The Pokémon Company is selling a giant, 59 inch-long Slowpoke plushie for $450.
As reported by Nintendo Life, the jumbo Slowpoke is now available to preorder online at the Pokémon Center, where it’s pictured taking up an entire single bed and alongside a woman who’s roughly the same size.
The Slowpoke plushie was released in Japan in 2021 but is now making its way to the west. “It is so cute and so squishy,” said verified purchaser Christopher K in the reviews section. “Its vacant stare is also so calming, and its tail is so cuddly.”
“You really don’t know how big it’s going to be until it’s taking up half of your queen sized mattress and you have to rehome all the other stuffed animals so you can sleep on your own bed,” added Catherine B.
Nothing will prepare you for the sheer girth and size of this gargantuan unit.
“You will read the measurements but nothing will prepare you for the sheer girth and size of this gargantuan unit in person,” said Georgia M.
Slowpoke may be the ideal candidate for such a plushie given it rarely moves in the world of Pokémon. “It is incredibly slow and dopey,” reads its Pokédex entry. “It takes five seconds for it to feel pain when under attack.”
That’s a lot of bananas! 😅🍌 How else can we show off Slowpoke’s size, Trainers? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/Y5VA2suxI6
This plushie is on the large side even for a Slowpoke, however, as its average size is just 47 inches compared to this one’s 59, which places it at four foot and 11 inches or 1.5 metres long. The Pokémon Company measured it in a less conventional way too, learning the Slowpoke plushie comes in at 11 bananas long in a X/Twitter post (above).
While this may seem among the most premium Pokémon merchandise available, its $450 doesn’t scratch the surface of a custom line of Tiffany & Co jewellery. While some of the cheaper items come in at $1,290, the most expensive piece, a Pikachu pendant made of 18-karat yellow gold with diamond accents, costs $29,000.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
As one of the Treehouse’s resident Atlus sickos, I was incredibly happy to wake up to 25-minutes of Metaphor: ReFantazio‘s director Katsura Hashino talking us through some new footage. We get a look at a new rural town and the activities you can get up to, like bounty hunting. Travel on your magic mech is compared to “camping”, which I wasn’t expecting. And there’s lots of combat on show, with transitions from real-time to turn-based battles outlined in a bit more detail. Oh and it’s coming out in October, which gives me plenty of time to clear my JRPG backlog before this inevitably takes over my entire existence for the foreseeable.
If you, like us, are looking forward to the upcoming remake of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door on Switch, then you might want to check out this rather awesome-looking acrylic standee from Jay Choi (AKA Jayperior).
Officially called ‘Paper Plumber & Friends’ because, y’know… reasons, the characters have all been handdrawn by Jay and can slot into the main standee in whichever order you see fit.
Nintendo 64 game Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness released 25 years ago, but a new Konami Code, essentially a cheat code, has just been discovered for it.
YouTuber JupiterClimb uploaded a video revealing the code, which he said makes Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness “the definitive way to play Castlevania on the N64”. While the game arrived as a definitive edition of the regular Castlevania 64, some criticised it for making only the werewolf character Cornell playable from the beginning. Thanks to this code, however, that’s no longer an issue.
By inputting C-Up x4, C-Down x4, C-Left x2, C-Right x2, C-Left x2, C-Right x2, L, R, and Z twice in the main menu, players can create a brand new save and see all four characters unlocked, meaning Reinhardt Schneider, Carrie Fernandez, and Henry Oldrey are all available from the beginning.
Players would otherwise have to play through significant portions of the game to unlock each character despite some being available from the beginning in the original version. Beyond just their base versions, each character’s alternate skin is also made available immediately.
The Konami Code also grants access to hard mode once players begin a new save and reach a save point after inputting it. By quitting out of the game and returning to select a new save, the hard difficulty will be unlocked.
Bizarrely, JupiterClimb also showcased other newly discovered codes, which essentially fill a character’s inventory, grant a max level power-up and sub-weapon, and give them 99 jewels.
This discovering of new codes and the reception to the Netflix show perhaps show fans are eager for more Castlevania games, however, and Konami itself acknowledged the “excitement and enthusiasm” of fans and told IGN this was “really motivating”.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
What’s it like to watch a smash hit TV show set in the backyard of a game you’ve made? It’s a question which Fallout: New Vegas project director Josh Sawyer is uniquely qualified to answer.
“The show really does capture the aesthetic of Fallout 4 and 76, while also feeling like it is set on the West Coast,” he says. “If you’re a fan, then you can see where the plot elements have been pulled from in previous entries. And if you’re new to it, thankfully, those plot elements are fairly straightforward. So I think it’s a good show for fans and a good show if you’re new to it, even though there’s a lot of stuff going on. I’m certainly interested to see where they’re going in the second season.”
No Rest for the Wicked developer Moon Studios has released the biggest update yet for its action role-playing game as it battles to improve its ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam.
No Rest for the Wicked launched on Steam in Early Access form on April 18 to impressive concurrent player numbers, but players complained about a number of issues, including performance problems, localisation issues, and absent quality of life features. Check out IGN’s No Rest for the Wicked Early Access review for more.
Moon Studios, famous for the Ori franchise, said Hotfix 3 improves performance, balance, loot, harvesting, and graphics, and fixes progression blockers while adding new options in the Settings screen. A good few dozen other bugs across the rest of the game have also been squashed, Moon Studios added. It’s worth highlighting the following change: “Automatic Camera Zoom adjustment for handheld devices and Performance Mode.” That should go down well with players on Steam deck, for example.
In a tweet, Thomas Mahler, Moon Studios CEO and creative director, called on Early Access players to “hang tight” as the developer works towards the 1.0 release. “We understand that people paid good money to play Wicked, so they expect a good experience on their machines from the get-go,” Mahler said.
