Ralizah

The PS5 has sustained itself off the incredible momentum achieved during the PS4 generation, but it's far from being a great console like that was, and looks unlikely to outsell it (let alone the PS2 lol).

As a software publisher, Sony has arguably never been as weak as it is right now, stuck in a rut of occasionally releasing safe, prohibitively expensive sequels to existing properties and little else of consequence in-between.

Moreover, Sony is continuing to expand the availability of its software outside of the Playstation ecosystem, making the PS5 a console that's arguably only necessary for the biggest Playstation fans. It wouldn't surprise me if they eventually get to the point where the window between console and PC releases for big blockbuster tentpoles is non-existent.

@ShogunRok Yeah. I think, other things being equal, it's a worthwhile feature, but I certainly wouldn't tank performance to achieve somewhat more realistic shading.

It makes a bigger difference in certain games. Cyberpunk 2077's neon-lit dystopia looks almost transformed at night with RT enabled, based on what I've seen. But here? Eh.

Probably makes more sense to build next-gen GPUs around the feature.

Other than the shadowed areas being a bit darker, I'm struggling to see a major difference between the RT and non-RT screenshots. Perhaps it's more noticeable in 4K on a bigger screen.

I don't mind when EGS funds the development of games that might otherwise have never existed (AW2, presumably), but the stupid little deals they've offered companies to try and introduce console-style timed exclusivity to the PC space in an attempt to drive business away from Steam has been a nuisance. Hoping we see less and less of that now.

Ehhh.

I hate it when games force a reliance on parrying. I was hoping for the fast but less technical combat of something like NieR: Automata.

Definitely less excited now.

Might as well wait for the launch year re-release on the PS6 by that point! And then wait until the 2040s for GTA 7.

As long as the game isn't balanced around the purchase of microtransactions, it doesn't bother me. I put up with it in Atlus games, and I'll put up with it here.

All I can think about is that Senran Kagura game trailer where half of it was the developers fondling and shaking jello molds.

@NEStalgia They'd probably have to spend a year on the physics calculations involved with a food fight scene.

@Lup Tell me about it. I started it recently, and it really is just all window dressing. GORGEOUS window dressing, but still. I don't know why this needed to be an open world, since it does nothing interesting with it and clearly yearns to be a cinematic action game.

@NEStalgia I don't necessarily hate that style of open world game either, as long as it's done well. Horizon is that type of game, and I loved it. It actually is a closer equivalent to what BotW would look like if it was more in the style of an Ubisoft game. Just give it stylized anime visuals and the soft Ghibli filter. And slash the budget in half.

I spent a couple of weeks OBSESSED with TotK. Like, I cleared 80+ hours in that time. And then I just... dropped it. Haven't been back since. I will go back, since I'd like to fully beat it, but yeah, it's weird. I didn't stop playing BotW until I had beaten it and was satisfied with my progress.

Probably doesn't help I spent half my time in the Depths mining zonite. Although I exploited a duplication glitch that saved me hours of tedium, so that was cool, I guess.

@NEStalgia It's just not, though. It completely de-emphasizes the checklisting, quest design, and mindless gameplay loop that define Ubisoft open world games. There was nothing like it at the time, and it STILL feels fresh today, even if other developers are starting to take notes for their own games.

I will admit to hoping that the next one is more Elden Ring and less Minecraft, though. TotK is a super innovative game, but we're at the point where, yeah, it's starting to feel like a new IP.

@NEStalgia I felt a similar, although less pronounced, awe when I first played Gravity Rush on my Vita. People didn't buy the Vita, though, so it never had the chance to really prove itself to the public.

I totally disagree on BotW. Aside from the towers to expand your map, it's nothing like Ubisoft open world games at all. Which is why it was such an industry-shaking release: it created a new type of open world game that defied the established conventions people were used to.

That Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild are considered two of the greatest games ever made, I think, speaks to the potential of this style of open world game design.

