jrt87

Did LRG ever replace the rom images burnt onto off the shelf CD-Rs they sold as the 'D' (3D0) reissue? Or will they take a year to ship those like everything else they sell?*

They were taken over by a billion dollar company and their order fulfilment and customer service got even worse!

You got to be deep down the physical collecting rabbit hole to ever consider giving these guys your cash.

It's just another subgenre of gaming that began with a seminal title/series and set a trend. It's happened time and time again. If it's not your thing, maybe you are fed up with them.

Personally I'm not sick of them because I love the format and have been selective about what to play (all of Fromsoft's, all of Team Ninjas and a few indies like Mortal Shell, Lies of P and Thymesia). I also haven't replayed any of them aside from Bloodborne (three times) which is one of my favourite games of all time.

Going to take a good while to catch up!

I started the series in July 2022 with Yakuza 0 and have thus far played Kiwami, Kiwami 2, 3 & 4 Remastered. Average about 40-45 hrs per game doing Main and most Side Stories without going too completionist. Did also play Judgement and Lost Judgement at about 60-80 hrs each.

I've still got five games to go, and most of the longest ones at that.

This and the Tower of Fantasy beach volleyball trailer from the other day. The pendulum seems to be swinging back the other way and Push Square are seemingly on board.

@OneWingedFantasy

It doesn't for me and many others. That doesn't invalidate your own experience.

I've no interest in racing sims and I've already completed the Resident Evil games in pancake mode. I really liked Rush of Blood on PSVR but the VR2 sequel is meant to be a hot mess.

So £350...£250...£150. Not a price I'd buy this at with such little software to use it with.

The thing is by all metrics a failed product.

@KundaliniRising333

If PSSR turns out to be the real deal for PS5 Pro hardware, I don't know I trust Square Enix to even patch Rebirth to support it.

@Orochilocka I was the same.

I know this is a totally different genre of game, but I've platinumed pretty much every From game since Demon's Souls so I can handle difficulty, repeated dying, and banging up against the same wall for several hours in a row until I knock it down.

I found this game way, way too hard and didn't feel like I was getting any better with sustained tries in tough spots. I definitely need to try it again and be more patient in learning its mechanics and systems because I love mecha and the aesthetic of AC.

At least they've stopped using the "Concord IS a good game" line at the beginning of each article which goes on to savage it.

The only ones looking forward to this meme game's release are those hoping to profit off of videos larping on it.

Controller's very ugly, as well.

@NEStalgia The thrill of competitive FPS used to be finishing as high up the leaderboard as possible and pulling off some awesome shots along the way. Now it's all about the flashy fruit machine parlour tricks that surround the rounds.

@UltimateOtaku91

I remember when I used to log in three or four night a week for months on end to play Battlefield 1942 because the gameplay was fun. Didn't need any of that other crap.

Thank you to all who have boarded the Northstar these past six months and taken your Freegunners to all ends of the galaxy! It is unfortunate that with a heavy heart we must announce...

Concord was a poor decision and is, at this point already, a write-off. There was a time when an obviously signposted failure was accepted as such, but these days there is always this 'please think of the developers' angle that leads to some to be more sympathetic and look for any modicum of positivity.

So you get a few comments on a hardcore dedicated Playstation site like here giving the benefit of the doubt: 'I enjoyed my time on the beta', 'people just need to give it a chance', but the overwhelming majority didn't care enough to try the open beta or did and weren't impressed.

@Jenny_Jones Along with Kula World, it was a game that eleven year old me played over and over through its OPM demo, but never found at any of my small southern UK town game sources (indie trade-in store, Woolies and Blockbuster).

Occasionally I'd pester my Dad to order something over the phone through the Gameplay catalogue, but must never have spotted it in there, either.

These days I have a MiSTer, so I can satisfy all those old demo disc curiosities.

I only buy physical for one-playthrough single player console games. Otherwise, I've about 400 digital titles across my Steam, Playstation and Nintendo accounts.

Started with Steam over ten years ago for obvious reasons, then six months into the Switch's life I realised that digital was best for a portable console. By the point of the PS5 release it just felt logical I'd go down that route with it, too.

I'm as deep down the digital collection rabbit hole as the person with a wall of hundreds of physical games is that one. Time will tell whether it was a really stupid mistake, or whether it ultimately won't really matter.

@CielloArc

To be fair, I think both positions are consistent: Westerners who insist Asians accept more diversity in gaming, whether as developers or players.

@NintenDonut

Apparently 'My Collection' scrapes the thumbnail from the PS Store, and the 'Installed' and home page icons are pulled from the game files which is developer dependent.

