Titntin

I have a series X I've not switched on since last September, it's literally gathering dust. If I didnt play them there, then there's no hope for me buying it on PS5. Currently there are no MS IP's I'd buy on PS5 - but I'm hopeful that Avowed will be something I want to play!

I wish them well on their new 3rd party publisher future, but if they wish to compete on other platforms they are going to have to deliver a lot better titles than they have been. I feel sorry for the die hard Xbox fans, as MS are still not being clear with them and they deserve much better imo.

Thanks for this well written review. It will be nice to see more people playing it...

I'm not a huge fan of survival mechanics, so I fell off this one hard as I do with all such games, but it's a great setting which is why I tried!

This caught me by surprise! Might be fun, Ill keep an eye on this...

I rarely share an opinion with this reviwer, and seeing meta has it 76, im inclined to believe theres likely to be something here I might enjoy, so I'll make some time for it 😊
Its a shame opinions seem devided.
The beauty of a sub service is that it costs very little to try yourself and see which views you subscribe to. 👍

Excellent. I enjoyed this game and the more players can enjoy it the better!

Much as I loved the game, I'm not sure I feel compelled to jump back in. The game felt complete, and shoehorning some DLC in doesn't attract me when we have so many other great titles to play. Maybe in the future if I ever run out of titles I'm playing (which seems unlikely).

'We need to save money. Have you seen my new super car?'

Too late. I've played and enjoyed this title already.
There are far too many great games on my 'to play' list for me to replay.
Unfortunately this is the way I feel for DLC too. The game has been and gone, I have no desire to relearn it and jump back in, and as a result I rarely bother with DLC for any game, no matter how much I enjoyed it on release.

@__jamiie Im very happy for you. But some people see it the other way, including me.
Series X not switched on since last September when I was still subbed to GP. Meanwhile I can't play all the games we have on PS fast enough, I have a huge backlog, and large number of them will never be on GP.... and I enjoy PS+ too. [shrugs]

I'm delighted this game is on PS5 now. I don't care for it personally (just don't like any survival mechanics), but the developers deserve to see their good work played by as many as possible.

I AM looking forward to this dev's 'Avowed' though, the only game xbox have coming that interests me to play, and I'll resub to GP to try it..

Fortunately we are all different and get to choose what we like and where we play it. No one is wrong, we are just all different.

Love the tag line....

Looking forward to this - I think it will be great on the Portal..

@MrHabushi
You are quite right my friend, and much as I don't trust some of the reviewers here, I often agree with Stephen, so I'd take his opinion seriously. I still hope I find it better than he did though

@Yorozayu check metacritic.. its not Pure, many people seem to enjoy...

Wow. Gets a 5 on push, 8 on Pure - is that GP envy?
Average 75 metacritic..

We are trully spoilt this year already. Agree with all the titles... Im close to finishing rebirth and its hard to imagine a game topping it for me this year, but theres plenty that might!

@ShadowofTwilight
'As someone who has finished a good chunk of the series and adores Final Fantasy, I honestly find the 93 on MC baffling.'

After all, yours is surely the only opinion that counts, and anyone not thinking like you can't be taken seriously? Can you not accept that people have different tastes and on this game you are the outlyer opinion without imagining some conspiracy?

I've played every FF title since its first western release and enjoyed them all immensely. Rebirth is right up there and sits highly in my 'all time' lists. Thats, not a bought opinion, thats the opinion of an FF fan whos played gaming since inception and made a living for over 2 decades crafting gaming experiences.
Its no more valid than your opinion of course, but its not a weird of the wall opinion either, its one I share with many others. If you genuinely want to understand what people see in it and can be bothered, watch skillups youtube review that was posted recently, hes a good wordsmith and expresses well why this game, for many, is an all timer.

... and Stella Blade is fantastic, but its a completely different genre of game.

@greengecko007
Completely agree with everything you have said. This is a story being reimagined and expanded, and can stand on its own as an expertly crafted tale with little to no knowledge of the original game. But it will be three games, not intended for a single playthrough.
Complaints of bloat in a huge jrpg are almost rediculous, its a pretty much an accepted part of the jrpg experience and part of the enjoyment of the title. Its like asking Sega to make 'Like a Dragon' with just the story missions. Such people are missing the point and should just go play a narritive action game and leave jrpg's to those of us that enjoy the format.