@NEStalgia Gravity Rush is better off dead without the original development studio to make it. I don't want to see them 'Weekend at Bernie's' it and end up destroying its legacy like when Konami handed off the Silent Hill IP to random Western developers.

Ironic that the same dude created both series!

@NEStalgia I'll admit to being amused by all of the "It's so cool being able to play games away from the TV!" rhetoric when handhelds have existed for ages. Like... I agree it's cool being able to play a home console-tier title on a portable system, but let's not act like the concept of a portable console itself is something new.

Hell, the Nomad was effectively a Switch back in the 90s, and nobody cared. It's definitely less "Nintendo did a new thing nobody ever thought of before" and more "Nintendo found a way to take this style of console design and make it appealing and mainstream."

I do agree Breath of the Wild as a launch title was an important part of its success as well. It was very much the proof-of-concept people needed to sell the idea of a Switch. I'm so used to playing big boy TV games on a portable system now, but back in 2017, playing the new, hugely ambitious Zelda game on a portable system, booting it up on the tablet, was a WOW moment that'll stick with me forever.

@NEStalgia I think it's fine for Naughty Dog to be that way, since they're the OG when it comes to modern cinematic blockbuster action spectacles. Go ahead and spend a year modeling fruit.

But why does EVERYTHING need to be Uncharted now?

Meanwhile, Nintendo is happily dropping games across a half-dozen different genres every year. They may not score as well as Sony's TGA bait, but it's sure nice to have a diverse selection of exclusive titles to choose from.

I wrote Sony off after they nuked Japan Studio, which indicated to me that the Sony I grew up loving was dead and gone, and that the changes to the brand were irreversible. I still like the Horizon games and some of their third-party exclusives, but thankfully I don't need to invest in new hardware to play those, as they eventually just go to PC as well.

@NEStalgia It reinvented expectations for what portable gaming looks like. Switch essentially realized the dream of the Vita (home console gaming on the go), and since then, additional technological improvements have made that approach increasingly viable. In this way, they took their most lucrative market and expanded it intelligently so as to also absorb the home console market as well.

We would not be sitting here with our PS Portals and Steam Decks without the Switch providing the framework for what portable gaming should look like in the modern era.

@NEStalgia lolol

You run toward the screen in those chase levels, forcing you to memorize the location of obstacles. The levels are all LITERAL hallways. What bugs me most, though, is how the camera is positioned in exactly the wrong spot where it makes judging the distance of your jumps difficult.

Despite all this, I had a lot of fun with Crash Bandicoot 2 recently when I 100%ed the collection (except the original, because that game is the exact antithesis of fun and is designed to make people suffer unnecessarily). They took the broken game design of this series and somehow managed to make it work.

Warped had the audacity to add in vehicle levels with the world's most unresponsive motorcycle, UGH

@Jaz007 Yup. This 'bigger is better' mentality is killing Western AAA gaming. Probably explains why everything needs to be an open world action adventure with rpg elements now. And, if Sony makes it, cost 300 million dollars.

Developers need to learn to focus on the elements that players actually care about. I don't want to wait six years and pay $70 for a game because you feel the need to hire an entire 20-person team to model the photorealistic dimples on someone's face.

@Edwirichuu That is not the impression I have of the reception to DD2 at all. Seems like another success story for Capcom.

@Savage_Joe I dunno. It feels like Nintendo simply re-invented the handheld space, what with the prevalence of handheld PCs now (especially the Steam Deck, which feels very console-like most of the time), devices like the Portal, and now even rumors that the Series S successor will be a hybrid device like the Switch.

I recall writers here talking about how the handheld space was dead (mostly, I suspect, to justify Sony's decision to abandon the Vita and pull out of that portion of the market entirely), and now the Switch is the most popular console of all time, likely to outsell the PS2, and everyone wants a piece of that portable gaming action lolol.

@NEStalgia @nessisonett It's pretty much the opposite philosophy that other developers are going for. Control your budget and launch a fun game for a reasonable price vs. inflating your budgets and jacking up the MSRP to help compensate. I definitely hope this signals to Sony that they need to change course (although the dialogue around SM2 is already headed in that direction, along with the admission that despite record revenues, margins are razor thin).