I just don't like the inconsistency, or the ugly red 'Greatest Hits' banner across my Bloodborne tile!

@Jacko11

To play devil's advocate, that argument could go both ways.

Would there be as many liberal minded Westerners vigorously defending it online saying "it doesn't matter, the series has always taken historical liberties" if one of the protagonists was instead a contemporary Chinese or Korean character? Or would they think 'yeah, that's a bit silly. Should have just made all playable protagonists native to the setting like every previous game in the series'.

I've no problem with them including Yasuke in a work of fiction, no more than I ever had with anything others criticise as "cultural appropriation". Either we all can borrow from each other cultures to produce fictional works we financially profit from, or we can't.

I guess we're just going to have different artwork often showing for the same software between 'Installed' and 'My Collection' until the system's end of life, then.

@Atreus97

I just want 10-20 hour single player games with serviceable voice acting and just enough cinematic exposition to provide context to the gameplay loop. Graphics don't necessarily have to push the envelope all the time either. Inspired art direction over bleeding edge graphical featuresets every time.

The industry wants everything to be 80 hour open worlds voiced by household names/the most expensive voice actors in the business + dozens of hours of photorealistic in-engine cinematics driving their often waffling plot along.

We get it: the industry has had to fight to be considered as a serious narrative medium to rival filmmaking and literature, but you're still making a video game at the end of the day. Less can be more.

Rubbish fighting game from that era, not worth the asking price.

Capcom Vs SNK 2 is what we really need. Put hours into that back in the Gamecube days.

There's no point beating on something that is already circling the drain. This will fail harder than Anthem and go to f2p and then forgotten about in less than six months.

Hopefully lessons will be learned and the devs get another shot at a project that can be more inspired and less trend chasing.

Characters have been barefoot in games before.

No interest in these Chinese anime live services, but watched the trailer and there is nothing remotely suggestive about the character who is not wearing anything on her feet whilst swinging a big sword around.

What a bizarre thing to moralise over. Have I gone back to the mid-90s?

@oc1d Casuals aren't dropping f2ps like Fortnite and Genshin for a pay-up-front game featuring Home Bargains versions of Yondu and Hellboy.

@Northern_munkey

I actually agree with you, but I don't have faith in the majority of publishers/devs going forward to prioritise optimisation.

My rather cynical view of the industry is that, a few dedicated, talented and financially resourced dev teams aside, it's either AI upscaling solutions or 30fps/blurry slop going forward on console.

@Northern_munkey Rebirth cannot lock to 60fps, and even when it is in that range, it is of a noticeably poor and blurry image quality, and that's not even UE5. Going forward, a lot of games are going to be making big sacrifices to image quality and graphical settings if they are to include a 60fps targeting performance mode that for many is essential these days.

If PS5 Pro's 'PlayStation Spectral Resolution' feature makes a noticeable difference to this situation over the next two to three years, it'll be well worth the couple hundred quid upgrade cost of selling the launch PS5 and picking up a Pro.

Judgment 3 would be the dream. Loved the first one, the second a little less so (still put in 60 hours, but left the school stuff unfinished and just looked up who "The Professor" was as I got tired of Robot and Motorbike Club).

It's a silly glorified fruit machine with an anime aesthetic. It's really not that deep.

Must be exhausting getting oneself worked up over something so trivial. Just ignore it and lend your time, money and energy towards something more to your liking.

Looking forward to playing Rebirth when we're able to play it at 60fps without blurry visual quality. Hoping the PS5 Pro can clean it up.

The constant comments about bloat and bad minigames do concern me though. Played through Intergrade in about 52 hours over the course of a week and it felt the perfect length.

@PaperAlien

I accept I live in a bit of a shooter bubble, and most people don't have 'play Senjin Aleste at Taito Hey!' on their Japan trip itinerary — as I did when I visited in May — but the subgenre's healthier than it's been in years.

Re-release after re-release on modern systems of genre classics and many new iterations of classic shooter IPs in the past five years or so.

@Ainu20 I came to the series late, too. Did actually buy Celceta for my Vita back in 2014, but only played the first few hours.

Was 2021 when I got a PSP that I played Oath in Felghana for the first time and was floored by it. Have since played Celceta, Origin, Ys I & II (PSP versions) and VIII, with Ark of Napishtim, Seven and XI on my to-do list (though will likely play X first at this point).

Such a great series.

I think games had it right for decades when they typically offered two to three preset difficulties from the New Game menu. Nobody used to care which you picked to see you through to the end credits, so long as you got there.

Now you have the hardcore crowd who claim there doesn't need to be any choice, and those looking to bark back at them by arguing for these overcorrecting, free of peril "Story Modes". These two camps will never be reconciled.

