Enter an era of war within the world of Ivalice. The small kingdom of Dalmasca, conquered by the Archadian Empire, is left in ruin and uncertainty. Princess Ashe, the one and only heir to the throne, devotes herself to the resistance to liberate her country. Vaan, a young man who lost his family in the war, dreams of flying freely in the skies. In a fight for freedom and fallen royalty, join these unlikely allies and their companions as they embark on a heroic adventure to free their homeland.
Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age improves upon the 2006 classic Final Fantasy XII, now more beautiful and easier to play than ever. The high-definition remaster introduces several modern advancements, including reconstructed battle design and a revamped job system. With newly implemented trophies and share functions, as well as stark visual and sound improvements in true HD for the first time, players both returning and new to the game will experience a grand adventure that spans the world of Ivalice in an entirely fresh and improved way.
Welcome to Sprint Vector championship intergalactica, where the physical thrill of extreme sports meets the unhinged energy of a crazy game show. Run, jump, climb, fling, and fly at extreme velocity as you race up to eight players and battle obstacles in this frenetic VR adrenaline platformer that puts your speed and finesse to the test.
Closers is an episodic anime action RPG bursting with spectacular battles and steeped in an epic storyline. Choose your Closer, gather your friends or dive in solo, and use your amazing powers to protect Earth, in mankind’s desperate battle against horrific monsters from another dimension!
Choose between different factions, with their own set of expendable soldiers, mechas, and weapons. Protect your brain, mine gold, and destroy the enemy cortex in his bunker complex!
New Preview Beta, Delta and Omega System Update – 2/2/18
Preview Beta, Delta and Omega Insiders can expect another new update today, complete with brand new fixes. This update (1802.180131-1450) will begin rolling out at 6.00 p.m. PST and will become mandatory shortly after that. Read on to learn more about the fixes and known issues related to this build. Given this is the first build the Omega Ring users are receiving we have listed the New Features in this build.
New Features:
Next Achievements
With this update, you’ll be able to use the “Next Achievements” feature in the Guide, which enables you to view and sort a cross-games list of upcoming Achievements. Easily see which Achievements you are closest to, and quickly launch the game to obtain them. Sort filters allow you to prioritize next Achievements by closest, most common, rarest, most common rare, and highest Gamerscore. You can also hide/unhide a specific achievement or entire game from the Next Achievements section!
Mini Game Hubs
Mini Game Hubs are available in the Guide. With this feature, you’ll be able to access great content for the games you’ve played recently from a Game Hub without ever having to leave the action. Mini Game Hubs provide an easy way to see friends who are currently playing, upcoming Achievements, Looking for Group posts, and more. To find the Mini Game Hub, launch the Guide and look for a new icon to the right of all Game tiles in the Home section.
Do Not Disturb
Sometimes all you want to do is avoid all distractions and focus entirely on your game. This build has the new feature of “Do not disturb” online status, which will suppress notifications and let your friends know that you’re not available for another game or activity right now.
Open the Guide and select your profile icon to the far left.
Select My profile.
From the Appear online dropdown to the right, select Do not disturb.
Community Feed
We’re tweaking the community feed to make it easier to view comments. You’ll soon be able to see a peek of the most recent comment on community posts while viewing the activity in full screen. Comments are also being rearranged to place those that are most recent at the top. You’ll also be able to see who has liked your comments.
Power Settings
To address user feedback, we have added additional inactivity shutdown options to the Power mode & startup menu. In addition to shutting down the console after one or six hours of inactivity, you will be able to select options for two, three, four and five hours.
Navigate to Settings > Power & startup > Power mode & startup.
Under Options, select the “Turn off after” dropdown menu.
Fixes:
Mixer
Fixed an issue which caused the Mixer app to crash when connecting a headset while the app is in use.
General
Resolved an issue which sometimes caused degraded console performance in games, apps, and on the dashboard.
Party Chat
Miscellaneous performance improvements for party chat.
