thedevilsjester

@themightyant The PS5 already supports your alternative option.

Activities allow you to jump to a given section of a game, directly from the dashboard. It's up to the developers of the game to implement activities, but the functionality exists.

For example with Deathloop, you can select an activity (from the dashboard) that lets you jump directly into any of the game areas (at any of the in-game times of day). You want to immediately jump to Updaam at Night? Done.

@KidBoruto I would pay for this feature.

In the same vein, it would be nice to select a game and turn off trophies entirely for that game. I avoid (most) multiplayer/party titles because I know I won't be getting all of the trophies, and I don't want yet another 10% game on my trophy list.

Also waiting for a physical copy. I am surprised that that wasn't one of the poll options.

@IonMagi One thing has nothing to do with the other.

The fact that the PS4 and PS5 don't read CDs at a software level doesn't mean that the drive is not capable of reading them.

That being said, I am not interested in PS1/PS2 emulation; but I would pay for an official PS3 emulator on the PS5.

I plan on it, eventually, but there are just too many games to play right now, that its not a priority.

I was interested in playing this game, if just for the dual realities gimmick; but from all reviews that gimmick is used so poorly that may as well not exist.

Is there anyone here that has played it that thinks otherwise? Or is the dual realities gimmick that forgettable?

@Areus
Short memories or willful ignorance.

@GADG3Tx87
You forgot when Microsoft was very anti-cross play. (Its the reason that FFXIV was indefinitely postponed on the Xbox platform)

My most fond memories of a Tales game was Symphonia (which I thoroughly enjoyed). I have dipped my toes into newer Tales games every now, but I always stop playing them after a few hours.

@Bleachedsmiles
It should definitely concern the consumer (even if it doesn't). The amount of money I have saved on buying new copies of physical titles that are half the price in retail as they are on the PS store, would have paid for a few PS5's already. Save $100 today, to pay considerably more in the long run.

@Rhaoulos I don't honestly care about a trivial price increase or decrease for Nintendo hardware one way or the other (the new model isn't a change that I find appealing enough to upgrade to regardless of price), I was just commenting on the notion that Sony is charging $100 for a simple Blu Ray player.

@Bleachedsmiles
The reasoning is extremely important. The claim is that Sony is selling you a Blu Ray drive upgrade for $100 when the Blu Ray drive itself probably doesn't cost more than $20-$30.

Thats not what is happening, at all, and it's an important distinction. You are getting a discount when you get the "Digital Only" version. $20-$30 of the discount is certainly from the lack of the Blu Ray drive hardware, but the rest of the discount ~$70 is a cost that Sony is willing to eat to lock you into only buying games from them.

People see a $100 price difference and immediately assume that its exclusively for the hardware difference (and that cost just doesn't add up); but its not, there is a lot more to the digital versions discount than the price of the Blu Ray drive.

@Bleachedsmiles Its not $100 extra for the Blu Ray, its a $100 discount for not having a Blu Ray (not the same thing!). Sony is willing to give you a discount thats much larger than the drive is worth, to lock you into their storefront.

@Rhaoulos You are looking at it from the wrong direction. It's not that the Blu Ray player costs an extra $100 it's that lack of a Blu Ray Player reduces the cost by $100. It may seem like semantics; but it's not.

No one is saying that the Blu Ray drive costs $100; but locking you into the digital store front is worth Sony giving you a $100 discount because they will make a larger profit from you in the long run.

I can't say I am surprised. These big studios are money printing machines and they will chase whatever trend gets them the biggest return on investment; much to the detriment of gaming as a whole.

If I can't have a single player, offline, physical version of a game, then I won't play said game, even if it's in a franchise I have followed since its inception.

@Floki
Thats not really true. As far as consoles are concerned Housemarque has been almost exclusive to the Playstation Platform, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housemarque

PC releases don't really count since both Microsoft and Sony first party developers are able to release on the PC as well (its neutral ground) so an acquisition by a console platform holder doesn't exclude that developer from making PC releases as well.

While its not in a state that I would consider satisfactory by a long shot; its not much worse than quite a few other AAA titles out there. I regularly experience crashes, game breaking bugs, and poor frame rates on a huge number of titles that no one ever really talked about.

For example I recently played through XCom 2 again; at least one crash per play session; many easily repeatable bugs (some requiring a reload), frame rates dropping to ~10 regularly; and severe visual glitches. All across multiple consoles with two different copies of the game. My point is, yes Cyberpunk 2077 is buggy; but why does everyone else get a pass?

