Nintendo has announced that its Nintendo Switch Game Vouchers saving service will not extend to Switch 2 exclusives (thanks, VGC).
The vouchers initially cropped up in 2019 as a way to make a small saving on first-party Switch titles. Nintendo Switch Online subscribers can buy a voucher for £84/$100 and use it to redeem two Switch big hitters (Breath of the Wild, Paper Mario, Pokémon Scarlet & Violet etc.) that would normally come in at a higher combined price.
During a house clearout I recently discovered a cache of creative writing from my teenage years. Naturally, I now consider most of it to be unbearable. Reading certain notebooks makes me feel as though my stomach is mounting an upwards assault on my brain. BURN IT, scream the parts of said brain that have learned the perils of starting poems with “O Muse”. BURN IT ALL. Nonetheless, I felt bad about being mean towards my adolescent self, so I popped all those misbegotten papers in a giant suitcase. It squats next to me right now as I type these words, like a mausoleum filled with dead albatrosses.
Similarly mixed emotions appear to inform Amphora Hell, in which you play an amphora (read: ancient species of vase) with legs. The amphora is the work of the Kilnmaster, a terrible Olympian force who is sort of one part Hephaestus to one part shmup villain. The Kilnmaster has just decided that he hates his amphora with legs and wishes to destroy it with flying hammers. “No evidence of my failure must remain,” he bellows in the Itch preamble. “Prepare to be scrapped!”
Most writing tries to avoid cliché, understanding that an overused idea is one that has lost its power. It often feels as if video games take the opposite approach, gleefully piling tropes high upon their back like Labyrinth’s junk lady. Sure, they sacrifice the opportunity to say anything affecting or which feels true, but presumably the theory is that reminding you of a dozen other films, TV shows, books and games you like is just as good.
Enter Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, hunched over from the weight of all the teen TV shows and young adult novels stacked atop its shoulders.
As Nintendo gears up for its big Switch 2 Direct broadcast in April, it’s still got plenty of other things as well as its day-to-day operations going on behind the scenes.
Nintendo’s weekly ‘Nintendo Music’ app releases continue and the latest one to join the collection is the StreetPass Mii Plaza soundtrack, which originally debuted on the 3DS.
This album includes 39 tracks and has a runtime of 1 hour and 23 minutes in total. You’ll be able to listen to the boot up theme, the memorable main themes, the ‘Salesbunny’ song, and much more. Here’s the full tracklist:
The Fell Omen bosses of Elden Ring are infamous at this point, so it’s nice to see that with Elden Ring Nightreign, FromSoftware has let them loose upon the Lands Between.
Morgott, whom Elden Ring players had to fight later on in the game’s campaign, is one such infamous boss. His phantom versions can pop out and surprise you throughout the campaign, and it seems like that particular facet of Morgott made it into Nightreign, where an unnamed Fell Omen (essentially an upgraded Morgott) can jump-scare invade players.
While Morgott isn’t the only boss that can invade your squad as you run through Nightreign, he is a very fitting invader. Not only does it line up with his surprise appearances in Elden Ring, but he even gets some extra voice lines and a few new moves to throw at you. If you get to bring two pals to the fight, it’s only fair Morgott gets some new moves!
While he can invade you, the Fell Omen can also appear as an end-of-night boss, one of the conclusive fights you can face as the sun sets in the Elden Ring Nightreign test.
How did morgott even manage to sneak into nightreign to fight us. generational hater this is like the 5th time pic.twitter.com/t7euCmkBRy
The Fell Omen’s sudden invasions have hopes high for other enemies to suddenly appear and attack the players. The Pursuer from Dark Souls 2, for example, would make a great candidate. Me, personally? I’d love to see some Hunters invade and attempt to take out players, but anything Bloodborne-related feels like a distant hope at best.
They buffed Margit in Elden Ring Nightreign bro was training with Vergil
There might even be deeper mechanics to Fell Omen invasions. GamesRadar detailed an invasion from the Omen that took out one of their co-op partners, and seemed to leave a curse mark branded on the slain player. It’ll be exciting to see how this game develops, especially as more players get hands-on time with it.
