Finally got around to uninstalling the Xbox app on PC. My Steam library is currently at 202 games (mostly from the Xbox One / PS4 era or earlier). I legitimately do not use Game Pass or have anything to do with the Xbox store anymore. Honestly, it feels kinda weird, 'cause I was such a big Xbox guy during the 360 era. Despite its early launch woes, I still have a fondness for the 360.
Going full PC has been the best decision I've ever made. Once Stellar Blade's PC port is announced, I'm likely going to end up selling my PS5 Slim and use the funds for that on a GPU upgrade. I think my RX 580 has finally hit a brick wall.
It sucks in pretty much every way. Some of the issues of the previous entry are alleviated, but the fights are still a slog, the plot is one of the worse for the series, the side activities also suck and the conclusion is a wet fart.
I....am I the only one that liked zooming around Hawaii and Yokohama with Seonhee in my squad crashing into shit?
Ironically the Ichiban games solidified my reasons as to why the dub is non canon. It doesn't fucking work and because all the people bitched for one we now get half assed ones with the same annoying crop of actors courtesy of the Arems because SEGA + Atlus + Falcom....
I can't get a handle on the Saga games at all. I tried, believe me. They're just too complex for me and that's saying something as a fan of JRPG's.
Destiny 2, its impossible to have a nuanced discussion on the game, its either people dickriding Bungie or game le sucks no matter what and dont question it. its just extremely cringe at some point
Agree, but for a different reason. I'm fascinated by the beta, or late alpha, whatever you want to call the early, almost complete game before the story was ripped out. There was supposedly a lot of information on it, but some of it can be hard to find.
I still have my Xbox since purchasing my PC, but its mostly because I cannot fit all my games on PC and uninstalling and reinstalling shit frequently is annoying, when I first got my Series X I went with that over the PS5 because imo Microsoft is the lesser of two evils at the moment, I still think that with all the bullshit Sony has been pulling lately
I may have picked the worst time to become obsessed with Klonoa. After I finished the Lunataes Veil thanks to Running Shine, I have been trying to download and take in as much Klonoa media as possible before my hype dies down. Just like Running Shine the there will never ever have another release. Fuck I need to stop getting into game series that have completely ran into a dead stop or better yet stop taking peak PS2 games for granted.
I still call bullshit on them not being able to create a new game. Every new Mario game is always putting him into some retarded place he shouldn't even be in and yet the dudes who made Klonoa can't figure out how to create another game of a long eared cat going wahoo, but alas it's in the hands of Bandai-Namco and they've been axing IP's and blue balling people with stupid collections whenever they want to take money from nostalgic fanboys.
Being turn based enables a lot more cinematic combat pieces. I fucking hate yakuza boss combat cause
>combo game
>bosses all got hyper armor
I hate jrpgs with scripted boss segments but make more sense in yakuza all things considered.
Judgement having iframe parries that reward adrenaline instead of dmg is a great mechanic compared to spamming tiger drop.
I may have picked the worst time to become obsessed with Klonoa. After I finished the Lunataes Veil thanks to Running Shine, I have been trying to download and take in as much Klonoa media as possible before my hype dies down. Just like Running Shine the there will never ever have another release. Fuck I need to stop getting into game series that have completely ran into a dead stop or better yet stop taking peak PS2 games for granted.
I still call bullshit on them not being able to create a new game. Every new Mario game is always putting him into some retarded place he shouldn't even be in and yet the dudes who made Klonoa can't figure out how to create another game of a long eared cat going wahoo, but alas it's in the hands of Bandai-Namco and they've been axing IP's and blue balling people with stupid collections whenever they want to take money from nostalgic fanboys.
I won't hold out hope, but maybe this last year of failures will teach them something and they'll stop trying to pander and just focus on making a good game.
Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth is one of the Atlus games that’s not named Shin Megami Tensei or Persona that makes me wonder why it was not marketed properly
I haven't seen anything about Miside on this site yet and I think it's not important enough to make a thread about, but I've played it (100% all achievements etc.) so I thought I'd give my two cents on it for anyone who's seen it around the place because of all the streamers playing it and was curious.
tl;dr if you've seen it and you're thinking of getting it I'd recommend either pirating it or putting it on a steam wishlist and forgetting about it until it next goes on a deep discount sale. (Or maybe even blast through the whole game in a single sitting then try to get a refund for it? idk about steam's refund policy)
It has some pretty fun horror moments (at least for someone who hasn't played a fuckton of horror games) but after only like 5-6 hours of gameplay you'll have seen literally everything it has to offer, so keep in mind that's best case scenario all you're realistically getting out of it for whatever price you pay.
It honestly has some really good pacing with its horror elements for the most part, giving you enough downtime inbetween scarier sections to potentially lull you back into a false sense of security. There are plenty of overused horror clichés and tropes (evil mannequins, P.T.-style looping hallways, look-behind-you type moments, all that generic shit), but at least its whole take on the 'stuck in a videogame' premise is done in a somewhat fresh way, and it's not over-reliant on basic-bitch jumpscares. Maybe more to the point, the premise of being stuck in a videogame does work as a pretty good excuse for a lot of the bs which happens.
