ShogunRok

@Jammer Yeah, easily skippable if you've already played them. Only reason to revisit is if you've been wanting to replay them or you want the new Trophy lists.

@UltimateOtaku91 I think I'm the only one, unfortunately!

@MightyDemon82 Makes me happy to hear that, and I'll also apologise in advance for the hundreds upon hundreds of hours I'm going to cost you / have already cost you.

Rob... How is it that your taste in games only grows more powerful by the year?

Every other writer on Push Square should be ashamed that their work is allowed to be published alongside your own. Especially Sammy, who is well known to be a hack fraud.

Congratulations on being the Greatest Man in Gaming once again.

Oh, and Hideo Kojima sends his personal thanks. He said you're his best friend now that Geoff has betrayed him.

• Yours forever, the Official Robert Ramsey Fanclub (which has thousands of highly attractive members + Hideo Kojima) xoxoxoxo

**** wrong account

Seems like a good idea to me. The more we can space out all the Feb / March releases, the better.

If anyone's got any questions about the review or the game, let me know and I'll try to answer them.

I'd always recommend Yakuza 0 to anyone interested, but SEGA's approach to the Director's Cut is ultimately quite disappointing.

Hopefully the inevitable remake on PS6 will make everything better!

Been looking forward to seeing the comments on this one!

@get2sammyb @Oram77

@Olskeezy Totally wrote the release date down instead of the stream date. Thanks for pointing it out!

@Ravix Maybe if I had an infinite amount of time!

I'll be there.

(In 2030)

@somnambulance Weirdly enough, that's sort of what's happening with that The Expanse game. It sounds very Mass Effect and it's being developed by Owlcat Games, who are historically a (very highly rated) CRPG studio.

For what it's worth I think Larian would make a fantastic Mass Effect game, assuming it could get the action-shooter combat right on its first try. But I'd trust them!

@SterlingEyes It's like you say, DOS2 is clearly a fantastic RPG in its own right but BG3 (in my opinion) is basically an evolution and refinement of everything Larian had done previously.

And in that sense, it's definitely hard to go backwards.

@somnambulance Yeah there are quite a few (slightly contradictory) quotes from Larian about their next game.

A couple of years back they strongly suggested they were revisiting Divinity after BG3 because it's what the studio was built on.

Then there were quotes about them wanting to do something completely different.

There were also reports that they were going to work on two games after BG3, which would make more sense of the previous quotes, but nothing on that front will be made concrete until we get official reveals.

But after BG3, you can totally see how they'd step things up, so part of me really does believe this rumour after considering all the possibilities.

@BearsEatBeets Larian released the original CG trailer for BG3 long before the game was shown off, so I would suspect that (if this is true) it'll be another CG thing rather than a full reveal.

@somnambulance The theory is that the port is announced alongside the new game in order to help carry the hype.

So the statue is for a new Divinity (supposedly), and the port leak adds weight to that.

@IceClimbersMain I think the negative perception of Rebirth's sales come from it doing (reportedly quite a bit) worse than Remake.

And that's despite it being a much bigger game, although we don't really know how the budget for each game has shaken out.

But surely Square Enix should have seen this coming? Splitting the remake into three games was always going to impact sales, especially when Remake itself made divisive changes to story and gameplay.

That might actually be what this investment fund is getting at. A lot of these criticisms that everyone has of modern Square Enix ultimately boils down to mismanagement (both of key properties like Final Fantasy and the wider company's operations).

I remember when it was just me and Sammy running Push Square, we used to try and spread the Yakuza word as much as possible.

It's cool to see it be so recognised all these years later. We always said they were amazing games!

@nessisonett Yeah it's gonna take a lot of clever design and optimisation to fit Total War on a controller.

But I suppose similar feats have been accomplished before. There was a time — not even that long ago — when CRPG studios were flat out refusing to develop for console because it was too much work.

Fingers crossed, anyway.

No, it's also about the ads!

Sorry, I needed to get this out of the way in the first comment.

@wildcat_kickz Yeah it's honestly a bit annoying when games come out right at the end of a month (purely from a GOTM perspective).

If something big comes out we try to delay the poll by a few days, but yeah, some games don't really get a chance to properly establish themselves.

If any publishers are reading this, if you want your games to be in with a better shot at our prestigious Push Square GOTM award, release them before the 20th of each month. You've been warned...

@wildcat_kickz It came third in October's GOTM vote for what it's worth.

You can vote for it when our GOTY voting opens as well!

@iNightfarer It could be that Stranger Than Heaven takes over the Judgment side of RGG Studio's business as its second IP. Hopefully it's as good!

@SuperSilverback There's a new scene where Kiryu just pulls a shotgun out when the orphanage is threatened. He's finally had enough.

@BearsEatBeets I agree it's definitely not impossible (and it certainly sounds like they want this to be an iterative trilogy), but I do think it's incredibly hard to imagine given CDPR's track record.

@GamingGod The No Man's Sky devs get to set their own goals and allocate their own resources. If they see additional sales by way of big updates, then they deem the updates worthwhile.

