new trailer follows an 11-minute video that dropped last month which also showed off the gameplay changes and new visuals.

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A mod that lets you play as a female version of Joker in Persona 5 Royal is now available on Gamebanana. This mod will feature the voice talent of Alexa Farron (VentyWenty) in the English version, and Maaya Sakamoto in the Japanese. When playing as a girl, you can date both male and female characters.

This mod is only available on the PC version of Persona 5 Royal. She looks essentially like Joker but with longer hair and alternate outfits. The anime cutscenes and title screen still use the male Joker. In a note on Gamebanana, the modder chlorophylls noted that you will be able to romance Ryuji, Yusuke, Mishima, Akechi, Haru, Hifumi, Takemi, and Ann. Kasumi is not a romanceable option.

Other than that, the mod mostly replaces Joker’s model in the overworld and in battle. In gameplay, Joker will be able to use female-only armor but no longer be able to wear male-armor. There are some new event animations, as well as altered dialog. The Kindness requisite to start Ann’s Confidant no longer exists. This is likely due to the fact that a fellow girl can easily relate to Ann. Finally, you will be able to enter the girls’ bathrooms in Shujin.

Good Smile Company opened up pre-orders for Nendoroids of Maya Fey and Apollo Justice from the Ace Attorney series. You will be able to recreate their sprites from the games using the various face plates and optional parts. Pre-orders will close on June 8, 2023. Both of them cost 6,700 JPY/$48.99. They will ship out in October 2023 for Japan. North American customers can expect them some time in Q4 2023.

The Ace Attorney Maya Nendoroid will have an energetic face, a proud face, and a surprised face. Some of the optional parts include a “Victory” banner, a witness stand, and an illustration sheet of the detention center. So if you have the Phoenix Nendoroid, you can pretend they're chatting after one of Maya's many arrests, or they're there to meet a client. Since she is a Nendoroid, you will get a Nendoroid Effects Sheet as a bonus.

[gallery columns="5" ids="961106,961105,961104,961103,961102" link="file"]

Likewise, the Ace Attorney Apollo Justice Nendoroid will have three face plates. There will be a smiling one, a serious one, and a shocked one. Optional parts include a desk, documents, and text plates. The text plates resemble the speech bubbles that pop up in court, and they will come in both Japanese and English.

Diablo content creator and partner Wudijo has revealed what's included in the Diablo 4 Collector's Edition.

Wudijo captured their first impressions when they recorded the unboxing – which was delivered in a box clearly marked "do not ship before 1 June 2023" – and shared it on their YouTube channel.

You can check it out for yourself in the video below:

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PC Call of Duty players have set up a petition in a bid to convince Activision and Infinity Ward to "resolve the issues introduced by season three".

Issues first began to pop up shortly after the update was rolled out, and despite tweets and messages from developer Infinity Ward assuring players that it was "investigating", the problems still persist for some.

The issue has primarily been affecting players with AMD Vega GPUs and other Vega hardware, resulting in almost immediate crashes for PC players trying to access either Modern Warfare 2 or Warzone 2.0.

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The newest “Keeping Up With Star Rail” Honkai Star Rail video focuses on Clara, who is a young girl living on Jarilo-VI in Belobog. Like previous ones, it mostly introduce us to who Clara is as a unit, rather than a character. In Honkai Star Rail, Clara is a five-star Physical Destruction character who fights with the giant robot Svarog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQhH3Xpmh18

Clara serves as both a tank and a DPS in our party if we use her in Honkai Star Rail. She can decrease how much damage she takes, and Svarog can counterattack enemies that hit her. Her Skill attacks all enemies with Physical DMG, and her Technique raises the chances of enemies attacking her. Her Ultimate further reduces the damage she takes, as well as increases how much enemies target her.

As for Clara in the game, the player encounters her in Belobog. She is an orphan whose greatest wish is to have a family, and the robot Svarog fulfills that dream of hers. With Clara’s help, the player is able to communicate with Svarog during the Belobog story quest. While HoYoVerse has not commented directly on the similarities, Clara may be a shout-out or reference to Illya from the Fate series. This is due to her appearance, as well as in her usage of a protective giant.

Good Smile Company revealed a new Nendoroid based on Hololive’s own grim reaper VTuber Mori Calliope. This figure will include various parts and accessories to display all of Calliope’s skills, such as reaping and rapping. Pre-orders for this Nendoroid are now open for ¥6,500 or $47.99. The figure is set to release in Japan in October 2023, with a planned Q4 2023 release in North America.

The Nendoroid will feature three face plates including smiling, rapping, and “weirded-out” expressions. It will come with a microphone, sunglasses, a wine glass, her “Ricky” scythe, and a special base with her name and death-sensei’s face on it. All these accessories serve to showcase Calliope’s personality and resemble the style of content she is known for.

Take a closer look at the Mori Calliope Nendoroid poses and accessories here below.

[gallery columns="4" ids="961199,961201,961202,961200,961203,961204,961205" link="file"]

Mori Calliope herself also expressed her excitement with her Nendoroid's announcement. Moreover, she even shared pictures of some of the released figures based on her so far.

https://twitter.com/moricalliope/status/1651975900366503936?s=20

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor players have encountered another irritating bug – and this one steals your XP.

