SJH

A friend brought his PS1 round to my place to play Command And Conquer. I absolutely loved it.

The very next day, I saw Street Fighter Alpha at a car boot sale, which I didn't know even existed. Bought that, but after our SNES days my friends were less enthusiastic about playing SF with me, and he wasn't so keen on bringing his PS over. Soon pulled a couple of late night shifts at a local bakery, bought my own PS1 and never looked back.

What a great mum

Nice "news" and "update"

@get2sammyb Not to mention Monster Hunter

@Hyena_socks Absolutely, there are tiny easter eggs, a returning character or two, but it's a wholly new story.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner No, I have them both but dropped the first perhaps 10 hours in. The second one is set a bit afterwards, and you might miss a cameo character or so, but a different story completely, and is far and away the better of the two games, even knowing nothing of the first.

@get2sammyb While not talking specifically about this article, could I please put in a polite request to quieten down the "this is what the gamers are doing today!" articles? They'll do all sorts of nonsense, sometimes good, often weird. Let them.

I've been playing or thinking about DD2 since midnight on Friday morning. It's incredible. Coming on a quarter of a million people playing on Steam at the moment - I think that Dragon's Dogma just became popular, and I couldn't be happier about it!

It feels surreal to read "Dragon's Dogma 2" listed in New Games This Week.

Stories 2 is excellent! I gave up halfway through the first, but 2 on PC had me hooked in a way I never would have guessed.

I'll download it and play it for hours, should it happen. I played the original DD on 360, and while I disliked the framerate there, even back then, it fast became one of my favourite games. I've been waiting for 12 bloody years!

@TruestoryYep The Warfarer's base stats are lower, and they have to cart around the weapons they need to use. I think if anything, it might encourage maxing out vocations to get the best skill combinations. From the PS Blog:

"the Warfarer is not an all-mighty vocation. Their basic stats are not high, and they must carry many weapons in order to use their various skills. They will require the player’s skill to exploit strengths in different situations, or else the vocation will remain a lesser version of each of the respective vocations."

@liamcroft psst, the bit in bold in the first sentence. Great list, really hard to call the top two!

But £54 on Steam...

@Feena As soon as the French script came up, with a monster (mounted?) heading towards what might be Cassardis appeared, and the logo appeared... oh my word! And the music. That's Gransys music alright

Shades of Seeker and Alchemist from DDO in the trailer, and looks like it's set in Gransys - either in the future or past. Bridges built to Gran Soren, and the Bluemoon Tower looks intact. Can't bloody wait; I hope we get answers regarding the cycle's beginning or end!

@shogunrok "Are you as relieved as we are?"

Yes. Oh my, YES.

2 dogtags, eh? Guy looks generic as all hell, but his moveset looks interesting. That said, I mained Decapre in USF4, and want her back

@get2sammyb Good report of this, though now.. a bit of an update.

"Epic CEO Tim Sweeney just confirmed that Sony is the only platform holder that requires Epic to pay compensation for crossplay. Epic had to agree to pay these additional fees to enable crossplay in Fortnite"

https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1389341010334003206

Awful news. I loved Dark Cloud, and NNK and NNK2 were really good fun (I still get the main theme stuck in my head every other day). I hope things come to a decent conclusion for all involved.

@maruse I've read it's owing to a Japanese law, regarding "Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations", and that CDPR have stated they'll charge as little as possible for it, and donate proceeds to a foundation for handicapped sports players.

https://thewitcher.com/ja/news/32807

@Enuo When the weak court death, they find it.

Needs Grigori's voice

@ShogunRok Yeah, this is too sad, they really did seem to get their act together in later years

I think the announcement is (admittedly, accidentally) well timed, so the question in a lot of gamers' minds will be: upgrade a console you already own, or wait and get this. I've been kind of interested in a PS4 Pro, but the Switch (nice name, perhaps not as accidental) has me holding off, waiting to hear more.

@Bonito Sorry for the delay, had to track down my old PS3 stick to properly test - yeah, they work great. You'll need to have a DS4 also plugged in for this to work, like with Skullgirls, etc.

The game's just received a 3GB patch, hopefully it'll soon make Kum available.

