@CharlieChooChoo @fabio78 @Rob_230 @Logonogo It's great that you see its visual fidelity differently, however my take is not an isolated one. You don't think Square came out two weeks before launch announcing an incoming patch to performance mode prerelease just because of my supposedly distorted hot take, do you? Of course not.
Many others mentioned it here on Push Square, as well as all over the place in online discourse when the demo dropped. Including a recent digital foundry discussion on their latest direct where they highlighted low-res textures, the blurriness, janky terrain traversal, camera, and lighting issues, lack of smoothness despite solid framerates in quality mode and an overall downgrade compared to the first one. They chalked some of it up to Rebirth including more natural environments of which the first didn't, and unreal engine 4 being terrible with natural elements, but they also clearly highlighted the blurriness and other quality issues, mainly because so many were asking them to take a look at the demo because of it being so visually underwhelming.
Again, I'm Glad you see it different but don't pretend that the issues don't exist because of that. As this announcement clearly shows Square Enix knows its a problem because the discourse was strong enough to reach them. FF7 is one of my all-time favs, and I hope it gets addressed for sure. I will play it when it does or is priced accordingly.
The demo was extremely underwhelming visually. With Low-res textures and low-quality assets, terrible shadow implementation, lighting problems, lower quality character models in game, near character pop in and Janky traversal. There was far too much fundamentally that was of poor/unpolished quality that it genuinely appeared rushed out the door.
To me, there was much more wrong with it than the very blurry post processing presentation in performance mode. I will give them the befit of the doubt and see if the patch manages to address this, despite their track record with these things.
Right now, the demo took me from a likely day one buy to a wait until it's better polished, or priced at a point that justifies its downgrades despite being a native AAA ps5 title. I have little confidence fixes will be enough considering they are only addressing these cut corners in the release day code AFTER criticism from a demo released weeks before launch.
So, no worries, it's just not a release window play for me now, I'll give it a go eventually as the gameplay was great.
I just can't even fathom being so enslaved into brand allegiance, that said brand can do no wrong. such twisted thinking. Month after month, year after year, it's just more of this hive mind of parrots defending the process of basically getting 'F' Ed for an entire generation thus far for all that loyalty. Even going as far as cheering high corporate profits month after month. Just insanity.
Still cooking up those live service games too! Brilliant.....(spoiler warning for all the greedy shareholders out there: it's a mirage in the desert).
I play game exclusively on PS5 and have for decades, since the first console. That being so doesn't mean I can't criticisize a pretty garbage business and pr model from Sony for years now.
I'd much rather have less dev time and money needed projects filling in the gaps between these small handful of developers pigeon holed into bloated budget sequel mills rather than the current reality of the padding coming from cash grab remasterakes (double dipping), and future live service nonsense.
It's OK to be a fan and be pissed at what corporate greed has done to that platform, talented developers, and the Fandom at large.
@Corc11 I genuinely don't think it will. They chose to show that demo in the state it is. Some of the technical issues and overall poor visuals are to foundational. The shadow lod, poor assets and low res texture use. It's everywhere in that demo if you know where to look. The post processing they've used then blurries the whole mess.
Square doesn't not have a great track record of addressing visual shortcomings post launch. I guarantee you this is how this game will look day 1. Which is in all reality a worse looking game than it's ps4 predecessor despite being a native ps5 title. These are the woes of using unreal engine 4 and having to make it work for more natural open environs. But hey if they do for once address launch shortcomings I'll absolutely pick it up the or when it's on an acceptable discount for what looks and feels like an early ps4 title.
Again I think this is extremely overblown. Now that the rumor mill has slowed down. More concrete sources are saying that only pentiment, hifi rush, and sea of thieves are decided upon to go multiplatform.
In all reality exclusivity has hurt gaming in general and due to that exclusivity and platforms being allowed to gobble up studios we have confusion, not enough return on investment and pressure on the Xbox side, and extreme complacency and greed mongering on the PlayStation side.
It's really all bad and honestly I welcome some more competition on the SOFTWARE side to hopefully smack the remasterakes cash grab, iterative sequel factory and live service scheming hypnosis out of playstation.
Let's not pretend there was any real competition on the hardware side, nor should there be anyone choosing sides before just a love of gaming.
However I feel many overlook aspects of this with all the doomsday rhetoric about Xbox. They now own a ton of new studios and every copy of a game sold contributes to revenue. So it makes sense to put those titles in the most hands/platforms possible.
Glad to see this ended up being good. Looking forward to experiencing it!
After the disappointingly janky and unpolished state of the FF7 demo, I think I'll support don't nod on this one and play it near release, and wait for a good discount or verifiable fixes for the bad visuals/settings of FF7 Rebirth. As framerate dips are far less a problem than the laundry. List of issues with the technical state of FF Rebirth.
Even more so a good decision considering that gaming , especially on playststion, appears to be a ghost town in terms of promising releases after March. So spacing out trying some of these front loaded releases just makes sense for me.
Banishers sounds like a great story to playthrough while waiting and hoping DD2 turns out to be good.
Maybe we'll see Flintlock this year as well. Looks like another promising AA effort.
I think this is being overblown and distorted into more than what it is. The rumors themselves never suggested a dissolution of any form of exclusivity nor did they suggest a complete abandonment of hardware.
I think what is truly going to take place is them still retaining a slimmed down hardware aspect alongside a continued focus on their gamepass and cloud platforms with a push toward timed exclusives no different than what Sony is and has been doing with third party games and their first party PC ports. Allowing them to double dip in both console install bases alongside day and date PC base.
