The final trailer for The Rise of Skywalker is out, and we have some opinions about it! We talk about our thoughts and predictions for the Skywalker Saga finale, as well as what we've been playing and watching this past month.
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If you've been keeping up with Tale of the White Wyvern development and the happenings in-game, you know that the fifth wyvern kill is the "last" one, as in the one where you unlock all the game story, and the one where you need some intense grinding to win. And you may also know that a few have already hit that threshold and are working on their sixth time through. Well, if you're wondering what comes next on this journey, look no further: Paragon. Here's how it works:
After your fifth wyvern kill, the five repeat themselves. The 1st and 6th fight are the same, the 2nd and 7th, and so on. But every fifth wyvern kill will get you a paragon coin that you can spend whenever you like. (And not to worry-- if you've beaten the 5th already, you'll retroactively receive one).
Each time you spend one of these paragon coins, you will lose all of your charm and your dead card and be reset back to the starting point of 1 charm and 0 dead card punches. These are things that never reset by default when you start back at level 1, but in order to use these coins, you're cashing them in.
But it's worth it because you get some pretty great perks:
These are additive, so on your second redemption you'll have +10% experience gain and gold find, for example.
To redeem these new coins, just pay a visit to Wrymdoor's favorite healer, Helga. She'll perform some secret magic and you'll be gaining experience and gold much faster! Just don't be surprised when Crugg acts like he doesn't know you anymore.
As I said above, you can redeem these whenever you like-- if you want to wait until you get into the later levels before losing your charm, you can do that. If you want to hoard your paragon coins you can do that too. The choice is yours.
We should have Paragon Coins in the game for you to redeem by Wednesday. Prepare yourself for speedy leveling!
After your fifth wyvern kill, the five repeat themselves. The 1st and 6th fight are the same, the 2nd and 7th, and so on. But every fifth wyvern kill will get you a paragon coin that you can spend whenever you like. (And not to worry-- if you've beaten the 5th already, you'll retroactively receive one).
Each time you spend one of these paragon coins, you will lose all of your charm and your dead card and be reset back to the starting point of 1 charm and 0 dead card punches. These are things that never reset by default when you start back at level 1, but in order to use these coins, you're cashing them in.
But it's worth it because you get some pretty great perks:
- +1 to your player paragon points.
- A permanent +5% boost to forest exp gain.
- A permanent +5% boost to forest gold find.
- A permanent +5% boost to your bank interest.
- New titles, up to your third redemption:
- First redemption: Prestigious & Prestidigitonium
- Second redemption: Demigod & Demigoddess
- Third redemption: God & Goddess
These are additive, so on your second redemption you'll have +10% experience gain and gold find, for example.
To redeem these new coins, just pay a visit to Wrymdoor's favorite healer, Helga. She'll perform some secret magic and you'll be gaining experience and gold much faster! Just don't be surprised when Crugg acts like he doesn't know you anymore.
As I said above, you can redeem these whenever you like-- if you want to wait until you get into the later levels before losing your charm, you can do that. If you want to hoard your paragon coins you can do that too. The choice is yours.
We should have Paragon Coins in the game for you to redeem by Wednesday. Prepare yourself for speedy leveling!
It's that time of year, folks. The scent of pumpkin spice is in the air. So we thought, what better time to try out all the pumpkin spice flavored things we could get our hands on and review them live? What could go wrong? Come experience the flavor of the season with us in this special episode!
The “final” trailer for Episode IX is out now. I say “final” in quotes because we will surely see more footage in TV spots and international variants.
But here we go, the last major US trailer, and we are about two months out from the film’s release.
Tickets are available now, and I’ve already got seats for the Friday of release.
There’s a lot to unpack here, but I’ll get the discussion started with three things:
1. The scene of the new crew in the Falcon is something I’ve been wanting since TFA.
2. That arrangement of the main theme was sublime.
3. Threepio, you ok?
So go forth, watch it, and tell us what you think!
But here we go, the last major US trailer, and we are about two months out from the film’s release.
Tickets are available now, and I’ve already got seats for the Friday of release.
There’s a lot to unpack here, but I’ll get the discussion started with three things:
1. The scene of the new crew in the Falcon is something I’ve been wanting since TFA.
2. That arrangement of the main theme was sublime.
3. Threepio, you ok?
So go forth, watch it, and tell us what you think!
This game is weird.
You're a humanoid bird. Guns grow from plants. Out of ammo? Just plant a gun. That's pretty much your intro.
Right now, Revenge of the Bird King is NINE CENTS on the Switch. You probably have enough Nintendo coins on your account to buy it with those right now.