Sometimes to chill out I watch timelapse videos of ocean creatures such as starfish colonising patches of sea floor. Perhaps they’re gracefully devouring a seal’s carcass, or moving to escape a lethal descending finger of ice. Look, I’m quite a morbid guy, but ‘beauty of nature’ and all that.
It turns out there’s an equivalent in Warhorse’s recent RPG-palooza Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2: drop dozens of items in a random town square, and passing NPCs will gradually gather them all up according to preferences dictated by class. Here’s a video showing that in action, created by Redditor Mcloganator, with three thousand groschen worth of goods to harvest.
It seems like an absurd notion these days, but after Tomb Raider made its debut in 1996, developer Core Design pumped out six mainline entries over the next eight years – six. It’s true that teams were able to turn projects around much more quickly in those days, as evidenced by franchises such as Resident Evil and Final Fantasy, but it was also a clear indication of just how popular Lara Croft had become, and how much publisher Eidos Interactive wanted to milk the series to within an inch of its life.
The story goes that Core Design had grown weary of Tomb Raider by the time it commenced work on the fourth entry, The Last Revelation. Though keen to wean off Lara Croft and be done with the series, the team was ordered by Eidos to press on with even more Tomb Raider games. So while one group of devs reworked scrapped ideas from The Last Revelation to produce Tomb Raider: Chronicles, another moved development to the PS2 and began work on The Angel of Darkness.
Hello! I’m Oli, the game director at Kaizen Game Works, the creators of Paradise Killer. I’m thrilled to announce that the playable demo for our new open world mascot management crime drama, Promise Mascot Agency, is out today on PS5!
We’ve spent a long time working on this game, and the whole team is excited for PlayStation players to get their hands on it. Let me kick it to you straight; the PS5 rules. All of us at Kaizen primarily play on PlayStation, and we all grew up with the original PlayStation, PS2, PS3 and PS4. I collect PlayStation and PS2 games, and that era directly influenced the design of Promise Mascot Agency.
I love PS2 games where you Hangout And Do Stuff. Have you ever played Way of the Samurai, Raw Danger, Boku No Natsuyasumi and Steambot Chronicles? You should! You can really chill in those games, meet interesting characters, make important choices and explore at your leisure. That’s the kind of game we wanted to make; a fun world with mysteries, weirdos, secrets, good gameplay friction and immaculate vibes.
Take control of the exiled yakuza lieutenant Michi, and team up with the chaos goblin Pinky to save a bankrupt mascot agency and solve the underworld conspiracy that got Michi sent to a cursed town on the coast of Japan. In this game, mascots are living creatures and the town of Kaso-Machi is filled with misfits that can’t find work anywhere else. Michi is going to need to build a new family of mascots and help them achieve their dreams, so he can save the business and his yakuza family back home.
Kaso-Machi is a town living under a supernatural curse. The mountain in the centre of the island is a playground for spirits and gods. The town is steeped in superstition and occult stories. Michi is able to try to solve the mystery behind ghost sightings, escaped sin talismans and the mythical Tsuchinoko creature. However, his time in town might be limited; the curse that hangs over the town kills any yakuza that come to visit. Can Michi save the mascot agency and solve a conspiracy before the curse rots his body?
We started this project four years ago, collaborating with Ikumi Nakamura and Mai Mattori to design the characters and world. We have blended the Kaizen style with Nakamura-san’s style to create a bizarre, nostalgic, unique game. We’re a western company, so we have worked with Japanese artists, musicians and creatives to bring our world to life and fill it with authenticity. Often we provide very little creative direction, allowing our team members to craft something that is authentic and meaningful to them. This has filled the game with lots of different influences and lived experiences.
We recently unveiled some of our voice actors including the voice of Kiryu Kazuma, Takaya Kuroda as Michi. We never expected to be able to include voice acting, and we CERTAINLY didn’t expect Kuroda-san to just turn up to the audition like it wasn’t a big deal. He teams up with Ayano Shibuya as Pinky to create a buddy-cop dynamic between Michi and Pinky. The game features many great voice actors, along with the first voice acting roles for Shuhei Yoshida and SWERY.
