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A fan movie for SINoALICE, The Very Final Story, will air in theaters on February 23, 2024. There will also be a pop-up store at the Marui Annex in Shinjuku for a limited time. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

The fan movie will seemingly not follow the game's existing story or plotline. It will apparently be an “original episode,” though there’s little information beyond that. Though Square Enix refers to it as a fan movie, the main staff and cast that worked on the game will return for it.

You can watch the trailer for the SINoALICE movie here:

Square Enix collaborated with four famous manga artists and cartoonists to promote the free trial demo for FFXIV. As part of this collaboration, four new short comics were shared on the Japanese official Final Fantasy XIV X account (formerly Twitter).

The authors participating in the collaboration include Usogui author Toshio Sako and Pop Team Epic author Bkub Okawa. Arnolds Hasegawa and Nuko-sama-chan were also featured in the collaboration and are two cartoonists and artists who draw daily life manga stories on their personal blogs.

Sako drew Usogui protagonists Madarame Baku and Kaji Takaomi playing games and gambling at the FFXIV Gold Saucer. Okawa, in contrast, drew Pipimi as a Reaper, trying to explain to Popuko how to play FFXIV and the different mechanics present in the game.

Nintendo shared two new Princess Peach: Showtime costumes that trigger transformations: the cowgirl and ninja. It also confirmed that there will be a new pair of pastel pink Switch Joy-Cons released alongside the game in March 2023.

With the two new Princess Peach costumes, Nintendo shared a Princess Peach: Showtime trailer showing how the transformations will work in the game. The ninja wields kunai. She can hide in grass, to keep an enemy from seeing her. She can also wall-cling to jump to new areas. As for the cowgirl, she uses a whip to attack and can ride a horse during certain segments.

Here’s the latest trailer for Princess Peach: Showtime, which also shows gameplay featuring the swordfighter, detective, patissiere, and kung fu transformations.

Nosebleed Interactive and Wired Productions announced that Arcade Paradise VR will include six new games only available in the Meta Quest 2, 3, and Pro version of the game. There will be 39 total games to add to the laundromat/arcade in the game.

The new trailer for the adaptation goes over some of the upcoming additions, as well as showing what laundromat management and returning arcade elements will look like. The trailer begins by showing Basketball Blast, a basketball arcade cabinet. After that, it shows the Balloon Jack 3D balloon-shooting game. The Istvan Speaks fortune teller appeared after that. Once that segment is done, it goes over the Smash ‘Em light gun cabinet. One of the final new cabinets shown is the boxing game KO Champ. The only one not shown is the new Future Home: Enter Reality one.  

Here’s the new Arcade Paradise VR trailer, which begins showing some of the Meta Quest exclusive games at the 20 second mark. After showing the new cabinets, at the 48 second mark it begins showing the 12 returning games that are now “VR-enhanced,” like air hockey, foosball, and Whack-a-mole.

Capcom has revealed the menu and merchandise list for the Mega Man Battle Network collaboration theme set to run at its cafe outlets from late January 2024 to early March 2024. As shown by the key visual in the initial reveal, the theme will specifically focus on MegaMan.EXE, ProtoMan.EXE, Bass.EXE, Colonel.EXE, and SearchMan.EXE.

A sample image of all exclusive entries in the special menu can be seen above, and the price listing is available right below. All prices here are tax-inclusive and listed in Japanese yen.

• MegaMan's Blue Soda: ¥880
• ProtoMan's Red Ginger: ¥880
• Bass' Chaos Pancake: ¥1,650
• Colonel's Fruit Coffee: ¥880
• SearchMan's Scopegun Brothed Soba: ¥1,980
• MegaMan Burger: ¥1,980

HoYoverse released new information on the upcoming five-star Honkai: Star Rail character Acheron, including her Japanese and English voice actors. In English, she will be voiced by Allegra Clark, while Japanese voice over duties will be handled by Miyuki Sawashiro.

Clark's other roles include Dorothea and Shamir in Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Mitsuru in Persona 3 Reload. Sawashiro, meanwhile, is known for voicing Celty Sturluson in Durarara, Jolyne Cujoh in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle, and Mordred in Fate/Apocrypha and Fate/Grand Order.