Exclusivity, in all reality hurts everybody. When you shell out 69 bill for these studios it just makes sense to release games from such a purchase everywhere to ensure you are getting the most return on such a massive investment.
Take into account Starfield being a huge disappointment, and thus not a system seller, it makes sense to me that they must shift in a new direction. Hell Sony doesn't seem to want to share what's in the pipeline, or even pay any legitimate fan service for that matter.
So in all reality, by the end of the month we will likely no more about Xbox owned cross platform stuff coming to PS5 than we will about anything aside from leaked info coming from Sony first party studios in the near or even distant future..... Strange times indeed
The demo was a huge step down visually from remake. Much like others here, I was pretty disappointed in the visuals compared to the previous entry considering that it was a Ps4 title. The combat was more of the same which is great but something about movement and traversal felt janky and unpolished.
Visuals don't entirely make a game but when you have a blurry mess with low quality assets and textures combined with horrible lighting, shadow LOD and extremely close pop in for vegetation it can be very distracting and take away from the experience. Especially when we do get into the open world areas like the grasslands.
I mean this demo was pretty linear, and to have these downgrades to get it to run doesn't bode well. Even cloud's character model in game appeared downgraded. Some camera issues came up indoors and during combat as well. Ooooo and that English voice acting dub,...... Not great.
The demo in fact unsold me on this as a day one pickup. I will now be waiting until they better optimize the title, as it seems very rushed visually and overly relying on up scaling and downgraded visual settings to meet peeformance targets. If it never gets fixed it will be a wait for steep discount scenario.
Cross Gen titles have been able to run without this level of visual downgrades, look far better and perform great. Even with Jedi Survivor's comparable blurry FSR mess, it still had far higher quality assets being pushed than this.
Ironic for this demo to drop alongside the Square Enix corpo stating they were going to focus on releasing better quality products. Pretty underwhelming for sure. Hopefully Ronin and/or DD2 turn out!
The critical discourse over this release was not largely over the initial release backlash narrative toward this game. It was over the fact that it was yet another rerelease other than something new. A trend Sony and co have milked for a great deal of this generation. It was a decent game with terrible pacing and overstayed it's welcome.
However, that aside many are growing extremely tired of these remasterakes and phoned in clone sequels, especially when new titles from the platform are apparently in a considerable drought.
The fact that this was a mere $10 upgrade being compared to full price releases in terms of sales results is pretty ridiculous.
Yeah this was a solid little dev diary. This has me interested in the game far more than the trailers. It really does look like they tried to expand beyond the scope of their shallow level selector disguised as a basic world map and shallow story delivery formula they have cloned into 3 games prior.
I love the deep dive into the historical inspirations. Now tell us what the gameplay Loop entails within the open world. Hopefully it's more than just combat.
"Gentlemen you had my curiosity ... but now you have my attention"
@B0udoir yeah that's exactly it. I'm pretty used to seeing the childlike thirst take but in the case of trying to understand the game and it's quality. Basically we. Have heard the devs boast about attractive female, alongside news stories of toxic. Mysoginy within the devs mgmt.
Can we get a friggin dive into. Combat, gameplay loop, and other mechanics?
Oh and I hear you on the childhood tomb raider thirsting 🤣
@Shushibda Agreed, but for me it's not even the overarching trend with the art style in these types of games. What really comes off as a step even further toward cringe is the developer focus on highlighting this as a main feature of the game. The fact that the developers initial response to a question asking them to describe combat was basically "We have an attractive female swinging a sword, " is just bizarre. A Lot of the hype around this games seems largely focused on this FETISH.
Is that it? Play dress up with provocative toon outfits and swing sword with hot toon girl? Is the game and dev focus really that shallow or is there more to this? That's all I'm saying.
Strange there is no mention of the pretty horrible launch issues. The game's matchmaking system is broken and not working, and is crashing consistently. The dev has had to come out and say they are in crisis mode and unable to fix the issues on the backend and thus a patch will be necessary.
Setting aside the negativity being discussed regarding the anticheat software they chose to use, These technical issues will absolutely affect the player count (already peaked at 64k and falling as of this writing). Launch stability is crucial to initial discourse and success of these games. Especially when no one was provided review code prior to release...
Not sold on it being a good game yet. At this point we've seen nothing but short montages. There was a clip In the last trailer where the combat looked super janky.
Just want to know more about combat and actual Gameplay loop. At least more be discussed beyond this whole cringey 'look at this hot anime girl protagonist, she jiggles and smashes stuff with blade.' it comes off as borderline perverted in this interview. The real thing is far better. This fascination with toon T&A is prepubescent stuff.
To hear devs so focused on it, to me suggests this may be it's defining gimmick. Pretty lame if so.
Wow you guys weren't kidding. Finally had time to give the demo a go. Beyond the terrible resolution and whatever up scaling they are using making it so blurry, their were more technical issues than I can count. Textures not popping in, low quality assets, some models look completely unfinished, poor lighting and lighting anomalies, and really bad shadow LOD and texture pop in at close proximity. I walked up to vegetation that took seconds to fully load in once standing right next to them.
If this is indicative of the whole game to come at release, which is likely, then I'm waiting for a great deal of patches before picking this one up. So many aspects of this are visually a step down from the previous one, even the UI.
Pretty crazy. This needed more time in the oven, because this is just unpolished and the areas in the demo feel unfinished. It's not breaking any new ground or pushing to the limits of what other games have done. Games with much greater detail scope and subsequent performance even on ps4 to be honest. This being the next installment and looking worse is odd, but it also being a native ps5 title progressing from what was in all reality a Ps4 game is pretty bizarre and shocking to see it so rough.
