themightyant

@UltimateOtaku91 @johnedwin There is no such thing as a perfect videogame (except perhaps Tetris), there is ALWAYS room for improvement, which would make the review scale 1-9 by your reckoning.

10/10 has never meant a game is perfect, ever. Just as a 5/5 review for a film does not mean it's flawless. 10/10 just means it's one of the best games they've played and deserves exceptional praise.

BTW It's not NintendoLife, over 10 reviews have given it top marks.

@Reyren The Eurogamer review says "is the most approachable in the series to date; indeed, it seems tooled towards an audience who've never played a Xenoblade game before, or maybe even one that's not touched a JRPG before." Because there is a 'very easy' mode.

My copy just arrived 3 days early! Sadly I have too much IRL stuff to be getting on with and it will have to wait. But glad to see reviews are phenomenal. 89 on MC right now. Love Xenoblade.

@Roibeard64 Perhaps. I'm on the other end of the scale where this has highlighted that I have DLC I need to buy. If it hadn't been singled out i'd be none the wiser. Guess they win some, lose others.

@Roibeard64 Re: FE:Fates. You have to play up to the end of Chapter 6 and then select if you want to play the other starter game (Birthright or Conquest) or the concluding game (Revelation). It seems they are giving people a month to get to that point and decide if they want to buy the rest as DLC.

Pong I think, or Space Invaders. I was pretty young.

Though I remember staring endlessly at a Pac-man table at a pub my family used to go to when I was a kid. I was already hooked.

Lovely article @KateGray combination of two of my favourite hobbies, lots of great books here to recommend. Many of these games are better the more you know on the subject matter. Hades in particular was a joy the more you knew about the various gods and demi-gods.

Tip on the wine: when they give you a sample, you’re actually just meant to be checking if the wine is corked (i.e. spoiled) and not if you like it. Just smell the wine in the glass (or the cork if at home) if it smells like wine you’re all good if it smells acidic or vinegary then send it back! No need to taste it. At least you’ll look like you know what you are doing!

Not a fan of adding extras characters and skins 6-8 months after launch but i'm looking forward to the story expansion.

Loving the diversity of the tracks announced so far. One of the things that made the first Xenoblade Chronicles so good was having multiple composers each with their own style. It meant you had sweeping, adventurous open world tracks like Guar Plains but also rock, metal and electric guitar tracks when the action heated up.

Remains one of the best soundtracks of all time

@Kogorn733 Sadly absolutely nothing. Platforms like eBay are more interested in money and a mass blacklist for who? There's always going to be people willing to pay. Sad but true.

Great games. Stone cold classics both.

Not a bad showcase. But many games I can play elsewhere or don't interest me. And my heart years for Silksong...

Being patent and not skipping through to see the Chapter titles

Silksong date and i'll be happy

I’m really feeling it!

I think I still have callouses on my fingers caused by getting one of those SF2 SNES packages.

Didn’t watch the direct as I want to go in as blind as possible. But loving the look of some of some of those screenshots. Love this series.

IT'S REYN TIME!

Just picked up Xenoblade Chronicles Defeinitive Edition to play through, and Future Connected, before this comes out. Haven't played it since the Wii, it was one of my favourite RPG's.

Looking forward to this one.

Played this a few years ago, it’s a masterpiece of game design once again from Lucas Pope. Unique and never played a game that made me feel more like an actual detective, very little hand holding, it’s left up to you.

@Bunkerneath LOL Was about to post the same. I don't usually get motion sick in games but just watching that video made me queasy. I'm going to lie down

@KindofaBigDeal Ah! never played that one. Now I want to

Needs more of this

This is tough because Goldeneye (N64) was a 10/10 at the time, but it has aged woefully.

What I will say, it wasn't a great game, but I still enjoyed Blood Stone. The idea of a new James Bond adventure in the style of a movie with a great cast (Daniel Craig, Judy Dench, Bill Tanner, Joss Stone etc.) was really exciting, even had it's own theme tune and Bond intro.

A great idea that didn't quite hit home. Would love to see someone try this again now.

Generally don’t believe in pre-ordering but Monolithsoft haven’t let me down since Nintendo acquired them and it’s £39.85 at Shopto right now. Pre-ordered

Although Silksong was officially announced just over 3 years ago (Feb 2019) we’ve actually been waiting much much longer. Initially this was a Kickstarter tier reward to the original Kickstarter campaign way back in 2014 and was meant to be DLC.

It has been my most anticipated game for SO long now. Wishing Team Cherry well on getting over the line. Hopefully an update soon.

Will be interesting to see how this fits in. Look like the Mechon from XC1 and the brief glimpse of the landscape looks very Mechonis/Bionis.

The opening to Ori is up there with the opening to Up for most tear duct opening beginning in media

"False expectations" this industry seems to run on them

YAY! i'm younger than I thought.

Does this include the Cards? Loads of my friends kids are all obsessed with Pokemon cards again, it's like jumping back 30 years.

DQ Builders 3?

That was excellent. Whimsical little fan project. Love it. Well deserved A

To do that they will have to significantly improve their output which will take a long time.

@Ryu_Niiyama No issue at all. I just thought it interesting you were saying Nintendo don't make mainstream games. When to my eyes games like Mario Kart. Mario and Animal Crossing are the definition of mainstream. But I guess that is subjective. Peace.

