Bravely Second: End Layer, sequel to the surprise hit RPG Bravely Default, will be released in North America for 3DS on April 15, Nintendo of America announced Tuesday. Nintendo had previously announced that the game, which was released in Japan in April, 2015, would make it stateside some time in 2016. Like the original, Bravely Second was published by Square Enix in Japan, but brought to the west by Nintendo.
To hold fans over, Nintendo said it will release a 10-hour extended demo for Bravely Second on the Nintendo 3DS eShop ahead of the game’s release. Bravely Second: End Layer — The Ballad of the Three Cavaliers is actually a stand-alone story that will feature a “new jobs and areas to explore.” Streetpass tags and other data from the game, however, will “carry over” when players start End Layer.
Bravely Second and takes place more than two years after the resolution of the original Bravely Default, and will see the return of the game’s original heroes, though not all as playable characters. According to GamesRadar, the story will primarily focus on a new character, Yew Geneolgia, a royal bodyguard on a quest to save the person he was meant to protect, Bravely Default heroine-turned-queen Agnes Oblige. Nintendo released a new trailer teasing the game’s story in the U.K., where it will be released February 26.
Nintendo also announced there will be a North American collector’s edition of the game, which will include the game, a 250-page art book and a CD with the game’s soundtrack. The collector’s edition will cost $69.99.
In addition releasing news about Bravely Second: End Layer, Nintendo announced it will release a special edition 3DS XL for another upcoming RPG, Fire Emblem Fates. The $199 console features a silver top and black bottom, representing the two versions of the game, Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright and Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest. The two games, however, will be sold separately.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.