The gameplay seems like more of the same and all but man, technically this is shaping up to be a mess at launch. What the heck happened here? Why would they show this and why aren't the game journos talking about this?
I think this is being overblown and distorted into more than what it is. The rumors themselves never suggested a dissolution of any form of exclusivity nor did they suggest a complete abandonment of hardware.
I think what is truly going to take place is them still retaining a slimmed down hardware aspect alongside a continued focus on their gamepass and cloud platforms with a push toward timed exclusives no different than what Sony is and has been doing with third party games and their first party PC ports. Allowing them to double dip in both console install bases alongside day and date PC base.
@JB_Whiting @scoobdoo Pretty crazy. bummer considering its a current gen native version. Ironic as they mentioned in this most recent showcase regarding the boost provided by the PS5 was being able to load in "high quality assets." However, it sounds like it's the same visual level as PS4, further muddied with low resolution and likely over reliance on post processing and/or likely more garbage FSR level upscaling implementation.
Thanks for the info. May wait for a sale on this and hope Dragons Dogma turns out to be good. I'll still give the Demo a go later today. However, it's a few weeks from release. what we see here in the demo is absolutely going to be what the final product is going to look like.
@ILikeStake @JB_Whiting I haven't fired up the demo yet, but just from the non combat grassland footage alone l was a bit underwhelmed at how grainy and washed out it appeared. I had initially hoped it was just a video quality issue but the more looks we got it appeared that was less likely. A bummer if it's not at all improved from what was essentially a Ps4 title. Square's engine visuals have been growing dated. I also seem to remember that aside from loading times the difference in visuals between the ps4 version of remake and the Ps5 was also very minor.
A little ironic to be saying this after years of radio silence. We know absolutely nothing in terms of what most of these studios are working on aside from cash grab remasters/remakes and live service schemes most people dont want.....
This is just more of the same for Sony. There really isn't anything more to be said. This and the rumored but likely HZD cash grab....
It's just kinda sad at this point. Sad to see the greed driven factory that Sony is becoming, and sad to see the glossy eyed cattle that line up outside the factory gates waiting to lap up this regurgitation with open arms, and attack anyone who points out this drool has alreayed been digested.
If we take this poll as a small test sample size and put it against your stated theory suggesting its just the outcry of enthusiast whiners that are for some reason spearheading a hate campaign against this "good" game, it seems to fall apart considering the pull results. The data actually suggests its those that like this game that are in the vast minority.
At the time of writing 579 out of 706 votes state they arents sure about the game or are outright not considering playing it. out of that 579, 430 (61%) aren't touching it period.
In fact, in the 3 years visiting this site, i would say these poll numbers thus far are the most overwhelming consensus I've seen yet. It would seem that the game is largely unappealing to most. Despite you being the minority, and enjoying it, of which I'm glad, it's a huge stretch to say that over 80%, of those polled that feel otherwise are just the invalid ramblings of bandwagon hardcore gamer haters doing so merely for the sake of hating.
Considering the complete lack of first party psvr2 support, this is just another example of Sony having really lost its way in the fog of corporate greed. Yet, another enthusiast focused peripheral cash grab that the drones will eat up of which Sony will support during launch with the bare minimum and then walk away with fresh pockets of cash due to the return-on-investment ratio.
All the while we here nothing about what their studios are doing, and this isn't even rumored to support whatever the hell that may be.
yah that's really it. I love games just as the rest which is really why i look so deeply into really every release that I hope ends up good. I looked into it out of interest, but I in no way assume just because I've concluded its not for me and genuinely a fairly bad effort, that no one will like it.
I even tried gotham knights once it hit ps plus to see if I may like it, despite concluding the same way that it was not for me. Sure enough, I REALLY REALLY did not enjoy it and shared the same sentiment as many others did during release as to why.
Despite this new "hate bandwagon," token term being thrown around by many, the reality is what is being discussed is far more often than not an emerging consensus. A majority opinion derived from experience that others can look to for clarity in decision making. If it differs from your own conclusions, then great! you have something new to enjoy and that's awesome; but don't be contrarian for the sake of a reason to argue in a comment section. Just play the new game you like so much and carry on!
@dark_knightmare2 thats IMPRESSIVE seriously. As a chronic "hold up wait a minute," completionist myself, i commend you on that. I often some how rack up 50+hrs in games the mainstream say run about 20 lmfao. so i get it.
@dark_knightmare2 20 hrs?! I agree that I am missing the feel of playing it for sure, but its not hard to deduce what you will like or dislike from playthroughs and reviews. Otherwise, they wouldn't exist because no one would watch them. I am happy you like it man, no need to get salty simply because I share my thoughts on it, that may differ from your own.
@RawnDawn You are halfway through the game at 5 hrs in just so you know (hrs may vary but based roughly 10-12 hrs main campaign runtime). Hey if you like the gameplay loop then I am genuinely happy for you.
I won't be playing it but have watched several full gameplay streams and checked in all of the mainstream reviews out there alongside some content creators that have less bias toward soft conclusions and whos opinions often if not always align with my own after playing a title. Granted I havent played it but I am rarely steered wrong when cross referencing many accounts of a game, as they often all mention the same thing, but oddly decide on varying scores as a result of those things based on whatever reasonings they may have. I can still deduce the quality of a game based on my tastes and make what have proven to be largely on point choices which i am sure many do similar investigations pre purchase as well.
The overall consensus ive seen is:
Incredibly repetitive and shallow gameplay loop.
quality cutscenes
Next to zero mission variety
Short, especially for a 7+year dev cycle, along with vey little to offer as a package
Terrible loot system, and what appears to be the leftovers from a lootbox system that was walked back much like gotham knights.