As well as being the English voice of Acheron in Honkai: Star Rail, Allegra Clark has previously voiced the character Beidou in HoYoverse's Genshin Impact, while Miyuki Sawashiro provided the Japanese voice for the Raiden Shogun. Like Acheron, both of these characters use lightning-based powers, though it is known as Electro in that game.

Sony took to the PlayStation Blog to release lists of the most downloaded PS4, PS5, PSVR, and PSVR 2 games of 2023. The top titles for last year include Beat Saber, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, EA Sports FC 24, Hogwarts Legacy, Job Simulator, and Pavlov. 

In the case of the PS4 and PS5 games, the top 20 games of 2023 in basically North America and Europe were shared. With the PSVR and PSVR 2, the lists were much shorter. Only the top 10 in both regions appeared. 

Here are the top 10 PS5 games in Canada and the US, according to Sony.

1. Hogwarts Legacy
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III
3. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
4. Madden NFL 24
5. NBA 2K24
6. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
7. Baldur’s Gate 3
8. Diablo IV

Koei Tecmo announced the Atelier Resleriana English release date, and it will appear this week. It will launch on mobile devices and PCs via Steam on January 25, 2024, following the September 2023 Japanese debut.

While only a mobile and PC game, Atelier Resleriana is considered the next mainline entry in the series. It follows the aspiring alchemist Resna and adventurer Valeria. The two are investigating the disappearance of a comet that brought alchemy to the world and attempting to reach World’s End, all while also dealing with the Polar Night Alchemists. In addition to again focusing on synthesizing items and timeline-centered, turn-based battles, it also brings in various characters from past games like Ryza. In fact, the most recent video for Atelier Resleriana shows Ryza, Lent, and Tao in the game.

Larian Studios announced on social media that a patch is now live that fixes the Baldur’s Gate 3 PS5 Error 544 with save files. It also offered details for how to fix the situation on the system after updating the game.

For those who didn’t encounter it, Baldur’s Gate 3 Error 544 kept a PS5 player from saving their progress. This is due to the fact that invisible save files were being made and taking up space. It ended up being a problem throughout December 2023 and January 2024.

After updating the game to the latest version, it will now force all invisible safe files to actually show up for PS5 players. They can then delete unneeded files in the game to eliminate the problem. Larian noted that after getting the Baldur’s Gate 3 patch, they should go to the Load Game section and delete all unwanted saves they can’t recognize. Once this is done, someone should be able to play the game as usual and save without seeing Error 544.

Such fixes regularly come in the form of major and minor patches. For example, one of the other recent January 2024 updates was a hotfix that would keep Gale from leaving the party without proper cause. 

Bandai Spirits revealed that it will sell SH Figuarts action figures of Tanjiro and Nezuko Kamado from Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba-. The company has also indicated that both action figures will be available for sale worldwide in Asia Pacific including Japan, the Americas including the US, and Europe. However, it has not provided any web store links as it will only open the pre-order window on February 1, 2024.

Tanjiro Kamado's action figure will be available in July 2024 with a price tag of 4,400 yen (~$30). The set will come with his Nichirin Sword and its sheath. The package will also have three facial expression parts ranging from closed mouth, angry face, to happy face.

Anime and manga character goods company Amnibus will be releasing a new line of Kingdom Hearts clothing and apparel including jackets, shirts, and hoodies sometime early June 2024. Pre-orders can be made on the new line of apparel until March 12, 2024.

The new Amnibus Kingdom Hearts clothing and apparel line features 14 unique items like shirts, and these items come in sizes starting from small up to XXXL.

• Stadium Jacket - ¥10,780 (~$73 USD)
• Room Wear Set [Men] [Women] - ¥6,600 (~$45 USD)
• Trainer Long Sleeve Shirt [Men] [Women] - ¥6,050 (~$41 USD)

As has been the norm for the Pokemon with guns gamesince its early access launch on January 19, 2024, it hit another milestone after another 24 hours. Palworld now sold another million copies and its Steam concurrent players count passed Counter-Strike 2. 