@Expa0 There was a demo previously available for pre-orders, so hopefully soon that’ll be free to all, and you'll be able to tempt your friends with that - if they're not fighters, stylish mode carries no (well, little!) shame – it’s superb.

@sub12 The soundtrack's great - if you liked Sign then you know what to expect, punchy guitar / metal music. Reviewing fighting games, I tend to (deliberately) obsess more on the mechanics and such, and (try to) keep my word-count down, but I hope you like.

@Royalblues - I swear by my fightstick, but tested netcode on pad (my stick has no headphone jack), and it didn’t feel like any hindrance whatsoever. Of course, if you're a stick player that'll always be optimal but pad play seems perfectly viable here.

@VanillaLake Well, in SFV, chip damage mostly won't kill you, so there's always that! In SFV, chars have far more ways to deal with fireballs, lots can just use their v-skill - Bison, Ryu, Nash, Cammy, spring to mind immediately - just hit medium punch and medium kick together, they'll parry or snatch the fireball out of the way, or just pass straight through it.

Usual advice, though, is either jump straight up - most characters throw fireballs to get you to jump at them so they can dragon punch you, rather than land damage - or block. Sooner or later they'll get predictable though, and you'll get a feel for this through practise. Then spamming fireballs becomes more a liability than advantage!

@sub12 Glad to hear that you're somewhat enjoying the game, Laura is a scary character, I'm still not sure how to fight her, the ground doesn't feel safe, and jumping at her (or in general) is more or less always a mistake. I really hope that future updates provide more of what you enjoy.

Of course I reviewed it from my personal viewpoint, as Punram says, I'd feel disingenuous reviewing it any other way. As alluded to in the review, it took me some time to get my head around the new structure, but I reviewed the game I got, rather than the game I expected - and when it came online, I valued the CFN hugely, and the way the game's always matchmaking in the background is, to me, a superb way to play the core of street fighter - fighting others

@Dichotomy The ingame currency is Fight Money, and you do earn just 50 for winning a ranked match - but you also earn it when characters level up, which happens pretty often, at least at lower levels. If you start out new, playing through story mode with all characters at level 1, you'll have 160,000 FM by the end - but of course, we don't know the prices yet.. I won't mind paying (reasonable) prices for new characters, though

@AFCC Hmmm. Opinion's mixed on the speed of the game, personally speaking, I think comes in bursts - you have to be patient while looking for your time to attack, then there's a burst of action, which may end up in faster more frenetic stuff, or may return to the neutral game again - best to watch a few videos on YouTube to make your own mind up there, I'm afraid! While I'd say it's certainly easier to understand and get into than Street Fighter IV, it's still far, far closer to Street Fighter IV than MK or Tekken.

@Frank90 It's really early days yet, so I can't offer any kind of balance/imbalance report - barring any broken discoveries it'll be months and months before a clearer matchup breakdown starts to surface.

I can offer anecdotal bits and pieces, though. I largely played online as Nash, and seemed to do well against Zangief, but while I've been playing the review copy, the level of competition hasn't really been ... consistent! From the betas, I always found Laura and R. Mika really frightening - they can hassle no end, and if you make a couple of bad decisions, they can really make you regret it! I also found a player on the CFN, who made Rashid look very tricky, he seems to have a tonne of ways to confuse opponents, with his dash, leap, and quite slow, weird projectile.

Again, these are just anecdotal impressions from a small subset, and will likely change as soon as the floodgates open!

@JaxonH I completely get what you're saying about online play, I get incredibly nervous - I don't know why! - playing against strangers, but once the servers came online, I jumped straight in on ranked mode, almost in a conquer your fear mode, and was instantly, hugely hooked.

As for the June story update, I know nothing more than what the trailer's told us, I'm afraid.

@Utena-mobile - Cammy is fantastic. Definitely my second favourite character!

@JaxonH - World Tour from Alpha 3? That was one of my favourite single player modes, too, I'd love to see something like that within SFV! The defensive and offensive buffs you get in survival mode shows they can toy with these variables like the world tour custom characters.

It's a shame that most of the modes you seem to enjoy most aren't here, though. I would say survival mode gets quite intense at higher difficulties, and while they're single round, survival is functionally arcade mode - a series of fights - just not bookended with cut scenes that, to be honest, I skip 99% of the time once I've seen them.

