Nei

Fantazio and Horizon - I have some gripes with Atlus’ latest but it still is very engaging and I am enjoying it. I am also tinkering with Horizon (it looks so good!) but I think I am going to leave it for the pro

I have fond memories of playing the first game and would love to revisit it - I have kept my ps3 discs and all! It really should be let out of that prison

@truerbluer you forgot Stellar Blade and others but yes if I had to get one single piece of gaming hardware, I’d say Ps5 is the best choice atm as you pretty much get everything without having to wait years for ports! And I say this as someone who plays on PC a lot -

@LavenderShroud yeah, I mean - give me a SNES with Super Metroid or whatever can play PSO and I am good for life but in terms of latest meaningful releases the PS4 hasn’t got us covered

@riceNpea I mean, just talking about recent-ish releases but you can’t play Astro bot, Stellar Blade, Baldur’s Gate 3 or FFVII Rebirth. I am sorry but PS4 is utterly useless atm @Dr_Rocanlover

It’s been an insane year for PS, tbh, and a PlayStation dominated year by any measure. That said, I wouldn’t mind having one year- even 18 months of hype before a game releases. I feel like we might be in for a few surprises in the second half of the PS5 life, though.

Yay! This is one of the games, if not THE game, I was hoping the most to get a pro update!

I would love a demo for this one, patiently waiting for the reviews

@get2sammyb this! I kinda want one now

It’s pretty bad but still irks me way less than Metaphor’s horrendous performance tbh - I am looking forward to finishing the game so that I don’t have to stare at those atrocious magla effects

There is something oddly satisfying about how clean they are making the cut though I am really sorry for anyone whose contract might be badly affected by this

Thank you for the review - sounds just like what I wanted.

The good thing about “bloated” side quests is that we can just ignore them altogether if we are not feeling it.

As soon as I can finish Metaphor it’s either this or Dragon Quest III

I would love them to publish the demographic spread for the beta testers, this game might have a lot of surprising (and less surprising) niche followers

@Stickleman and believe me, I am glad for that, but I think their impactful days as a force in the console space are coming to an end. They will release a new console but how many will buy it? When games are coming out on the rival platform the choice seems pretty obvious …they will transition to publisher in a a few years

The saddest thing is that there is not another game I’d actually want to have on PS besides Hi-fi Rush 😅 maybe Forza Horizon but that’s it. Oh well! I am sure there will be more waves of ports - I am actually sorry for their “fans” as the writing is pretty clear on the wall…

The Horizon level in Astro bot made me realize how well this could work! Gonna keep an eye on it

I wish we could get the disc drive for this price but it does make sense as: 1) saves them from doing two versions of the console 2) makes it a little less obscenely expensive 3) some people already have the disc drive from their digital PS5.

Metaphor
Astro bot
Capcom’s Fighting Collection
SF6

@Cloud39472 I think Trails and Ys look better and for sure they run better. I find Metaphor particularly hard on the eyes, its beautiful static art only exacerbates how bad the game actually looks and runs. But I am glad you and other persons have not this feeling and don’t get me wrong, I do like the game! I just wished it had better graphics or at least a decent framerate.

@Cloud39472 I know what you mean but this game is on a whole different level of bad graphics. The low polygonal models, the terrible textures, the nausea-inducing visual effects, the poor frame rate...it's not an exaggeration to say that it looks like playing a not particularly good PS3 game through a poorly working emulator.

While I do wish there were more big budget JRPG (I would love Sony to produce one) my expectations are around something like Granblue Fantasy or the HD-2D games...not this mess.

40 hours in, I am liking it so far but I wish it was a greater departure from the persona formula and it is really, really…really technically underwhelming- I think beautiful visuals really are part of the magical videogame equation. The archetype system is so much better than fixed personas for your party members. Solid 7,5.
Edit: wait, the OST is genious, let’s make it a solid 8.

1. Rebirth
2. ASTRO BOT
3. Stellar Blade
4. Balatro
5. Dragon Dogma 2

Metaphor has its hooks in me at the moment but it is so technically underwhelming in every conceivable way that I would not dare to put it on a game of the year list. I have played many prettier ps3 games. P3 Reload is redundant and incomplete at the same time, so it really underwhelmed me and I would recommend the porting of P3P over it. I wish ReFantazio had P3Reload's "not cutting edge, but kind of adequate" visuals, though. Sorry, Atlus XD Not trying to hate.

That's kind of interesting, if true - but Xbox can be a little random and difficult to read at times, so I wouldn't give too much importance to this alleged decision...
While there are surely aspects of Nintendo's and Sony's vision that I don't like, I think I have a general an idea of their direction. With Microsoft it just seems they don't have any direction at all or that said direction is changing every other week.

Can’t wait to dive into this after work!

@CielloArc totally. Square is not impressed by the game sales, even if it’s not their game.

★★★ "The visuals are largely adequate" - Sammy Barker, Push Square.

Btw I did some parkour through the pitfalls and death traps of TLOU2 references, not unlike Lara herself XD. Still have to play that.

Well, that is surely gorgeous - reminds me of Cuphead (<3) I hope it has quality gameplay to back its style up.