Neither acquisition really changes much in the short to medium term; both Housemarque and BluePoint were practically Sony exclusive anyway; but it does prevent them from being bought out by a competitor; and gives them a more stable future.

Sony's acquisitions are a lot more consumer friendly too. "You make great games exclusively for us? Here is more money to keep doing that." rather than "You make great games for all platforms? Now its just for us."

@nomither6
Its difficult to read someone in comments; so I appreciate the clairfications.

Its not wrong to want a developer to make the games you love. Unfortunately time and money are finite resources so a developer focusing on one, could be time and resources spent on another. I don't want the developers that make the games I love to spend their finite time making games I don't. In a perfect world with unlimited time and resources, we could have both.

I would love nothing more than for each gamer to have exactly what they want; but if that comes at a cost to what I want? I will react just like anyone would. Its a tug of war; and you bet I am going to pull as hard as I can. Whether or not I am in the minority; or pulling all by myself, time will tell.

I don't have anything against multiplayer games as a concept (some are pretty interesting); but if they come at the cost of what I cherish about the hobby; I will fight tooth and nail against them.

@nomither6
You keep throwing the word selfish around to describe anyone that doesn't agree with you about multiplayer games. I make my own money, I use that money to buy games I like, and to support developers that make the games that I like; and I will let those companies know what it is I like or don't like because they cannot read our minds. So if I don't like multiplayer titles; I will let those companies know that if they want my money, that's not the way to go about it.

There is no right or wrong in this discussion, you will support the developers that do what you like, and I will support the ones that do what I like.

@nomither6 Of course its a personal opinion, thats the whole point. I was giving you an explanation of why many single player gamers have hatred for multiplayer titles; by its very nature thats an entirely opinion based matter.

I wasn't arguing with you, or claiming you were wrong to want multiplayer titles; just trying to offer one explanation for the knee jerk hatred you are seeing for multiplayer. There are certainly others; but from my experience this is one of the biggest ones.

@nomither6 I am not reaching, I am simply giving you a list off the top of my head of the ones that were the most important to me. I could make a much larger list; but I figure those are ones that most everyone would be aware of.

It doesn't matter how many awards a game got, or if the multiplayer component was ignored or beloved. That was never my point; so straw-maning it doesn't help yours.

I didn't say "this" list was extensive; I said "the" list was extensive; but I don't have to list every single single player game that ever had a multiplayer component; you asked for some examples, I provided them.

You are right in that a lot of my personal dislike comes from the choice of developers locking platinum progress in a single player game behind dozens of hours of multiplayer grinding; and if they just stopped that I would have less issues with them; but this is such a common behavior that I don't think it will stop anytime soon. (Its the reason I stopped playing The Last of Us)

@nomither6 Examples of what? Single-player games that have a multiplayer component shoe horned in? Last of Us? Uncharted? Assassins Creed? Tomb Raider? The list is quite extensive. As someone that only plays single player games; being forced to grind for 20-40 hours in a multiplayer component if I want to get a platinum has certainly soured me on multiplayer games more than I used to be.

@JustPlainLoco
I consider most multiplayer games to fall into the same category as shovel-ware; with rare exceptions for games like Fall Guys or Among Us (which, while I don't play, I respect for their creative approach); and the last thing I want is to populate the platform I love with more and more shovel-ware.

@nomither6
I think the reason that many single-player gamers (including myself) have such vitriol for multiplayer games is because they tend to infest our single player games as well. Maybe if this stopped being a thing there would be less of a knee-jerk hatred for multi-player titles?

@scoobdoo Not everyone has the same tastes. What is a pro for one person can easily be a con for another. This is why you either get multiple opinions, or you take opinions from others that tend to share your tastes.

The game is pretty decent. While the Push Square review hits the nail on the head (Its good but never quite hits great) its still quite enjoyable and to be honest there isn't a huge number of games that scratch the same itch.

I think some people are caught up in the details. Yes Microsoft and Nintendo had some pretty decent showings; but that was in spite of E3 not because of it.

Thats like saying that Blockbuster should still be relevant because there are great movies coming out.

@KidBoruto
While I don't understand that logic; understand that everyone sucks at games like this, that's the point. Rogue-lites are built around the concept that you will die, over, and over, and over again. You won't be very good until you eventually build up not only your skill, but (in the case of a Rogue-lite) your character by slowly keeping some amount of progression.

@RobN
I hear this a lot; but having put many hours into Returnal, there hasn't been a single time where it would have made sense to interrupt a run and come back to it later. You might as well just end the run if you get interrupted. You won't be in the same frame of mind, you won't have the fresh practice with the specific build you have, and you are unlikely to even remember exactly what you were doing/planning.