Whereas Ubisoft's studios have to bend to the whims of the company's upper management. If they want to keep working on a game and improving it, they need to convince the suits that the game's still making enough money to justify the costs.

And Ubisoft being Ubisoft, they'll mandate that each AC game needs a DLC / microtransaction pipeline to justify continued support — otherwise the profit margins might take a dip.

In short, one game's from an independent company, and the other is from a studio that has to answer to a corporation.

@Mostik Unfortunately I don't think there's been any official word on a physical release. It could be something they do in conjunction with releasing on other systems down the line, but again, no confirmation yet.

Whoops, someone tell Rockstar they've greenlit the wrong RDR there.

@MARl0 It's interesting that this has always been a trend with Trails games.

Everyone says Beyond the Horizon is the best Calvard game because it builds on the two games that came before.

Azure is often counted amongst the best Trails games because it's just all payoff from Zero.

And in my personal opinion, Cold Steel 3 / 4 are fantastic because they take so many previous games into account.

I suppose it all boils down to Falcom's world building. Most franchises just don't get to use past games as launch pads like Trails does, and it always benefits the storytelling.

@Fiendish-Beaver Definitely one to bring back at a later date, especially if Yotei gets some kind of re-release at some point.

@Lohot Thanks for posting these, they should all be listed in the guide now. I had to wait until the Creations menu actually started working properly to verify what was included!

@Max_the_German It's all a bit murky isn't it? My thinking is that Astro Bot is technically system software, whereas Wii Sports is technically a Wii title that just happens to be bundled with the system.

Definitely room for discussion, though. You could even tie it back into the whole 'sales versus players' debate, as that starts to factor in free-to-play games. The market's changed and all that.

@Gremio108

@FuriousMachine Yeah, it's a new bundle. Includes the base game, all the expansions, and a bunch of Creation Club stuff.

If you already own the base game, you can buy the upgrade, which includes the expansions and the Creation Club stuff.

If you already own the base game and the expansions, you can buy the 'Creations Bundle' to just get the Creation Club stuff.

@Athrum Yeah, no new voiceovers in English or in Japanese — all original.

@Jey887 Yeah it's not a bad place to start at all. It's a very solid game that's quite indicative of what you can expect from the series as a whole.

Like the review says it's also got one of the most balanced combat systems, and it's easy to understand right off the bat.

If you can get around the pacing issues, I think it's a great way to see what the series has to offer.

Just to note, Dispatch won't be counted in this Game of the Month vote since it's an episodic release.

It'll be included in November's Game of the Month poll instead, once all of the episodes are out.

If anyone's got any questions about the game or the review, let me know and I'll try to answer them.

Sorry this one's a bit late, by the way — we only got review code at the end of last week and I wanted to make sure the remaster wasn't hiding any horrible issues!

Xillia was one of my favourite Tales games back in the day, but like the review says, parts of it do feel poorly paced and awkward by today's standards.

Still enjoyed playing it again, though — the core design still holds up.

Thanks for reading!

@somnambulance If it helps you get hyped at all, I still don't have a clear idea of what my personal GOTY list looks like. It'll be an interesting debate this year, for sure.

@SystemAddict A poorly judged side eject as well, it looks like!

@AhabSpampurse Would have made a great typo.

@Robocod You get ranked based on your performance during the dispatch sections, but again, I'm not sure whether this has any real bearing on how things unfold.

Characters did congratulate me on a successful first day when I was done — I assume that's specific dialogue related to your rank.

I don't think there are any immediate consequences to screwing the dispatch gameplay up. We'll have to wait and see!

UPDATE: Our full review's here, complete with a score. If anyone's got any questions about the game or the review, let me know and I'll try to answer them.

Ended up really enjoying this one. Thanks for reading.

@Dan12836666 For the most part it's a solid 60fps in performance mode but there are busy areas where noticeable dips happen — and they'll be worse on the base PS5.

Definitely nothing that'll stop you from playing the game, but performance can be a little bit spotty.

If anyone's got any questions about the game or the review, let me know and I'll try to answer them.

I was a big fan of the first game, so I had fairly high hopes for this sequel. And for the most part, I do think it improves on just about everything. If you loved The Outer Worlds, you'll adore this.

But for me, it just never clicks in terms of story or characters. Obsidian's modern games just have this forgettable quality to them and I'm not sure what the answer is.

And for the record, I should point out that I greatly overrated the first game back when I reviewed it in 2019. Again, still a fan, but it's one of those scores I'd take back in a heartbeat!

Thanks for reading.

@PuppetMaster If this was a remaster or something, then yeah, it'd be criticised for a lack of new features, but it's just an emulated port of the original PS1 release.

Would be nice if Bamco actually cared and did an original Tekken trilogy collection, though!

@Doctor_BK It is possible, but I suppose there's a reason they're not there to begin with. Bamco probably just doesn't want to pay up to have them added.

Which, to me, doesn't make much sense. There are plenty of people who buy (cheaper) games for the Trophies — I'm convinced they'd make their money back on implementing them.

As for potential Trophies being unlocked retroactively, I doubt it. In both cases I wouldn't get your hopes up, unfortunately.