Known Issues:
Dynamic Themes
We are disabling the Dynamic/Scheduled themes feature in this build. We will continue to work on this functionality for a future release. Thank you all for testing this feature and providing feedback.
Games Installation
Games that are installed fail to launch. Workaround: If the games are installed to an external drive please copy the game to the internal drive or attempt to delete the title and redownload to fix the launch error.
Display
We are investigating the inaccurate RGB colors that have been reported when displaying in 4K HDR mode when playing a UHD disc.
Tournaments
The left and right navigation for selecting date and time during Tournament creation is currently reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.
Left and right navigation in Tournament twists is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.
Left and right navigation in the bracket view of Tournaments is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.
Avatars on Home
Users wishing to represent themselves as an avatar can do so by changing their settings under My profile > Customize profile > Show my avatar.
Video: Get An Official Glimpse Of Castle Of Heart’s Gameplay In Action
Polish developer 7LEVELS has unveiled the first official gameplay footage for upcoming side-scrolling action-adventure Castle Of Heart. It’s a short one, but it does show off the game’s meaty combat and platforming action in the early stages of its opening level.
Here’s a tasty snippet from the official synopsis to whet your appetite:
“The protagonist of Castle of Heart is a knight, turned to stone by the curse of the evil mage. If he doesn’t replenish his energy level regularly, he begins to crumble. This may lead to losing an arm, which makes using one of the 50 different side weapons acquired during his journey impossible. The game offers 20 levels set in 4 unique environments, providing over 7 hours of intense experience. Castle of Heart utilizes unique Nintendo Switch features, such as HD Rumble.”
Castle Of Heart is set to arrive on Nintendo Switch somewhere within Q1 2018. Does this side-scrolling adventure pique your interest? Either way, let us know what you think…
Back in 2014, the 3DS eShop received AeternoBlade, a hack ‘n’ slash focused Metroidvania that’s centered around the gameplay concept of controlling time. After a failed attempt at Kickstarting a sequel, Corecell Technology has opted to port the game to the Switch eShop, no doubt in hopes of building up the fanbase further. We weren’t huge fans of the game when it launched on 3DS, but there’s always room for second chances. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that much has changed.
The story of AeternoBlade revolves around Freyja, a warrior hailing from a village destroyed by the Dark Lord, Beladim. After being easily killed by him in the opening scene, Freyja is transported back seven days by the titular blade to prepare for her fateful encounter again. Though the plot takes some mildly interesting twists and turns over its seven-or-so-hour run, there’s very little here that hasn’t been done to death before. Granted, an engaging plot isn’t expected in a game of this sort, but the utter lack of charm or originality in characters doesn’t do AeternoBlade any favors.
It’s a Metroidvania at its heart, but it opts to stack some interesting modifiers on that core formula which, unfortunately, aren’t terribly well executed. Rather than one massive map, the game is divied up into separate levels, and while this helps streamline level designs, it comes at the cost of incentive to explore. Secrets are often found in predictable and relatively easily accessed places, with time manipulation abilities playing into many of the basic puzzles you come across. Backtracking is encouraged by some paths being placed tantalizingly out of reach, though these can often have disappointing rewards waiting for you at the end. Overall level design, then, tends to feel unsurprising in many instances, and we couldn’t help but feel that the Metroidvania elements were added late in development.
Clearly, the focus here is being put on the combat, which is the best aspect of AeternoBlade, though it takes quite a bit of time to build up into an interesting system. Freyja starts out with some exceptionally basic combo moves, with more and more being unlocked with experience orbs you gain from downed enemies. The problem is that it takes quite a bit of time before Freyja’s options really start to open up, meaning that you’ll be spending lots of time mindlessly mashing the same button and watching the same attacks over and over. Adding insult to injury, most of the enemies – with the exception of end level bosses – fail to match your abilities in any meaningful way, acting as easily stunned sword fodder and little more. It’s a real shame, too, because the combat starts to get diverse and interesting once you pass a few levels, offering a tantalising glimpse at the better game that could’ve been.
