one-armed dwarf

I dunno, do people consider that old version of Prime unplayable? I know software availability with old titles is at an all time low, but I don't feel very strongly about remasters when talking about the quality of new releases. I'm sure Prime is amazing, I have it and should get into it. But it's still a game that has already existed. It's not the same thing as what Capcom did with RE4.

Just popped up in my subs 👀

Synapse gameplay, the VR rogue like shooter with Solid Snake in it Watching this make me wonder what Control would be like with VR Sony's roadmap for PSVR has been super underwhelming and has made me kinda think I'm not bothered anymore, but this at least looks like a really cool game

lol

Very action focused gameplay footage Lots of cool new weapons by the looks of things, I'm liking the stun gun which ricochets to nearby enemies. It's a bit overly dark for a youtube video, but the run and gun gameplay in Cyberpunk is pretty fun so new weapons is cool. If you're good enough you can basically play it like Mirror's Edge

We might have gotten some trailblazers if Sony had actually shown some commitment to VR, but they seem content to just have it be a Quest 2 and PCVR port machine. Think they haven't announced a single first party exclusive since Horizon if I'm right. It's probably between TOTK and SF6 for me. Neither game re-inventing the wheel but a highly active and new fighting game where people are learning together is always lots of fun. I also think AC6 could be a surprise for lots of people, if it turns out that kind of action has wider appeal (and FROM seem to be trying to make sure that it will)

I felt the same as you Andy, but by the end I actually thought he was a really good character and had some pretty decent growth. It sort of feels like a bildungsroman for Final Fantasy (eg, like Great Expectations, but with more magic and fucking). He's not going to replace Cloud or Squall in any popularity contests, but it's interesting to see the dude sort of shape out throughout the story and come to terms with flaws and such in a way that feels fairly natural. It's just when he's in his moody edgy phase in the middle section he is a little much I would say. It's everyone else who kinda suffers from not getting to share the spotlight, reminds me of FFVIII a bit like that. I feel like Gav should have been playable or something, like on one of his scouting missions, given just how much time they invest in him.

I mean, you yourself have complained that this year has been slim pickings for games you're interested in, no? (for me, it's a great year, but that is the 'waiting game' bellow is talking about)

Controversial take maybe, but a subscription GAAS is a much, much better value proposition than the pick and mix of gamepass. But you need to have that MMO brain I suppose. Also I keep hearing that Amnesia is really good. Maybe people should play that one

The fact you really got into this game but hated BOTW is so weird to me. I guess there's something in TOTK which just delivers its ideas way better.

Will hold off on getting back in until the 24th Really interested in what AKI is tho, based on the characters they've shown for the DLC it's very rushdown focused. Saw someone say that they expect AKI to play like FANG, who from what I see is a weird kinda stretchy zoner tricky guy

Well, I did everything on my NG save except for the chronoliths, which I'll do now that I'm on FF mode maybe. I just wanted to get to NG+ really. Anyway, the structure of this game does not change in any major way. The fetch quests become more numerous later on, and they throw them on the main quest as well. It only gets more boring. Even though I like the game overall, it's also at times maybe the most boring AAA game I've played in my life, without exception. When it's good it's awesome, but when it sucks it's really really fucking boring good review here https://www.thejimquisition.com/post/final-fantasy-xvi-playstation-clive-review While I'm getting better at dashing around I'm finding I'm rubbish at optimising stagger combos. There's a knack to them I think, start off with multihitting moves and end up with hard hitting ones. Or just use an ultimate, but I find the ultimates super boring and linear. That's a problem with this game in general actually, given the small selection of abilities it stands out that a few have very limited branching options off them. Titan being the worst example, every time you parry the game basically stops, it's no royal guard. is awesome though. You get an air dash and can extend air combos. (I have no idea if that's even a spoiler, the eikon was in the state of play and everything, in fact all the eikons were. But anyways)

Reading blakey's post in 'sacked it off' about how repetitive the combat is in this made me want to share these videos where I look for weird ways to fight stuff This is a very flexible game with really fun and hilarious enemy reactions (no spoilers, just big thumbnails) I'll have to return to this at some point, kinda took it at far too slow a pace and made very little progress for my hour count

Yeah I watched some of the stuff on their new channel and the quality is amazing https://www.youtube.com/@nocliparchive

Apparently this is some fun trash, and I'm in the mood for more action FF

Don't answer if it's too prying, but why did you sell the VR?

In the endgame, doing endgame fetch quests. Now that I'm at the end, overall impression isn't going to be changed much I guess. Such extreme lows and such extreme highs, the campaign is literally just a FFXIV structure with the exact same design of fetch quest, even some of the same cutscene scripting it seems (I am 99 percent sure I saw the FFXIV Warrior classes battle ready stance in one sidequest cutscene). The story has kind of plodded along, it's like a mashup of classic SNES FF (Clive and Jill have some FFIV vibes with Cecil and Rosa), Matsuno (FFXII, Vagrant story, tactics) and Dragon Ball Z. I guess there's a little bit of Game of Thrones, but it's got much more Goku than it does Lannister about it. I did warm a bit more to Clive and some of the gang but these guys aren't on the same level as some of the cast in earlier titles. Gav is alright but he's no Wakka. The action remains exceptionally high quality, at least when you can see what the fuck is going on. A late game boss fight was ruined due to it taking place in the dark with lots of flashy attacks, could not see a fucking thing. But mercifully, not every fight is like that at least. The PC port will fix a lot of those kinds of issues. But to me it just seems like with this game Square didn't aim particularly high, not that they set out to make a middling game (which this most definitely isnt), but that they tried to keep costs down and that's why so much of it feels like it was built from FFXIV development tools. If you watch interviews with Yoshi P on NoClip, the producer on this game, he actually criticises Square for their pursuit of visuals during the early HD gen (FFXIII, XIV 1.0 and Versus XIII). So with that in mind this approach makes sense, but also IMO feels like an overcorrection because it makes the overall presentation feel very dated at times, which hurts immersion in its world and story Sounds very negative, but this is still one of the best games I've played this generation. My main takeaway is that this game reminds me a lot of the original Nier. Not the sequel or remake, though the remake is largely the same thing anyway. Where the game was kinda shambolic and felt a bit thrown together but there was a ton of heart and it had great writing, and that's why people liked it. This is like that in a different sort of way, its carried not by story (lmao) but combat and set piece encounters, and a decent depth to its skill expression. It's a game you either love in spite of its shit parts, or the shit parts will be a big dealbreaker. Overall I like it, but wish it could have been more. Literally if they cut parts of this game out, it would improve.