Whilst we are disussing this game, its pretty damning that theres no mention on Push of its domination of sales in Japan this month, selling 3x the amount of the 2nd place title (Princess Peach). They were quick to suggest it was a failure based on last months figures, which only included a few days of sales, but now the figures dont support their 'anti rebirth' rhetoric, they are silient.

"similar ball park in terms of genre. "

No. No they are not - not even close.

One is a quintessential JRPG, one is an action fighting title.
Not sure whats going on at Push, but they definitely seem to have some kind of agenda, and that's a real shame.

@__Seraph
"The state of the comments section on this site gets worse by the day."
You are completely right. I can barely bring myself back to this site now. They spent all last year attracting entitled moaners with their articles here and the editorial direction, and now thats the bulk of the audience.
For the money Im paying, its another reasonable selection for me, but there is little point being positive on Push.

FF rebirth by a big margin.
Then Helldivers 2, which is surprsing af, as I rarely play multiplayer games...

Thanks for this review. It sounds like this title might be better off avoided! To be fair, the graphic style had already done much to switch me off already..

Another classic shooter for me to add to the collection! Fantastic, I'm looking forward to it...

Excellent news - I'm afraid I don't actually remember the PS3 original, but I will be keen to add this to my PS5 shooter selection when its released!

Rebirth, I must finish it before I get distracted...
I picked Robocop up this week, and I might take a quick peek at that too, though I'm trying to resist the temptation!

Whatever your playing, have fun!

Super sprint was such fun back in the day. If this can recreate that feel, I'm in!

I'm personally excited to see what's coming.

I guess its too much to hope for people to be positive in this day and age and actually want to see what's coming.
But that's fine. I would like to state I respect them enormously of course. Even if they moan they don't know Sony's roadmap and then moan when there's a show to tell them. I respect that. It makes total sense.

@SuntannedDuck2
Thanks for the memories, the GP32 was indeed an interesting machine for poking about with and running home brew.
In all its time it had under 30 commercial games released, so as a traditional games machine it was indeed a huge failure, irrespective of its interesting configuration and potential for homebrew.
It is indeed a perfect representation of what I would expect should a Russian state developed games machine actually happen.

I do of course have a GP32 emulator, together with all the commercial games and 100's of pieces of the best of the rest, but I'll concede I'm first and foremost a games player, and as a GAMES machine it was failure, and it's been some time since I looked at it.
Thanks for pointing out this history though, I didnt draw the parallel when I read this piece and its clearly a good example.

@Golem25 I certainly downloaded Tchia as soon as it became available and played it for many enjoyable hours.
I intend to do the same with this game.
Reports from many indie devs have confirmed that adding their title to sub services gets them an audience they would not have achieved otherwise. We don't have hard figures of course, as you pointed out, but it makes sense and devs are confirming it so I see no reason to doubt it at all?

Fantastic news... another really good looking title that I was afraid might not find an audience. It certainly will now....

Perfect subscription game. Want to play, but so many other titles to spend on, so this is ideal!

Bearing in mind the state of Russian cars compared with western counterparts, a state developed games machine would be a huge joke and I want to see it just to laugh.

As far as I'm concerned I hope they get nothing, and even that's more than they deserve.

PS, clearly an April fools, just being brought to Push late.

Thanks for this well written review. I saw this last night and myself and my wife were very tempted despite our large backlog..

What a great review. You've covered everything I might wish to know in a very well written critique, genuinely impressed and I hope we see more reviews from you.
This game is a hard sell unfortunately, and its likely that inclusion in subscription services will be the way most people get to try this, myself included. On a sub service, Id be inclined to take this for a stroll and enjoy the script and performances..

Simply not buying any of their games again. I have too many games to play as is, those who exploit mtx dont deserve my money and will simply never get it again. Its a shame, but I can live without Street Fighter or Tekken, both of which were far more relevant in the past anyway....

Great engine, cool aesthetics, fantastic creature design.
Combet feels fine, like theres plenty of room for additinal skills and tweeks which will suit several play styles.

This looks like a very solid game Im keen pick up next month!

@Northern_munkey

Hope you are enjoying it mate, I hear great things 👍
But Im in a position where Im playing some fantastic games already with litrally over a dozen titles Im really keen on playing/finishing already. Im not dropping all them to play this game whilst its clearly not as optimal as it will be. It makes more sense to pick it up once Ive caught up the backlog a bit and Im likely to get it cheaper too. It will have a more stable performance by then, so if this is an 'all timer', Ill get to enjoy it a little better too...