Beyond being weird, this is a fun game. The platforming is tricky but satisfying, though it does have its cheap moments. For nine cents you can't lose.
You're a humanoid bird. Guns grow from plants. Out of ammo? Just plant a gun. That's pretty much your intro.
Right now, Revenge of the Bird King is NINE CENTS on the Switch. You probably have enough Nintendo coins on your account to buy it with those right now.
Beyond being weird, this is a fun game. The platforming is tricky but satisfying, though it does have its cheap moments. For nine cents you can't lose.
The Outer Worlds will be with us in just a few days, and we've gotten a final launch trailer to tempt us.
As if I needed tempting. A new Obsidian RPG? Yes, please. In space? Even better.
I don't think this trailer really sells what the game is about, but it may set the mood pretty well. There are some gameplay videos out there that give you more of a feel of the flow of the game, like this one from Kotaku: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9xOtElr6mw
But even if I hadn't known what kind of game this is already, the trailer would have grabbed me. While it's clear they're trying to borrow some of Gearbox's trailer tricks for this, the game seems to have a voice of its own.
My backlog of new games is growing so it'll probably be a while before I get to this one, but I'm looking forward to my time with it. If you aren't waiting like me, you can grab this one on October 25.
As if I needed tempting. A new Obsidian RPG? Yes, please. In space? Even better.
I don't think this trailer really sells what the game is about, but it may set the mood pretty well. There are some gameplay videos out there that give you more of a feel of the flow of the game, like this one from Kotaku: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9xOtElr6mw
But even if I hadn't known what kind of game this is already, the trailer would have grabbed me. While it's clear they're trying to borrow some of Gearbox's trailer tricks for this, the game seems to have a voice of its own.
My backlog of new games is growing so it'll probably be a while before I get to this one, but I'm looking forward to my time with it. If you aren't waiting like me, you can grab this one on October 25.
Analogue, creators of various retro goodness, have announced their next offering: the Analogue Pocket.
Out of the box, the Analogue Pocket can play all the original run of Gameboy and Gameboy Color games, and has an audio sequencer as well.
With some adapters, you can also play other handheld titles from the Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket, and Atari Lynx.
Taking a note from the PSP and the Nintendo Switch, you'll also be able to buy a separate dock that connects to your TV and USB/Bluetooth controllers for playing your portable games in a non-portable fashion, if that's your thing.
This isn't a portable emulator-- Analogue have engineered their own chips to play these games. And ... just look at it. That's a beautiful piece of hardware.
I'm going to spend the time between now and when this releases trying to tell myself that I don't need it.
https://www.analogue.co/pocket/
Out of the box, the Analogue Pocket can play all the original run of Gameboy and Gameboy Color games, and has an audio sequencer as well.
With some adapters, you can also play other handheld titles from the Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket, and Atari Lynx.
Taking a note from the PSP and the Nintendo Switch, you'll also be able to buy a separate dock that connects to your TV and USB/Bluetooth controllers for playing your portable games in a non-portable fashion, if that's your thing.
This isn't a portable emulator-- Analogue have engineered their own chips to play these games. And ... just look at it. That's a beautiful piece of hardware.
I'm going to spend the time between now and when this releases trying to tell myself that I don't need it.
https://www.analogue.co/pocket/
We love to check in every month or so about what we've been playing and watching. It had been a while, though, so we devoted almost the entire episode to it! And we check in on Jon's playthrough of Link's Awakening on the Switch to see how he liked the end.
We've returned to Koholint Island after 26 years for this review of the new Nintendo Switch remake of The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening. This is one of our most anticipated games in a while, and we're stoked to finally have our hands on it. Warning: this one gets surprisingly philosophical for a few minutes, and may be worth a listen just for that.
The Sega Genesis Mini has been out for a few days, and I've put in some time with it. I'm impressed. This is not a cheap AtGames device that will languish in the bottom of some drawer. This is a solid device with damn fine emulation, and a feature set to compete with the current trend of minis.
Just looking at the Genesis Mini itself tells you a lot about the care that went into the production. The expansion port cover comes off and the headphone volume slider slides, just like on the original. This serves no functional purpose, but it's meticulous little details that show that Sega is taking this seriously, even if they aren't taking themselves serious in the process (they released a "tower of power" package that you can buy to put a sega cd, 32x, and game cartridge on your Genesis Mini, which do nothing functional but poke fun at the old tower of power joke).
When you first boot up, you are presented with a region selection screen as you'd expect, but you can come back to this at any time to change your region. And you should. This is the one killer feature in my mind-- the games installed on the Genesis Mini have various regions included. If you change to Japan, for instance, you can get the far superior version of Contra: Hard Corps.