The latest sales milestone is six million. The five million copies sold reveal came at about 4:15am ET on January 22, 2024 and this latest one happened at 1:05am ET on January 23, 2024, so it took almost 24 hours for the next hallmark to be hit. 

Here’s the announcement tweet, which also confirmed Pocketpair is working on patches:

Square Enix announced that it will bring FFVII Advent Children Complete to movie theaters in the US. The only showings will be held between February 21-22, 2024.

The Fathom Events page for the showings is already live. From what I saw on the page, the February 21, 2024 showing are all the English dub. The February 22, 2024 ones all seem to be for the Japanese version with English subtitles. Tickets seem to be around $16-17, depending on the theater selected. 

In addition to this being the extended cut of the FFVII Advent Children Complete, FFVII Rebirth segments will precede this showing. The announcement didn’t note how long the “preshow” portion will be, but it did note it will include a history for this entry and insights into the remake trilogy from Naoki Hamaguchi, Tetsuya Nomura, and Yoshinori Kitase. 

As a reminder, this FFVII movie is a sequel to the original game. It follows Cloud, Tifa, and his allies, as well as the Shinra Turks Reno and Rude, as they deal with Kadaj and his brothers Loz and Yazoo. All three are remnants of Sephiroth, and the crew is dealing with them while also seeing the effects of Geostigma on people after Sephiroth’s defeat.

Capcom released a new mobile app that lets people explore Kashihara City in Japan's Nara Prefecture with a Street Fighter theme. The Street Fighter x Kashihara Sightseeing Tour app is now available on the Japanese Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

This app features landmark spots in the city, and a navigation map that creates routes to those spots will also play theme songs from the fighting game series. It also has an AR camera where users can spawn Street Fighter characters unleashing their signature moves. A Gallery mode that gradually unlocks character artworks by clearing given quests completes the app.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, a game that SEO and general cultural awareness requires me to constantly remind you is the eighth main entry in the Yakuza series, follows Ichiban Kasuga as plot reasons send him to the bright environs of Hawaii. Infinite Wealth takes place in a wild fantasy version of our world, in which famous online personalities have a reputation for fact-checking and currencies have a reliable and consistent exchange rate. It follows the last game as a turn-based RPG, sticking with this new scheme as the future of the franchise.

There’s definitely a degree to which starting to play a new Like a Dragon game feels a lot like continuing to play the last one. You’re in the same worlds as the same characters, and previous minigames and personalities return whenever possible. The franchise is happy to continue with the level of world interaction and environmental design it established almost two decades ago. Boxes block stairwells, and lines of people or invisible walls funnel you to destinations. There's no significant effort to make the world feel more real. It is what it is.

Sometimes, I end up covering a game that I’d never expect to like as much as I do. Lil Guardsman absolutely surprised me with its detail, depth, humor, and heart. It embraces the absurdity of a child thrust into a dangerous, high-stakes job, while also emphasizing how certain choices influence the city and its people.

Things in Lil Guardsman start out fairly innocently. Lil is the daughter of Hamish, a guardsman who mans the gate at a kingdom called The Sprawl. He wants to bet on a Goblinball game, so he drafts his daughter to fill his position. As the days go by and the situation in the city changes, Lil ends up with increasingly strict restrictions from major authorities in the kingdom, handling greater responsibilities and night shifts, and basically becomes a test subject for a Chronometer 3000 device that can let her rewind time.

As someone completely new to series, Tekken 8 was pretty daunting to walk into. Move lists that could have over a hundred attacks can leave you wondering where to start with your character. The paddlings I received online showed me that I wasn’t quite on the right track just by picking a character and winging it, that’s for sure. While the game does have tools to make it easy to hop in and start slapping folks around and its single player modes have tons of fun in store no matter what your skill level, it’s the satisfying journey of finding a character and delving into their incredible depths that really makes this game shine bright.