Extremely low, like count on one hand enemy variety
empty and bland looking world
Shockingly terrible story decisions
and a final boss fight that is just a reskin of an earlier one.
Underwhelming endgame (albeit the first season doesn't drop for months, so maybe that will change)
This game appears to be from what I've seen and read to be much closer to a 5 in terms of quality. I'm sure itmay provide some mindless fun had it been a sub svc or f2p title though or may even just click with some.
yeah,...... i would definitely check out some other opinions on this if you are still seriously considering playing this one. Aside for some oddly generous reviews that overlook some pretty awful aspects of this half-baked mess, most have come away shocked at how bad it is on many different fronts.
The lack of release date is pretty concerning for this one if they really are planning for a spring release. I would be shocked if this wasn't delayed further and feel bad for the crunch that is likely going on under Levine right now.
It's important to remember that while this game was finally revealed a year ago or so, it has been in dev since 2014 and in dev hell for some time. Looked a lot like a reskinned BioShock for sure, almost too much so in terms of cloning almost every aspect, which is fine i suppose if the story is good However, much of was meant to present as gameplay really appeared to be scripted cutscenes in my opinion.
@invictus4000 you aren't the only one in agreement on Kojima. Feels like a mess of hubris barfed into a game. In the case of DS, for me it's wasted potential.
This was not a very good showing with that terrible narration. Still not sure at all what the gameplay loop is in this and it's clearly been downgraded. Is it level based, is it open world is it just hack and slash combat or deeper? Who knows.
Hopefully we get some actual deep dives leading up to release. This informed us of nothing really
I'm kinda shocked. I genuinely thought they would have some meaningful surprises. Wth is going on with Sony.
Stellar blade and Ronin both did not show well there. With Ronin in particular I was hoping to gather more through this showing aside from a basic montage.
Such sterile presentations for really everything aside from the walking simulator sequel. That was a cool showing despite not liking the first one at all. Maybe this will be more.
Overall, though, that just felt forced. A bunch of games that have been out months and years being ported over alongside stuff we've already seen. Not one thing, not even a teaser for a first party project.
Just bad and again very sterile show. Shocked but only because it's more of the same from current Gen Sony. I just don't understand the vision that PlayStation saw in approaching this gen in the way they have on many fronts. It's like they have thrown away much that garnered them goodwill and made them so beloved as a platform and instead see us as marks to siphon from with every predatory corporate gimmick in the book. WTH happened.
After so much development hell they should have axed this rather than tarnish a classic. Whoever owns this IP appears hell bent on cashing in with whatever garbage they can put out, forgoing quality or standard in the process.
@ShogunRok gotcha thanks. I actually didn't realize until now that it had a mission based structure. Not sure how I Missed that🤣. Kudos for the in depth review.
Comments 2,392
Re: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth PS5 Demo Update Will Improve Performance Mode Next Week
@CharlieChooChoo @fabio78 @Rob_230 @Logonogo It's great that you see its visual fidelity differently, however my take is not an isolated one. You don't think Square came out two weeks before launch announcing an incoming patch to performance mode prerelease just because of my supposedly distorted hot take, do you? Of course not.
Many others mentioned it here on Push Square, as well as all over the place in online discourse when the demo dropped. Including a recent digital foundry discussion on their latest direct where they highlighted low-res textures, the blurriness, janky terrain traversal, camera, and lighting issues, lack of smoothness despite solid framerates in quality mode and an overall downgrade compared to the first one. They chalked some of it up to Rebirth including more natural environments of which the first didn't, and unreal engine 4 being terrible with natural elements, but they also clearly highlighted the blurriness and other quality issues, mainly because so many were asking them to take a look at the demo because of it being so visually underwhelming.
Again, I'm Glad you see it different but don't pretend that the issues don't exist because of that. As this announcement clearly shows Square Enix knows its a problem because the discourse was strong enough to reach them. FF7 is one of my all-time favs, and I hope it gets addressed for sure. I will play it when it does or is priced accordingly.
Re: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth PS5 Demo Update Will Improve Performance Mode Next Week
The demo was extremely underwhelming visually. With Low-res textures and low-quality assets, terrible shadow implementation, lighting problems, lower quality character models in game, near character pop in and Janky traversal. There was far too much fundamentally that was of poor/unpolished quality that it genuinely appeared rushed out the door.
To me, there was much more wrong with it than the very blurry post processing presentation in performance mode. I will give them the befit of the doubt and see if the patch manages to address this, despite their track record with these things.
Right now, the demo took me from a likely day one buy to a wait until it's better polished, or priced at a point that justifies its downgrades despite being a native AAA ps5 title. I have little confidence fixes will be enough considering they are only addressing these cut corners in the release day code AFTER criticism from a demo released weeks before launch.
So, no worries, it's just not a release window play for me now, I'll give it a go eventually as the gameplay was great.
Re: Sony Predicts Slide in PS5 Sales with No Major Existing IPs Planned Before March 2025
I just can't even fathom being so enslaved into brand allegiance, that said brand can do no wrong. such twisted thinking. Month after month, year after year, it's just more of this hive mind of parrots defending the process of basically getting 'F' Ed for an entire generation thus far for all that loyalty. Even going as far as cheering high corporate profits month after month. Just insanity.
Still cooking up those live service games too! Brilliant.....(spoiler warning for all the greedy shareholders out there: it's a mirage in the desert).
I play game exclusively on PS5 and have for decades, since the first console. That being so doesn't mean I can't criticisize a pretty garbage business and pr model from Sony for years now.