We’re a small team and it has taken everything we have to make a big, silly, generous, bizarre 20 hour open world RPG. We’re so happy to share it with you all. We hope you enjoy the demo (and the DualSense controller haptics, adaptive triggers and speaker features) on PS5. We’ll have more to share about the full release date soon. Now, get out there, keep promises and achieve dreams!
Even if you don’t play Magic: The Gathering, you’ve probably caught wind of its numerous video game crossovers in recent years, including Fallout, Tomb Raider, and Assassin’s Creed. But today we’ve got an exclusive first look at one of the most exciting yet: Final Fantasy. And not just one Final Fantasy – from Terra to Y’shtola, four different mainline games are represented across the preconstructed Commander decks headlining the set.
Flip through the image gallery below for a first look at the lead card and packaging for each deck, and read on for a conversation with Wizards of the Coast about what to expect inside them, why these four games were picked, and plenty more.
Set to launch this June, Magic’s Final Fantasy crossover will be a fully draftable, Standard-legal set accompanied by the four preconstructed decks in the gallery above. Each of those includes 100 cards made up of both reprints of existing cards with new Final Fantasy art and brand new cards designed with Magic’s most popular format, Commander, in mind. And while Commander precons are always themed around certain characters, colors, or strategies, the twist with these is that each one is built around a single Final Fantasy game – specifically 6, 7, 10, and 14.
“Final Fantasy games are so rich with flavor, beloved characters, and unique settings that choosing a single game as the theme provided more than enough material to design a full deck of cards around,” says Senior Game Designer Daniel Holt, who is the Commander Lead for the set. “Approaching each deck as a single game also provided the opportunity to dive deep into the lore of each, capturing even more beloved moments from across the game’s storyline that we may not have been able to achieve otherwise.”
“…we have so many passionate Final Fantasy fans in the building.”
The team decided on these four Final Fantasy games based on a balance of what they wanted for the gameplay of each deck and how well known each story was overall. Holt says that while Final Fantasy 7 and 14 were clearer picks, 6 and 10 took more discussion to arrive at, but were chosen partially because they were favorites among the team. “This was one of those products where everyone in the building was invested in each stage of development, as we have so many passionate Final Fantasy fans in the building.”
Of course, even within those picks, there are some decisions you have to make about direction. For instance, Final Fantasy 7’s remake trilogy has been running alongside the development of this Magic set, so is its Commander precon telling the story of the original or its reality-bending reimagining? Dillon Deveney, Principal Narrative Game Designer at Wizards of the Coast and Narrative Lead for the set, says you’ll see a bit of both throughout that deck’s art, but the story itself will follow the 1997 classic.
“Our core approach to Final Fantasy VII was to capture the original PS1 game’s narrative, while using Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s modern aesthetics to push the fidelity of each character design, story moment, and memorable location to the next level,” Deveney explains. “With that in mind, if a scene existed in both games, we had our choice of showing it as the original game did, how the modern version interpreted it, or a unique fusion of both. Hopefully, this deck feels familiar and nostalgic to players of both the original game and the modern series!”
Speaking of nostalgia, Final Fantasy 6 is a trickier nut to crack in some ways as it lacks the more modern art references the other three games can provide. Deveney says they wanted to stick close to what fans would expect from its pixel art sprites and limited concept art while also expanding upon them, and hopes that “the character designs should feel like how you ‘remember’ them, despite being a hybridization of many different references and new ideas.” To help accomplish that, WOTC even consulted directly with the Final Fantasy 6 team as they updated these character to the standards needed for Magic art.
“We developed a workflow that asked concept artists and card artists to pull hallmark character designs from Yoshitaka Amano’s original (and legendary) concept art, the original FFVI sprites, and the FFVI Pixel Remaster character portraits, to synthesize the most consistent elements of each character’s design into something ‘new.’ We also encouraged our artists to punch up finer details and bsexplore elements where they thought they could push (fabric, patterns, textures, etc.) Then, we would meet with the Final Fantasy VI review team, and they would give us feedback on what core elements they wanted to preserve and what new elements they were excited about.”