“We already released a few optimization fixes with more dramatic changes on the way! Joining us on our Early Access journey means that you’ll get all the improvements, content updates and fixes until we release 1.0, so just hang tight, we’ll make sure that you’ll get an excellent product (while being able to give us direct feedback, we’re listening!).”
No Rest for the Wicked Early Access Hotfix 3 patch notes:
Performance Improvements:
Improved area streaming, making the game feel smoother while traversing across different areas
Dynamic Resolution Scaling is now less aggressive, maintaining higher image quality
Improved culling for off-screen physics objects and characters
Fixed culling for bird animations, improving their performance in levels (there’s a lot of them!)
Additional Shader Optimizations for performance mode
Fixed a leak which increased memory and CPU usage the longer the game was played
Optimized rain and other GPU particles
Opening Cinematics and Ship Prologue Optimizations
Memory optimizations for character customization textures
Fade to Black now actually fully fades to black in HDR mode
Settings Additions and Fixes:
Added Camera Zoom Adjustment Option
Automatic Camera Zoom adjustment for handheld devices and Performance Mode
Menu Changes:
Added a new menu for exiting the game which includes both Exit To Main Menu and Exit To Desktop (localized text for this menu is coming soon!)
Adjusted Repair menu size to accommodate for text in other languages
Balance Changes:
Weapons parrying now consumes Stamina (Shields parrying remains unchanged)
Nerfed Gain Focus On Focus Use enchantment
Unarmed can now land hits while enemies are on the ground after performing a Backstab
Loot Changes:
Adjusted Dig Spot rates such that Clay drops more often
Reduced the number of hits needed for Dig Spots, Ore Veins, and Trees
Enemy Changes:
Improved behavior for Nith Screamer and Shackled Brute
Bug Fixes:
Fixed the crane not turning correctly in Nameless Pass and blocking players from progressing
Fixed a chest at Mariner’s Keep elevator locking you in when trying to loot it
Fixed dig spots sometimes not giving any loot
Fixed remaining enemies and bosses becoming kaijus
Fixed Falstead Darak dealing damage during his transition while he is still human
Fixed certain doors in Sacrament not having interaction hints
Fixed missing VFX for attacks by the Twin Bruisers, False Ones and Boarskin Axe
Fixed condition where enemies attack when they should not
Fixed vendor buy/sell prices on Raw and Refined materials being only ¼ of what they should be
Fixed missing furniture items at Workbench
Fixed Mira and Meri’s Spinning Wheel not allowing players to refine wool threads into garments
Fixed keyboard and mouse buttons not working on Bounties contribute panel
Fixed an issue where side notifications would occasionally spam players
Fixed parry tutorial trigger conditions
Fixed wording of enchanting tutorial to more accurately describe common rarity
Fixed spot in the Prologue where you can jump off the ship
Fixed sizing of a railing on the ship in the Prologue
Fixed spots where you can get stuck in a climbing loop in Orban Glades and Nameless Pass
Fixed spot in the Black Trench where you can see out of world
Fixed Angler’s Delight Chowder’s recipe name
Changed Danos’ confirm button color so it does not look grayed out
Fixed NPCs not knowing how to hold fishing rods in Nameless Pass
Fixed missing shadows and incorrect volumetric fog after changing resolution
Fixed reflection popping in sewers dungeon
Fixed torches and fire popping in cinematics
Fixed rain appearing in caves in Nameless Pass
Fixed missing audio for waterfall in Potion Seller Cave
Fixed missing audio for Nameless Pass Prisoner chopping and mining
Fixed an issue where there was a super bright mist in the Twins Boss arena after respawning
Fixed pink effects appearing in faders at times
Improved collision in some places at Orban Glades
Improved faders in Nameless Pass
Fixed Photosensitivity screen having overlapping text in certain languages
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
I often regret that I didn’t get into football as a kid (note for people across the pond: football is what we call soccer in these here accursed, eternally post-imperial isles). The trouble was, all my friends liked football and I have an abiding hatred of popular things, a hatred that has obviously served me well during my later career as an online news journalist. I played hockey instead, which is the superior sport in that you get a big nasty stick, but also relatively niche because you need more equipment.
Still, I’ve enjoyed rediscovering football in videogames, and especially videogames that don’t treat football with much respect. You may have played or at least heard of Behold The Kickmen – now, here’s free downloadable Itch.io offering Cereballers to stick the boot in.
Nintendo has released a new update for the Switch that makes a small number of changes.
Nintendo Switch update version 18.0.1 fixes a Wi-Fi bug where networks with certain security settings were not able to be detected. The patch notes, below, provide a guide for those unable to update to version 18.0.1 because of this issue. And finally, in time-honored fashion, the Switch update makes “general system stability improvements to enhance the user’s experience.”
Twitter user @OatmealDome, who digs into each Nintendo Switch update as it’s released, said this latest patch makes no changes to the console’s bad words lists. Nintendo often updates this list without detailing what it’s doing in the patch notes.
Fixed an issue where some wireless access points cannot be found when setting up a new wireless network.
If you’re unable to update to Version 18.0.1 because of the issue, temporarily change the security settings for your wireless network to use only “WPA2 (AES)” so you can connect wirelessly to download and install the system update.
After updating to Version 18.0.1, restore your network’s security settings to its previous settings.
General system stability improvements to enhance the user’s experience.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
This week sees the arrival of spiritual Suikoden successor Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes for the Nintendo Switch and multiple other platforms.
If you happen to be interested in this one and haven’t already read our review here on Nintendo Life, be sure to take a look. We gave the game 6 out of 10 stars and said it was “a flawed gem”. While it does a lot of things right, some problems are tough to overlook in terms of dated design, and the game’s performance on Switch.