Aside from upgrading her combo abilities, Freyja also has more traditional upgradeable stats, and a system of held items called Relics. These can be found throughout the game world and equipped to Freyja in sets, offering a wealth of different buffs and benefits. It’s nice that there’s this element of character building, as it enables you to skew your enhancements toward your particular playstyle, though it’s fairly surface-level character customization. Still, the potential of a better relic gives you some incentive to travel off the beaten path every now and then to see what can be picked up, and it breathes some much-needed life into the otherwise monotonous exploration.
From a presentation perspective, AeternoBlade falls quite flat, failing to provide much in the way of interesting audio or visual feedback. Its roots as a 3DS game are painfully obvious; the original release was considered so-so on that hardware, and not much has been done to pretty it up for Switch. Jagged geometry, stilted animations, a murky color palette, and blurry textures make for environments and characters that are passable at best and downright ugly at the worst. To be fair, running the game on more powerful hardware has allowed for some slightly better details in minor places, but the harsh reality is that putting lipstick on a pig does not do much to change the pig. The game appears to run the same whether docked or portable, but it looks better in portable mode, if only because the sub-par visuals aren’t nearly as noticeable.
Conclusion
AeternoBlade is one of those games that’s frustrating, not because anything in it is broken, but because brief glimpses of excellence show what could’ve been. It’s a decent game, but mediocrity rears its ugly head in nearly every aspect. You could do much worse with Metroidvania games than this, but there’s very little here that you haven’t seen done before, probably better. If you are chomping at the bit for every Metroidvania you can find for Switch, then perhaps AeternoBlade is worth the punt. If that’s not you, we’d suggest a better release in the genre – such as like Axiom Verge or Shantae: Half-Genie Hero – and to sit this one out.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 02-09-2018, 01:39 AM - Forum: Lounge
- No Replies
This Week At Bungie –2/08/2018
This week at Bungie, we’re decorating the world for the big dance.
Yesterday, we revealed that Crimson Days is coming to Destiny 2. If you haven’t had a chance to read the details about the new 2v2 playlist and the rewards you can earn in any activity, please check it out now. We’d be honored to have you join us for the celebration.
Earlier this week, Lord Saladin packed up his wares and left the Tower. We heard some good things about Iron Banner in Season 2. If you are still holding tokens, you can use them the next time the ritual returns. If you still need to punch some Guardians to get that chest ornament, you can also continue your progress when Lord Saladin returns.
Settle the Score
“Do you see the stars flutter? Now listen. They scream from the lacerations of our enemies. The balance has been threatened. Nightfall is upon us. This burden of Light has never been heavier. We can sleep no more.” — Ulan-Tan
Last week, we published a Destiny 2 Development roadmap, to forecast some changes coming to Destiny 2. You may have noticed some changes coming to Nightfall strikes. The Nightfall has been the subject of a lot of feedback since launch. Many of you felt that the timer was pretty stressful and preferred being able to slowly work your way through the challenges at your own pace. We plan to address this feedback with upcoming changes.
Before we get to the details, Game Director Christopher Barrett has some context to frame up the essential fantasy that we’d like for the Nightfall to serve.
Barrett: Nightfall should be a challenging test that only the bravest Guardians dare face. Fireteams of any size should be able to participate, from organized clan groups to skilled solo players. Players should be able to determine their own challenge level, by going slow and steady or fast and wild, with elective modifiers to test the most hardcore veterans. Your final score will separate the best from the rest, and with high risk comes high reward. Each terrible villain that players face should have a very rare and powerful unique item, themed to them, that tumbles to the ground as they collapse into a pile of bones. Conquering Nightfall should be a badge of honor, with the best players able to show off their achievements with new dynamic emblems and exclusive auras.
That’s the vision of where we want to take Nightfall, you’ll be seeing the first of this direction in the next patch, with more being added over time.
