mfnick

Turns out I missed the small checkpoint town and just done a cool battle at Melve. Feel like I’ve got a hang of the correct progression route again now and feel at the correct level again. Previously I made it to B town by following the cave paths next to the river when I was not meant to go that route.

PS3 was a terrible console. But the later half of its lifecycle it had some amazing games. The 60gb with PS2 compatibility and upscaling was really useful too. Shame the 2 I owned broke - near launch and bought one relatively recently to play some PS2 games on modern Tvs and that did the same.

Easily the Wii. Apart from the first 5 minutes with Wii Sports it was a terrible console. Hated everything about it. Only slightly redeeming thing about it was Virtual Console and they didn’t even do that well. Wii U is close behind but the very few games released for it were a lot better and the idea around the console with handheld was sound so it narrowly avoids bottom place.

I never said it was a surprise. I’m just saying it’s starting to annoy now where I was fine with it for first lot of hours.

Objectively a great thing. As long as there’s still a Xbox in 5 years or so anyway. Hopefully means they’ll start getting even more old OG Xbox and360 games working going forward again too.

I loved Gears 5 but I just can’t muster any excitement for another one at all. Hope that changes when it’s shown.

I can’t disagree with any of this but I still think it looks better. Maybe it’s just because I prefer the visual variety and special effects. As I’ve said before I’m just not a fan of the DD2 setting.

That first I’m hearing of that. I thought it was just being used in the culture war nonsense by people saying sexy characters aren’t made anymore because of woke nonsense. & people on the other side saying they’re virgins and should just watch porn instead. Anyway, I went to a new town beginning with B (fuck knows the actual name). Yea I’m back to being an underpowered wimp again. Think I must have missed something. We all just die near instantly in the area and do barely any damage even though I just spent 80% of my money on the most powerful daggers they had. FFS. Getting a bit tired of no proper fast travel now. It’s stopped being fun getting stranded in middle of nowhere when my ox cart gets blown up or when a quest sends me fucking miles away from anywhere.

You think DD2 looks better than this? I have my problems with graphically and performance wise with this but I think it looks better than DD2. But yea Comso Canyon is a twat to get around too. Slightly easier than Gongaga but still shit. The next ones is a lot more straight forward and easier at least.

Ah, I missed that sorry. Fuck it, will just wait and see if anything comes of it then discuss.

Everyone out here complaining about Eve in Stellar Blade being a sex object. & I’m over here in DD2 rocking this badunkadunk with not a word said. I won’t be changing this armour even if I find something better. No questions please. In all seriousness though. I’m already 9 hours into this (had some time off work) & having a really good time. I love how quickly it throws levels and cool upgrades at you. Already beaten a couple of huge fuckers who were causing me issues before and got loads of money too. I’m starting to get tired of not having ‘purpose’ now though. Wandering about fighting shit just for giggles is starting to lose its lustre. As far as I can tell my main quests for something to do now involve being stealthy or finding a specific clothing set to get in the castle? This is easily when the game at its worse. Hate it. Really putting me off playing more. Probably time to consult a guide.

Holy shit this game throws a lot of information at you! Had a million tutorial pop ups in the first hour or 2. Seems fun so far though. The combat is ace! Not sure how much I’ll get through though, im not really a fan of medieval settings - especially the language they use - but mostly the lack of quest way points is already causing me issues. It expects me to have a memory, which I do not. So I just tend to wander about getting myself killed by monsters I’m definitely not ready for. Pawns sometimes help but not always. But so far I seem to be in the right mindset where it’s not bothering me. I’m just having fun throwing anything and everything and seeing the creative ways enemies can kill me while Im climbing them.

Bit late to this and don’t know if it’s been brought up before but there’s talk of Epic store and others coming to Xbox. https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/phil-spencer-says-hes-open-to-bringing-stores-like-epic-and-steam-to-xbox-consoles/ One thing I can’t get my head around is how would this work? Does that mean that any game available on Xbox I could instead buy on Epic at a cheaper price? How could this ever be a good thing for Xbox? Why would I ever buy a game from them if that was the case? Plus any game I buy on Epic would then be available to me on PC. The Xbox store becomes redundant at that point. So where do they get their cut? Do they add it to the Epic store price - negating the benefit of having it there or what? I can’t get my head around it. The fuck is going off over at Xbox?