After picking up fighting games a few years ago, I’ve always had an interest in the series, but those expansive move lists always left me worrying. Yes, I know that when you have dozens upon dozens of moves, they can’t all be useful and you’re more supposed to just incorporate them as you slowly learn a character. Still, how do you play someone like King or Jin right out of the gate? What are the good tools? What are my pokes? What moves are good at catching the opponent when they miss? It’s a lot to put together.

Square Enix and Applibot have announced that they will end NieR Reincarnation services worldwide on April 29, 2024. The final chapter is titled "The People and the World," and it will be released on March 28, 2024 to allow players a month to complete the game.

Until the game's end of service and the launch of "The People and the World Act III: Transmigration," there will be brand new content and characters added into the game. Alongside new content, there will be new events and campaigns.

Square Enix and Applibot have shared their final roadmap for NieR Reincarnation ahead of the end of service, which can be viewed below:

[gallery size="large" columns="1" ids="1008354" link="file"]

The new Variation quest "Blazing Binding Oculus" will run from January 30, 2024 to February 17, 2024. The new Record quest "The Cage of Rebirth" will run from February 17, 2024 to April 29, 2024. Numerous resurrected quests from the past will also return and run concurrently during NieR Reincarnation's end of service.

Pictures of the Fate/Grand Order rooms for the 2023 and 2024 version of Hotel Chaldea have come out. These collaboration rooms will only be available until March 31, 2024. [Thanks, 4Gamer!]

For reference, Sunshine City Prince Hotel, which collaborated with Lasengle in 2019 on Hotel Chaldea, in Ikebukuro is the hotel to book if you’re interested. There are four different concept rooms in total, each focusing on a different pair of Servants. The Servants for this particular collaboration are Arjuna, Charlemagne, James Moriarty (Ruler), Karna (Lancer), Oberon, Saito Hajime, Sengo Muramasa, and Takasugi Shinsaku.

Nexon Games and Yostar Pictures announced the release date of the Blue Archive anime adaptation alongside the release of its first promotional trailer. Blue Archive The Animation will premiere in Japan in April 2024.

The trailer features various scenes of characters Shiroko, Hoshino, Serika, Nonomi, and Ayane preparing in the morning before going to school. Additionally, Nexon Games and Yostar also shared a new key visual art for the anime, as well as various character design sheets.

The design sheets feature Hoshino, Serika, Nonomi, Ayane from the Abydos High School, and Aru, Kayoko, Haruka, and Mutsuki of the Handyman 68 school club belonging to the Gehenna Academy.

You can check out the new key visual and the character design sheets in more detail here:

The official Twitter (X) account for Project Snorlax will post illustrations of Snorlax every day between January 22-27, 2024. Today’s picture features Snorlax in Heart Gold/Soul Silver. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

The Snorlax illustrations revolve around the idea of Snorlax standing before you as an opponent. It will feature illustrations of Snorlax based on scenes from HGSS, PLA, DP, SwSH, and SM. Today’s picture references the fight against Red in Mt. Silver Cave in Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver. This version of Red has a level 82 Snorlax as part of his roster. Ethan has a Typhlosion out to engage in battle with Snorlax. Many people have replied to the Tweet with their stories about how difficult Red was as an opponent, and how Snorlax in particular was a tough enemy.

Project Snorlax is a campaign that The Pokemon Company started in 2023. It focuses entirely on Snorlax. So far, other pieces of media that emerged from Project Snorlax include a short manga series about Snorlax’s dreams and a video about living with Snorlax in the countryside.

VTuber Tenkai Tsukasa announced that the Spring VTuber Koshien will take place from February 1, 2024 to March 24, 2024. This is the first time in five years that the Spring VTuber Koshien will be held. [Thanks, 4Gamer!]

The Spring VTuber Koshien will use Konami’s eBaseball Power Pros 2022. August 2019 was the last time there was a Koshien, and archives of the matches still exist on YouTube. VTubers from multiple agencies, including Nijisanji and Hololive, will participate. It's unknown of international branches such as Nijisanji EN will be present. Shiina Yuika of Nijisanji, Hakui Koyori of Hololive, and Shibuya Haru of Neo-Porte will be the three managers for the tournament.

