I bet you thought that what with all the spooky stuff we ve had on the site over the past while, we were leading up to a big horror extravaganza of Halloween-themed stuff today. Someone is going to use the word spoopy , you thought. Well you re wrong!>

All our special Halloween features are about nice things today. We are wall-to-wall niceness. Dare I say suffocatingly cute. Guaranteed no fun jump scares built into the code of the website as you scroll down. The only thing you have to fear is being so relaxed that you fall asleep and nap for too long and then you wake up with a fuzzy brain and aren t able to do anything except nap again. Oh no! You were going to make dinner but now you ll just have to eat a can of pringles and a bag of Bitsa Wispa! Let RPS be the light you turn on when your living room is a bit dark and you think the bag on the sofa is actually a monster about to kill you. And you turn on the light and you’re like, phew, it’s okay, it’s just the replacement Bitsa Wispa I bought from Tesco. Everything is okay.

To start, here is a big post rounding up lots of sweet, cute, or otherwise lovely things we ve written or made or talked about on the site for the last few months. (more…)

Some might tell you that the latest Dragon Quest XI patch sounds great, lifting the cap on framerate and adding more key binding options to the game our Noa called “a beauty of a JRPG”. These people are incorrect. The patch has introduced a grave injustice by allowing people to leave their horses behind. Just think of the sort of monster that would leave a digital horse alone in a land of slimes. The game previously punished such monsters by sometimes making the game crash but now Squeenix say that was a “bug” and they have “fixed” it? So people can abandon their horse without consequence? Terrible. Terrible patch. Terrible news. A terrible precedent.

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Dragon Quest is one of the prevent-the-apocalypse adventures that paved the way for the JRPG, and its huge success in Japan spawned many clones and competitors we love today. While some may consider Final Fantasy the breakout star of the genre, many look at Dragon Quest as the game that made RPGs possible back in the 1980s. Even with that level of impact and fame, Dragon Quest (initially known as Dragon Warrior in the US) never gained the same amount of traction in the United States or Europe as it did in the Japan. It s often been overshadowed by other games in the same genre. But now, with Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age currently keeping slime lovers happy after a nine-year drought, the developers are hoping to change that.

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After spending much of this decade catching up with the rest of the world, the Japanese games industry is truly back, and PC gamers have been reaping the rewards of this renaissance. It s taken time for Japanese developers and publishers to get on board, especially with consoles and smartphones remaining the dominant gaming platforms in their native country. But as classic console franchises finally make their Steam debuts, with better-late-than-never ports coming with full-fat optimisation options to give you the definitive experience, there really has been never a better time to be a Japanese-loving PC player.

As the Tokyo Game Show takes place this week, here s 10 of the best and most significant Japanese games you need installed, whether it s to immerse yourself in world-class game design, get a taste of classic console gaming history or Japanese culture, or, yes, if you just like the look of anime. (more…)

Have you been checking in on the Rock Paper Shotgun Video Department? It has its very own video corner on the site where everything is collected. But in case you missed it, I’m going to round up our moving picture delights from the last week. From life-consuming RPGs to fish prisons, we covered a lot of bases.

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Take last week’s Steam Charts, give them a little shuffle, and then breathe out a long, despondent sigh. Oh, and then entirely randomly add an Early Access racing sim. And then start sighing again, and never, ever stop.

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Dear RPS,Hullo everyone! Dashing off a quick postcard from my hols. Ate three sticks of rock for breakfast today. Have started wearing a hat. Sand’s everywhere. Margo did it again. Sophia says she’s going to kill Judith. Visited the world’s largest dairy statue of Alan Shearer; have bought you a lewd souvenir. And you wouldn’t believe what we found while diving in the bay – or the noise it made ha ha! All my love to Dottie, and please spoil the cats rotten for me.

Warmest regards,A

p.s. What are you playing this weekend? Here’s what we’re clicking on!

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I ve played Dragon Quest XI for about twelve hours now – or XII hours, in Dragon Questese – which is only a fraction of the whole thing, but a fraction is enough to offer some first impressions. That said, a first impression of Dragon Quest XI is rather like meeting a new member of a family you re already well acquainted with. It may be the first mainline game on PC, but there s X of the things on other platforms and the founding fathers of the series have made it their mission to change as little as possible; a point of both admiration and criticism.

That said, and as expected, it’s a beauty of a JRPG where, aside from a free camera mode in battle and horse riding, not much has changed at all. Which is totally fine by me. In the words of A Pop Band, At Some Point, Probably: I love you Dragon Quest XI, just the way you are.

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Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: steam Charts will PAY $2 for evry time u forwad this Article.#

If you do not fwrard this article to TEN of you’re Friens YOU WILL DEFINITELY DIE!!!!!!!11

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Today’s launch of Dragon Quest 11: Echoes Of An Elusive Age feels momentous. While we’ve missed out on the first ten, Dragon Quest 11 is the first mainline game in the series (Dragon Quest Heroes 2 was nice though) to land on our humble and flexible platform.

Square Enix’s long-running series has done much to define the JRPG as a genre and console cornerstone since 1986, and not much has changed in the series since then. Dragon Quest 11 promises a new but familiar story of magic swords, evil lords and cranky dragons to PC – unpretentious, bright, sunny and fit for all ages. Below, the launch trailer.

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