Mario Kart Tour at $4.99pm is definitely a live service and you can easily argue that Mario Kart 8 deluxe and Super Smash Bros Ultimate with all their staggered DLC packs are also live service games, depending on who's definition you use. One of the popular ones is:

"A live service game is a type of video game that’s designed to keep people engaged, so they play it for as long as possible. That means that instead of making one game and moving on to the next, companies create a game they can update for years to come."

Sound familiar?

Perhaps. Though personally as someone who rarely uses the Switch's USP (portability) it is usually the worst place to play everything. If Nintendo's exclusives came out on PC I likely wouldn't buy their console which would also lose them out on console revenue, 3rd party store revenue and having to share the cut with Epic/Steam. The same isn't true for PlayStation/Xbox for me. YMMV but I expect there a enough gamers in my position for them to take a hit overall.

I'd posit that Mario Kart and Animal Crossing's numbers certainly make them firmly "mainstream". But at the end of the day it's just subjective pigeonholing and unimportant.

After a year of being pretty idle (lockdown 3 was a killer) I recently got back into this and it was the starting domino that pushed me back into regular and more hardcore exercise. It really is a great fitness tool and game wrapped into one.

I'd love to see other games that use the Ring-con and as others have said multiplayer

I want them to take as long as needed to make Silksong a worthy successor to Hollow Knight.

At the same time the wait IS agonising.

It's been over 3 years since it was announced and in January last year it was the cover feature of EDGE magazine. Even then it seemed 'It can’t be too much longer, surely!', yet here we are almost a year and a half later with hardly a word on the game.

I'd be very dubious to take one man's word over another and base my viewpoint on it. Especially on that last quote which sounds pretty self indulgent, sounds like there is some bad blood and bias there.

@GsPandem Yes! the MUSIC is wonderful.
So much variety and every region has a different musical influence. 10/10. I deliberately take a long time on some bosses like Stormterror just to hear the crescendo. (Ganyu kills him in 10 seconds lol)

And you’re right it does SOME things better than BOTW even if it’s isn’t nearly as good a game imho

@Kirgo Nice! Meanwhile I got C3 Qiqi 🤣😂😔😢😭

I seem to lose every 50:50 on the character banner.

That said I get very lucky on weapons. Redhorn for Itto, Primordial Jade Spear for Xiao, Engulfing Lightning for Raiden, Aquila Favonia for Bennett, and R2 Wolfs Gravestone for Diluc. (Last two were on standard banner)

Enjoy the game

@Kirgo in a very similar boat. Played since day 1. Ultra-low spend, I’ve spent less than the price of one game, but didn’t have to at all.

Like you have about 40% of the 5 star character and (almost) all 4 stars. Not enough 5 star weapons though, that’s the main F2P difference, but I’ve got a few best in slot ones for my main DPS characters. Most decent 4 stars I have at C6 (C5 for Bennett!!!).

It’s a really good game at its core. But I don’t like the time sink it is, even just doing dailies. Love/hate but can’t escape 😂 core gameplay is just too good

@Kirgo 100% it’s clear reading many they haven’t played it, just being judgemental. That said if I didn’t play it I’d be bored of all the adverts, YouTube videos, coverage etc. that is still going after 18 months.

It’s a funny game parts of it are 10/10 other parts 6/10, plus there’s gacha. Despite putting far too many hours into it I flip flop on whether I’d actually recommend it to anyone. It IS a time sink by design which is the biggest problem.

So much SALT on this comment thread. Lol

IMO It’s a really good game but has some glaring flaws

Pros

• The core gameplay is fantastic, else people wouldn’t keep coming back or spend. This is #1
• It’s 100% a AAA game. Almost no expense spared. Great graphics, best voice actors (for all languages), fully orchestral score, etc.
• The world is a delight to explore, that part is the closest to BOTW I have played
• New characters change the gameplay and keep it fresh
• Release cadence is fast
• New regions bring new mechanics, keeping it fresh
• it’s FREE and you don’t have to spend a penny. Can complete all content with the starting roster of characters, and you get a lot of free wishes just for playing

Cons

• it’s a Gacha game. If you have ANY sort of addictive personality steer well clear
• upgrades are time gated (resin) and slow
• the grind is real once you hit a certain point, it’s a time-sink if it clicks
• too much filler, release of new parts to explore is slow (understandably as they are large and very, very good)
• writing is really inconsistent. Mostly not great but the occasional surprisingly deep quests
• it’s not finished. Only 3 of the proposed 7 continents are released.

Plot twist: They haven't they're just chasing after attention on an already broken TV.

@TechaNinja I own it.... but it's on my list of shame

Parts of this are very close, or even over, the line between inspiration and rip-off, but as Konami aren't doing anything worthwhile with the Castlevania IP i'm all for this.

Smart words as ever from Reggie.

More cynically does he have a book out or something? Seems to be doing the press rounds a lot right now /jk

Honestly I felt embarrassed playing the last game in front of my family. Pyra/Mythra was just standing still but still bouncing up and down. It's just unnecessary. Feels like it's designed for horny teenagers/old men still in their parents basements. Aside from that and the horrible 'gacha-like' summoning mechanic it was a really good game. Bring on XC3