I'd much rather have less dev time and money needed projects filling in the gaps between these small handful of developers pigeon holed into bloated budget sequel mills rather than the current reality of the padding coming from cash grab remasterakes (double dipping), and future live service nonsense.
It's OK to be a fan and be pissed at what corporate greed has done to that platform, talented developers, and the Fandom at large.
Re: Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden (PS5) - Storytelling Great Has Gameplay to Match
@Corc11 I genuinely don't think it will. They chose to show that demo in the state it is. Some of the technical issues and overall poor visuals are to foundational. The shadow lod, poor assets and low res texture use. It's everywhere in that demo if you know where to look. The post processing they've used then blurries the whole mess.
Square doesn't not have a great track record of addressing visual shortcomings post launch. I guarantee you this is how this game will look day 1. Which is in all reality a worse looking game than it's ps4 predecessor despite being a native ps5 title. These are the woes of using unreal engine 4 and having to make it work for more natural open environs.
But hey if they do for once address launch shortcomings I'll absolutely pick it up the or when it's on an acceptable discount for what looks and feels like an early ps4 title.
Re: Xbox's Multiplatform Plans to Be Revealed on Thursday
Again I think this is extremely overblown. Now that the rumor mill has slowed down. More concrete sources are saying that only pentiment, hifi rush, and sea of thieves are decided upon to go multiplatform.
In all reality exclusivity has hurt gaming in general and due to that exclusivity and platforms being allowed to gobble up studios we have confusion, not enough return on investment and pressure on the Xbox side, and extreme complacency and greed mongering on the PlayStation side.
It's really all bad and honestly I welcome some more competition on the SOFTWARE side to hopefully smack the remasterakes cash grab, iterative sequel factory and live service scheming hypnosis out of playstation.
Let's not pretend there was any real competition on the hardware side, nor should there be anyone choosing sides before just a love of gaming.
However I feel many overlook aspects of this with all the doomsday rhetoric about Xbox. They now own a ton of new studios and every copy of a game sold contributes to revenue. So it makes sense to put those titles in the most hands/platforms possible.
Re: Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden (PS5) - Storytelling Great Has Gameplay to Match
Glad to see this ended up being good. Looking forward to experiencing it!
After the disappointingly janky and unpolished state of the FF7 demo, I think I'll support don't nod on this one and play it near release, and wait for a good discount or verifiable fixes for the bad visuals/settings of FF7 Rebirth. As framerate dips are far less a problem than the laundry. List of issues with the technical state of FF Rebirth.
Even more so a good decision considering that gaming , especially on playststion, appears to be a ghost town in terms of promising releases after March. So spacing out trying some of these front loaded releases just makes sense for me.
Banishers sounds like a great story to playthrough while waiting and hoping DD2 turns out to be good.
Maybe we'll see Flintlock this year as well. Looks like another promising AA effort.
Re: Xbox Has Allegedly Insisted It Won't Stop Making Consoles, As PS5 Port Rumours Mount
I think this is being overblown and distorted into more than what it is. The rumors themselves never suggested a dissolution of any form of exclusivity nor did they suggest a complete abandonment of hardware.
I think what is truly going to take place is them still retaining a slimmed down hardware aspect alongside a continued focus on their gamepass and cloud platforms with a push toward timed exclusives no different than what Sony is and has been doing with third party games and their first party PC ports. Allowing them to double dip in both console install bases alongside day and date PC base.
Exclusivity, in all reality hurts everybody. When you shell out 69 bill for these studios it just makes sense to release games from such a purchase everywhere to ensure you are getting the most return on such a massive investment.
Take into account Starfield being a huge disappointment, and thus not a system seller, it makes sense to me that they must shift in a new direction. Hell Sony doesn't seem to want to share what's in the pipeline, or even pay any legitimate fan service for that matter.
So in all reality, by the end of the month we will likely no more about Xbox owned cross platform stuff coming to PS5 than we will about anything aside from leaked info coming from Sony first party studios in the near or even distant future..... Strange times indeed
Re: Poll: What Do You Think of the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Demo?
The demo was a huge step down visually from remake. Much like others here, I was pretty disappointed in the visuals compared to the previous entry considering that it was a Ps4 title. The combat was more of the same which is great but something about movement and traversal felt janky and unpolished.
Visuals don't entirely make a game but when you have a blurry mess with low quality assets and textures combined with horrible lighting, shadow LOD and extremely close pop in for vegetation it can be very distracting and take away from the experience. Especially when we do get into the open world areas like the grasslands.
I mean this demo was pretty linear, and to have these downgrades to get it to run doesn't bode well. Even cloud's character model in game appeared downgraded. Some camera issues came up indoors and during combat as well. Ooooo and that English voice acting dub,...... Not great.
The demo in fact unsold me on this as a day one pickup. I will now be waiting until they better optimize the title, as it seems very rushed visually and overly relying on up scaling and downgraded visual settings to meet peeformance targets. If it never gets fixed it will be a wait for steep discount scenario.
Cross Gen titles have been able to run without this level of visual downgrades, look far better and perform great. Even with Jedi Survivor's comparable blurry FSR mess, it still had far higher quality assets being pushed than this.
Ironic for this demo to drop alongside the Square Enix corpo stating they were going to focus on releasing better quality products. Pretty underwhelming for sure. Hopefully Ronin and/or DD2 turn out!
Re: The Last of Us 2 Remastered Europe's Best-Selling New Game of January, PS5 Sales Up
The critical discourse over this release was not largely over the initial release backlash narrative toward this game. It was over the fact that it was yet another rerelease other than something new. A trend Sony and co have milked for a great deal of this generation. It was a decent game with terrible pacing and overstayed it's welcome.