With those goals in mind, we asked Designer John Favaro and Senior Design Lead Tyson Green to share some facts on how they plan to enhance Nightfall strikes.
Tyson: As we are working on new sandbox improvements, we recognized the need for a venue in which those improvements matter more. The weekly Nightfall, especially on the Prestige difficulty, was intended to be such a venue, but the controversial time limit mechanic is a simple pass-fail mechanism. It only acknowledges success as being a clear, with no degrees of success past that, so no competition exists in that space. It turns a lot of people off of Nightfall too, since it is both difficult and indexes performance solely on speed.
Nightfall Scoring
We are repositioning strike scoring in Destiny 2 to enable you to achieve something prestigious in the weekly Nightfall and as a way to amplify difficulty. The new scoring rules are intended to be better at a few specific things:
Reward you for engaging and defeating enemies instead of running past them.
Avoid over-emphasizing specific mechanics like precision kills that highlight certain areas of the sandbox (and/or punish other areas), so that players are the ones who determine the most effective Meta.
Reward you for taking on greater challenges up to the limits of your own capabilities.
Reward you for doing the above quickly and over the course of a short run versus long slogs over several hours.
The updated mechanics look like this:
Scoring is team-based and the sum of individual performances. A team should be able to focus on what works best, not feeling put out by who stole whose kill.
Scoring is primarily driven by kills and secondarily by orb generation. We want you to find what works best for clearing strikes instead of telling you which weapons to use, but we want coordinated use of Supers and other team support mechanics to contribute to high scores. We’re interested in restoring special point awards based on medals, but we want your input to understand the basic meta first.
Score bleeds over time. We are watching this closely — score decay can feel bad, but all else being equal, a team that clears faster than another team should score higher. Score decay achieves this in the most transparent fashion.
Scoring cuts off after time thresholds. At 15 minutes, new points earned are reduced by 50%. At 18 minutes, you stop earning new points and it’s a race to finish the run and post your score. We want time to matter (see above), but we also want to avoid some of the problems we saw with Prison of Elders, where a “high score” might involve punishing respawning combatants (and yourself) for a few hours until the novelty wore off. A good Nightfall clear shouldn’t feel like a slog.
Challenge
On top of the above mechanics are Challenge Cards, items that offer ways to boost the challenge in exchange for score multipliers. In 1.1.3 there will be a challenge card that drops from completing a Nightfall run. It has some customization options to help tune the challenge level to what you and your fireteam are capable of.
Rewards
Players will be able to see their (and your) scores on new Nightfall Emblems available as drops in each Nightfall strike. These emblems (and others like them) are now the source of auras, which are automatically enabled if your personal score is above a global threshold. At first the thresholds will be set based on what we think might be tough for players to reach, but we look forward to you showing us how much we underestimated you. Then we can raise the bar based on community scores.
Along with the aura, a personal score over the threshold will also unlock a fireteam-wide buff that boosts Vanguard Token drops in that strike by 25%. When your fireteam sees the Nightfall Aura on your head, they know who’s hooking them up.
Lastly, some rarer variants of these Nightfall Emblems will be available as drops at higher score thresholds. Obtaining these rewards is meant to be challenging, so we don’t expect everyone to reach these scores or collect these items.
Version 0.9
Update 1.1.3 will have a first pass on this feature. Before we can call it a competitive activity, we need your help pushing the limits and finding where it breaks. Future updates will react to your input, as well as add more rewards and recognition to posting competitive scores. We also hope to extend the Challenge Cards to support more difficulty customization and deepen the scoring options. All of the feedback you give us in this release will go into making our upcoming releases better. Thank you in advance!
Designer John Favaro has some additional info about what you can expect from the new Nightfall modifiers in the Prestige mode.
John: The current Nightfall climate encourages play that pushes players through the encounters as fast as possible, focusing on extending bonus timers, and skipping encounters unless they are required, which was more stressful than fun. With Nightfall strike scoring, we were looking to give players a little more control, allowing them to modify their experiences to provide them the challenge they want and incentivize more methodical progression through the activities. People like big numbers, and the best way to get big numbers is to kill everything. We’ve been listening to the community’s feedback, and this is our first step in making a few improvements. We’re hoping you’ll put some time in and let us know how you feel.
