Topic: Playstation 4 Backloggery and most wanted!

@Black_Swordsman Put in a few hours last night. Still early game, haven't even levelled up yet (playing on Death March difficulty where it feels like one kill = 1xp ), but starting to get the hang of the combat and really loving it! I do get my ass kicked, but with a classic save system in place there is no trepidation about wading into a battle to learn the opponents moves and tactics. Looting yields fun items and gives upgrades that feel meaningful but not overpowered. Money is scarce, but I'm earning my way as a combination of a junk dealer and flower girl picking and selling any blossom that might cross my path. This game seems to be a perfect fit for me and I'm having a better handle on the difficulty than I thought I would (at least this far)

@JohnnyShoulder I held off on playing it until I felt it was the best game it could be and with the Phantom Liberty DLC and related update + some patches (always give these games some extra patches before starting ) I felt we were there and was ready to get stuck in. However, other games kept cutting in line

@FuriousMachine The game was already pretty good even just with the upgrades and fixes the PS5 version itself offered when it finally came out. Can't fault waiting to play it until it got all of it's updates and upgrades though, especially when you always had something else to play.

I'm not a big fan of some of the endings to Phantom Liberty, but the game and the DLC are up there as one of my favorite experiences this gen. I waited and played Phantom Liberty until I was done with my second playthrough of the main game, so I can just ignore the ending and go with what I got for the main game. Not trying to discourage anything by talking about the ending, as I am highly likely in the extreme minority and it's still great regardless of what I say.

The situation in January:

So the immediate plan is —
Finish FFXVI, and
Finish A Plague Tale: Requiem…

After those, it will be all about Spider-Man 2 and/or Baldur’s Gate 3, depending on my mood at the time. I reckon I’ll do both in concert with one another since they are so different. We’ll see
As for planned purchases, my next is probably
Dragon’s Dogma 2 and either Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth or Crisis Core Reunion.

Update:

Finished FFXVI ☑️
Finished APT: Requiem ☑️

Started Spider-Man 2 and about halfway ☑️
Did not start Baldur’s Gate 3 ❌

Bought Crisis Core FF7 Reunion ☑️
Did not buy Dragon’s Dogma 2 ❌
Did not buy FF7 Rebirth ❌

So plans now are —

Finish the Marvel two-step:
Spider-Man 2
Midnight Suns

On deck:
Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin
Life is Strange: True Colors
Deliver Us the Moon

Planned Purchases:
Probably nothing in the next couple months, but if I get carried away then the games I’m keeping an eye on are —

Dragon’s Dogma 2
Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth
Stellar Blade
Dead Space Remake
God of War Ragnarok
Rise of the Ronin

Of those, probably the only one I definitely will buy is Rebirth, whilst the others are probable purchases when the mood and price are in alignment. I’ve exercised better restraint with purchases lately, but sometimes I need the dopamine hit of buying a new game. 😄

@Th3solution Haven't felt a need to buy a PS5 before now, but I will say I'm a touch envious of people being able to play Rebirth months before it hits PC.

Did you try the demo for Stellar Blade?

@Ralizah Yeah, as the weeks tick by, I really am getting more and more anxious to get to Rebirth. Partly because of FOMO, but partly because of the risk of spoilers grows higher the more time passes.

Fortunately, my commitment to play Crisis Core first is my buffer right now to keep me from just making an impulse buy of Rebirth. By the time I get to it, I reckon Rebirth will be making its appearance in the discount sales.

Stellar Blade is another thing though because yes, I did play the demo and I’m lukewarm about it right now. Which means I’m interested just enough to be swayed by hype and tempted to abandon my scheduled games and just jump into buying it at launch.

There were definitely aspects of the demo that I really enjoyed, like the Nier like setting, the great art design and animations, and the fantastic music. But I was disappointed by the combat difficulty, which revolved too much around timing based parry and dodges. I’ve never really liked parry mechanics, and I’m a fair dodger when there’s iframes involved, like the Soulsborne games, but in Stellar Blade the dodge is just a timing based escape that’s not very different from a parry. If you don’t hit the dodge button at just the right moment you’ll still get hit. At least that’s how it felt.

Anyways, it was fun but I could see myself struggling to get the timing down and so I’m just waiting on reviews and player feedback.

Edit: And as far as you’re buying a PS5, I think you’re bound to like it whenever you do get one. Besides the form factor of the weird design, it’s a really nice machine and I never turn on my PS4 anymore. Are you wanting to see if the Switch 2 is on the horizon first?

