toxicitizen

Really? Then that makes the inclusion of in War seem kinda pointless. Like, why even bother making that reference if it's not intended to be the same character?

By original I mean the 1968 Heston one, yeah. I agree that that one implied it was thousands of years in the future but that's what I was talking about in an earlier post. This new series is making it all happen on a much shorter timeline, which is why I was initially confused as to whether it was reboot or prequel. If it was on a longer timeline then you're absolutely right, there's plenty of time for them to evolve further and figure out nukes. But, like I said, it looks like we're no more than 15 years away from Charlton Heston showing up. Reason I believe this is that at the end of War we have To me that puts the astronauts' return no more than ~15 years away or so. That means Maurice is likely meant to be Dr. Zaius (I mean, his name is clearly a reference to the actor Maurice Evans) and this is where things start to not quite align with the 1968 movie. The apes here still seem way too "primitive" or ape-like to start wearing clothes and being all civilized in that short of a time span. They seem to be going for a more grounded vibe, so I can see it never getting to the whole "Apes wearing clothes" thing. And yeah, War seems like a good end point but they've already said they started planning the next one.

It's not far flung, though. As of the end of War, we're like maybe another ~15 years away from the original movie tops. I feel like given the state the apes are currently in, figuring out computer systems and launching nukes is a bit beyond them. They're still all about chilling in trees and smashing things with rocks. My guess would be they'll encounter yet more humans in the next movie and that's likely how it'll go down.

See that's the one thing that doesn't quite fit in this new series, imho. It's been a while but IIRC the old one sort of implied that it was the far future while these new ones are explaining how it's actually all happening within a span of ~15-20 years. At this point I'm not sure how they could explain the statue of liberty on the beach thing easily because it feels like we're past the point where a nuclear war would've happened. Then again, my friend felt the same way about the feral state of the humans in the original and the new one explains it pretty easily so you never know. If anything, this series has been surprisingly good so far at taking shortcuts and expediting the entire process without feeling forced or stupid.

Yeah, I just thought that it might be building up to the first one while ignoring everything else. The old movies got kinda stupid starting with the second one. Ignoring everything but the original would probably be the best way to go about doing a non-reboot prequel series. But after some googling, everything I'm finding calls it a reboot so... yeah.

Rise/Dawn/War for the Planet of the Apes. A friend and I caught a marathon of the old movies on TV years ago and really enjoyed them, so we figured it was about time we watched the new ones. We watched the first two last week and went to see the new one tonight. The old ones were fun in a cheesy way but these new ones are shockingly good. Way better than I would've expected them to be. Still not entirely clear on whether they're supposed to be a reboot or an actual prequel, though. They seem to go out of their way to make things fit nicely and explain everything but they feel a lot more grounded with the apes mostly using sign language and not wearing clothes (because why the fuck would they lol). I guess the next one might settle that once and for all given where this one ends. Although I really hope they're not building up to a remake of the original. The perfect way to end this series would be for the very last scene to be the astronauts coming back to earth. Don't need to show anything beyond that.

Never really had any interest in their stuff but I guess the Easy Allies are alright.

The most recent ep was filler? Hmm, maybe I should use that as an excuse to catch up. The wait for the season to end is starting to be painful and at least this way I know I'm not gonna end up on a cliffhanger in the middle of a major arc lol.

I really liked it. If you enjoy Telltale's games and are a Batman fan, then I don't think you can go wrong with it. It's technically original but it's the kind of Batman story you've seen plenty of times before. It does change some details both big and small, though, which helps keep things interesting.

Was hoping for a little earlier but that leaves plenty of time to wrap up Cold Steel, at least.

Yeah, the in media res intro feels a bit... cheap and pointless all things considered. That's all I'll say about it. Just pretend the game starts with Rean on the train for now lol. I kinda see what you mean but I got used to it back on Vita. I wouldn't expect any drastic changes in that area for CSII, though. I only played like 10 hours or so before shelving it but, much like FC and SC, it's essentially the same game as Cold Steel 1 as far as how it plays.

The latest patch for Trails in the Sky the 3rd added a beta DX9 version of the game. Sounds like Sara had been working on it for a while and recently fixed an issue that was preventing her from progressing. The noteworthy thing here is that, because it's now an official feature in Cold steel, she has also added a turbo mode to the game. Similar updates will come to FC and SC as well. Gotta appreciate the dedication and support there. Now if only Durante's positive influence could spread outside of XSEED...