I could swear there was an article stating the opposite of this, months ago. Here https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2024/06/players-wont-see-every-dungeon-in-metaphor-refantazio-jrpg-offers-a-lot-more-freedom

This is one of the elements I wish the game had left to the Persona series tbh!

I am not a fan of spiders irl but I don’t mind setting them on fire with magic in games, a little scare every now and then is fun c”mon.

@Dom_31 it’s pretty customizable, you can choose what widget to keep and their size.

Got it yesterday while in Italy: it is so convenient and it looks great.

In my restless dreams I see my backlog.

@__jamiie the Pro is marketed to a specific and niche audience with expensive TV sets etc, and it's just a premium version of the current PS ecosystem for those who care about the extra juice it can provide.
The PS6, on the other hand, will have to try to address the market at its base trying to attract as many users as it can and will have a price tag more in line with what we saw for the base PS5.

This game looked pretty good at 40fps with VRR - I still have to do new game plus and GOW combat is always fun

@sanderson72 This is just a hardware performance boost, Horizon remade the mocap and by the look of it, it seems way better than the original 🤷🏼‍♀️

They are on a league of their own in this! But I always liked this in Japanese RPGs, the UI is part of the overall aesthetic experience.
Metaphor is also good with quality of life touches, almost everything is accessible in one button press.

That said, the demo is kind of an eyesore with PS3 assets and Switch AA: my husband came back to me playing this and was like “is this out on Switch?” “Nah, this is the Ps5 version”. We tried the PC version and it’s even worse. It kinda feels like a remaster of an old game.

As a SEGA girl at heart, this article makes me giggle. They have been one of the best publishers for years and I can’t wait for those “Sega 5” games!

p.s. I was looking at the best games of 2024 by metascore just to get ideas for goty predictions and I must say that Sony also very silently had a killer year, Concord embarrassment aside: they published a trio of quality, diverse offering with Stellar, Helldivers II and Astro, while the last of us remakes and Horizon FW complete were really well reviewed.

@AaronElWhite without spoiling too much, you can inherit abilities from another archetype: the last ability you get for the healer at rank 20 is regeneration at the start of each turns and it really mixes in well with the brawler archetype, a class that uses HP for its special skills. Of course this will have you farming exp, if you want to do it in the demo, but I got addicted

I am not gonna lie, I had to hunt one down as I started to see them vanishing from online stores. Local game shop had my back.

Thank you for the review, it seems like everything I expected from the demo - I am going to enjoy this immensely, I am already over-tinkering with the job system in the demo itself 😅 (HP-regeneration on HP-consuming brawler? You gotta have it.) Day 1!

Rebirth, Stellar Blade and Astro are the best titles I played this year alongside Balatro. That’s your PlayStation “bad year” 😅

Justice for Stellar Blade OST!
Edit: Voted for Rebirth (Sorry Astro 🥹)

@voltum3l Robert has his own taste but many loved the game - it’s close to a 10 for me.
JRPGs I played this year:
Persona 3 Reload: 7,5
Final Fantasy XVI: 8,5
Octopath Traveller 2: 9
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: 9,5

If you feel personally attacked by the successful reviews of any videogame, it’s probably time to use the internet to look for some kind of professional help. We can all be better than this.

Thanks for the review, it really covered all the points. Even if I don’t think that a game’s price should impact the score (as it will inevitably change, in time) it’s weird they are not offering the 10$ upgrade for this after getting customers used to it.

Maybe I will get it in the future, on a deep sale, as it seems something fun to play in company.

Metaphor demo (finished already but I am doing an optimized save for the final game XD) and Octopath Traveller 2 because I hate myself and I started replaying it.

And SF6, as always.

@Judal27 I was pleasantly baffled by how it all kinda made sense at the end.

The BOY song had me in stitches during that whole level

Thank you for the review, I am glad this turned out well, as the original is very dear to me - would love to get it at launch but I am getting Metaphor first

I think it’s going to impact the game sales. I had to personally put this game on many of my friends’ radars.
The only real effect this deal had was giving the impression that Microsoft had a solid showing of games at the event it was presented, while it was mainly multi platform stuff and secretly they were even preparing to port their games to PS.
I blame Atlus though…you don’t go making a marketing deal for a new IP with the platform that has the lowest amount of players interested in the genre.

I preordered the pearl white pad - it really looks so good!

Fingers crossed for Silent Hill 2, it would be so nice if it scored well 😊It’s the remake of one of the most influential yet underplayed games ever.

On the Atlus side of things, based on the lengthy demo I know I will like Metaphor a lot, despite the baffling ps3 era assets

Metaphor, Horizon and, if the reviews are not bad, Dragon Age: I can’t shake a bad feeling I have about it but really want it to be good as I loved all three previous game tbh

@CrashBandicoat yeah, that makes sense - I guess the consoles I was citing where a lot more diverse and any port needed more work, even though probably sold more (in proportion).

I am not hating on Xbox but sometimes I do feel we should open an investigation on why third parties are still developing for it. Doesn’t seem profitable at all to develop a Xbox version of their games, unless it’s pay-rolled. In my life I have seen consoles I owned, like the Dreamcast, Gamecube and WiiU, all with way higher attach rates, left in the dust way sooner by some publishers.