Free Play Days: Tekken 7, Dependence on Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered, and Sid Meier’s Civilization VI

The CGI Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children movie first made its debut back in 2005 and offered even more of a backstory to the story of Sephiroth, SOLDIER, and the fight we faced in the film's game counterpart. With the Final Fantasy VII Remake being such a hot topic, the film is also getting a makeover with a 4K HDR remaster slated for June. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children's 4K remaster will arriving on June 8, two days before the arrival of Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade and its Yuffie DLC addition. Some have said that this film was an unnecessary and confusing addition to the Final Fantasy universe, but I've always disagreed with that statement. Advent Children takes place two years after the events of the game, and it provides a closer look at what drove Sephiroth. With children suddenly being infected with an "unexplained disease," Cloud Strife once more goes front and center to help those in need. Even when he himself has the same disease.  [embedded content] Advent Children was directed by Tetsuya Nomura and was written by Kazushige Nojima. Produced by Yoshinori Kitase and Shinji Hashimoto, the film's spinoff was an interesting perspective on what we learned in Final Fantasy VII. While reviews for the CGI take weren't the best, mostly for the annotation of confusion noted above, veterans of the franchise that were familiar with the premise praised the movie. So much so that it even won the Maria Award during the Sitges Film Festival alongside the award given during the American Anime Awards back in 2007.  For those interested, the official synopsis can be seen below:  Continuing the storyline based on the hit Playstation game Final Fantasy VII, two years have passed since the ruins of Midgar stand as a testament to the sacrifices made in order to bring peace. However, the world will soon face a new menace. A mysterious illness is spreading fast. Old enemies are astir. And Cloud, who walked away from the life of a hero to live in solitude, must step forward yet again. Thoughts on Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children getting the remaster treatment? What are your thoughts on the film as a whole? Shout them out, loud and proud, in the comment section below! Sephiroth would want you to. 

Hello again, tamers, and welcome back to the Archipelago. The wait is over, and the eagerly awaited island of Cipanku opens its doors tomorrow for all tamers to discover and enjoy. In case you missed it, Temtem is a colorful creature-collecting MMO where you’ll explore the Airborne Archipelago alongside your Temtem squad. From tomorrow onwards, you’ll have one more island to discover. Oh! We’ll also be implementing Activity Cards for all in-game quests — we can’t wait to see what you think. The rise of digital Temtem Cipanku is an Electric/Digital themed island, where tradition and technology converge and meld together. Cipanku is the first island to house Digital Temtem, a rare Temtem type that humans created in the Nanto laboratories. Digital Tems come with their own new and exclusive Traits and Techniques; they’re the first type to be weak to themselves. Digital Tems are strong against Mental, Melee and Digital types, and are weak to Water, Electric and Digital types. They’re also resistant to the Toxic type. Notable Digital Tems you might already have registered in your Tempedia include Oree, Zaobian and the Digital variant of Koish. We’ve also leaked a new Digital tem called Molgu, and a couple of Electric Tems like Raignet and the Sparzy line. Catch a mythical Temtem together Cipanku also brings with it one of the most significant features in the game’s history. Mythical Temtem. And the way to reach them, Lairs. Lairs are a group activity, ranging from three to five players (having five is strongly recommended), where you and your teammates will be able to progress through your own paths to get a chance at capturing the Mythical Temtem. In Lairs, even though each player receives a different randomly generated path, all resources are shared and resource management is the true key to success in reaching the Mythical. To prove your skills as a tamer, instead of traversing the Lair with your usual squad you must form your Temtem team and inventory during the Lair, and think strategically about when and what to bring along with you. Fast travel across the Islands The technology advancement in Cipanku will allow you to unlock one of the most requested features so far: teleportation. By completing a side quest in the city of Neoedo, you’ll unlock a nifty teleport system that, in exchange for a fee, will let you travel instantly from many different hotspots across the Archipelago. Teleports to any Narwhal airport are free, though. Top tips for success in Cipanku For this update, we recommend having your team leveled up to at least level 50, but as usual, the higher the better! For team suggestions, Mudrid and Grumper are valuable allies, and a Nessla with Electric Synthesize should carry you far, too. You can find these in Tucma, Kisiwa and Deniz, respectively. On Lairs, keep in mind that they can be re-done as many times as needed until you complete, but they’re challenging. Do your best to save the key resources to unlock the Mythical battle, or it will all be for naught. We really hope you enjoy Cipanku, and the first update of Temtem on PlayStation 5. Temtem up.