The Freedom Gundam is receiving a bit of a revival thanks to the Mobile Suit Gundam Seed movie, as it will appear in both Extreme Versus 2 and Battle Operation 2. The Rising Freedom Gundam, which will appear in the movie, is the version that will show up in Extreme Versus 2. [Thanks, Dengeki Online!]

To start with, let’s discuss the introduction of Rising Freedom Gundam Extreme Versus 2. There are no details about its release date and gameplay as of yet, but there will be more information about it in the future. Like the base Freedom and Strike Freedom Gundams, Rising Freedom has back-mounted wings that it can likely use to move faster. Based on the picture for Extreme Versus 2, it looks like Rising Freedom has the Voiture Lumiere system, like the Destiny Gundam, or something similar to that There appears to be a light effect in between the Rising Freedom’s wings, which was how the Destiny looked when it activated Voiture Lumiere.

Dengeki Online published the results of of its unofficial popularity poll for Pikmin 4. The Rock Pikmin has emerged victorious over its peers. [Thanks, Dengeki Online!]

We only know the top five winners, and Dengeki Online has included comments from people explaining why they voted for these characters. Here are the results of the Pikmin 4 popularity poll:

1. Rock Pikmin
   Voters particularly like their voices, as well as how round they are.
2. Blue Pikmin
   Voters really like how “stupid” it looks thanks to its mouth, as well as how brave they are when they swim around even in areas that contain a Waterwraith.
3. Purple Pikmin
   Voters like how it’s both cute and powerful. They also cite that the way they slowly walk around when they’re carrying something is adorable.

Bandai Namco revealed that new outfits, new dog mount, and a new class are coming to Blue Protocol soon. The developers showed the new content in the most recent developer livestream.

The new Blue Protocol outfits are designed after foreign country style school uniforms. They will be available from January 2024 as gacha outfits. There are 6 new outfits available for both male and female characters. Additionally, three new rideable dog mounts will join the new gacha. You can check out the outfits and dog mounts here:

Square Enix released a few Final Fantasy VII Rebirth screenshots on social media highlighting Yuffie and her abilities. In particular, it shows a quick glimpse of the ninja’s new doppelganger attack.

It seems the latest batch of images highlight three different types of attack from Yuffie. In one, she’s performing a standard attack with her four-point shuriken. In the other, it seems that she is performing her Elemental Ninjutsu ability. This appeared in the Episode INTERmission DLC in Final Fantasy VII Remake and allowed her to change the element tied to her attacks. It’s the third screenshot that shows the doppelganger move. When performed, a duplicate of her shows up to also attack whichever enemy is also on the field in front of her.

Here’s a closer look at all three of the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Yuffie battle screenshots.

Crunchyroll announced its Game Vault now includes two more games. Ponpu and Yuppie Psycho are now part of the collection on mobile devices for subscribers.

Ponpu first debuted back in 2020. It involves birds wielding bombs. While the focus is on multiplayer, as up to four people can take part in Coin Steal, Deathmatch, or the 2v2 Paint Battle, it also features a single-player campaign. 

Here’s how that looks:

Yuppie Psycho first showed up in 2019. It’s a horror adventure game involving a new employee at Sintracorp, which turns out to be a corporation with malicious and dangerous secrets. It’s an entirely single-player experience.

Hakos Baelz shared a new Hololive English song cover that features all 15 current Vtubers with the company. It is their take on Gero’s “Mind Craft,” and the music video is live now.

Here’s the full “Mind Craft” performance by Hololive EN.

As a reminder, this song cover with all of the current Hololive English Vtubers ended up delayed a few times. Various circumstances pushed the performance out of 2023 and into 2024.

Here’s the full list of all Hololive English members who appear in the video. 

Hololive EN Myth:

• Amelia Watson

To celebrate the Cinnamoroll birthday coming up on March 6, 2024, Sanrio is opening a pop-up corner at the Sanrio Anime store in Ikebukuro's P'PARCO store from March 1-10, 2024. The pop-up will feature new merchandise to celebrate Cinnamoroll's birthday featuring A3 GraffArt illustrations.

