CastelloGG

I chose Metaphor: ReFantazio as my pick of GOTY, with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth in the second spot. It just hits that much harder, especially when you play it as the election day in the US is looming.

Last time they took out the Quick Resume feature and I really hated that I could no longer just skip through title screens and go directly to my last save point. Did they put it back with this update or it’s still missing?

So they actually chose not to follow the plot of the games. Hopefully it will turn out well.

RGG has just dropped 2025’s Game of the Year. I will be there on day one.

Maybe on a sale that brings it down to $499, or if a good trade in program is available.

Maybe it's very unlikely, but I really hope that when the PS5 Pro finally comes out, it will come with good trade-in programs from retailers. Though honestly I don't know who have more say on rolling out trade-in programs, the retailers themselves or Sony.

Mafia: “Those yakuzas have taken the spotlight long enough. It’s time for us to make our comeback, brothers…”

Now if only we can also get a new Sleeping Dogs…

@ShogunRok Is it locked on one difficulty setting like The Answer was or you can choose from different difficulty settings like Reload? Wondering if you can lower the difficulty down to Peaceful (no death in combat) if the combat gets too grating.

Twist that make him scream eh? Since we heard nothing about Majima so far, what if Nishiki kills him at the end of Episode 1, thus changing everything?

I demand justice for the Final Fantasy XVI one. That one looks really amazing and I'm still miffed that they made it only available in Japan.

I just hope it won't actually require the PS5 Pro to look this good...

They got me day one with the Ben Starr casting and turn based Persona battle UI. Music and graphics seem fantastic and I can't wait to see more of this.

@Kanji-Tatsumi Project Phoenix took my money and made me very wary of Kickstarter projects for a while. But then I took a leap of faith on backing Eiyuden Chronicles and I was so happy when I saw my name on the backer credits.

“We recognized Yoshida’s massive contributions to the company and thus we have upgraded him from silver tier to gold tier.”

I met Ana and Kathryn (another person that was laid off from Square Enix USA) last year at the Final Fantasy XVI pre-launch event in Los Angeles, so seeing them being laid off by Square Enix personally really hurts. Hope they find a better place soon.

Sony really picked the wrong community to mess around with.

@get2sammyb How does the assist in Story Mode work? Is it like the Timely Focus ring in Final Fantasy XVI where it gives you a QTE when you have to dodge an attack?

I backed this game and shipping to Los Angeles cost me $6. My package was actually shipped yesterday and is on the way right now, with tracking number and all.

Hm, so action assist is like FFXVI’s Timely Focus ring? That would be really useful.

My GOTY last year was Alan Wake 2, with Star Ocean Second Story R and Sea of Stars (all the stars!) tied at second place. They didn't really need to do this, but they went out and did it and it's freaking awesome. Those new NPC illustrations really makes me want to go through the game again because they look so good!

@get2sammyb Since you said that the combat uses parry mechanics and it also has a lot of skills/abilities to unlock, how would you compare it to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth's combat, especially Cloud on Punisher Mode? Would that be a good comparison?

From the screenshots on their Steam page, it reminds me of the Tex Murphy games. Maybe it’s that kind of game combined with Dontnod’s Remember Me mechanics.

Thank you for this review! This fell under my radar with so many games coming out and now I have to find time to play this. Glad to see that DONTNOD has another great game under their belt!

25 hours… I wonder if they’ll have multiple endings like the game that inspired them, you know, the one with 26 endings.

So Takashi Kiryu is the real life Rufus Shinra, bringing a reorganization to the Shinr... I mean Square Enix company?

"While we don't have a firm release date yet, Judas is expected to release on PS5 before March 2023."

You mean March 2025?

I love that Geralt with round glasses is officially canon now.

I don't think Phantom Liberty's Game Awards win was contentious at all honestly. It is an absolutey fantastic expansion that totally deserved the award, and last year Final Fantasy XIV didn't do something major to win Best Ongoing Game (they will most definitely win it again this year with Dawntrail).

Like A Dragon Gaiden is really up there with the best of the series. They have basically perfected the action combat, a culmination of years and years of refining it, which I will really miss after the total switch to turn based RPG. I hope they will continue to have an action series, whether it be with Judgment or something entirely new.

