Heading to the Cosmic Egg, the party are stopped by Hatanaka, who reveals himself to be the willing Mirage Master of Gharnef: the two are planning to perform the Opera of Shadows, summoning Medeus to consume the real world's Performa. His attempt sparked the mass disappearance of five years before, and Tiki shielded both Tsubasa and Yashiro at the cost of her memories.Īfter this, the Cosmic Egg Stadium is consumed by an Idolasphere portal. Tiki was banished into the Idolasphere, which acted as an intermediate dimension between the real world and her world, and she was instrumental in preventing Gharnef from performing the Opera of Shadows a second time to enter the real world as his native realm had become drained of artistic energy. She reveals that she and the other friendly Mirages unsuccessfully attempted to stop the dark mage Gharnef summoning the Shadow Dragon Medeus into their native realm with a ceremony called the Opera of Shadows. The group finds an item called a Dragonstone, which restores some of Tiki's memories. On many missions, Yashiro and his partner Navarre watch and sometimes act as an antagonistic force, before Itsuki's leadership and strength persuade him that he can help him avenge his father, the lead singer who vanished five years before. They also gather new allies in the form of Eleonora and her partner Virion, and Mamori and her partner Draug, who was the former partner of and initially possessed Barry. During one mission, the group rescue producer Yatsufusa Hatanaka, who later keeps a close watch on them. They are aided by Tiki, who is suffering from amnesia similar to the other allied Mirages.įurther attacks follow at multiple locations throughout Tokyo, each focusing on leading entertainment and media figureheads being possessed by hostile Mirages: these Mirages are revealed to be merely servants of a greater power. Leaving the Idolasphere, they encounter Maiko, who offers them positions alongside Touma in Fortuna Entertainment so they can both forward their entertainment careers and help fight Mirage attacks alongside Kiria and her Mirage Tharja. With help from Touma, who is the Mirage Master of Cain, the party free the MC from the hostile Mirage's control, restoring order. Awakening to their Performa, they use it to cleanse the Mirages: their attackers are revealed to be Chrom and Caeda, who ally respectively with Itsuki and Tsubasa. Itsuki follows, and both are attacked by hostile Mirages. The MC for the event is possessed by a hostile Mirage, and everyone in the building apart from Itsuki and Tsubasa are stripped of their Performa, while Tsubasa is taken into the Idolasphere dimension. In the present, Itsuki encounters Tsubasa at the One of Millennium talent audition event, where she is hoping to begin her career as an idol. Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE opens five years prior to the game's main events: at an opera attended by a young Tsubasa and Yashiro, everyone apart from Tsubasa vanishes without a trace.
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Upon further investigation, I couldn’t swim anywhere near where it was assumed the treasure was. For example, when trying to find a trapped crab, the tracks led into the water, and an arrow appeared to pointed my attention upwards. See, the treasures only show up on the compass when Jack is near them, but some treasures will show up when you’re near… but not near enough. The only problem is, sometimes it’s not nearby. Once selected, Jack will wander around, following tracks that appear to lead him to whatever is hidden in that particular area. Jack’s famous compass (which normally directs the wielder to whatever he or she most desires) is used to find eight hidden “treasures” in each level. One of the new features for the Pirates game also serves to be one of its frustrations. Also, while its intention may be helpful, the dynamic split screen that starts once the characters start to wander away from each other only serves to cause confusion, as invariably, one player’s screen reduces in size and the view becomes obscured by the other player’s end of the quest. Mission objectives aren’t clearly defined, and you’ll often find yourself running around a level trying to figure out just what to do next. However, in the face of all the cool movie backdrops and improved graphics (keeping a similar pseudo-CG look to the last LEGO title), it does run into the same issues from the previous games. In fact, despite his dialogue is only grunts and hums, you’d swear Captain Jack Sparrow was actually voiced by Johnny Depp, which says quite a bit for the character adaptations. The LEGO humor is especially prevalent here, which is nice considering the last LEGO title ( LEGO Star Wars III) was surprisingly humorless