I definitely hope they shift away from this need to make everything a hardware-busting blockbuster. I mean, you can still have those. You should. Have your Uncharteds and Zeldas that show off the true capabilities of the hardware they're on. But... not everything needs to be that. Games can have a smaller scope and still be incredibly fun. Nintendo gets this, and most of their games are made on fairly manageable budgets. Sony used to get this before all of their developers decided they wanted to ape the Naughty Dog approach to game development.

@nessisonett The game actually being really fun and reasonably priced helps as well.

Most open world titles aside from Elden Ring and the recent Zelda games feel safe and lackluster these days.

I've never played a Ninja Gaiden game and thought it would be improved without solid level design.

Yeah, it's for the best. SMT is tiny compared to a a behemoth like Elden Ring.

That's cool. Even having spent a good deal of money on the Switch version (Special Edition + digital), I'm still grabbing this day one. One week closer works for me.

"The result is an open world action RPG that sits alongside Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild as one of the most absorbing adventures we've ever played."

I'm never gonna be able to focus on my backlog, am I?

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but after seeing what generative AI can be capable of in terms of carrying on (ostensibly) intelligent, interesting conversations in naturalistic language, I'd love to see its use expanded to interactions with video game NPCs in a fleshed out dialogue system.

Hogwarts is gonna sell 30+ million units when all is said and done. It'll be interesting to see how the TV series performs. Could give this IP the largest boost its seen in decades.

Three points worse than Nintendogs. Literally unplayable.

@NEStalgia I don't mean gimmicky in a bad way. As a Nintendo fan, I'm obliged to at least be tolerant of gimmickry. I just mean, with the majority of stuff I've seen, the entirety of the appeal is the VR aspect, so once the wow factor wears off...

I played... Tetris Effect (good everywhere), a cute little game with 3D diorama environments called Moss, the demo for a Kizuna AI-themed rhythm game, some VR version of Resident Evil 4, and a few other random games.

Ah, a fellow stereoscopic 3D appreciator! Not every game made good use of it, but it undeniably improved certain titles when developers knew what to emphasize.

I guess the best way to describe my understanding of VR in those terms is that it's sort of like if the 3DS library was full of Face Raiders-tier games.

@NEStalgia Ah.

Well, purchases do need to go somewhere, and Zuck took it over, so it's unavoidable.

I tried the Meta Quest 2 for a few days (we own one) and it's... okay? Honestly, the thing was cool for, like, five minutes, and then it just became a gimmicky device with a poor library. I enjoyed Tetris Effect, but I enjoy that wherever I play it.

Honestly, having to wear glasses makes the entire VR headset experience uncomfortable, even with spacers designed to accommodate them. I'd figure out a solution if I felt like I would spend a lot of time with it, but... eh.

Fair enough on the Steam thing. Thankfully, aside from Nintendo, I'm not horrendously invested in console ecosystems these days. Valve impresses me more and more as time goes on, and now that Microsoft is all in on Steam and Sony is flirting more and more with becoming a multiplatform publisher as time goes on, there's little reason to ever buy a traditional console ever again.

@NEStalgia Didn't they make it where you don't need a Facebook account to use a Quest headset? Or is that distinct from a "Meta" account?

Also:

"That said, my only debate for 2024 is buy a Quest 3 or wait to see if the Xbox "Deck" type handheld rumor is real."

Why not just buy a Steam Deck OLED, in that case? PC games can still be had very cheaply in bundles and sales on various third-party websites, and the hardware is just amazing and well-designed. It's almost totally supplanted my Switch for games that aren't exclusive or sans PC (this is pretty much just Vanillaware at this point) or Steam versions. The software environment almost makes it feel like playing on a console with PC-level freedom of control/performance/graphics optimization.