However, that aside many are growing extremely tired of these remasterakes and phoned in clone sequels, especially when new titles from the platform are apparently in a considerable drought.
The fact that this was a mere $10 upgrade being compared to full price releases in terms of sales results is pretty ridiculous.
Re: Glimpse Rise of the Ronin's PS5-Powered Depiction of 1800s Japan
Yeah this was a solid little dev diary. This has me interested in the game far more than the trailers. It really does look like they tried to expand beyond the scope of their shallow level selector disguised as a basic world map and shallow story delivery formula they have cloned into 3 games prior.
I love the deep dive into the historical inspirations. Now tell us what the gameplay Loop entails within the open world. Hopefully it's more than just combat.
"Gentlemen you had my curiosity ... but now you have my attention"
Re: Interview: Shift Up on PS5's Highly Promising Stellar Blade
@B0udoir yeah that's exactly it. I'm pretty used to seeing the childlike thirst take but in the case of trying to understand the game and it's quality. Basically we. Have heard the devs boast about attractive female, alongside news stories of toxic. Mysoginy within the devs mgmt.
Can we get a friggin dive into. Combat, gameplay loop, and other mechanics?
Oh and I hear you on the childhood tomb raider thirsting 🤣
Re: Poll: Are You Playing Helldivers 2?
It's apparently pretty busted at launch, that coupled with zero review codes going out certainly compels me to 'wait' at best.
Re: Interview: Shift Up on PS5's Highly Promising Stellar Blade
@Shushibda Agreed, but for me it's not even the overarching trend with the art style in these types of games. What really comes off as a step even further toward cringe is the developer focus on highlighting this as a main feature of the game. The fact that the developers initial response to a question asking them to describe combat was basically "We have an attractive female swinging a sword, " is just bizarre. A Lot of the hype around this games seems largely focused on this FETISH.
Is that it? Play dress up with provocative toon outfits and swing sword with hot toon girl? Is the game and dev focus really that shallow or is there more to this? That's all I'm saying.
Re: Helldivers 2 Off to a Strong Start on PS5, PC, Currently Third Best-Selling Game on Steam
Strange there is no mention of the pretty horrible launch issues. The game's matchmaking system is broken and not working, and is crashing consistently. The dev has had to come out and say they are in crisis mode and unable to fix the issues on the backend and thus a patch will be necessary.
Setting aside the negativity being discussed regarding the anticheat software they chose to use, These technical issues will absolutely affect the player count (already peaked at 64k and falling as of this writing). Launch stability is crucial to initial discourse and success of these games. Especially when no one was provided review code prior to release...
Re: Interview: Shift Up on PS5's Highly Promising Stellar Blade
@Shushibda great question. Looking forward to that one!
Re: Interview: Shift Up on PS5's Highly Promising Stellar Blade
Not sold on it being a good game yet. At this point we've seen nothing but short montages. There was a clip In the last trailer where the combat looked super janky.
Just want to know more about combat and actual Gameplay loop. At least more be discussed beyond this whole cringey 'look at this hot anime girl protagonist, she jiggles and smashes stuff with blade.' it comes off as borderline perverted in this interview. The real thing is far better. This fascination with toon T&A is prepubescent stuff.
To hear devs so focused on it, to me suggests this may be it's defining gimmick. Pretty lame if so.
Re: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's Huge PS5 Demo Out Now, Junon Update Coming Before Full Release
Wow you guys weren't kidding. Finally had time to give the demo a go. Beyond the terrible resolution and whatever up scaling they are using making it so blurry, their were more technical issues than I can count. Textures not popping in, low quality assets, some models look completely unfinished, poor lighting and lighting anomalies, and really bad shadow LOD and texture pop in at close proximity. I walked up to vegetation that took seconds to fully load in once standing right next to them.
If this is indicative of the whole game to come at release, which is likely, then I'm waiting for a great deal of patches before picking this one up. So many aspects of this are visually a step down from the previous one, even the UI.
Pretty crazy. This needed more time in the oven, because this is just unpolished and the areas in the demo feel unfinished. It's not breaking any new ground or pushing to the limits of what other games have done. Games with much greater detail scope and subsequent performance even on ps4 to be honest. This being the next installment and looking worse is odd, but it also being a native ps5 title progressing from what was in all reality a Ps4 game is pretty bizarre and shocking to see it so rough.
The gameplay seems like more of the same and all but man, technically this is shaping up to be a mess at launch. What the heck happened here? Why would they show this and why aren't the game journos talking about this?
Re: Helldivers 2 Pre-Orders Are Big on PS5, PC, Currently Outselling Palworld in US
BRING BACK SOCOM SONY!!!
Re: Poll: How Do You Feel About All of the Xbox Multiplatform Rumours?
I think this is being overblown and distorted into more than what it is. The rumors themselves never suggested a dissolution of any form of exclusivity nor did they suggest a complete abandonment of hardware.
I think what is truly going to take place is them still retaining a slimmed down hardware aspect alongside a continued focus on their gamepass and cloud platforms with a push toward timed exclusives no different than what Sony is and has been doing with third party games and their first party PC ports. Allowing them to double dip in both console install bases alongside day and date PC base.
Re: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's Huge PS5 Demo Out Now, Junon Update Coming Before Full Release
@JB_Whiting @scoobdoo Pretty crazy. bummer considering its a current gen native version. Ironic as they mentioned in this most recent showcase regarding the boost provided by the PS5 was being able to load in "high quality assets." However, it sounds like it's the same visual level as PS4, further muddied with low resolution and likely over reliance on post processing and/or likely more garbage FSR level upscaling implementation.