the fun of the Pirates movies is only enhanced in its non-verbal retelling by each LEGO character. I’m sure the recipe wouldn’t work as well with LEGO Requiem For A Dream or LEGO Ishtar, no matter how many times I demand they make them. It helps that the characters they’ve adapted are already charismatic, which only serves to amplify the silliness of the game. (Well, six if you count the super secret hidden missions… oooh!) The formula is familiar, but once again TT Games has injected its bottomless supply of charm and whimsy into the characters and world to bring it all together. This latest LEGO title takes all four of the Pirates films, including the forthcoming On Stranger Tides, and splits them into memorable, five chapter game sequences. Yeah, that’s right, I had no friends… why do you ask? I’d spend hours trying to build the ships and position the figures to match the picture on the front of the box. When I was a kid, my favorite LEGO toys were the “Pirate” series. Conveniently, they’ve just released a LEGO series in the toy line based on the Pirates of the Caribbean series, but honestly, they didn’t have to. The characters are LEGO figures and everything in the game world - from vehicles, buildings, plant life, and more - are built out of LEGO blocks. LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game (Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii, PSP, DS, 3DS, PC)īy now, I’m sure you’re familiar with the LEGO games, where they take a popular franchise and stylize it as LEGOs. Seems like they just did this two months ago, but who’s keeping track? Has it once again struck that happy marriage between goofy gameplay antics, and a familiar and popular series? Does this title reinvigorate the LEGO series, or is the formula getting a little stale? And oh, wouldn’t it be great if they timed the release of the game to coincide with the fourth film in the series?Īll sarcasm aside (for now), TT Games has found a franchise that fits very well within its LEGO-ized universe, and have once again condensed the four epic Summer blockbusters down to short, serialized nuggets of co-op gameplay for the whole family to enjoy. This time, its dart board of pop-culture has Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise set firmly in the bullseye. Traveler’s Tales has once again taken a popular film franchise and those colorful Danish building blocks, and thrown them into a videogame blender. Not wanting to go it alone, I’ve taken some time to rescue some game-controlled marines from the Banished, hunt down rare weapons and generally just make it easier to traverse the field as the Cortana mystery deepens. A ringworld is alien-constructed but feels more or less like a planet built around and on top of metallic structures rather than sediment. Here, Chief is marooned on a “ringworld” - a floating space sphere that in the “Halo” universe is filled with mountainous ecosystems, underground caverns and cold, imperialistic space corridors - trying to uncover the mystery surrounding Cortana. More important, they augment the main story. Optional challenges are typically shorter than those that make up the narrative spine - find Cortana, rebuild humanity - but work well for lighter game sessions. Typically, when reviewing a game, one is wont to focus primarily on the key story-focused missions, but I’ve wanted to take my time with “Halo Infinite” and haven’t stressed myself to rush through it in five days. In my 18 or so hours with the game, I think “Halo Infinite” succeeds in this goal. With “Arcane,” its in house-produced animated show for Netlflix, Riot aims to put games at the center of the entertainment universe. When confronted, for instance, in “Halo Infinite” of visions of the past - or perhaps a nightmare - we’re asked to ponder what’s real and what’s “clusters of recursive code.” And when we meet for the first time a new magical foe known as the Harbinger, they say, apparently without cringing under their helmet, “I am the harbinger of true truth.”Įntertainment & Arts ‘Arcane,’ the new ‘League of Legends’ Netflix series, shows Riot Games’ ‘black licorice’ strategy “Halo” dominates because of its tone, feel and player navigation - or lack of one, as I admit I smiled when my three-seater of a military vehicle got stuck on a rock.