The Cinnamoroll birthday merchandise pop-up corner in the Sanrio Anime store features 9 items with 34 variations, including the following items:

• GraffArt Can Badge (9 types, blind bag) - ¥550 (~$4 USD) each, ¥4,950 (~$33 USD)  complete
• GraffArt Acrylic Keychain with Parts (9 types, blind bag) - ¥990 (~$7 USD) each, ¥8,910 (~$60 USD) complete

In a recent interview with Spanish-speaking gaming outlet Atomix, Persona 3 Reload Director Takuya Yamaguchi and Producer Ryota Niitsuma said that the idea for a Nintendo Switch version of the game exists. [Thanks, Atomix.vg!]

When asked about the possibility of a port of Persona 3 Reload reaching the hybrid platform, the developers said that “since starting to conceptualize [the remake], we decided that there would be no Nintendo Switch version.” The developers admitted that the idea for a Switch version still exists. However, Yamaguchi and Niitsuma added that whether or not this version comes to happen is a matter of discussing it with the development team and see what they think about it.

Steam Deck owners wanting to play Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak on their machines are out of luck this week, as a recent update patch resulted in the game becoming unplayable on the platform. While Capcom has not confirmed it, many are blaming the introduction of the Enigma DRM system in the update.

Ver.16.0.2.0 went live on all platforms on January 22, 2024, and it mainly served to make certain promotional DLC unavailable to reinstall. However, since the update some users have found evidence of the digital rights management software Engima being integrated into the game. While Capcom did not confirm the addition as being the source of the problems, similar issues popped up when the software was added to other Capcom games like Resident Evil Revelations. The company has, however, promised a hotfix for Sunbreak on Steam Deck sometime "in the very near future".

You can read the full patch notes for Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak Ver.16.0.2.0 on the official site, and find Capcom's official response to Steam Deck issues below:

Now that Hololive Vtuber Houshou Marine passed three million subscribers, she released the game The Second World that she worked on starting when she was in middle school. This was part of a promise she made to fans, as she said she’d do so if she hit that follower mark.

To get the game, people must get it from Dropbox. It is available as a zip file there, and you must use the password “marine” to get it and play it on PCs. It is an RPG Maker XV title, and she started working on it in 2007.

Here is the official stream when Marine announced she would release it and shared the download. It also features the direct link and password.

We’re in that odd time of year when a number of big releases are upon us and games from other developers that might not normally get as much attention really shine. Palworld ended up becoming the latest "game of the moment," with many pointing to it as a Pokemon with guns rip-off. However, until you really look at Pals and Pokemon side-by-side, you might not see exactly how close these characters are to ones from Game Freak and The Pokemon Company, as well as Square Enix and Studio Ghibli.

Since Palworld launched, and even before, people have been referring to the character Lamball as being discount Wooloo, and it fits. There’s definitely a strong resemblance to the Pokemon, with the Palworld character’s main difference being the lack of fringe on the sides and it being bipedal.

Uniqlo has confirmed the release date for its re-releases of Metal Gear-themed T-shirts. It will start selling the Metal Gear UT Archive T-shirts on January 22, 2024.

A total of six T-shirt designs will be available in this collection. The lineup will include artworks of Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Solid Snake and Liquid Snake from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Raiden from Metal Gear Rising. As a side note, the Japanese text box on one of them translates to "This is an order!! Cut the power supply to the MSX!! ...Over"

Bandai Spirits will be releasing a new Kingdom Hearts Ichiban Kuji lottery titled "Linking Hearts," and there will be both a figure of Sora and Roxas in it. The new Ichiban Kuji lottery will release late May 2024 and tickets for the lottery will retail for ¥790 (~$5 USD).

There are seven prizes for the Ichiban Kuji lottery, which excludes the Double Chance and Last One prizes from previous Kingdom Hearts Ichiban Kuji. No retailers have been listed for this lottery, although previous ones ran in 7-Eleven and Ito-Yokado stores across Japan. The run period for this lottery has not yet been revealed. More information about this new Ichiban Kuji will be revealed at a later date.