Thanks for the info. May wait for a sale on this and hope Dragons Dogma turns out to be good. I'll still give the Demo a go later today. However, it's a few weeks from release. what we see here in the demo is absolutely going to be what the final product is going to look like.
Re: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's Huge PS5 Demo Out Now, Junon Update Coming Before Full Release
@ILikeStake @JB_Whiting I haven't fired up the demo yet, but just from the non combat grassland footage alone l was a bit underwhelmed at how grainy and washed out it appeared. I had initially hoped it was just a video quality issue but the more looks we got it appeared that was less likely. A bummer if it's not at all improved from what was essentially a Ps4 title. Square's engine visuals have been growing dated. I also seem to remember that aside from loading times the difference in visuals between the ps4 version of remake and the Ps5 was also very minor.
Is it much better in quality mode?
Re: PS5, PS4 First-Party Devs Won't Get Complacent Even if Competition Degrades
A little ironic to be saying this after years of radio silence. We know absolutely nothing in terms of what most of these studios are working on aside from cash grab remasters/remakes and live service schemes most people dont want.....
Re: Rumour: A PS5 Remake of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Is Possibly on the Cards
This is just more of the same for Sony. There really isn't anything more to be said. This and the rumored but likely HZD cash grab....
It's just kinda sad at this point. Sad to see the greed driven factory that Sony is becoming, and sad to see the glossy eyed cattle that line up outside the factory gates waiting to lap up this regurgitation with open arms, and attack anyone who points out this drool has alreayed been digested.
Re: Stellar Blade's Protagonist's Body Is Based on This Real-World Korean Model
@Kidfried 100% agree
Re: Face Your Demons in Supernatural RPG The Thaumaturge on PS5
This definitely looks interesting. On the radar for sure.
Re: Rumour: Xbox Console Exclusive Starfield Is Setting a Course for PS5
Hard pass on this disappointment. Cool to see Bethesda games may still migrate over though.
Re: Rumour: Xbox's Indiana Jones Game Also Being 'Considered' for PS5
Definitely Down for Indy despite preferring it was third person.
As far as Starfield goes, xbots can keep that garbage though.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 514
Finally decided to give disco elysium a go and I'm loving it so far. Some pretty incredible writing here.
Re: The Last of Us 3 Probably Happening at Some Point in the Future
So what exactly is ND actually working on right now aside from greenlighting remasterakes and a TV show?
Re: Poll: Are You Playing Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League?
@ItsBritneyB_tch @BeerIsAwesome
If we take this poll as a small test sample size and put it against your stated theory suggesting its just the outcry of enthusiast whiners that are for some reason spearheading a hate campaign against this "good" game, it seems to fall apart considering the pull results. The data actually suggests its those that like this game that are in the vast minority.
At the time of writing 579 out of 706 votes state they arents sure about the game or are outright not considering playing it. out of that 579, 430 (61%) aren't touching it period.
In fact, in the 3 years visiting this site, i would say these poll numbers thus far are the most overwhelming consensus I've seen yet. It would seem that the game is largely unappealing to most. Despite you being the minority, and enjoying it, of which I'm glad, it's a huge stretch to say that over 80%, of those polled that feel otherwise are just the invalid ramblings of bandwagon hardcore gamer haters doing so merely for the sake of hating.
Re: Poll: Are You Playing Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League?
Absolutely not. Can't condone this garbage.
Re: Rumour: A New PlayStation Handheld Console Reportedly in the Works
WHERE ARE THE GAMES SONY?
Considering the complete lack of first party psvr2 support, this is just another example of Sony having really lost its way in the fog of corporate greed. Yet, another enthusiast focused peripheral cash grab that the drones will eat up of which Sony will support during launch with the bare minimum and then walk away with fresh pockets of cash due to the return-on-investment ratio.
All the while we here nothing about what their studios are doing, and this isn't even rumored to support whatever the hell that may be.
Re: Preview: Helldivers 2 Utterly Revels in Its Chaotic Bug Battles
Is this free to play? Such a bad move if it isnt
Re: BioShock Creator Ken Levine Says Player Choice Is What Separates Judas on PS5
@PegasusActual93 ahhhh gotcha thanks
Re: Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League (PS5) - Rocksteady's Big Gamble Just About Pays Off
@Northern_munkey AGREED.
yah that's really it. I love games just as the rest which is really why i look so deeply into really every release that I hope ends up good. I looked into it out of interest, but I in no way assume just because I've concluded its not for me and genuinely a fairly bad effort, that no one will like it.
I even tried gotham knights once it hit ps plus to see if I may like it, despite concluding the same way that it was not for me. Sure enough, I REALLY REALLY did not enjoy it and shared the same sentiment as many others did during release as to why.
Despite this new "hate bandwagon," token term being thrown around by many, the reality is what is being discussed is far more often than not an emerging consensus. A majority opinion derived from experience that others can look to for clarity in decision making. If it differs from your own conclusions, then great! you have something new to enjoy and that's awesome; but don't be contrarian for the sake of a reason to argue in a comment section. Just play the new game you like so much and carry on!
Re: Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League (PS5) - Rocksteady's Big Gamble Just About Pays Off
@dark_knightmare2 thats IMPRESSIVE seriously. As a chronic "hold up wait a minute," completionist myself, i commend you on that. I often some how rack up 50+hrs in games the mainstream say run about 20 lmfao. so i get it.
Re: Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League (PS5) - Rocksteady's Big Gamble Just About Pays Off
@dark_knightmare2 20 hrs?! I agree that I am missing the feel of playing it for sure, but its not hard to deduce what you will like or dislike from playthroughs and reviews. Otherwise, they wouldn't exist because no one would watch them. I am happy you like it man, no need to get salty simply because I share my thoughts on it, that may differ from your own.
