NoxAeturnus

Been saying for years they should just stop making games entirely and focus on animated TV shows. The Naughty Dog game formula is tired and it's clear the gameplay is secondary and kind of a nuisance for them at this point. TLOU2 was basically a bunch of chores along a hallway to the next cutscene. And that's the one that has an "open world" area. So what does that mean for this game? Just leave the games behind. They could make some killer TV shows for Sony's Crunchyroll anime empire.

Soulslike has been used so loosely to describe such a wide variety of games that it is pretty meaningless as a descriptive term.

The combat in this looks interesting enough, though the environments look very bland. Looks good enough to be worth a rent before buying.

Ok, but this is just historically accurate. Glad to see they're finally taking that angle more seriously.

Say Liam is correct that the gameplay is ho hum. Who cares? The premise of playing as a cat is a huge draw to non-gamers, and a simple moveset and gameplay mean they can actually play it and complete it. A game like Stray is great because it grows the gaming community. Not every game needs to be novel to jaded gamers who play every big release.

Someone get the rolled up newspaper, ATLUS crapped on the customer again.

And I'm out. AI party members will always feel like the game playing itself to me. If you want real time action combat, just give me a solo character to play. If you want a party, then make it co-op or give me tactical control and go turn-based. Trying to do both in a single player game is why I've found many FF games to be impossible to get into. If this is your thing, I hope it turns out well for you, but it's not for me.

Wow, that's a big yawn of an announcement isn't it?

@AverageGamer Honestly not that big a boost. Up 63% year over year when the Switch port is excluded. Making it available on a new system had a much bigger impact. The prior year was 2018 in which it sold about 3 million copies. In June 2019 CDPR said lifetime sales of Witcher 3 were 20 million or so. So a modest half million boost from the TV show. Not bad. But considering that S1 of the TV show had more than 500 million viewers in its first month, I think it's safe to say that a sizeable portion of show watchers were not converted to game players. Still, you're probably right, TLOU rerelease around show's launch will probably boost sales. And obviously they didn't put much money into the rerelease, and it's overpriced, so it's an easy win for them.

@AverageGamer It certainly boosted book sales. I'd have to see a metric to believe that people whose first experience with The Witcher was the TV show ran out and bought the game to play it. Maybe a few people here and there, but in large numbers? I doubt it.

@AverageGamer Ah, right, TV show. Forgot about that. If they're hoping to convert people from that to console gaming I think they'll be disappointed.

Why do I even need this at any price when there's a good remake I already own on PS4? You'd need to add value to convince me to buy again at all, and you can't really argue that there's a large install base on PS5, let alone a large number of people who never owned a PS4. Who is this for?

Well that explains why the combat looked so DMC to me. I'm cautiously optimistic about this one.

Yes, the true Scottsmen...err I mean Playstation fans...should be quite excited.

But did they fix the huge pacing and balance issues in the endgame?

I just hope they take the time to understand what they're building and why game mechanics should or shouldn't be included. NMS has kinda become a kitchen sink, and a lot of the mechanical additions feel like they're there just to be there and not because they serve a purpose in the design.

CDPR: We've learned a lot from the Cyberpunk debacle.

Also CDPR: Let's tell everyone how extraordinary our next game will be before we have even started making it.

Even if Martin had done extensive writing for the game I'm not sure it would stick out. Certainly no one working on the game would want it to be noticeably different, because that would be jarring. Besides, Martin's writing tone and the typical Souls tone are pretty compatible, which is probably why they consulted with him in the first place.

Origins and its follow-ups just didn't do it for me. If they make a good stealth game, even if it is just a spinoff, that could be fun and seems like a good fit for AC.

Oh this should be - "it has a villain as the protagonist instead of a hero..." I'm out. I'm so tired of edgy anti-heroes.

@RevGaming Activision/Blizzard doesn't do licensing like EA. That's most of EA's business. It's not the same.

Being 3rd party is pretty critical for EA. EA is built on franchise licensing and those rights holders don't want their franchises locked to a single platform. Do you think EA wants to make FIFA for Switch any more? If any platform holder purchased them, they'd lose the thing that makes them valuable. And any non-platform holder that purchases them doesn't really change their business model much. This is a non-issue even if it were to happen.

I know that this is a bigger deal than the Bethesda acquisition, but I was more upset about Bethesda because they actually have franchises I play and care about. And even there it was kinda like...oh well, too bad. Activision/Blizzard and MS are a good match in my opinion, and I don't really care about any of those franchises being exclusive.

When there's enough of it and you can tell from looking at it that it might be interesting, you can kind of pick and choose what to read based on interest just like real life. Elder Scrolls is great for this imo. I read the title of a book and if it sounds interesting I'll read it, if not then not.

I highly enjoy the type of game that original P5/P5R is. I rarely enjoy the kind of game that Strikers is. I am still disappointed that a direct narrative sequel is such a drastic genre change from its predecessor.

I tried the demo and was convinced not to buy it because of how trivial the gameplay felt. The default difficulty would be story mode in any other game. It's like it was supposed to be a visual novel but begrudgingly was made into a game instead. I was disappointed because I liked everything else about it, including the chill tone and narration and the weird but effective presentation as cards. I didn't even mind how slow it progressed. Just needed a challenge bump to be engaging.

The name of the game is Major Title: A pillar for Atlus. It's a brand new IP.

Can we throw port into the mix? The real issue is that these terms are not mutually exclusive. A game could theoretically be a port, a remaster, a remake, and a reboot all at the same time. For example, if they ported the original code, remastered it with new assets, and then added additional all new gameplay (remake), but then also the release negates past sequels and an all new sequel takes the series in a new direction (reboot).