Can’t explain it. But 30fps - I can see every frame hitching across the screen. Soap opera effect - nope. Mostly oblivious to it. Actually I can tell a bit of a difference but I much prefer it to stutter & get used to it almost immediately.

Just a PSA too. Not a spoiler but if you die during the final boss encounters select the top option!!! I picked the 2nd and it sent me back 30 minutes! I almost cried. Im definitely not the only one.

Yep. I can’t tell the difference 😂😂

Yea but “normal” people don’t notice the soap opera effect so their opinion doesn’t count in this conversation 😉

I remember a video on Giantbomb back when the Og crew was there. They did a video on old PS2 games on original hardware. & one of the overriding feelings they had was they couldn’t believe how smooth all the games they were playing were. That’s because the games they were playing were mostly around 60fps whereas this was the time when the One and PS4 were about so the majority of games were 30. They felt that smoothness without knowing the franerate details. Now these aren’t the average gamers. So will know about these things more but I still think it calls out the better feeling and image smoothness higher frame rates provide. That I think most people can appreciate.

I almost completely agree with that post. The article is an interesting read too. For the most part I’m on board with them.

Basically everything Dwarf said. Fucker always puts what I’m thinking down so elegantly. Thank you.

So 70 hours later, it’s done. Basically my thoughts are the same as they were last time. I love all the characters, I love exploring the towns and villages, the combat is incredible and still easily the best in all of the action RPG genre, I loved all the story beats and little side stories, I even loved all the little mini games which everyone else seems to have a problem with. Problem is, the downsides really fucked it for me. Every time something exciting or important was happening the pacing would grind to a standstill to explore a shitty, bland open world wasteland with the same handful of open world filler missions in each area. Which only gets worse as things go on and it gets more tedious along with th fact getting around the later maps is a fucking nightmare! Gongaga is particularly terrible which is a shame as it’s probably the best looking one. The next is performance but that’s more of a me issue and I’ve been through it so don’t need to repeat. It was genuinely a big issue personally though. Lastly that ending. While it was interesting I think they fumbled the ball completely. It was so damn confusing! Still a great game but overriding sense of disappointment and normal modern game AAA open world bloat ruins it. 7/10

It did used to get mentioned though. I specifically remember reading PS2 mags & it being a positive when a game was targeting 60fps. They would definitely bring it up and would say it was a shame when certain games were at a lower frame rate. During the 16-32 bit era, in those mags they constantly brought up the difference between PAL 50 and NTSC 60. It was very noticeable if you ever experienced it. Sure it wasn’t such a big deal, but we also didn’t have social media back then but bet it would have been. Especially if games weee giving performance and graphic options back then like they do now on console. Almost every game basically tells you it’s been compromised on start up these days with that option making it more well known. & again it’s not a fair comparison. CRTs and even old HD LCD hid the frame rate issues much better than todays tvs. Especially regards to motion. Which is what I struggle with most. As Dwarf mentioned the extra detail and resolution really make these problems far more pronounced too. 30fps isn’t unplayable but it absolutely hurts the experience for me. And it can make me have to take a break from playing particular games because that stutter is all I can see when moving the camera. Not something I ever experienced with those old 32bit games.

01/03/24 - Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth (XSX) - Complete 04/04/24 - Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (PS5) - Complete Hmmm, lot to think about with this one. Initial feeling though… 7/10 1 point deducted because performance was a huge issue personally - slightly alleviated after the patch. Fix that a bit more and it’d be an 8. But I still had a lot of issues with it. & much preferred Remake. I know it’s a controversial opinion to like Remake these days but I fucking loved it. This didn’t come close for me. It may be one of those games I look back at more fondly in the coming days/weeks. We’ll see. 1 think I will say though, it’s a game which truly feels like it just had no budget. As in it was an open cheque book. I didn’t think games stuffed with this much unique content could be made anymore. Made in a relatively short time frame too. Soundtrack is A*** too. Where’s Hip Hop De Chocobo though!?

Game of the Year 2024. 1 - Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth 2 - Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth 3 - 4 - 5 - Game not from 2024 discovered in 2024. 1 - 2 - 3 - Most anticipated game of 2025. 1 - Wolverine 2 - GTA 6 3 -

Roche is top tier.