The first bit was done by MGSV actually. Enemies would wear helmets if you kept trying to headshot them, or wear night vision if you have a preference for nighttime infiltration https://metalgear.fandom.com/wiki/Revenge_System_(enemy_preparedness)

Ye basically as above. I also don't think these systems are RT ready tbh One thing I don't like about modern games is their image quality, it seems to have gotten worse since last gen due to FSR and things like that. FFXVI is at 720p native upscaled to 4k most of the time in fight scenes, kinda ridiculous, doesn't even run well either. Hold back on RT until next gen.

Do the main quest until you get the glider, and then turn off waypoints and just explore randomly. that's it. I mean ymmv but I think it's the best way to play IMO

Said I was done talking about the main quest, but man, it's so dull in this section I did yesterday. Trading passes, wtf? Can't believe how deeply uninteresting this thing can be at times. It hits hitherto unseen fathoms in sheer drudgery and often for very long stretches. Literally fell asleep, not figuratively 😴 Then after that, an exhilarating sequence of set piece battles which introduce novel gameplay concepts using familiar systems in exciting new ways, and afterwards an incredibly interesting set of Eikon powers based around building stagger and juggling enemies with magic/damage over time that also syncs up with your use of magic/magic burst. As well as a unique dodge stance that builds up power from avoiding attacks to fill the arena with lasers. Which kept me up past 1 AM trying to see what are the new ways to play the game with this new Eikon, the completely new approach it enables. Those hunts won't know what hit them, with the blitzkrieg of bullshit I have to hit them with now Man, fuck this game, be amazing or be rubbish, you can't be both 😠

I dunno, I've noticed the opposite. Drive rush is the most complained about mechanic at top levels. Drive impact is what people complain about more at the beginner or mid level until people adapt. Can't really weigh in too much on the impact of changes like that cause I really don't know what it would look like. But I think 3 bars for DR at least means there's a high cost to pay for the plus frames privilege. Kinda boils down imo to how reactable it is, if it is reactable. I haven't watched CEO yet so can't pull from any of those examples cause I've been fucking up things as Ifrit the past few days. Dee jay's DR is completely unreactable which I admit is what drew me to the character, but he doesn't seem to have any real mix just endless frame traps and can't easily cancel out of things into his own drive impact, making that a bit of an achilles heel for him after the initial plus strings (every DJ I've DI-ed has at best only managed to block it, but these are gold 5/platinum 1-2 DJs). I think taking a holistic view of it, there's probably these kinds of caveats which will trip up ignorant use of DR and increase it's downside given how expensive it is, but again I don't really know edit I wrote that out but completely forgot the 1 bar neutral DR which basically is free, for some reason got it into my head that neutral DR costs 3. Disregard all that then, lol

I plan to get stuck in again when Rashid releases. I never got anywhere with DeeJay so I'm just going to wait for the DLC character to get the rushdown fix For me I'm not into rank chasing but noticing signs of personal improvement. Like I dunno if I'll get above low-mid tier plat, but I'm not that concerned about it. At the same time it's got to be balanced against not getting fatigued by the game, like how @Maf would always post about how depressed Strive made him and he kept doing the same thing over and over with it anyway. That's overtraining, in video game terms. That's why I want to swap to another character now and then, to start from scratch and learn new concepts. While keeping JP in semi rotation, deciding if he's the main or sub (oo-er) In terms of drive mechanics, it got me to thinking more about spacing and blockstring safety. On the other end, the drive rush system feels like it can make things oppressive in the same way that Strive has this very ignorant kind of gameplay at times. One quirk about it is that inputs get discarded during the green 'flash', which seems counter-productive to the idea you are supposed to stuff the DR approach. I don't think there's anything really wrong with the balance of drive impact though, and after a few weeks you notice people being more cagey about it because people have developed pressure that's built to react to it, or even bait/frame trap it coming out (I did this just once to a Jaime, felt really pleased with myself even though I fucked the punish). I don't know if that is specifically what Mary is saying with 'bait and hook'. But I think at a more optimised mid and high level the mechanic is going to be used more as a punish/guard crush in the corner than something that's just thrown out there Some SFV Rashid gameplay

FFXV was an absolute money pit of a game though (announced as Versus XIII in 2006, cancelled in 2013 and rebooted as XV in a new engine) Modern mainline FF veers so wildly in quality or whether I'll like it so really all I hope is the sales figures justify a very combat focused DLC like the one that KH3 got, cause that's where I'll get a lot of value out of it.