If you’ve been following the auto chess craze, you know that Teamfight Tactics has carved itself a fairly powerful presence in the world of the auto battlers. Today, Teamfight Tactics not only detailed the upcoming Reckoning set mechanics, but also a whole new way to play called Hyper Roll. Hyper Roll makes some bold changes to the core game feature set and removes the concept of investing and economy, and also fits the entire Teamfight Tactics experience into a faster game lasting around 15 minutes.Reckoning itself is going to change the game a lot with the new inclusion of Shadow Items. Think about all your favorite stuff, with “dark side” variants. As with any new set, there are oodles of new classes to play with, including Forgotten, Hellion, Nightbringer, Cavalier, Ironclad, Revenant, and Dawnbringer. Of note, Reckoning features more 3 trait Champions than other sets, which should hopefully create more variety in builds than in previous metas.  Hyper Roll is the first Lab coming to TFT. If you’re familiar with Legends of Runeterra, you already kind of have a good idea of the “labs” concept, but here in Teamfight Tactics it’s particularly exciting to see Riot play with the established systems of economy and investment gold. Hyper Roll strips away the concept of stacking up your cash for those investment rewards and eschews the current design framework completely. Instead, players have to deal with a ten hit point system where you lose one life for a loss early on and two points for a loss later in the game, incentivizing players to win every fight they can with anything they can get their hands on.  Almost every other salient aspect of the game is changed significantly,from neutral minion rounds to the carousel. There is a different ranking system in place compared to the standard ratings and rules as well for Hyper Roll. Players will still be able to climb the ladder and display their prowess, but Challenger and Grandmaster rankings are currently remaining part of the core Teamfight Tactics experience.  Reckoning is currently available on the Public Beta Environment for League of Legends. Do you currently play Teamfight Tactics? Are you looking forward to this expansion? Does Hyper Roll sound interesting to you? Let us know in the comments!