Third and final blog post by Durante. Store page for Ys Seven is live! Says "August" for the release date, so I guess it's coming pretty soon. Then there's Lacrimosa of Dana next month. And that's not even including Zwei and Tokyo Xanadu. This might be too much Falcom for me to handle! Hold me, Mal!

Yeah, this port is a thing of beauty. Can't wait until I reach a certain chapter because that part of the game had me going "Fuck, I wish I was playing this on PC" the entire time, it ran so bad on Vita. Turbo mode is gonna come in handy when it's time for NG+ and achievement hunting. Probably gonna keep it disabled for my first run, though. Probably possible if you rush everything and skip optional side-quests but otherwise lol. And even then you probably won't sleep much. My first playthrough took me like 80 hours and I expect this one to take even longer. I'm doing like I did when I replayed FC on Steam and using a guide to not miss anything. It's uh... yeah it's gonna take a while. Wrapped up chapter 1 last night and the clock is already at 15h.

Because duh. I think the price point is a mistake, though. 30 bucks seems like the reasonable price for this and I think going higher is gonna hurt sales, sadly. I swear, sometimes it almost feels like XSEED wants these games to not sell as well as they could... Then again they can count on idiots like me to buy everything that says Trails on it, I guess. The bundle for all the DLC is 55% off for some reason. I should probably sell my Vita copies to try and offset the cost, though. Never gonna touch them again, so I can sell the games and just hold on to the Collector's Edition stuff.

50% off on Gamersgate. A bit pricier than I would've liked but I figured it was now or never. I basically never revisit games solely for DLC and Fallout 4 doesn't seem like a game I'm likely to replay once I'm done with it. I'm less than 10 hours in, I'm only just starting to get into the settlement stuff and I haven't really started the main story yet. So, I might as well have all the content ready to go before I really start digging into it.

It's been a while but I remember on PS2 I basically always had someone to heal or revive and it took me WAY longer than 3 hours. Thankfully its health didn't reset if you left, so I was able to leave and save mid-fight, spreading it out over a few days. I know I grinded every party member to level 99 and ended up with 2 Zodiac Spears by the end of everything but I can't remember whether I did the Yiazmat fight before or after. I want to say after but it's been way too long to be sure. This and dodging 100 lightning bolts in a row in FFX are the two things I'm seriously not looking forward to doing again...

Oh ffs, is that the FFXII boss that has like a billion hp? I was really hoping there wouldn't be an achievement related to it. I don't know if I can make myself go through that shit again...

Well, on the actual night of my 18th birthday I'm pretty sure I was drinking with friends and not playing video games. But that's around the time when I first got a decent PC and discovered torrenting, so I was playing all kinds of PC exclusives I'd never even heard of. It's when I first played games that are still among my favorites, like the original Deus Ex and Thief 1 and 2. Fun times.

Batman: The Telltale Series. Being a huge Batman fan, I went into it with fairly high expectations (well, as high as they could reasonably be for a Telltale game) and I wasn't disappointed. Well, except for how they've made basically zero changes or improvements to their formula. Don't fix what isn't broken, I suppose. Too bad that doesn't extend to their engine... At first I wasn't crazy about the liberties they've taken with the canon but if they're going with an early days storyline then that's probably the best way to keep things interesting. Also, I got curious and did some quick googling and apparently your choices are as inconsequential as ever lol. But yeah, after the Arkham games it felt a little weird to not be more in control of the action but it was pretty fun overall. I think I'm actually looking forward to the second season more than I am for the Wolf Among Us now. I know better than to buy a Telltale game at launch, though. Not just because of the wait but also because of how poor of a state they tend to be in at first. Still need to play Game of Thrones and catch up on The Walking Dead, anyway. Oh and I guess Minecraft too, which I got along with Batman in the current Humble Bundle.

So, this happened. I guess 15 bucks is where I bite. It helps that GMG had a voucher for an extra 15% off that kept it at 15 bucks even after conversion to CAD. Now the question is do I just throw it on the backlog or do I risk getting sucked into it less than a week away from Trails of Cold Steel...

Second part of the blog posts by Durante is up. Covers the launcher and graphical options. Dude really went all out, this is gonna be so good! He's made a video comparison specifically to showcase the improvements to pop-in but man is it just night and day in general. The improvements to resolution, framerate, shadows and everything. It's... it's beautiful.

It seems like worries about port quality for Tokyo Xanadu can be put to rest, Aksys have contracted Ghostlight to work on it. I haven't played any of their ports personally because they mostly do obscure JRPGs I'm not particularly interested in, but as far as I can tell they do solid ports.