Everyone’s favorite Buster Sword jockey is joining the brawl in the latest installment of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS. Cloud Strife, whose fame extends far beyond his 1997 introduction in Final Fantasy VII, was revealed in a trailer from Nintendo. He will be available as a DLC character. The Japanese language clip is the final segment in a 45-minute Nintendo Direct update.
The new challenger approaches with a range of moves and swordplay that includes Limit Breaks and an Omnislash Final Smash. Cloud also brings along a change of clothes from his Advent Children days, and more costumes are expected to be added. No word on whether or not players will have the option to dress Cloud in drag.
The summons make an appearance here as part of Cloud’s move set. We spotted Odin, Leviathan, Ramuh, Ifrit, and Bahamut. With these powers, Cloud can literally tear a stage in half.
Did you catch the Aerith reference in the clip? Hint: it involves a famous young lady from another series.
The city of Midgar is being added as a new stage, complete with original soundtrack and Mako reactor. The designers really captured the somber tone of the original world here.
The end of the trailer reveals a set of Mii Fighter costumes inspired by the Final Fantasy series’ Chocobos.
Cloud is the first character to be revealed since Streetfighter’s Ryu was announced in April. Cloud’s appearance is unexpected, as Final Fantasy VII was never officially released on any Nintendo systems. Cloud himself has appeared before in the Theatrhythm and Kingdom Hearts series.
We expect that the Amiibo tradition will continue, complete with a a hysterical scramble to obtain a Cloud figure.
Nintendo posted that the next update for Smash Bros. will be revealed in December.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.