The prizes for the Kingdom Hearts: Linking Hearts lottery are as follows:

• A Prize: Sora statue
• B Prize: Visual Bath Towel
• C Prize: Cushion
• D Prize: Glass Plate
• E Prize: Towels
• F Prize: Design Tumbler
• G Prize: Keyblade Charm collection

Currently, the only prize in the Ichiban Kuji Kingdom Hearts lottery that has been revealed is the Sora figure. This Sora statue is based on the Kingdom Hearts II's Station of Awakening, which features Sora asleep in the stained glass platform. The figure can be viewed below:

Pocketpair announced two new Palworld milestones, as it hit a new downloads hallmark and set a Steam concurrent player count record. The game now passed five million in sales, and it passed 1.5 million concurrent players.

With the Palworld five million downloads announcement, Pocketpair shared a new piece of art with insight. That plateau was within three days of the early access game’s launch.

To offer more context, the game passed a million in sales after being available to purchase on Steam for eight hours.

Seven years since the release of Spirit of Justice and sixteen since Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, we finally have a comprehensive compilation of the final three games in the Ace Attorney series. While the ports do justice to the original releases—even enhancing them—the fact that they easily allow you to play the games back to back highlights the existing issues with these games.

For reference, this review’s score will focus on the experience of playing the games as ports. However, it is almost impossible to play it and not notice the dips in quality. I also had the brilliant idea of purchasing the original trilogy and The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for the Switch, since they were on sale. Replaying a bit of those ones before continuing Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy was not fantastic. Like I said earlier, playing all of these games without years in between make it hard to ignore all the little issues that pile up.

The Emblem Rings from Fire Emblem Engage will appear in real life. Takara Tomy Arts will release the Fire Emblem Engage Emblem Ring Engage Collection as capsule toys inside gashapon machines in Japan in early 2024. [Thanks, Dengeki Hobby Web!]

As these rings are set to appear as capsule toys, people will be able to obtain them randomly by paying just 300 yen (~$2) for a single try. The rings will have a diameter of 2.2 cm (~0.87 inches) and be made with zinc alloy and metallic coating. Each ring will also be chained with a paper tag featuring the Fire Emblem Engage logo.

While Nintendo and Intelligent Systems released more Emblem Rings featuring characters like Camilla and Hector as DLC for Fire Emblem Engage, this collection will only have the twelve rings featured in the base game. Volume 1 will appear first with Marth, Sigurd, Celica, Micaiah, Roy, and Leif's rings in late January 2024. Volume 2 will follow later in late February 2024, and it will complete the roster with Lyn, Lucina, Ike, Byleth, Corrin, and Eirika's rings.

HoYoVerse has announced that the special program for Honkai: Star Rail Version 2.0 will air on January 26, 2024. You’ll be able to catch it on 7:30 PM CST/3:30 AM PT/6:30 AM ET.

You can catch the live stream on YouTube. The title of the new update is “If One Dreams At Midnight.” This will be the debut of Penacony, which has been the next destination for the Astral Express since they left Jarilo-VI. According to the announcement, Dawei, one of the founders of HoYoVerse, and the Honkai: Star Rail team will personally deliver information on Honkai: Star Rail Version 2.0. This means the stream will mostly be in Chinese, much like the recent Genshin Impact Version 4.4 special program.

While more than a handful of games released for the Apple Arcade in 2023, there a few that stood a head above the rest. Not all of the games that made our list of the best games available on Apple's gaming service will surprise you, but maybe this will entice you to give these games a shot! You can check out our list of what we felt were the best Apple Arcade games in 2023 below.

As Butters aptly said many years ago in South Park, Hello Kitty Island Adventure is the best! Jokes aside, this game is actually a ton of fun to play and gives me some solid Animal Crossing vibes with all the different activities and adorable characters. I need to get back to it. Outside of that, Fantasian is a gorgeous and lengthy JRPG from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi that seriously needs to come to other platforms. — Cody

Yeah, I have to go with Hello Kitty Island Adventure is the best. It's a really solid game with lots of fun updates, plenty of characters, and a gameplay loop that motivates you to keep playing. Multiplayer event quests like the Halloween one aside, it's definitely worth someone's time. — Jenni