Topic: Your Latest PS4 Purchase

@Gadjo Oh wow, long time.

I'm hanging in there. It has been an... interesting period of time to be an American, to put it lightly.
You doing good?

I'll defend Working Designs a bit here insofar as their liberal localizations still had a lot of work poured into them. There was more love and respect for the source material in PS1-era Lunar than in a number of PS3-era NISA localizations.

But I am also glad NISA is a thing. They've been better in the localization department, afaik, since the fallout with Ys VIII. And, like Atlus, they did a lot of heavy lifting to bring niche series to the U.S. in the PS2 era when most companies wouldn't touch them, and I do really appreciate that. Right now, my appreciation mostly stems from their incredibly robust support for the Nintendo Switch. Most of the Trails games will be on the system before long, and most of the credit for that goes to NIS.

@mookysam @nessisonett Apparently the "joke" is there because the character is hunting for a husband, or something. I dunno. It's not really defensible. And it's egregious enough that it's often trotted out as evidence of NIS' lack of regard for the properties they localize by their haters.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy The quality of the Trails ports are what have given me some hope for Ys IX on Switch, actually! But, y'know, turn-based JRPG vs action JRPG. Especially when the latter seems to choke on the PS4 at points, too.

I'm not really a performance snob, so as long as dips aren't severe and sustained, I'll be good. I'm hoping the Ys VIII port was only so rough because the company had little experience with porting Falcom's games at that point. But even then, 90% of the game ran fine. It was mainly late-game PS4-specific additions that ended up cratering the framerate.

And you're totally right. I missed it, but apparently Corpse Party is also going to PS4! Not that surprising, I guess, considering the original trilogy was exclusive to Playstation hardware in the West for a long time. I definitely recommend giving it a look: certain elements don't... translate as well these days, but the original is one of my favorite video games, and, considering it looks like an RPGMaker game, it manages to be incredibly unsettling if you put on headphones and get into it. Particularly the sound design. The most disturbing section of the game is actually text and sounds set to a black screen, but by the time I was done with it, I just sort of quietly set my Vita aside and didn't go back to it for a few days. And I'm a lifelong horror fan. It strongly made the case to me that, with appropriately effective storytelling and sound design, a game can look like ANYTHING and still be scary.

One of the aspects I like most about the original game is how elaborate some of the bad endings were. I made a point of getting every single ending in the game (there's a lot of them), and most of them are short-ish and traceable back to easily identifiable choices made shortly beforehand, but some of the late game ones seem to go on for a while and get really warped. It was a lot of fun.

You could probably watch Book of Shadows on youtube without commentary and not miss much, tbh. The gameplay and player choice elements overall are incredibly minimal.

Blood Drive is funny bad AND bad bad (although, for a big fan of the series, it was a little difficult to see the humor in it upon release). The damn thing isn't even stable; I can't tell you how many times it crashed on my Vita as I was going for the platinum trophy.

At least the music in it was still pretty good

@Ralizah I actually liked Esty quite a bit in Rorona as well. She wasn’t very interesting but nobody really was in that game.

Do you guys have any recomendation for a story centered game? Ps: Not too anime please

@Onigumo Planescape Torment Enhanced Edition or you could just wait for Disco Elysium to come to PS4.

@nessisonett planescape is one of my favorites games, i looking foward baldur gates 3. Disco elysium hum? Thanks i will take a look... some more?

@Onigumo If you like Planescape then Disco Elysium is basically perfect for you. In terms of games out just now though, I guess maybe Divinity Original Sin 2? Or maybe the Yakuza series if you haven’t played it.

“Blood Drive is funny bad AND bad bad (although, for a big fan of the series,”

I loved this game, despite its many flaws. Very cool in a creepy way. Kinda a goth type of game too. Not for everybody, but it liked it.

@PSVR_lover I wanted to love it. To the point where I actually zealously defended it for a while, despite knowing in my heart that it wasn't good. But I'm glad you enjoyed it, regardless.

You've played the previous two games in the series, right?

@Gadjo Yeah, covid fears aside, our family's self-imposed lockdown hasn't really been an issue for me. I could stay indoors for the rest of my life and be happy. If I wasn't such a dedicated gamer, I could easily move up to the mountains or something and never be heard from again.

Definitely play the first Corpse Party game. Preferable the PSP/3DS version, or the Switch/PS4 ports once they release. With headphones on. The disparity between the simple visuals and the horrifying sound design is actually really effective, as it ends up leaving a lot to the imagination (the brief anime adaptation left nothing to the imagination, and it's pretty much a hardcore exploitation film as a result).

Of course... very different limitations and support needed to run them in a stable fashion.