I figured this would end up being a bust. Sony's home consoles tend to go hard, but they have a terrible track record when it comes to supporting peripheral devices, which is a problem for an expensive device like this.

Right now, Capcom is the only company making the prospect of buying one even slightly tempting.

@andrewsqual How on Earth you arrived at such a conclusion is beyond me, friend.

I thought it was weird that Stories 2 wasn't dated.

It's a fantastic monster-collecting/battling JRPG. Only thing holding it back was the Switch hardware (unless you played it on PC) causing it to chug in certain areas, but that shouldn't be an issue on PS4. The story sorta has a 'How to Train Your Dragon' vibe to it early on.

@Dodoo As a rule, most people in most communities are normal and friendly, and Push Square is no exception. Fanatics tend to be the exception, even if they're louder than most.

Which is why I'm not a fan of generalizing wide swaths of people as being any one way.

@Cloud39472 Atlus delaying games out of their initial release window is nothing new. I'll believe it's a 2024 release when we get a concrete release date.

@Jaz007 GOTY Edition, or whenever the game + DLC equals $60 in total. Whichever comes first by the time I'm ready to play it.

Still at the very beginning of Strange Journey Redux, and will probably also pick up SMT V: Vengeance first, so I probably have a while before I properly get into this.

Imagine if Metaphor: ReFantazio also drops this year!

lol at these stereotyped comments about "PC gamers" when the most obnoxiously tribal people I've seen in the gaming community have almost all been from the Playstation camp.

Anyway, this feels like the sort of game that would sell best on PC, so not surprised it has exploded on Steam like it has.

@rachetmarvel It's really, really weird that Vanillaware is so intent on snubbing PC when practically every other multiplat developer has embraced it at this point.

It's SEGA publishing, so it shouldn't take too awful long before a complete edition with all DLC is available for MSRP.

It'll be interesting to see how this runs on my PC. Hopefully the requirements for the eventual 7 Rebirth port are low enough that I'll be able to comfortably play it on my Steam Deck.

Not surprised it's great. Contra 4 is one of my all-time favorite 2D games, and probably my favorite Contra title as well.

Glad to see Konami working with them again.

@Jimmer-jammer Half-peeled.

You get to see some of the soft fruit underneath, but you still leave some to the imagination!

@Gamer83 It'd also be cool if there were some collab/crossover outfits. Tifa, 2B, etc.

The wasteland adventurer outfit is cute. Would love to see at least a few outfits that are fun as well. I want to slice up baddies while Eve is dressed up in a banana suit.

Definitely doing a genocide run of this game at some point, in that case.

Eventually. I have WAY too other stuff to play in the meantime, and SMT V: Vengeance drops in the next few months as well.

@Nepp67 I'd say plenty of actively good stuff is put on Game Pass. I never doubted the quality of Atlus' additions. Silksong, if it ever comes out, will be extremely high quality. We all expected Sea of Stars to be good. etc.

To me, it feels like a waste of money to pay for a game on a competing platform when it's also coming to GP day one. But I also usually don't want to play said game on GP, because then I have to stress about finishing it before my sub elapses. So I end up just avoiding the game at launch when I would otherwise have probably snagged it at full price. And once I'm out of the launch window, I wait for games to depreciate in value fully before buying in. In the meantime, I'm actively distracted by other games. So, I'll often end up waiting years before I even think about buying the game again.

Interesting about Persona sales.

I don't know about other people, but I sort of refuse on principle to buy a game that's made available day one on Game Pass. And in the case of P3R, it doesn't help that they're also trying to suck more money out of their customers' wallets with expensive DLC that should have been included from day one.

Pity it's not doing terribly well at the moment. Game looks tops. If it was a proper exclusive, I'd have bought a PS5 to play it.

In general, based on what I've seen, it's everything I'd want from a modern Final Fantasy game.

Eagerly awaiting the Steam release.

I can't imagine it would have sold much of anything on Xbox anyway.

Shame it won't go to Switch 2, but it should still be playable in hybrid form via the PC port on Steam Deck, so no huge loss for me.