@Flaming_Kaiser You'd have a far better time watching this conversation between Abubakar Salim (Bayek from Assassin's Creed Origin) and Ben Starr (Clive from Final Fantasy XVI) if you want some great discussion about video games, voice acting and game development.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLD-9L_PN2M

“The Game Awards 2023 largely delivered on its promise of celebrating the games industry.”

No, it did not. It was a three hour commercial and did nothing to honor the achievements of game developers and the game industry. The closest to good thing that happened was that segment with Abubakar Salim and him founding a game studio with a personal story about his father, but that was it.

Speaking of racing RPGs, I'm still kinda salty that Racing Lagoon from the PS1 never got an English localization (yes I know there's a fanmade localization now but still).

They really need to perform this at The Game Awards. I don't know if they actually will though, considering the game will be only be out for 5 weeks at that time. Enough for most people to finish the game, but still kinda soon to drop a spoiler-filled musical performance.

Horrible miscast. Both voice wise and the person behind the voice wise. Is it too late for SEGA to recast and re-record the Kiryu English VA? The English dub for Kiryu Gaiden is not yet out anyway.

I got the corrupted save bug so I am unable to proceed. Fortunately I still have a good save in my PSN Cloud, hopefuly they will release 2.01 soon so I can download that save and continue.

The chocobo catching and the Chadley towers really gave me "Horizon: Zero Dawn in a Final Fantasy world" vibes when I watched the showcase and I'm really loving it. Can't wait for this game to suck 300 hours out of my life next year!

I actually just need PS Plus for the cloud save. The day they let me copy my PS5 saves to a USB (which most likely would be never) I would immediately cancel my subscription. Or (also very unlikely) if they ever release a cheaper tier for cloud save only, with no free games and no online multiplayer, I’d gladly take that.

I'm still hoping for keyboard and mouse support on the PS5 version, however unlikely that might be. People have been asking Larian about it but they haven't said anything about it and I'm thinking they're not gonna do it. If they had put in keyboard and mouse support, I think they would have just said so and get a ton more sales from that news.

PIF has already ruined football. I would really hate to see them ruin the video game industry too.

The commercially accurate price should be no more than $20, which is then brought down to $15 during PSN sales.

@OrtadragoonX

A fellow Saga Frontier 2 fan! I'm also very happy to finally find another!

I recently showed Saga Frontier 2 through an emulator to my friend, and the art still holds up so well today to the point that my friend said "this was on PS1?!" The character design, animation, watercolor painting background etc is just a marvel and I don't think I've seen many games more beautiful than that. That opening where Gustave cried after bullying his friend Flynn made both of us cry as we went through it...

Thinking about it, maybe Saga Frontier 2 doesn't need a remaster as much as, say, Xenogears. They just need to make it more accessible to everyone, maybe just port it to Switch and PSN, because almost 25 years later it still holds up so, so well.

I would put in my request for SaGa Frontier 2 remaster/remake.

It’s an often overlooked JRPG that would be perfect to play after Final Fantasy XVI and with the director himself (Takai) having worked on SaGa Frontier, you can certainly see the influences and parallels between XVI and SaGa Frontier 2.

In some ways, Gustave is like Clive and there are also parallels regarding the anima, Firebrand Ceremony and the like which I cannot discuss in details without going into spoiler territory.

Keep the numbers. Can't let the Fast and Furious series catch up on them, seeing that now they are going to do Fast X-2 😂

So you’re saying that PlayStation is now “creating their own target market”, in a very literal sense?

Just letting fellow trophy hunters out there know there's a bugged trophy right now. Might not be in their prority to fix this, hopefully it won't prevent everyone from getting the platinum.

I'm having problems with Aerial Capture: North and I saw on Reddit a lot of other people are having problems with that one too. Hopefully they can get that fixed soon.

Using the FFX world map menu is rather misleading. Would be much better to use screenshots from FF16’s world map system which are readily available, or even link to Yoshi-P’s actual presentation discussing about the world map itself, with an actual demonstration.

Here you go.
https://youtu.be/GPpeKX1PDIo?t=32m43s

Dang, I just bought a spare black DualSense on Black Friday but when the Metallic Gray drops I won't be able to resist it. I still have a brand new in box Steel Black Dualshock 4 that I bought and never used.

Since we’re playing as Saito Hajime, I’d be disappointed if he doesn’t have Gatotsu as one of his Heat actions.

Only if they add an extra USB port in the back for it. I already used up the USB ports in the back for USB-to-Optical audio and external SSD.