Also keep in mind that multi-hour runs are not as common as you might think. Most of my runs are 30-60 minutes. Yes I have had the occasional ~2 hour run; but those are rare. There are big, obvious short-cuts all over the game to get you back from the start to where you left off in minutes (including huge boosts that help make up for not grinding through previous levels again)

For example (depending on your randomized layout of course) you can get from the starting ship in world 1 all the way to world 3 (where you will get a nice bonus that increases your weapon proficiency to level 9) in less than 2 mins.

@KidBoruto @Intr1n5ic @AdamNovice
It's $29 USD for the physical PS5 copy; it a steal at that price. This is a day one buy for me, for certain.

@The_New_Butler Well people want to feel justified in their opinion, and if you don't share their opinion, they lose the ability to gauge whether or not they were "right". So it's not you thinking for yourself, thats you directly attacking theirs.

@The_New_Butler
Generally I use a the items they bring up in the review, or the bullet points, to determine if the game is one I would enjoy; and often I ignore which side the bullet point is on (pro or con) because, like game length; what is a pro for one is a con for another.

Unfortunately, I find, like many review sites do; that when I give an opinion that doesn't follow the popular narrative; it must be because I am trolling or have some other motive; it can't be because I have a different opinion.

@The_New_Butler I understand your stance, and to some degree I think that certainly contributes; but having been a gamer back on the good o'l days when the score inflation started happening and early game magazines would get torn a new one when they reviewed an average game at 5/10 (which is average on a 10 point scale) I tend to think that there is more inflation than less.

That being said, I tend to ignore the scores. I have seen games get a 9 or 9.5 that I would give a 4 or 5; and instead just do my own research on a game before I buy it.

@Jaz007 You are absolutely right; however the problem is that a game that should be a 5/10 we now call a 7/10 so that it can fit in that mindset, which means most games will flood the 7/10 category.

@Bdbrady
I use a scale thats more-or-less like this:

1: Garbage
2: Terrible
3: Awful
4: Bad
5: Average/Mediocre
6: Good
7: Great
8: Excellent
9: Amazing
10: (I don't know of a game that honestly belongs here)

It seems like most readers demand:

1-6: Garbage
7: Average
8: Good
9: Excellent
10: Amazing

Which makes the first half of the scale mostly meaningless.

@JB_Whiting I have heard many people say that they can see and feel the difference, but making the claim doesn't make it true. I don't honestly believe that the majority of gamers can actually tell the difference unless you told them. I've yet to meet someone in real life that could actually tell; despite the overwhelming majority online seeming to claim they can.

There are some that can, for sure. There are people so attuned to the frame rate that they can time frame perfect actions in crazy competitive scenarios; but these are people that train daily to be able to see and feel the difference; not your typical gamer.

@Hopewell I feel the same way, and I don't think many people actually can tell the difference if there wasn't something telling them what mode they are in; despite their claims otherwise. Anecdotally no one I know can tell, as long as its stable. If its not stable; then its easy to tell the difference between, say a dip from 30 to 25 vs a dip from 60 to 55.

I have never really noticed or cared about the difference between 30 and 60 FPS (as long as the frame rate is stable), so I will always select the quality modes as I can get noticeable benefit from them.

@Bdbrady
The problem with that way of thinking, is that the two metrics are calculated differently.

For example, a test score of 50/100 is not average, it's a failure. On the other hand, a 5/10 on a review scale is intended to be about average, nothing terrible wrong with it, but nothing special either.

Some reviews recognize this and give realistic scores, but others just cave to the inflation demanded by readers which makes the first half of the scale nearly meaningless, and loses all distinction at the top half.

@Ear_wiG This is a common misconception and can actually hurt your battery. The optimal battery charge is between 20% and 80% (not lower, or higher) for the longevity of your battery.

I find that I consistently have ~1 hour left after the charge notice and my controllers die. It seems to be working as intended for me. I get ~6 hours of play time on a charge. Maybe a little more or less, I haven't actually sat down and calculated it.

This was the only title that Xbox had that I was interested in, I am happy to see it come to the PS5. I might have to dig through some reviews and see if the critiques line up with what I like/dislike in games.

@djlard If we all waited a month or two, companies wouldn't get damage, in fact nothing would happen. If this was the first time it ever happened, the investors would be annoyed; but that's about it. Releasing now isn't usually about investors wanting their money now its about customer expectations and customers wanting the product now (and the potential lost revenue if customers lost interest and moved on). Investors have already waited 3-5 years, another two months isn't going to hurt them, and they will get all of the same amount of money they would have, just with a slight delay.