“It’s our hope that the [FF6] character designs should feel like how you ‘remember’ them…”
So they had the four games decided, but when it comes to Commander, that’s only half the equation– WOTC also needed to figure out which characters would lead each deck. Cloud may be the obvious pick for 7, but Holt tells me the others involved some brainstorming. Celes was considered for 6 since the deck is focused around the World of Ruin and the second half of that game, while Yuna was considered for 10 as a fan-favorite. They ultimately decided to stick with the “lead” characters on those, but Final Fantasy 14 is an MMO, which presented its own problem.
“For Y’shtola, it came down to a mix of popularity of the character as well as being a spellcaster, her story and character development offered a wide range of abilities and moments to pull from to lead the deck,” Holt explains, going on to say this deck represents her specifically during her Shadowbringers arc. They did explore the concept of making a “Warrior of Light” commander players could make their own in some fashion, but Holt says those ideas had some “pretty in-depth executions,” and that your own personal hero still has plenty of moments in this deck even without being at the helm.
Now comes the question of figuring out how to fit an entire video game’s story, characters, and themes into a single deck and the carefully balanced restrictions of Magic’s five colors. “Building these decks called for us to decide color identity for the chosen game itself, but also the gameplay we desired from them,” says Holt, going on to point out that it’s no mistake all four include White, “for both theming and it helped cover the wide range of Heroes we wanted to include in each deck.”
As mentioned, the deck for 6 is centered on the latter half of that game – as such, it’s essentially all about rebuilding your party by bringing other creatures back from your graveyard. For 7, Cloud wielding a big sword lines up nicely with the equipment strategies of a white-red Magic deck, but Holt says that “adding green to the mix let us tie in the ‘power matters’ cards and cards that reference the Planet and lifestream.”
While Tidus’ ability to pass counters around might lead you to think the deck for 10 is all about Blitzball, this classic white-blue-green strategy actually primarily came from the idea of that game’s Sphere Grid leveling system as a way to empower your creatures. Holt also admits that the theme for 14 was tricky to land on, but its white-blue-black color identity allowed them to lean into a noncreature spell casting theme while also including the characters they wanted to.
“…fans can expect to see some of their favorite characters in the 99 of each deck…”
Last but not least, Commander might be all about your leader, but RPGs are often about your party as a whole, and WOTC won’t leave the supporting casts of these games hanging. “Final Fantasy games are full of loveable AND villainous characters and getting them in these decks was very important,” Holt says. “While I can’t talk specifics on who is included in each deck or their abilities just yet, fans can expect to see some of their favorite characters in the 99 of each deck as new legendary creatures and captured in action on other exciting spells.”
Magic’s Final Fantasy set will release on June 13, and if you don’t see your personal favorite Final Fantasy game or character here (or even if you do), don’t worry – Holt assures me that “all sixteen of the mainline games will have their moments to shine in the accompanying products.”
Returning to the same territory as the Warhammer 40,000 Commander decks from 2022, all four of these decks will be available in both a regular version (MSRP $69.99) and a Collector’s Edition (MSRP $149.99), the latter of which will feature all 100 of the cards in each deck in a special Surge foil treatment.
Read on for the full, unedited interview with Wizards of the Coast’s Daniel Holt and Dillon Deveney:
IGN: Why did you decide to build each commander deck around a whole game this time?
Daniel Holt, Senior Game Designer: Final Fantasy games are so rich with flavor, beloved characters, and unique settings that choosing a single game as the theme provided more than enough material to design a full deck of cards around. Approaching each deck as a single game also provided the opportunity to dive deep into the lore of each, capturing even more beloved moments from across the game’s storyline that we may not have been able to achieve otherwise.
How did you land on these four games specifically? Were there any close runner-ups you considered?