Anyhow, it boils down to this: it's the most fun I've had on my PS4, and this is before any of my fighting game buddies get the game - I'll be playing this game in 4 or 5 years, easily. I hope you end up enjoying it though, and the modes you want aren't overlooked in future

@Underpaid14 My PS3 stick works perfectly with the game, and SFV is using the same software as Skullgirls (the Lab Zero drivers) so it's a pretty safe bet, I'd say

@Jazzer94 Thanks! Are your PC friends aware that it's now a midnight (UK time) launch? From what I gather, it's pretty recent news!

@sonicfan11589 Hmm. I've not heard anything at all about punishing ragequitters. If I find anything out, I'll get back to you!

I didn't have any ragequits (or do so myself, of course!) while reviewing.

@VanillaLake - thanks, that's nice to hear!

@Jazzer94 Same here, will be mostly playing cross platform. And yeah, played plenty of PC players, it worked perfectly. I never even realised until I was looking through replays.

@sub12 The cut scenes are the game's story mode, they're ok, but only a few fights long, and pre-determined fights. There's the "story mode" (edit: I meant cinematic expansion. Oops.) that's coming in the Summer, but I don't know what that entails - if it's interspersed with fights or just a huge animation.

@KingofSaiyans I don't have any friends on PC with the game yet, sorry! I've been matched up against PC opponents though, and when setting up a battle lounge you're able to restrict by platform - I suppose this indicates so. You create a Fighter ID when you first play, and you invite people by Fighter ID rather than PSN name.

@Worlock_ed It's legacy PS3 devices that are supported, I'm afraid. Just to be sure, while I don't have a 360 pad to hand, I just tested my Qanba Q4 which has an xbox mode - that doesn't work.

@sub12 - no, sadly not. If you want to pay a series of CPU opponents, then survival mode is the best bet.

Hello - I'll be periodically checking the comments here for any questions you might have. I'm also sat by my PS4 so if there's anything you want me to check out or test, please let me know!

I'm a calm, rational, sensible man. I've never - not once - ragequitted a multiplayer game.

Yet I've alt-F4d XCOM 2 three times this weekend. So now it's back to Dragon's Dogma on PC, to grind the Ur Dragon to lvl 200.

@sonicmeerkat No, training mode provides no instruction or combo guidance, it's there for people to experiment and make things up - no bad thing, of course - but when the game introduces a couple of its own systems, and may possibly appeal to non-fighting game fans, a spot of direction, or instruction is really valuable!

I believe they'll stick to the "no Super" thing. Moreso because of this, in the trailer.

(I hope I got the markup right...)

It's a crying shame that Trine 3 didn't recreate the brilliance of the first two - the devs have been incredibly open and honest about this and the reasons on their Steam community page. I hope they recover, as the first two were just superb.

I tend to agree - I've been spending a bloody obscene amount of time playing Xenoblade Chronicles X this past week & the number of times I've wanted to share a quick clip or screenshot is insane, I've really missed it. It'll become a standard feature across all future consoles, I'm sure.

Guilty Gear Xrd for the PS4 is presently 70% off on the US PSN store, down to $15
edit - as is BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma EXTEND

I bought VC on PS3 (without realising I could save mid-mission - screw you, massive desert tank!), but finished it on PC not too long ago. Delighted to see this!

@ILikeCoolStuff I reckon so, given the VC release on Steam did so well.

http://blogs.sega.com/2014/11/12/valkyria-chronicles-smashes-all-expectations-to-reach-number-one-on-steam/

Where was [redacted] when Life Is Strange 2 was semi-announced?

Regarding the back catalogue, I'm still waiting for anything - port, remake, sequel, acknowledgement of existence - related to Skies of Arcadia. That would be a nice step forward.

@belmont In researching whether the Vita version was available or not, I saw a review on Amazon with somebody complaining about the same problem, though they had the US version on a UK Vita and assumed it was a market region issue. There was also confusion regarding release dates for the UK physical version, with a tonne of large shopping sites offering different dates, so it sounds a bit messed up!

I'm sure it'll be sorted if many are experiencing the same problem, but in staying up until midnight to purchase I'm guessing you're a fan, and this must really suck for you.