If its a regular thing, developers would get wise to it and just start releasing the games another month or two earlier than usual (even more broken), so by the time the "wait period" is up, it was their scheduled release date anyway. Waiting wouldn't ever hurt them. The only thing that would hurt them is not buying the product at all; but that's hard to do, and most people are weak willed, no matter how much they complain online. I know personally its extremely difficult for me to wait for Cyberpunk 2077 and if there wasn't a PS5 version on the horizon (at some point), I might have caved and bought the PS4 version already.

I get what you are trying to say, and your heart is in the right place, but your proposed solution won't have the impact you desire. Unless the platform holders start stepping up and penalizing the developers; I don't think this problem is going to go away any time soon.

@djlard While I understand, and share the sentiment, it doesn't make sense if you follow it to its logical conclusion.

Imagine if everyone followed your advice, and we waited a month to buy every game. All that does is delay our "beta testing" by a month. Everything that would have happened day one, happens one month later (or two, or three). You just kicked the can down the road a bit.

The developers are not going to use that extra time to make the game better, not to any meaningful degree at least. They are going to wait until there are enough customer complaints/feedback/etc... before allocating resources to fix a problem (because a problem that no one notices, isn't a problem at all). In many cases, they may not even know that most of the problems exist until it gets into the players hands because of their inadequate testing ability.

The best solution is to judge a developer by their actions (on their previous titles) and if they have a habit of releasing broken games, just completely forego buying their titles until they get the message. Unfortunately this is easier said than done, especially when you just really, really want to play that game.

I buy games day one (or pre-order) when the companies have a track record of quality releases; but if they don't, then I take the wait and see approach and hope that there are enough day one buyers that are willing to be testers for the rest of us.

@nomither6 Your point about it starting with the PS4 (8th) gen; do you know why this is? Its because the PS2 (6th) gen and earlier were (almost) impossible to patch games (it did happen, SOCOM for example) and the PS3 (7th) gen; while it was easy to patch, both Sony and Microsoft had prohibitive fees for every patch after the first (with some notable exceptions). This created a scenario where the game you get at launch is likely to be stuck that way for the life of the game (for better or worse) so developers had to be very careful about their releases.

Developers and players kicked back against the patch fees (which were designed to incentivize the developers to release finished, stable products) because when a non-AAA game was released broken, it often just stayed that way because the developer couldn't afford to patch it. So with the PS4 (8th) gen and later; those fees are no longer an issue. Developers are free to patch as often as they like. Its no coincidence that this started to become a huge problem on consoles with the 8th generation.

@djlard Its actually pretty common the last few years for games to come out completely broken or unfinished. Cyberpunk was just the only one with a massive hype-train that derailed because of it. I play games on the PS4 to this day that, after all of their patches (and a few years since launch), are still buggy, broken messes.

I am not excusing the practice, far from it, the companies need to be held accountable for this garbage (potentially even penalized); but lets not pretend its a recent trend. Its more recent on Consoles sure; because technology and cost made it difficult to patch post-launch prior to the 7th generation (and fees made it prohibitively expensive during most of the 7th generation). With the 8th and 9th generations however; the Consoles have finally caught up with PCs in patch ease and freedom. This is the result.

@Toypop It will most certainly be $70, there is no reason for it not to be. Yes I am disappointed (in general) with their desire for cross generation support. It limits the potential; but that doesn't mean the game won't still be amazing. The first one was, with all of the PS4 limitations.

@Elodin
To be fair, DQIII contains the entire DQ game (ish) as a mini-adventure; so I would imagine that a remake would contain it as well.

That being said, as stand-alone remake of DQ would require a complete remake/re-envisioning if it were to try and appeal to a modern fanbase. If you take out the difficulty curve and the grinding (like later remasters did) then the game is a very short adventure, more akin to a side-quest.

@awp69 Don't focus on the number, focus on the details of the review.

What I mean is for some people "Short" is a con, and for others "Long" is. Read the list of things that they called out as issues, if you think those are non-issues, or even things you would consider a pro rather than a con; then consider trying it for yourself. When I read that list, its just one nail in the coffin after another.

@Steel76 I am still not entirely sure what "Souls-like" is outside of "Normal Action RPG with Difficulty Set to 11". Everyone talks about it like it's a separate genre of game. I only played the original, but they seem to be just Action RPG's that have a higher than normal difficulty curve. Am I missing something?