The modifiers will apply a multiplier to your score in the Prestige Nightfall. It isn’t all more, more, more though; there are plenty of ways to lose points. There is an ever-present score bleed to apply pressure to keep you moving, and a timer that will reduce your multiplier if you take too long. Here are the current modifiers we’re going to ship in this first iteration:
Void/Solar/Arc Singe – currently provides a +25% increase to player and enemy damage of the corresponding element. Extinguish – fireteam wipes return the team to orbit Power modifier – voluntarily decrease your power to gain a score bonus.
These are just our initial modifier offerings. This release is focusing more on how the system as a whole feels, so we can get feedback on the core experience to fine-tune it before we dive in head first to creating additional modifiers.
There you have it. If you still enjoy the thrill of racing through quickly, you will be rewarded with a higher score. If you prefer to go in solo and take your time, you might lose some points, but will still finish the activity and collect a reward. You can complete the normal Nightfall and get a score, or you can take on the Prestige Nightfall and ratchet up your score with some modifiers. We’re eager to see you jump into the new Nightfall and give us feedback on these changes.
Raid Plans
Another thing that may have jumped out at you as you read the Destiny 2 Development roadmap was that the Eater of Worlds Prestige mode was pushed out until May. You may have even said, “What is taking them so long?”
It’s a fair question. The answer is that we didn’t want to release it in its current form. Before rolling it out, we thought we could add some more flavor to this special activity that will make it worth the wait. Here to tell you more about our plans for raid activities is Senior Designer Joe Blackburn.
Joe: Hey, Guardians. For Destiny 2, we wanted to release raid content on a more regular cadence than we did during the first years of Destiny. In our original estimation of this work, we knew we would have to focus on normal modes, forgoing Lair challenge modes, and having their Prestige Modes rely on enemies that are more lethal and harder to kill.
As we got closer to releasing Prestige Eater of Worlds, we knew we wanted to do something more. Over the past few months, we have been prototyping a new way of adding difficulty and replayability to raid activities. Today, I’m happy to announce that we have decided to push this feature forward and release it for all the Leviathan Raid Content with the release of Expansion 2.
Going forward, all raids will all have a normal mode active at all times, and each week one raid or Raid Lair will have a curated loadout mode.
This new version of Prestige requires players to complete raids filled with deadly enemies using a curated loadout of weapons and a special modifier that enhances the way you play. The Raid Team never likes to let you know exactly what to expect, but let’s look at some hypothetical examples. These are not the plan of record, but they give you a basic idea of what you might find.
Week 1
Raid Activity: Eater of Worlds
Modifier: Marksman. Precision damage is increased. Landing a precision shot grants one ammo directly to the magazine.
Required Loadout:
Kinetic: Hand Cannon
Energy: Scout Rifle
Power: Linear Fusion
Week 2
Raid Activity: Expansion 2 Raid Lair
Modifier: Gladiator. Your melee damage is increased and melee kills grant bonus Super.
Required Loadout:
Kinetic: Sidearm
Energy: Submachine gun
Power: Shotgun
Week 3
Raid Activity: Eater of Worlds
Modifier: Conduit. Each kill you get before reloading or swapping weapons gives you increasingly more ability energy.
Required Loadout:
Kinetic: Auto Rifle
Energy: Riskrunner
Power: Grenade Launcher
We should also note that, while Eater of Worlds is not getting any specific encounter changes, all the previous Prestige changes in Leviathan will be active when players engage in its new loadout difficulty.
The goal of the new Prestige mode is simple: provide new ways to engage with raid content each week, new ways to engage with different weapons in your vault, and new rewards to chase.
This is currently slotted on the roadmap for May, but this is a major overhaul and could be pushed out further. We’ll keep you updated.