DH: In exploratory design, before getting too deep into deckbuilding and card design, we brainstormed what games offered the most for what gameplay we wanted with the decks as well as being the more commonly known storylines among the audience. Final Fantasy VII being one of the more referenced games in media made it a strong first contender. Final Fantasy XIV offered a unique gamestyle, that of an MMO, and has SO MANY active players that we knew we could delight this group by selecting it as one of the four. After that, it became a bit more of a team discussion. Final Fantasy X is a favorite of mine and Zakeel, the FIN Product Architect, so we were a little biased in choosing it. Final Fantasy VI touched the pixel era of games and was a favorite of several other designers in the studio. So with that, we ended up with our four game selects! That said, all sixteen of the mainline games will have their moments to shine in the accompanying products.
Should we expect reprint art/lands/etc. within each deck to also be tied to each game?
DH: Absolutely! We want players to feel like they are entering the world of that game as they summon creatures and cast spells from it. This means that the nonland reprints are placed from within that deck’s game, while lands can appear from any of the four games included in the product.
Can you talk a bit about your approach to Magic’s color identities across these decks as it relates to Final Fantasy – why these colors for these characters/games?
DH: Building these decks called for us to decide color identity for the chosen game itself, but also the gameplay we desired from them. Being three colors each did help me have a wider range of options to apply to different characters and moments within the game. For example, you’ll notice all four decks include White in their color identity for both theming and it helped cover the wide range of Heroes we wanted to include in each deck.
Final Fantasy VI – This is a graveyard reanimator deck, so white-black-red was a great fit — gaining access to discard and mill effects in BR and ‘return from graveyard’ effects from WB. Thematically this deck rebuilds its large ensemble of characters in the World of Ruin, so the deck theme really plays into that section of the story.
Final Fantasy VII – As an equipment matters deck, white-red is well-known for that archetype in Magic and showcases this group’s iconic weaponry and battle prowess. Adding green to the mix let us tie in the ‘power matters’ cards and cards that reference the Planet and lifestream.
Final Fantasy X – White-blue-green counters are a classic staple in Magic deckbuilding and having access to all three here really let us build out a whole deck about moving the counters on the board and leveling up your team.
Final Fantasy XIV – This deck was tricky to land on, but by being white-blue-black, we had access to the colors we needed for the characters we wanted to include, but also be a noncreature matters theme, representing spell casting and ability usage you perform as the player while playing the Final Fantasy XIV game!
Terra, Cloud, and Tidus are the clear picks for their games, but how did you land on Y’shtola for Final Fantasy 14?
DH: I won’t deny that Cloud was a pretty obvious choice for the face commander of the Final Fantasy VII deck. The others went through a few rounds of brainstorming though! In Final Fantasy VI, since we were focusing on the themes of the second half of the game, Celes was actually a big contender for the lead. And with Final Fantasy X, we know Yuna is a fan favorite and could have led the deck to success. We ultimately landed on ‘the main protagonist’ character for each of these titles, resulting in Terra and Tidus filling those slots respectively; though Final Fantasy VI is an ensemble cast, Terra is often portrayed as the face of the series.
For Y’shtola, it came down to a mix of popularity of the character as well as being a spellcaster, her story and character development offered a wide range of abilities and moments to pull from to lead the deck.
Was using the Warrior of Light as the lead ever on the table, perhaps with some sort of background/class system to let players customize their precon?
DH: You caught me! We did explore card designs and themes around the Warrior of Light with some…pretty in-depth executions, before ultimately landing on Y’shtola as the commander. That said, there are still plenty of ‘Warrior of Light’ moments in the deck!
7, 10, and 14 have plenty of modern references when it comes to Magic-style art, but you’re pulling from a comparatively smaller pool for 6. Did you feel like there was more freedom to define your own look for those characters, or did you try to stick as closely to what was out there as possible?