Very surprised to hear the PS4 version chokes up a bit though @Ralizah... Is that only in the newly created content or just in general do you happen to know? (I wasn't actually aware of the extra PS4 content existed either til you said it)

I have actually played a RPGMaker game before... One of the most well known ones of Ib. Whilst it wasn't that scary or anything it effectively portrays what it sets out to do fairly well and was a nice little yarn. I'm not a graphics or performance snob myself either, as I'm sure you're rather aware of, so the visuals in particular will be just fine.

In fact I did end up looking up the start of Corpse Party 2 and I honestly thought that the sounds of the ventilator (and/or whatever other machine there was) was inside my head or something and was rather unsettling.

I didn't watch too much though as... Well... I have a weak gag reflex and you probably realise what I'm talking about that put me off watching anymore of that one! 😅 (I ended up becoming rather busy too but sill!) Still a rather effective opening none the less there!

That's really quite cool to hear about the original with the multitude of various endings that actually seem worthwhile to experience and get to and not a complete waste of time -Cough- NieR Automata -Cough-.

Not really comparable in the slightest but the first two Blazblue games had some incredibly wacky joke endings you could unlock through it's story mode and despite my mediocre at best fighting game skills I did something similar to yourself there and made a point to unlock them all.

I'll be sure to bookmark Book Of Shadows to watch then when I have the chance. And that's a shame about Blood Drive with it being very unstable... I'm impressed you managed to platinum it despite all that!

At least the music in it was still pretty good

I listened to a few tracks and I can confirm that they are quite good!

Oh and I have seen your Mario Galaxy Review btw... I just haven't had to time to read it (Or any if the others I missed) yet! It looks epic and there's some wonderful screenshots you've put with it!

I preorder Nier Replicant because why not I guess. Who knows if I’ll enjoy it as much as Automata (I am prepared to be disappointed) but it has earned the benefit of the doubt.

I also preordered Bravely Default 2, which isn’t a PS4 game. Go ahead and report me!

@kyleforrester87 I so hope that it lives up to its demastered sequel, the fact that it is in the hands of a virginal dev team worries me though.

@colonelkilgore I dunno, all the meaty stuff is there for them to use. I’m just worried it’ll be like Xenoblade Chronicles where I played the second and loved it and looked forward to playing the remaster of the original, only to wonder what the hell people see in it. It’s really quite boring. The characters are terrible!

@kyleforrester87 well, as long as it plays as well as Automata I’ll be happy as *****-covered hog!

@kyleforrester87 Reported for Jam. Whoops, I meant Spam.

@colonelkilgore I think it’ll play the same as Automata, near enough, based on the videos I’ve seen. Although without sexy 2b...hmmm...

@JohnnyShoulder oh do grow up now

@kyleforrester87 Calm down dear, its only a commercial!

@JohnnyShoulder haven’t heard that in a while 😂

@kyleforrester87 maybe it should be called Nier: Or Not 2b instead *ba dum tsh! I’ll see myself out...

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy So, when Ys VIII was ported to PS4, there were extra dungeons added to the sections where you play as Dana. These can get quite a bit larger, and, at times, more puzzle-y, than the dungeons in the main game. I think they're all actually different sections of one gigantic dungeon, but you access the different floors at different points in the game, so whatever.

Anyway, the Switch version maintains a mostly consistent 30-ish fps framerate through the majority of the game, but it slowed to a crawl during a couple of Dana's added dungeons.

I'm cool with a lower framerate if it's reasonable, like it appears to be with Persona 5 Strikers on Switch (it seems to stick to 30 fps pretty religiously). Even sharp framerate drops aren't the end of the world when they happen and are over with quickly. But entire dungeons turning into slideshows is... too much for me.

It's possible this element has been patched since then. I hope it was.

The other PS4 vers. added stuff was fine, though. No issues with suppression battles, for example, which were added to the PS4 version as well.

I still need to play Corpse Party 2. I've been waiting years for the other parts of it to be made, but I think what's there is all we're getting.

I liked NieR: Automata a lot, but yeah, the non-main endings to that game were absolutely a waste of time. The Bad Endings in Corpse Party games are part of the spooky fun: it's interesting to see the worst case scenario for the various situations the large-ish cast finds itself embroiled in.

Cool to hear about BlazBlue's joke endings. I'm not much for fighting games, but I might look those up!

Blood Drive isn't worth pursuing the platinum trophy for, but I don't regret doing so. For all of its issues, I still really love the Corpse Party series. If the PS4 version of the original has a platinum trophy, I'll probably end up getting it on that platform as well (and physically on Switch for collection purposes, if possible).

"Epic" is one word for it, I suppose. I'm surprised the forum didn't choke on that novella of a review like it usually does with my longer posts.

Sounds like you've been busy. Your place of employment taking all the necessary precautions to keep you safe?