īut from little details - the “zoop” of Master Chief’s suit regenerating its power and shields - to grander elements of technological mysticism and the examination of our relationship to the artificially intelligent, “Halo Infinite” understands the fairy-tale heroism of the series is just as crucial as its run-and-gun scenes. So much of “Halo’s” appeal lies in these more abstract facets. A Paramount+ series is in the works and due to launch in 2022, but any cinematic or television adaptors have a challenge on their hands. Over its decades “Halo” has become so deeply wedded to interactive, environmental storytelling that attempts to turn it into a film have often sputtered. “Star Wars” but more militaristic in its mix of fantasy and sci-fi is the easy cultural comparison, as “Halo” turned the Xbox game consoles into a powerhouse and is as much a vital video game text as “Super Mario Bros.” The Microsoft-owned “Halo” franchise itself has for the past 20 years come to symbolize the modern video game shooter - less frantic than “Doom,” lacking the self-seriousness of “Call of Duty” and striving to balance complex storytelling with an over-reliance at times on space lore better left for 30 or so books that attempt to make sense of this universe. As an interactive text it is still primarily a celebration of shooting with a variety of space guns, but even as someone who doesn’t often gravitate to the so-called “shooter” genre, “Halo Infinite” exemplifies the category at its approachable best. Return to form, reboot - whatever descriptor one wants to use - “Halo Infinite” plays as a bit of a “Halo” greatest hits, merging the Master Chief narrative existentialism of the very fine “Halo 4” with the early games’ patient level design, silliness and sci-fi slickness. So far, every minute I’ve played of the “Halo Infinite” campaign takes flight. But when “Halo” embraces itself as sci-fi gobbledygook - wrapping a warm hug around its cheesy dialogue and reveling in the weirdness of its core storyline of one man’s relationships with artificially intelligent female holograms - it soars as pulpy, timeless, space opera fantasy. There are times “Halo” tries to be serious, though those moments are best left at the tip of an eye roll. The whole of “Halo Infinite” is somewhat ridiculous. It’s hard, after all, to put down a controller in frustration when, after watching the man-turned-war-machine Master Chief get slain by an unseen alien brute with a pulsating blue sword, a squealy voiced rodent-like-reptile creature yowls, “I got dibs on the helmet, guys!” No one is as gleefully brain-dead going into battle as the creatures in the “Halo” franchise - and especially those in the campaign of “Halo Infinite,” a sort of reset for the massive sci-fi franchise after 2015’s bonanza of impenetrable intergalactic war threads that was “Halo 5: Guardians.” 2019 Prius Prime EPA-estimated 133 combined MPGe. 2020 RAV4 EPA-estimated 27 city/35 hwy/30 combined mpg for LE FWD and Limited FWD 27 city/34 hwy/30 combined mpg for LE AWD 28 city/35 hwy/30 combined mpg for XLE FWD and XLE Premium FWD 27 city/33 hwy/29 combined mpg for XLE AWD and XLE Premium AWD 25 city/33 hwy/28 combined mpg for Adventure 25 city/32 hwy/27 combined mpg for TRD Off-Road 25 city/33 hwy/28 combined mpg for Limited AWD and 41 city/38 hwy/40 combined mpg for LE Hybrid, XLE Hybrid, XSE Hybrid and Limited Hybrid. Your mileage will vary for many reasons, including your vehicle's condition and how/where you drive. EPA-estimated 22 city/32 highway/26 combined mpg for 2021 Avalon XLE. EPA-estimated 13 city/18 highway/15 combined mpg rating for 2021 Tundra SR 4x2, SR5 4x2, Limited 4x2, Platinum 4x 4x2 EPA-estimated 13 city/17 highway/14 combined mpg rating for 2021 Tundra SR 4x4, SR5 4x4, Limited 4x4, Platinum 4x4, 1794 4x4 and TRD Pro. EPA ratings not available at time of posting. 2020 Avalon XLE preliminary 22 city/32 highway/26 combined mpg estimates determined by Toyota. 2018 EPA-estimated 19 city/27 highway/22 combined mpg for Sienna FWD. The published prices do not apply to Puerto Rico and the U.S. The Delivery, Processing and Handling Fee in AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, OK, SC and TX will be higher. Toyota may make a profit on the Delivery, Processing and Handling Fee.) Excludes taxes, license, title and available or regionally required equipment. Toyota's charge for these services is called the "Delivery, Processing and Handling Fee" and is based on the value of the processing, handling and delivery services Toyota provides as well as Toyota's overall pricing structure and may be subject to change at any time. (Historically, vehicle manufacturers and distributors have charged a separate fee for processing, handling and delivering vehicles to dealerships. MSRP excludes the Delivery, Processing, and Handling Fee of $1,025 for Cars (86, Avalon, Avalon HV, Camry, Camry HV, Corolla, Corolla HV, Corolla HB, Mirai, Prius, Prius Prime, Supra), $1,215 for SUV/Van/Small Trucks (4Runner, Corolla Cross, C-HR, Highlander, Highlander HV, RAV4, RAV4 HV, RAV4 Prime, Sienna, Tacoma, Venza), $1,495 for Large SUVs (Land Cruiser, Sequoia), and $1,695 for Large Truck (Tundra). |
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