Many of you may have already come across the enemy Mogu, a big space troll thing that packs a punch. Trouble is, it turns out that the troll hits so hard, in some cases it smashes your XP clean off – or into – the map so that you can't recover it.

In a reddit post entitled "don't die to this troll, he eats your XP", u/slaymaker1907 reports that there "seems to be a bug where if you die to this very particular troll, you can't get your XP back".

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Given how new Honkai: Star Rail is, it's basically impossible to decide who the best overall characters are. It'll take time to work it out, as well as additions to the roster that help us see possible team compositions. However, now that it's been around for a few days and we've found our footing, we started discovering people who are already working well for us. We figured lets talk about characters we recommend and find out who might be worth possibly recruiting.

I have to say Bailu is my best Honkai: Star Rail character, because she's the five-star RNG decided I deserved. I'm pretty happy about it too! Her character design is fantastic. But more importantly, she's a healer! It means that I've been able to push through areas of the game that might have been a bit too strong for me early, because her Singing Among the Clouds special heals one character, then randomly heals an additional one, and her Felicitous Thunderleap ultimate heals every party member and invigorates them. Not to mention invigorated allies that are injured get health regenerated. She's such a helpful dragon! -- Jenni

In a video commemorating the second anniversary of Link Click, Studio Lan seems to confirm that season 2 will start some time in mid-Summer 2023. The video shows the second anniversary outfits of the three main characters, as well as scenes from the first season. As a warning, there are major spoilers for the first season of Link Click in this video.

As mentioned earlier, the video straight up spoils the final twist that takes place in the last episode of Link Click season 1. So if you have not finished the show yet, you may want to hold off on watching the trailer. You can watch it via the official Link Click Twitter account, as well as on services like Bilibili:

https://twitter.com/sgdlr_offical/status/1652508069442760705

The video mostly focuses on the Emma plot from the first season. It also serves as a trailer for the second season, as there are many sequences that Studio Lan has not previously shown. New shots include what looks like a funeral and a continuation of the confrontation from the end of the first season. There is also a guy with a pink kitty headset.

UPDATE 1/5/23: We've now completed work on our main console tech review, which goes into more depth on the visual accomplishment Respawn has achieved with Star Wars Jedi: Survivor - and the price it had to pay in achieving this level of fidelity in terms of both performance and resolution. We've also added in analysis of Xbox Series X, which - generally speaking - is much the same as the PlayStation 5 version. Xbox Series S? That's where things switch up somewhat.

Ray tracing seems to be out of the picture for Series S users. The subtle lighting detail present on the higher-end consoles seems entirely absent here, a concession to meet the capabilities of Microsoft’s junior console. Plus, there's only one visual mode here, targeting 30fps, with no performance option. Even without the RT features of PS5 and Series X and a firm 30fps target, image quality still falls below expectations. It looks roughly like a 1080p reconstruction target, based on the scaling artifacts, general lack of detail in the final image, and blurry UI. Internally, the game seems to operate around 864p or so most of the time, which sort of splits the difference between the resolution and quality modes available on the other platforms.

Proponents of modern AI tech—and this is our weekly reminder that it’s not actually artificial intelligence at all—have big plans for video games. Ubisoft is dabbling, Square Enix is dabbling, but those are just testbeds: for a more comprehensive look at what AI supporters want to see in their video games, you should…

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Following its introduction in the Trailblaze Mission “Ones Fallen into the Abyss,” Honkai: Star Rail occasionally brings back Findie the Interastral Peace Corporation object finder for additional quests like the “Hook’s Treasure” Companion Mission. Overall, this sidequest starring the Jarilo-VI Moles leader is really straightforward. You’ll accompany her into Rivet Town to find items to sell for her father’s birthday gift. The only really difficult part involves searching the Honkai: Star Rail Rivet Town orphanage for said treasures.

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Where will you find both treasures in the Honkai: Star Rail "Hook's Treasure" Rivet Town orphanage Companion Mission?

The main treasure you're looking for is Junjun the Cuddly Bear. However, there are two items you can find while searching. The first is Julian's Time Capsule. It's by the slide, on the side facing toward the orphanage itself. Place a Findie right near the front of it, and you'll get a point to investigate.

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After that, you can find Junjun. Head toward the stairs heading up to the orphanage. Place Findie toward the righthand side, and then you'll find Hook's real "treasure" in Honkai: Star Rail.

VShojo and Nyatasha Nyanners announced the VTuber will be leaving the company. Both the performer and company announced the split on April 30, 2023. She will not be graduating. Rather, she will go on streaming as an independent VTuber. This also means the Ironside PC cases for her will stop being sold soon as well. She's been a part of the company since November 2020.

Here is VShojo's statement on Nyatasha Nyanners' departure.

pic.twitter.com/V5Dgl10Vbc

— VShojo (@VShojo) April 30, 2023

This is Nyatasha Nyanner's official statement on her departure from VSh. She didn't cite a specific reason, but noted “It is something I have been seriously deliberating for a while.” She also noted she will continue performing.

pic.twitter.com/MBm2OdRKh7

— Nyatasha Nyanners 👻 (@NyanNyanners) April 30, 2023

I’m not a full-time comics guy, but I certainly have my favourites. And Hellboy might be my most favourite of all, so to have gone decades without knowing that its creator Mike Mignola worked on a Final Fantasy comic has blown my weekend wide open.

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