With the Mass Effect Legendary Edition just around the corner, longtime fans are finally getting their chance to play a more optimized Mass Effect experience on modern consoles. Being a massive Mass Effect fan myself, I've had more than a few people reach out wondering if the remaster would be a good reason to jump into the franchise for the first time. My answer? Heck-to-the-YES, here's why. A little backstory: I've been gaming for over 30 years and enjoy all sorts of genres and tales. From full-fledged single-player narratives to just shooting a few rounds in Battlefield, gaming is my life and I've experienced some amazing adventures out there. That being said, no franchise has made quite the impact on me that the Mass Effect series has and a big part of that is due to the incredible craftsmanship of the story and Commander Shepard's legacy.  For those that may not know, the Mass Effect trilogy begins with the player becoming Commander Shepard, an N7 operative that joins the Normandy in the year 2183. Aliens, interstellar travel, and turian booty is all around you (kidding on that last part, sorta) but it's not your average space adventure.  While there are guns and combat, that's not the main focus of the Mass Effect tale. The story that follows Shepard's journey is powerful, unique, and at times gut-wrenching.  As a note before we continue, I'll be referring to Shepard as "their" since players can choose to play a male or female version. I am using "their" to encompass both options.  As Shepard, you will begin as XO to none other than a man named David Anderson, the Normandy's CO. Anderson becomes like a father figure to Shepard, though eventually events lead to Shepard taking the Normandy's helm. The first game is also about uncovering an ancient threat, a threat not even fully realized until the end of the first title's story. The first entry is all about setting up the universe, making you care about it and feel like it's a part of your actual reality.  Because the first Mass Effect is more about setting up the world than being the end-all-be-all of the game series, the pacing is a little slow to start but once it picks up? It really picks up. The pacing disruption is also a world-building hurtle, and not something that impacts the second and third games.  The first game leads into the second where we know who the threat is, but the right people aren't taking it seriously. Politics (shocker) stand in the way of public safety as Shepard goes through an entire world shift from being poster child of the Alliance, the human's interstellar military, to being a part of a human terrorist organization due to unforeseen circumstances (we won't say why, major spoiler). Without giving too much away, the organization in question is called Cerberus, and it's an organization we first learn about in the first game as players uncover sordid experiments underneath this particular banner. Throughout the course of the three games, we learn more and more about Cerberus and where they fit into the galaxy, and those horrifying details create a uniquely heartbreaking narrative divide for our protagonist and those closest to them.  In a massive fight against an ancient race known as the Reapers, a sentient machine race that wipes out millions of lives on a cyclic schedule, Shepard builds their team across all three games with characters that are so vastly different from one another and begin to feel like actual family.  To me, what makes this story so special is the characters themselves. Throughout 30 years of gaming, I've become so attached to thousands of characters, all with something special to add to any gaming adventure. That being said, there is something about the progression of getting to know Mass Effect NPCs that feels organic, real, and not unlike how we build friendships and romantic relationships in real life. They are special in a way that even as a writer I'm not sure I could convey properly.  Don't judge, but I have 31 playthroughs of this trilogy. It's my comfort game. When life gets to be too much, I dive back into the world of Mass Effect. It's my security blanket. But even with so many runs through the story, it still makes me bawl like a baby and I feel like I've been punched in the gut when I have to say goodbye again when the end credits roll. A lot of that is just how incredible it is, and another part is though the ending is honed into three clear directions, your choices do really matter in ways many don't even realise throughout the course of the trilogy. No other game has done this to me and while it's not necessarily like that for everyone for a variety of reasons, it is a testament to the special magic that this BioWare story has.  A part of this attachment is the writing itself. The dialogue feels natural and engaging. There are squabbles, there is the process of having to win someone over, and these characters go to hell and back with each other. That sort of shared experience creates bonds in any situation, and that connection is conveyed expertly with the narrative structure and the in-game mechanics. As someone who was active duty, there were real-life situations I went through with people that couldn't stand me, and vice versa. Those situations we endured together though? That forged a bond that transcended previous perceptions. That same transformative relationship building is very much evident in the Mass Effect trilogy, and something that can be felt on a universal scale no matter each player's IRL journies.  Through loyalty missions that dig deep into these characters' pasts to dialogue options that shape the way these characters see the player within this world, every action feels meaningful and impactful, which is a large part why Mass Effect is so incredibly immersive. These characters matter. They matter to Shepard and they matter to you.  The combat mechanics are also nothing to scoff at, though boy did the first game's weaponry age poorly. Throughout the progression of the series, real evolution can be seen both narratively, mechanically, and graphically. With the alleged remaster coming, all of that can be experienced once more but with improved visuals.  Another reason why you should play the trilogy is that the remaster includes ALL of the DLC. While DLC is usually optional fun, Mass Effect has always felt like it was core chunks of the game missing if you didn't buy them. I couldn't imagine playing the third game without meeting the creators of the Reapers face-to-face with the Leviathan DLC, or dirty dancing with Jack while Vega and the biotics have a muscle contest with the Citadel DLC. The extended stories are all vastly unique to each other, and many of them are vital pieces to a much bigger picture. Since all of the DLC is included (except for Pinnacle, here's why), this is a great way to see the franchise through a new lense previously locked behind a paywall.  The bottom line, and I know this article was a little vaguer than it maybe should have been, is that the Mass Effect Trilogy is a gem. I've tried to keep this as vague as possible since this article is geared to newcomers to the series, and I don't want to spoil key points of the story. If you haven't dived in yet, you are really missing out on a phenomenal ride that is on a pedastool few games reach. Planning on diving in and are looking for some help? You know where to find me. I've got tips, I've got recommendations, I've got insanely annoying pterodactyl screeches (as my author bio suggests). Hit me up, let's fan out!  You can also check out the latest episode of Replay where we talk about all things Mass Effect 2, that's the video at the top of the article! Don't forget to also check out our exclusive Mass Effect Legendary Edition game hub here for exclusive first looks, interviews with the team, and so much more. 

The perfect cosplay doesn't exis... Last year, the Internet fell hard for the most epic friendship ever: Animal Crossing's Isabelle and Doom's Doomguy. The duo is surprisingly wholesome, so much so that even id Software itself lent itself to the joke. Now, one cosplayer is bringing the pair front and center once more, though this time with Isabelle not hanging out with the Doom Slayer. Instead, she's becoming the Doom Slayer. The Isabelle Doomguy cosplay comes courtesy of @Mads_Five on Twitter. The self-proclaimed "space monk" has an impressive cosplay history, but it's her Animal Crossing x Doom crossover nod that really brought the biggest smile to my face:  While the duo isn't "canon," it was a a period on the internet that was drenched in feel-good vibes and adorable artwork. Memes, videos, and fanart ran rampant, showing how Isabelle is the very best helper when it comes to taking to the hoardes of hell alongsider her good pal Doomguy.  I will never stop being impressed by incredible creations like this. Crafting that armor, stylizing the wig down to perfection, the detailed weaponry? All of it takes time, dedication, and passion that results in something truly incredible. As the cosplay community continues to grow and flourish, I can't help but to enjoy every second spent in the rabbit hole of celebrating some of our favorite franchises through fan tributes like this. That, and Doomguy x Isabelle will never cease to be just the cutest thing ever.  Like the cosplayer's work seen above with her cleverly done Isabelle Doomguy? You can support her right here. Feel free to also drop some lovely thoughts on this cosplay in the comment section below!