The PS5 has dominated my first half of the year: Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade & Shadow of the Erdtree.

Aside from Astro Bot, I'll mostly be gravitating towards PC for the following (barring any major performance issues):

Black Myth: Wukong
Silent Hill 2
Metaphor: ReFantazio
Ys X: Nordics

If a PS5 Pro releases, I may finally play Rebirth if it resolves the blurry image quality @ 60fps.

@PuppetMaster

Oh, I don't at all. I don't think I suggested support for review bombing anywhere in these comments.

I'm just saying that there are longtime From fans who are finding difficulty to the DLC above and beyond what they're used to from Miyazaki, and that's distinct from the usual noise from game journalists that surrounds these releases.

@Intr1n5ic

Cool! Hope you enjoy the rest of the DLC.

@PuppetMaster

Have you finished the DLC? If not, you may understand when you reach that point for yourself presuming it's before the inevitable nerf.

@PuppetMaster

There's two things here.

There's the usual trite clickbaity discourse about the general difficulty of Miyazaki's games. Can be ignored as always.

Then there's the view of many longterm From fans that they are running out of ideas with bosses and leaning into the difficulty memes by programming hyper aggressive ones, who launch themselves from across the arena right out the fog gate, increasingly chain together several 8-hit combos all ending in AOE slams, and instantly run/teleport away when you evade it all and should have a punish window.

@Intr1n5ic

I understand subjective difficulty in Souls games. I wrecked Malenia first try because I happened to have ran a high strength/dex bleed build and RNG meant I only saw Waterfowl once, if at all. I couldn't believe the discourse/memes surrounding her when I finished the game and went online.

But have you completed the final DLC boss yourself? You can always find some streamer out there who can do a no hit run at SL0 at NG+7 with a dancepad, I don't find it relevant.

Compared with everything that came before, with my build and experience with the genre, the second phase was a massive difficulty spike plagued by visual clutter, framedrops and aoe spam. It will be nerfed in a few weeks, for sure.

@B0udoir Beating Ishin: Sword Saint was one of my favourite moments in gaming. Remember it taking about four hours of getting the patterns down and getting a little closer each time. Nameless King in DS3 was a similar thrill. That to me is the perfect "difficult" Souls boss. Firm but (mostly) fair.

Without saying anymore, what's at the end of this DLC is not that at all. I never want to think about it again.

@AhmadSumadi

I think most people couldn't care less about all the digital collectibles and challenges, but getting points back on digital purchases to go towards future ones is a benefit.

Played it on PSP a few years ago. Instantly entered my Top 25 of all time list. Great story, challenging but rewarding combat and a GOAT soundtrack.

@WhiteRabbit @B0udoir

No spoilers, but it's the artificial difficulty of the final boss of the DLC that is the issue for many long term From fans. Harder than anything they've done before, cheap and badly designed. Took me over 9 hours @ Level 205 and Max Fragments + Mimic Tear, whilst I generally breezed through everything that came before it in a handful of tries (mostly solo, too).

@PuppetMaster More than likely they're European as our market is different to North America where Haunting Ground is much rarer.

During my brief two years of buying original PS2 games (2018/19) to catch up on all the survival horror I'd missed back in the day, there were dozens of sealed Haunting Grounds for £15 on Ebay. Meanwhile the US version was like $200/$300 at the time.

@Flaming_Kaiser

Well, by 'curate your own collection' I didn't mean with original PS2 discs and the modern hardware I referred to isn't a PS5...

Sony treat this with minimal interest as it's simply a low effort "feature" used to try and flog the higher PS+ Tiers.

They want you to buy and play new £70+ games. Not spend your time with older titles. They are never going to put in the same time and love as the emulation community.

Just curate your own collection of PS1/PS2 games and find a means to play them on modern hardware.

DOA.

It was obvious with Anthem and Suicide Squad, and it's the same for this.

@Judal27 That's how I played the base game, and how I've played SotE (almost finished).

Ride around on Torrent and uncover as many Sites of Grace, Map Markers and Scadutree Fragments/Revered Spirit Ash as possible — occasionally explore a tomb or mini-dungeon — and then clear whichever self-enclosed "main area" is necessary to access more of the map. Rinse and repeat.

I remember getting Dead Rising as an earlyish 360 title (along with Oblivion and Hitman: Blood Money).

Crazy to think that was nearly twenty years ago.

Another game you spent £60-£70 day one to beta test then.

Rebirth and its egregious blurry performance mode was another. Waiting until PS5 Pro/PC release to play that one at modern framerates with acceptable image quality.