We can’t wait for you to play it, talk about it, and help us make it better for years to come.
Thanks,
Joe
Get it Off Your Chest
Last week, we deployed Destiny Update 1.1.2. With it, we shipped a temporary fix for a lockout on Lost Sector chests bringing the time down from 10 minutes to 5. This wasn’t the solution we were looking for. We have a better one coming to you next week, so we invited Senior Designer Alex Velicky to explain what we have planned.
Alex: In the 1.1.2.1 Hot Fix, we’ve fixed the underlying issue that caused the Lost Sector chest exploit. Players can now only open the boss chest once after killing a Lost Sector boss, as was originally intended. The chest may still respawn if you leave and return rapidly (due to a larger issue with our activity tech that would require significant changes to fix) but you won’t be able to open it again. You’ll get the ‘code required’ prompt unless the boss also respawns and you defeat them again. We’ve also completely removed the reward throttle from Lost Sectors as it is no longer necessary and we agree it was a poor player experience.
We want to acknowledge all of the interest we’ve seen from players in us expanding the Lost Sectors system. We agree and are currently looking into ways to do that. We’re not yet sure what form it will take and we don’t have anything specific to talk about yet, but it’s something we’re working towards. Look out for someone to talk about that in a future TWAB when we have more solid plans to share.
The next download arrives on Tuesday. Destiny Player Support will be on station to monitor your progress in installing the bits. Which is the perfect segue into…
Check Your Vitals
Destiny Player Support is dedicated to keeping you in the game. The best place to find them is the Help forum. Once a week, they make an appearance here to keep you informed.
This is their report.
Destiny 2 Maintenance and Downtime
On Tuesday February 13, Destiny 2 Hotfix 1.1.2.1 will be deployed to address timeouts on Lost Sector chests. There will be a period of maintenance before this hotfix becomes available. For times, please see below:
8 AM Pacific – 1600 UTC
Destiny server maintenance is scheduled to begin
Players may no longer sign in to Destiny services
9 AM Pacific – 1700 UTC
Players still in Destiny 2 activities will be returned to the title screen
12 PM Pacific – 2000 UTC
Destiny server maintenance is scheduled to conclude
Destiny 2 Hotfix 1.1.2.1 will be available to download and install
Crimson Days will begin as soon as maintenance concludes
Crimson Days Vital Information
Immediately after maintenance completion, Crimson Days will become available to all Destiny 2 players. The following items are potential points of confusion that players may experience during this event, and we’d like to give a heads up.
Welcome to Crimson Days Waypoint: Under some circumstances, players may not receive a waypoint leading them to Tower vendors for the “Welcome to Crimson Days” Milestone. Players may still complete these steps by simply speaking with the Tower vendor listed in the milestone.
Crucible Tokens in Loot Stream: Upon completion of a Crimson Days Crucible match, post-game rewards may push Crucible Tokens out of view in the player’s loot stream. Players should always receive Crucible Tokens upon Crimson Days match completion and may find them in their Consumables inventory.
Romantic Comedies About Time Travel
Grab your popcorn and pour some of the gooey butter simulation sauce on it. It’s movie time!
We have been flipping through the pages of the Creation page looking for the best movies to highlight here for everyone to see. We will give the creators a special emblem as a small memento to remember their accomplishment. If you want your shot at it, just submit your video to the Creations page. If you do end up winning, make sure you put the player names of everyone who helped create the video in the description so we can give out the emblems to the right players. Now, on to the winners.
Movie of the Week: Pleasure Gardens with two Guardians (Warning: Language)
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Honorable Mention: Happy Crimson Days
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We shared more of our plans with you this week. As always, we‘ll be reading your thoughts and feedback on what we laid out. Tell us what you think. We’ll continue to keep you updated.
Crimson Days is only 5 sleeps away. I plan on teaming up with dmg04. Hopefully, he can keep up so we can stick together. Keep an eye out; maybe you can best us.