I'm still loving playing this game. I'm a huge FF7 fan so I guess I'm blinded by that, but this is def in my top 10 of all time.
Dont care for Push reviewers and their opinions, or the narrative they try and push that its some kind of failure, they are simply underlining how little credibility they have for me, and how little perspective they truly have. This is everything FF was with a cherry on top. Did they reinvent the genre - absolutely not, they stuck very much to the same ideals that I loved in the past. If you want a new style of game, don't play a remake of an old one.

Wont even play the base game till they get some kind of optimisation in place. Whatever the framerate, it needs consistency, and without it I'm simply never going to play it - there are far to many other titles which run better and I'll enjoy playing.
I'll probably play this in a couple of years when I get the full thing with all DLC for £20 and its as fixed as its gonna be...

Won't lie, I wanted to play immortals but couldn't part with the money due to reviews/too many other good games. It's a perfect service game for me to try something I really wanted to try for free..
Not too sure on the other two, but I'll take a look!

Shame they cant patch in a %50 discount - then I'd be all over it

So many games, only one life...

@get2sammyb
Thanks for a positive and well written preview.
Not keen on your tag line for this piece as its just not true and clearly playing to the usual Push troll brigade....

@breakneck I was about to reply too, but you seem to have stated everything I was gonna say!
Exclusives mean there's some chance of using a machines unique strengths. In a world where everywhere is MacD and Starbucks, I go out of my way to eat at unique places. I certainly don't want all my games machines to have the same design, and actively support games which use unique features. Right now that amounts to little more than the controller functions, but they can really add to a title if designed in form the beginning instead of being tacked on to a multiplat at the last minute!

Though I cant chip in with my own feelings on the game, as I have no desire to buy such a technically compromised version and have a huge backlog, I do find it amusing just how little people seem to understand about game design.
Knowing that items such as fast travel would be sold as mtx will fundementaly change the way in which those systems are designed. Such systems will be designed to be just restrictive enough that the weaker willed player will consider a purchase. If thats not you, then bully for you, you can ignore it. Me, I want a game desigened where all systems are the best they can be to aid and support the core gameplay, and compromising this for the sake of some mtx is hardly a death knoll for a good game, but its the start of a very slippery slope indeed, where far more important things about the game are compromised for the sake of mtx pressure.
Its a shame so many people dont appear to recognise where this will lead... I should add Capcom are not the worst in this regard, but it should be called out where ever its seen and not shrugged off simply because you like the game.

Definitely planning this for as soon as I can. I have no problem with 'ubi style' maps and quest markers, many of my fave games do this and I enjoy it fine.
Tem ninja games have always appealed, but I tend to struggle to get through them (old man reactions). The fact I can adjust the difficulty a bit gives me hope I can get through this one.
Lots of people who's opinion I value are enjoying this game for what it is, and I want to be one of them!

@LikelySatan We agree! I'd much rather agree with you 😁

This kind of nickel and diming of players is the worst trait of modern games. Those seeking to defend it simply because they enjoy the base game should reappraise their own motivations for trying to trivialise and normalise this practise.
In this game, these items affect gameplay, and I guarentee that the rarity and drop rate of an item like the portcullis has been adjusted to encourage more mtx.
I have more than enough games for now, and good will for this publisher is reduced by this shady monetisation, so this game can wait for a sale, maybe they will have fixed or improved the fluctuating frame rate by then.
Enjoy the game, please dont use mtx...

@LikelySatan
Maybe if its repeated three times you might finally comprehend plain English?
'' But I value Push for current news and the odd good banter'

@Northern_munkey
That's really surprising as I'm sure I saw it!
I paid about £35 for it in a sale last year. I really enjoy it myself, best golf game I've played in ages and once you are used to taking shots with the stick, I'd never go back to tapping the X key again. I didnt get on so much with the 2k title, but others have...

@PsBoxSwitchOwner
Thanks mate, good information, and appreciated.
I've not bought a physical game in about 5 years though. When you are old and have a back condition, standing up to change discs means you don't play!
I'm very happy to be digital only for many reasons, and I'll pay the uplift this undoubtedly has to remain this way.

Great - I've been waiting for crisis core to get a discount.

In my experience the prices for sale items do often vary? Don't understand why anyone would say they don't as there's resource on the net to show that they do...

I also always buy my PSN credit from shopto or cdkeys. You get at least %10 off and if you pick right, I usually get a %15 discount - all for a few minutes tapping on a keyboard or swiping my tab. I highly recommend getting into this habit.
I try to top up at the beginning of the month and tell myself I wont spend more, but I always do