But after that you get to the list of games, presented in a nice grid of box art (which also changes based on your region). You can sort this list alphabetically or by release date. This menu's music is so great, I had to look it up. It's brand new music composed by Yuzo Koshiro, the composer of Streets of Rage, and it even uses the Genesis audio hardware to be more accurate to the time.
When you get into one of the system's 42 games, many of the staple features these mini systems are known for are at your fingertips. You can hold start to get the save state menu, and go back to the game list (thankfully), but one omission here is the rewind feature made popular by Nintendo's offerings.
The same kind of picture options you'd expect are here, 4:3 or 16:9, scanlines, etc. As I did with the NES and SNES Classic, I just left those options at the default so that it looks closest to what I remember.
As for the games? Well, that's up to you. There are plenty to choose from, double the amount on the SNES Classic (exactly double, in fact) and there are some incredible titles in here. One highlight is Mega Man: The Wily Wars, which was an exclusive to Sega's dial-in online service back in the day, but is now available to everyone here. And like top 10 lists, some people will hate what was included, some will love them. There are some strange omissions, but the games included here are generally fantastic, and there's something for everyone who isn't a sports fan at least (NHL 94 dominated the Genesis and isn't included here? For shame!)
My only complaints are...
It's $80, which isn't cheap, but if you like the games included this is a no-brainer. Everything from the design of the Mini itself to the software choices and the tight emulation shows a real attention to detail, and wins over Nintendo in some key ways, to a point where I'd say it's the better device. I certainly wouldn't bet on this game list vs the SNES Classic, even if they do win in quantity, but the loving detail to every facet of the presentation is quite nice to see.
Just looking at the Genesis Mini itself tells you a lot about the care that went into the production. The expansion port cover comes off and the headphone volume slider slides, just like on the original. This serves no functional purpose, but it's meticulous little details that show that Sega is taking this seriously, even if they aren't taking themselves serious in the process (they released a "tower of power" package that you can buy to put a sega cd, 32x, and game cartridge on your Genesis Mini, which do nothing functional but poke fun at the old tower of power joke).
When you first boot up, you are presented with a region selection screen as you'd expect, but you can come back to this at any time to change your region. And you should. This is the one killer feature in my mind-- the games installed on the Genesis Mini have various regions included. If you change to Japan, for instance, you can get the far superior version of Contra: Hard Corps.
But after that you get to the list of games, presented in a nice grid of box art (which also changes based on your region). You can sort this list alphabetically or by release date. This menu's music is so great, I had to look it up. It's brand new music composed by Yuzo Koshiro, the composer of Streets of Rage, and it even uses the Genesis audio hardware to be more accurate to the time.
When you get into one of the system's 42 games, many of the staple features these mini systems are known for are at your fingertips. You can hold start to get the save state menu, and go back to the game list (thankfully), but one omission here is the rewind feature made popular by Nintendo's offerings.
The same kind of picture options you'd expect are here, 4:3 or 16:9, scanlines, etc. As I did with the NES and SNES Classic, I just left those options at the default so that it looks closest to what I remember.
As for the games? Well, that's up to you. There are plenty to choose from, double the amount on the SNES Classic (exactly double, in fact) and there are some incredible titles in here. One highlight is Mega Man: The Wily Wars, which was an exclusive to Sega's dial-in online service back in the day, but is now available to everyone here. And like top 10 lists, some people will hate what was included, some will love them. There are some strange omissions, but the games included here are generally fantastic, and there's something for everyone who isn't a sports fan at least (NHL 94 dominated the Genesis and isn't included here? For shame!)
My only complaints are...
- I love the games on this thing, but there are a few glaring omissions. But I don't envy the people who had to put this together, and I've had this complaint about every mini so far.
- The lack of rewind, but with save states that isn't a requirement, though it would have been nice.
- The lack of 6-button controllers. At least this is fixable with a separate purchase, but Street Fighter II for instance is a mess with 3-button controllers. Playable, but much less comfortably.
It's $80, which isn't cheap, but if you like the games included this is a no-brainer. Everything from the design of the Mini itself to the software choices and the tight emulation shows a real attention to detail, and wins over Nintendo in some key ways, to a point where I'd say it's the better device. I certainly wouldn't bet on this game list vs the SNES Classic, even if they do win in quantity, but the loving detail to every facet of the presentation is quite nice to see.
Woah, Woah, Woah, hold your Jedi horses (which also make an appearance in the movie). I think you guys are jumping to conclusions that we see the Emperor in this trailer. It could be classic JJ misdirection.
BTW, no mention of Maz? What about Jar Jar? He is totally going to be a Force Ghost at the end.
> It could be classic JJ misdirection
I hope that’s it. That would be incredible.