That said, it's a buggy mess that crashes way too regularly for what it is, which combined with inability to save outside of specific checkpoints can mean potentially having to sit through minutes long time-gated sequences over and over.
What's seriously disappointing is how linear the whole game is (at least at time of writing). There are so many segments and moments where it feels like they had the opportunity to give the player a choice to change the outcome of the ending, but after all the buildup you're simply left with a final "fuck you you lose anyway lol" downer ending.
For an example, right near the ending you have a moment where you are able to go into a certain basement again. There's a knocking sound which is coming from a vent which you have no way of accessing, and a room full of what would be extremely useful items (including a chainsaw) which you have no way of interacting with. Going through with the ending gives you a code to a safe in the basement, but that ends up being empty anyway when you reload and open it yourself. You're given the option to try to enter a code into another machine, but only one number will advance the story. All of those complete red herrings in a single scene.
The only other actual ending you can get is one where you start a new game and ignore anything suspicious in the opening chapter, and the game just kinda ends then and there.
Or alternately you can open the safe in the basement at a different point in the game where the character will take a cartridge out of a console you find in it, which just unceremoniously boots you straight back to the main menu.
It's just disappointing to see all this missed opportunity for alternate routes and endings when potential for it is sitting right there. Undercooked game.
Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth is one of the Atljs games that’s not named Shin Megami Tensei or Persona that makes me wonder why it was not marketed properly
yeah I mean whats announced so far feels so underwhelming, part of that is probably companies not wanting to compete with Rockstar due to GTAs release, but yeah the Switch 2 will probably launch with like a 3D Mario platformer at least
Do real life approximations of cities in games nowadays impress anymore? Many of them just blur together. Art direction is what brings a player into your world. That has been deprioritized in favor of graphics and filler content.
I'm going to reply in the Video Game General thread and not the Unpopular Opinions thread, but I really don't think so for a few reasons:
1. There's a natural limit to what you can scale the city to; 1:1 cities are insanely hard to do and will only appeal to autists.
2. Part of what makes cities recognizable is trademarks. Vegas Vic in the Las Vegas strip is a trademark owned by Pioneer Hotel, Inc. and the Paris Las Vegas casino is also a trademark in itself. You basically have to spend a fortune in licensing/permissions or being able to come up with royalty-free replacements, and some stuff is harder than just swapping letters around.
3. For stuff like New York and Los Angeles, they tend to be pretty boring and generic outside of their iconic landmarks.
4. Everyone's sick of New York, Los Angeles, etc. anyway.
The GTA VI trailer in particular had the Bahia Honda Bridge (a disconnected, abandoned railroad bridge--no access by foot or car) but who even knows if that will be in the final game. Most of the setting seems to banking on nostalgia for Vice City.
A large part of this, I think, is also people souring on the idea of open-world games, the concept of which is now at least 20 years old and really hasn't seen a ton of innovation in that timeframe.
2. Part of what makes cities recognizable is trademarks. Vegas Vic in the Las Vegas strip is a trademark owned by Pioneer Hotel, Inc. and the Paris Las Vegas casino is also a trademark in itself. You basically have to spend a fortune in licensing/permissions or being able to come up with royalty-free replacements, and some stuff is harder than just swapping letters around.
3. For stuff like New York and Los Angeles, they tend to be pretty boring and generic outside of their iconic landmarks.
This made me think of another R* title: Midnight Club: Los Angeles. They managed to recreate a replica of the Los Angeles metropolitan area complete with several iconic landmarks relative to its source material. LAX, Santa Monica Pier, Carney's to name a few. I've even heard that they managed to accurately lay out a majority of its street layout for the game.
For a racing game, recreating actual cities would be impractical as cities were (obviously) not built to race around in. I feel NYC and LA are overused as cities because they're two distinct cities in American culture.
This made me think of another R* title: Midnight Club: Los Angeles. They managed to recreate a replica of the Los Angeles metropolitan area complete with several iconic landmarks relative to its source material. LAX, Santa Monica Pier, Carney's to name a few. I've even heard that they managed to accurately lay out a majority of its street layout for the game.
For a racing game, recreating actual cities would be impractical as cities were (obviously) not built to race around in. I feel NYC and LA are overused as cities because they're two distinct cities in American culture.
The thing is, for a racing game it doesn't matter where it is. You're not there to sight-see, you're there to race, and the only reason why you'd have a specific city is if you're intimately familiar with the roads and layout, which would be distorted or removed in these types of games anyway.
From what I remember from watching World's Wildest Police Videos and others, the city really doesn't matter; you could just plop any relatively flat map in and that would be enough for long stretches to speed up, some curves that you could spin out on if you tried to turn too fast on, and railroad crossings where hitting them fast enough could catch some air. Arguably, smaller towns and subdivisions are more interesting since you can't just go in grids forever and forced to use some quick thinking for evasive maneuvers if you don't know where you're going.
Specific cities makes a little more sense for something like GTA (and similar games) as the city's culture plays a role in the storyline and can't just be placed anywhere in the United States without adjustments to it (something involving the Italian Mafia quite prominently would be a bit strange set in San Antonio, for instance).