@KilloWertz Sounds good; I am really looking forward to playing it. I fired up the early PS5 version to see how it played and it looked promising. I did find it insanely disappointing that the game with the absolutely most powerful and detailed character creator I've ever seen never let's you see your character in-game (unless you count photo mode, I guess). Such an incredible waste.

@Th3solution I agree with your assessment on the Stellar Blade demo; the combat frustrated me so much that I don't see myself buying it, even though I loved the other aspects. I too prefer blocking/parrying/dodging mechanics of the Soulsborne games (though there are other mechanics in play there that frustrates me for other reasons) and I'm immensely happy that The Witcher 3 subscribes to pretty much the same model.
I would be happy just blocking and dodging for minutes, biding my time and waiting for my opening

@FuriousMachine Yeah, the exploration aspects and common enemy encounters during the Stellar Blade demo were fun and I could mostly keep up, but the bosses were less enjoyable. The boss at the end of the first area was ok and I think I bested it after 3-4 tries. But when I played the extra boss encounter that unlocks after completing the demo run, I just didn’t enjoy that. Granted when you reach that boss in the actual game you’ll have gradually leveled up and accumulated all those skills so certainly it will be more comfortable, but there was a feeling of dread after my third attempt and so I just quit there and deleted the demo. Even with all the extra skills unlocked, there was a timing based requirement to the combat that superseded any extra firepower. Still, there’s a lot to like there. Interestingly, I didn’t like the Nier Automata demo either (the game that Stellar Blade is most oft compared to), and it took some coaxing from forum members for me to play the full game and it ended up one of my very favorite games on the PS4 generation.

@Th3solution Rebirth looks like the sort of game I've wanted from Square-Enix. Action mechanics, but with party control. Big budget, but still retains its Japanese identity. And with actual large environments to explore, unlike Remake, which was fun, but, like the beginning of the original FF7, very tightly paced.

I actually looked up what they did with that plot point at the end of the game just so I wasn't anxious about being spoiled by it.

Oh god. Unless they're super telegraphed with a visual cue or something, I SUCK at parrying. Couldn't parry for the life of me in either Dark Souls or Breath of the Wild, which made life harder in both those games (the former significantly more, in fairness) There goes my interest in Stellar Blade, I guess.

I'll probably get a Switch 2 eventually, since Nintendo actually keeps their exclusive games exclusive (whereas pretty much everything from Sony is playable on my PS4 or PC right now), but the truth is I'm just sorta... bogged down in hardware and games. I own a Switch OLED, Switch Lite, PC, Steam Deck OLED, PS4, PS Vita, 3DS, and Wii U, and variously play games on all of them. Oh, and I still have my retro devices around as well, so the NES, SNES, Gamecube, PS2, Xbox 360, etc.

That's a lot of devices and games to go with all of them, and I'm heavily considering just selling off large swaths of my collection to streamline it, since I rarely replay games anyway. Although I'll probably keep my 3DS and its games, since it's going to become increasingly difficult to access them with the eshop shut down and Nintendo shuttered development on the biggest 3DS emulator while they were going after Yuzu. And unlike the Vita, most of its library is exclusive to it still.

@Th3solution Funny, I was also swayed to get Nier in spite of being less than enthused about it, but I've yet to try it. Will be interesting to see if I end up loving it, too (though that one is a bit further down on my backlog)

@Th3solution @Ralizah I thought the window for parrying was on the generous side in Stellar Blade, and beat the Boss in the Boss Rush mode on my first attempt. I wouldn't consider myself some kind of parrying master either, but am able to do it if called upon.

@FuriousMachine Yeah, that is a bit disappointing, but I get it since it's a first person game. There's a couple of times in the game where you see your character model, other than the option of looking in a mirror in bathrooms which is readily available, but those 1 or 2 moments that I remember were "cinematic" scenes.

I'm also in the camp that is disappointed in the combat of Stellar Blade. I fully expected another Bayonetta or something along those lines from the initial trailers, but the style of combat they chose for it isn't what I usually enjoy. I still play on trying the demo at some point, but I did cancel my pre-order because of the combat (and the fact that I'm not going to be done with Rebirth for a while). If I end up liking it better than expected, then there's always someday down the road when there's not so many releases.