Dillon Deveney, Principal Narrative Game Designer: I love this question! We wanted to stick closely to what fans remembered about these characters, while looking to merge the two major aesthetics of FFVI: the concept art and the in-game sprites. There was a lot of freedom in this approach, while trying to stick closely to the original designs. We worked directly with the Final Fantasy VI team to determine the aesthetics, designs, and costumes of the FFVI characters and world. To do that, we developed a workflow that asked concept artists and card artists to pull hallmark character designs from Yoshitaka Amano’s original (and legendary) concept art, the original FFVI sprites, and the FFVI Pixel Remaster character portraits, to synthesize the most consistent elements of each character’s design into something ‘new.’ We also encouraged our artists to punch up finer details and explore elements where they thought they could push (fabric, patterns, textures, etc.) Then, we would meet with the Final Fantasy VI review team, and they would give us feedback on what core elements they wanted to preserve and what new elements they were excited about. Ultimately, it’s our hope that the character designs should feel like how you ‘remember’ them, despite being a hybridization of many different references and new ideas.
Conversely, was there more pressure to get a character like Y’shtola exactly right when fans know so precisely what she looks like?
DH: From the game design side for each of these popular characters, this was one of those products where everyone in the building was invested in each stage of development, as we have so many passionate Final Fantasy fans in the building. At every playtest of the decks, I would get feedback about coworkers’ favorite characters, story moments, etc. that they wanted to make sure got included and implemented properly.
Some characters, like Y’shtola, have such deep character development throughout portions of their game. Each card that depicts one of those types of characters needed to capture them at a specific point in time of their story. For the Final Fantasy XIV commander deck, we have Y’shtola in the Shadowbringers arc where she has become a talented spell caster.
For the Final Fantasy 7 deck, did the recent remake series influence or impact your thinking/designs much, or were you mostly looking toward the original here?
DH: We had the fortunate overlap of some of the remake game series releasing WHILE we worked on this set. So it was a really cool experience getting to leave work, go home, and play games featuring the characters of cards I was designing in a ‘new’ video game.
DD: Our core approach to Final Fantasy VII was to capture the original PS1 game’s narrative, while using Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s modern aesthetics to push the fidelity of each character design, story moment, and memorable location to the next level. You will see a mix of classic FFVII moments and modern FFVII visuals in the deck, but generally, the product is intended to follow the original game’s story. With that in mind, if a scene existed in both games, we had our choice of showing it as the original game did, how the modern version interpreted it, or a unique fusion of both. Hopefully, this deck feels familiar and nostalgic to players of both the original game and the modern series!
It’s super cute that Tidus is all about passing counters around like a ball. Did you know this was going to be a counter deck already or did counters come from exploring Blitzball as a concept?
DH: Everyone loves Blitzball! People in the office got a ‘kick’ out of every time we mentioned it or referenced it somewhere in the product. But when starting the Final Fantasy X deck, the actual theming of counters came from the Sphere Grid experience system used in the game. This system is visually portrayed as a board where you add colored markers on the tracks to gain new abilities. In commander, I wanted to capture that idea by filling the deck with +1/+1 and other counters and then moving them around your team for added abilities!
Commander is all about your leader, but what is an RPG without a party – was it important to y’all to also highlight the folk supporting these leads within each deck?
DH: Of course! Final Fantasy games are full of loveable AND villainous characters and getting them in these decks was very important. While I can’t talk specifics on who is included in each deck or their abilities just yet, fans can expect to see some of their favorite characters in the 99 of each deck as new legendary creatures and captured in action on other exciting spells.
I assume a popular character like Cloud is going to be on more than just this card in the same way Frodo or Galadriel were in the Lord of the Rings set – I know you can’t get into main set spoilers here, but is there anything about designing around these characters for a commander-only product that you enjoy getting to do differently from a product that has to be in Standard?
DH: I think it’s safe to say you’ll see some characters making multiple appearances in the product and each is appealing to different kinds of players. With the ones we see here, they are all ‘commander-sized’, meaning they are aimed to be exciting in the commander format, both in and out of the precon. All the legends in these decks have a unified goal of working together within their deck’s theme and it’s fun building cards like this to have that creative team synergy, whether that’s say…interacting with counters in Final Fantasy X or playing with the graveyard in Final Fantasy VI. On the other hand, legends in the main set can be designs built around the character independently of other cards to spark new archetypes of decks.
Tom Marks is IGN’s Executive Reviews Editor. He loves card games, puzzles, platformers, puzzle-platformers, and lots more.