@Northern_munkey Absolutely a fair point that in today's market, where many games are being updated frequently after launch, any launch review is a pretty useless sample of a game's quality outside the launch window.

@Northern_munkey @naruball Because there's a difference between a game billed as an online multiplayer service game like Avengers and Godfall that need a constant audience to survive and a game billed as a single-player exploration game that had online multiplayer components added later like NMS. People who aren't interested in service games might have bought NMS and returned to it periodically after updates, but they probably didn't even buy Avengers because of the type of game it is. And people who like multiplayer service games might have picked up NMS cheap once those elements were added, but the game doesn't rely on them to survive, it's complete as a single-player experience even online. People who like service games are also quick to move on once it's clear that X game is not working, and they usually don't come back because there's always a new multiplayer service game coming out and FOMO drives a lot of people to play the newest ones with their friends.

What do they have to do to get an F on availability?

Definitely one to watch. Forget pre-alpha, I've seen worse looking games in beta.

I love his work, hope this means we get to see more of it in other games too.

Thanks, I hate it.

AC 1 is the only one not swimming in objective markers. Leave me alone and let me explore Ubisoft. AC 2 is the superior story, character, and game though. The rest of them are meh. Unpopular opinion: ship combat in Black Flag was a snooze. The series lost its DNA in Origins. Best AC game I've played overall though is Ghost of Tsushima. Sucker Punch out AC'd AC for sure.

"Curious players who don't know what to do can just try out all the buttons until they figure things out. Sure, but I don't think you should ever have to resort to that."

I'll be honest, I'm going to press every single button to figure out what they do anyway because that's how my brain works and if the tutorials could just get out of my way and let me get on with that I'd really appreciate it. When I have to spend an hour "learning," having the game walk me through basic controls, it drives me nuts, especially if I'm replaying the game. How about making a game's tutorial optional right at the beginning? Best of both worlds.

@Feena I think I'd be more excited about a new Skies of Arcadia than Persona 6. It's fun to dream...

What possible benefit do I get as the player from requiring a constant online connection for a single player campaign? It's all downside and no upside.

@UltimateOtaku91 Regarding your comment at #20, if true I think it would be hilarious if MS made the same mistake they did with Rare back in the day. No doubt they'll do their due diligence this time, but if they just bought those studios and failed to get the IP with them, I'd laugh so hard.

@GKT I rented this game for free from my library last year, because quarantine boredom. And because I knew it would eventually get a GOTY edition or DLC or a PS5 version in the next 1-1.5 years-ish. Because it always happens. And because I buy physical, and I wait for that "definitive version" that has all the important patches on the disc before owning a game. Honestly, data management and video games has been a mess for two generations now. If you buy games at launch you shouldn't be surprised if something like this happens.

It's simple. Stop caring about FOMO and buy games after release. If you dodge articles for the first two weeks you can stay mostly spoiler free. Then you benefit from all the post launch patches. You get the best version of the game for the lowest price.

@MKD88 That would be awesome, but they'd charge full price for it. And it wouldn't be updated at all. And it would probably cost extra to get the full FES version of 3 and the Golden version of 4. Because Atlus.

So it's Classical Art Memes: The Game? I'm in.

@fR_eeBritney Oh yeah I know exactly the scene you're talking about! Awful.

@fR_eeBritney Fun fact, the word unobtanium has been in use for a long time in engineering fields. It sounds like a cringy poorly named piece of the fiction, but actually is a stranger than fiction bit of realism.

Accessibility is good. The majority of games should have difficulty options and should be accessible to as many people as possible. The majority of games do provide accessibility. So my question is, with so many games out there providing that experience, why do the few like Souls need to change?

Ignore the git gud jerks. Souls in specific loses something by adding an easy mode. If you don't understand why that's important to its fans, you should be wary about asking for changes. These are my very favorite games because I can't turn down the difficulty. The bridge is burned. The only way to win is to change myself, not the world around me. An easy mode cheapens souls the same way a ski lift would cheapen Everest. This game is about the challenge of beating something that can't be adjusted to you. That's core to the experience. Changing it makes the game fundamentally not itself. If that's not appealing the game is not for you. Full stop. It should be okay that not every game is for every person.

It could be awesome but the way you described the companions is totally off-putting to me. Hope they iron that out. Or, you know, just get rid of them or let the player turn them off. Why would I want AI companions in an ARPG anyway?

So bad trailer then? Hmm, maybe I won't write it off completely then.

@Steel76 Doesn't look like souls to me. More like Devil May Cry or Astral Chain. A bit generic looking, but might be a fun diversion.

1. Doesn't look like souls. People really need to stop comparing every ARPG to souls. The gameplay looks like a decent ARPG, it doesn't need to be souls.
2. Oh look, they cranked the bro factor to 11 for this one. Greeeeeaaaat...
3. I'm already tired of the canned dialogue. "Crush you!" "Die already!" "Chaos!" We get it bro, you're here to kill chaos.

Overall: Yawn.

Here's an idea, just let me order one. I don't care if it takes 6 months for you to deliver, if I've ordered it and it'll get here sometime, then I'm good to wait. This having to keep checking PS Direct for the random days and times they release stock, or getting notifications from 3rd party trackers, or trying to snag one from a retailer in competition with inhumanly fast bots is the real hassle. At this point my time investment trying to get one is greater than the increased cost of buying it scalped.