@KilloWertz Ah, when I played it the mirror images was severely blurred and only served to open the character creator. Glad to hear that there at least is a scene or two later on. That character creator should be adopted by third person games... I can only imagine what my femshep would have looked like with options like that!

I haven't completely written off Stellar Blade either, but it's not anywhere near my playlist for now. Maybe one day, but, considering my backlog, that day is far off

@FuriousMachine That's weird. I don't remember that, but I guess it was at the very beginning. I do know that's not an issue now as you can make faces in the mirror while standing there.

True, it would have been great to have a character creator as good as that for Mass Effect. I was lazy and went with the default FemShep when I played as one a few years back. Blasphemy, I know.

@KilloWertz @FuriousMachine I really love a good character creator.

Having just started Midnight Suns, the creator suite for that is lame. Basically choose one of two body types, one of 4 faces and about 10 hairstyles, and that’s about it. I usually don’t get too crazy with the fine tuning of earlobe size and small tweaks of cheekbones, etc, but I like to mess around with noses, chins, lips, make-up, tattoos, scars, eye color (love it when I can make different colors for the right and the left), jewelry and piercings, hair color (especially when you can do base colors with different colored highlights) and lots of hair style options. I usually go with no facial hair if I spend a bunch of time on personalizing a face, but sometimes I give them some stubble or a goatee. 😄

@KilloWertz @Th3solution It's funny, I always turn into a hairdresser with these character creators. i like to tweak some things (eyes, noses, make-up, tattoos and accessories here as well) but the hair has to be just right. If the character has bad hair they will not receive my love... I'm a cruel creator

Edited my previous post as my next game after wrapping up Demon's Souls will now be Rise of the Ronin , which I aim to plat, and then to cleanse my palate after the Souls/Action RPG games, RE2 Remake , which I also aim to plat, with the infinite ammo dlc downloaded as an extra string to my bow, with regard to obtaining further assistance for hunting down that aforementioned plat.

Edit: Completed Demon's Souls and now eyeing up Rise of the Ronin , which I'll get around to next weekend/next week sometime, after reveling in my victory for a few days! 🤣

Edit II: Started Rise of the Ronin as I said elsewhere on the site, and have now added Nioh 2 Remastered: Complete Edition as the next game to play after that. RE2 Remake will have to wait! .

Edit III: Actually for a change of pace Resident Evil 2 REmake will be my next game after Rise of the Ronin
Edit IV: Beat Rise of the Ronin now playing Elden Ring

So the new list, but not necessarily in this order, is now:
Lake: Special Delivery
Nioh 2 Complete Edition
Death Stranding: Director's Cut Digital Deluxe Edition
Silent Hill 2 Remake Deluxe Edition
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Deluxe Edition
Shadow of the Erdtree DLC
Eldest Souls
Presently Untitled Upcoming Jedi Survivor Sequel
The Witcher Remake (presumably coming out in 2026 or later)

xD I hope you have fun.

I'm about half way into The Witcher 3 after having played for three months, so I'm reticent to make any decisions on my backlog right now, but, for once, my next three purchases seem fairly clear.
I have such a massive backlog of already purchased games that buying games at full price week one is something I rarely do and when I do, it's typically mostly because I want to "vote with my wallet" on the types of games I want to see more of. So I'll buy them, full price, week one, even if I probably won't get around to playing them for a while.

The next three games I'm rooting for are
Nobody Wants To Die
Star Wars: Outlaws
Dragon Age: The Veilguard

These are all dependent on reviews being decent, of course. There are many question marks hanging over all of these and I was very lukewarm towards Dragon Age until very recently. None of these will need glowing 10/10 reviews for me to buy them, as long as they are playable and deliver the experience I'm looking for (which they may, even in the 6-7/10 range of things).

@BlAcK_SwOrDsMaN Update on The Witcher 3: I'm still absolutely loving it! I have just reached Skellige, but will likely spend some time hunting down some sweet Witcher gear before continuing on with the story. I'm happy to say that I'm not experiencing any fatigue with the game yet, which is always a danger with games of this size

@FuriousMachine Yeah! I know what you mean regarding the fatigue, and I, myself, want to get that most-coveted plat for Elden Ring! . Anyway, I actually decided that with my Witcher 3 playthrough, because the game is so long that I would play it for at least eight hours a day, still took about a month to finish at that speed, and that was only like the second half or final third of the game, WITH keeping side missions to a minimum! 🤣