Shoot away my friend!
Re: Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League (PS5) - Rocksteady's Big Gamble Just About Pays Off
@RawnDawn You are halfway through the game at 5 hrs in just so you know (hrs may vary but based roughly 10-12 hrs main campaign runtime). Hey if you like the gameplay loop then I am genuinely happy for you.
I won't be playing it but have watched several full gameplay streams and checked in all of the mainstream reviews out there alongside some content creators that have less bias toward soft conclusions and whos opinions often if not always align with my own after playing a title. Granted I havent played it but I am rarely steered wrong when cross referencing many accounts of a game, as they often all mention the same thing, but oddly decide on varying scores as a result of those things based on whatever reasonings they may have. I can still deduce the quality of a game based on my tastes and make what have proven to be largely on point choices which i am sure many do similar investigations pre purchase as well.
The overall consensus ive seen is:
quality cutscenes
Next to zero mission variety
Short, especially for a 7+year dev cycle, along with vey little to offer as a package
Terrible loot system, and what appears to be the leftovers from a lootbox system that was walked back much like gotham knights.
Extremely low, like count on one hand enemy variety
empty and bland looking world
Shockingly terrible story decisions
and a final boss fight that is just a reskin of an earlier one.
Underwhelming endgame (albeit the first season doesn't drop for months, so maybe that will change)
This game appears to be from what I've seen and read to be much closer to a 5 in terms of quality. I'm sure itmay provide some mindless fun had it been a sub svc or f2p title though or may even just click with some.
Re: Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League (PS5) - Rocksteady's Big Gamble Just About Pays Off
Interesting overall conclusion.
yeah,...... i would definitely check out some other opinions on this if you are still seriously considering playing this one. Aside for some oddly generous reviews that overlook some pretty awful aspects of this half-baked mess, most have come away shocked at how bad it is on many different fronts.
Re: Dragon's Dogma 2 Shows Off Crazy New Character Class That Can Switch Weapons and Skills
This trailer was honestly the best thing in the entire underwhelming showcase. Looked great here.
Re: BioShock Creator Ken Levine Says Player Choice Is What Separates Judas on PS5
The lack of release date is pretty concerning for this one if they really are planning for a spring release. I would be shocked if this wasn't delayed further and feel bad for the crunch that is likely going on under Levine right now.
It's important to remember that while this game was finally revealed a year ago or so, it has been in dev since 2014 and in dev hell for some time. Looked a lot like a reskinned BioShock for sure, almost too much so in terms of cloning almost every aspect, which is fine i suppose if the story is good However, much of was meant to present as gameplay really appeared to be scripted cutscenes in my opinion.
Re: Death Stranding 2, Hideo Kojima the Biggest Winners from Excellent State of Play
@invictus4000 you aren't the only one in agreement on Kojima. Feels like a mess of hubris barfed into a game. In the case of DS, for me it's wasted potential.
Re: Could Sony, Hideo Kojima's Physint Be the First Announced PS6 Game?
@Rangers420 exactly. Not to mention he mumbled right at the end of that cringey scripted discussion that it was not just a game but a movie.
Re: PS5 Exclusive Stellar Blade Dated for 26th April on PS5
This was not a very good showing with that terrible narration. Still not sure at all what the gameplay loop is in this and it's clearly been downgraded. Is it level based, is it open world is it just hack and slash combat or deeper? Who knows.
Hopefully we get some actual deep dives leading up to release. This informed us of nothing really
Re: Poll: How Would You Rate the Latest State of Play Showcase?
@VaultGuy415 yah I figured with them announcing 15 addl games we'd be surprised with something. Nope!
Re: Poll: How Would You Rate the Latest State of Play Showcase?
I'm kinda shocked. I genuinely thought they would have some meaningful surprises. Wth is going on with Sony.
Stellar blade and Ronin both did not show well there. With Ronin in particular I was hoping to gather more through this showing aside from a basic montage.
Such sterile presentations for really everything aside from the walking simulator sequel. That was a cool showing despite not liking the first one at all. Maybe this will be more.
Overall, though, that just felt forced. A bunch of games that have been out months and years being ported over alongside stuff we've already seen. Not one thing, not even a teaser for a first party project.
Just bad and again very sterile show. Shocked but only because it's more of the same from current Gen Sony. I just don't understand the vision that PlayStation saw in approaching this gen in the way they have on many fronts. It's like they have thrown away much that garnered them goodwill and made them so beloved as a platform and instead see us as marks to siphon from with every predatory corporate gimmick in the book. WTH happened.
Re: Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 Gameplay Revealed, Out on PS5 in the 'Coming Months'
Jesus talk about a let down. This looks rough.
After so much development hell they should have axed this rather than tarnish a classic. Whoever owns this IP appears hell bent on cashing in with whatever garbage they can put out, forgoing quality or standard in the process.
Re: PS Plus Essential Games for February 2024 Announced
Def will give rollerdrome a try. Steel rising is great but already enjoyed it during release.
Foamstars can go pound sand errrr...
Foam.
Re: Granblue Fantasy: Relink (PS5) - Fantastic Action RPG Finally Takes to the Skies
@ShogunRok gotcha thanks. I actually didn't realize until now that it had a mission based structure. Not sure how I Missed that🤣. Kudos for the in depth review.
Re: Granblue Fantasy: Relink (PS5) - Fantastic Action RPG Finally Takes to the Skies
@ShogunRok if I found Tales of Arise to be one of the more underwhelming overhyped games in a long long time, will I also not like this?