What you playing PS4 / PS5 Style

I liked Horizon Zero Dawn a lot, but I think I got hooked on it in part because I was living in a flat where the wifi didn't work for 6 weeks, so I didn't have any distractions. Perfect time to get consumed by a big single-player game, but I don't know if I would have been as absorbed if I had other things to do. Or maybe I'm just being swayed by all of your comments and I should commit to being in team mas. I just don't know what to think!

There's been a lot of talk about Horizon lately and it all seems quite negative, surely it's just Brown Tinted Glasses (if that isn't a saying it should be) where everyone remembers something as worse than it was because something better came along.

But I didn’t like the something better as much as I liked Horizon

Hmm this is making me less and less likely to ever get around to it.

Crumpy Andy wrote:

But I didn’t like the something better as much as I liked Horizon

I remember starting HZD, then played BotW, then went back to HZD and it was so much better in everyway. I wonder that's why I like HZD, so much as it got the sour taste out of my mouth.

But yeah as Smurf says lots of negativeness around HZD at the moment, wonder if it's to do with the whole might come to PC.

Treesmurf wrote:

Hmm this is making me less and less likely to ever get around to it.

It's a good game. Nice world, some cool gadgets, always things to do. It just gets a bit repetitive after a while and doesn't have an X-factor. Probably somewhere between a 7 and an 8. Not meant to be too hard to plat if you're into that sort of thing.

I for some crazy reason already have the Platinum exclusive theme for it, some sort of error I guess. I already own it so I guess we'll have to see, maybe if there's some hype around the PC release it might make me want to play it.

I never got my platinum theme for it, so you probably got mine.

You can have mine when I get around to it.





















In a few years

I started Persona 5 Royal a few days ago as Amazon sent early to make sure it arrived in time for launch.

I've almost finished the first palace which is about 6hrs in, I've not seen much new content, it's been things like the very first part of the game Kasumi turns up to help when trying to escape, then walking to school you'll bump into her that sort of thing than anything truly new.

Beyond that much the same, apart from you now have a grappling hook which has changed the first palace a bit but not much and maybe some new Persona's, just trying to remember what and wasn't in the standard version of the game.

Also hard to tell if it looks any better as the game is so stylish that wins out over resolution. From reading stuff on Royal, you are sort forced to socialize with the two new characters to get the new chapter, which if you don't like Kasumi is a tad lame.

I will continue playing but due to the length and an enhanced version can see me dripping for Res Evil 3 but that's only like 5hrs long and Final Fantasy VIIR which might turn up at any point seeing how many have gotten so far along with all the live streams of it.

I tried my hand at a couple of retro revival games, the first was Dino Dini's Kickoff Revival which I got from Nintenduck in 2018's Secret Santa. A thoughtful gift for sure as I love some of the Football games of yesteryear however this particular one felt just like the game which made me cry because the trade in price was as rubbish as the gameplay, needless to say I didn't enjoy revisiting this style of Football game.

After that I moved on to Yooka-Laylee which is much more up my street, I know reviews for this weren't glowing but so far it's delivered everything I wanted from it and the music takes me back. if I were to criticise it I'd say it's lacking that bit of extra polish you want from a 3D platformer but that aside I'm having a lot of fun with it.

Yakuza 6 went on sale and I couldn't resist so got that. The last mainline Yakuza game released over here that I haven't played yet, and my first impressions of it are good.

Yakuza 0 didn't quite click with me but so far 6 is feeling like a more natural follow-up (and not just in the sense that it's continuing the story) and a much more palpable technical leap. The mostly 60fps in Y0 was nice but I'm liking the new stuff you can do in the engine and there's a nice weight to the combat - and it's more instantaneous than ever before. You bump into a gang of thugs and there's pretty much no pause. You're not restricted by how much you can move either and in fact you can just run away from the average battle which feels more natural.

Same with shops and buildings, instantaneous load. Is a bit silly that you can break everything in a shop now and scare all the customers away with pretty much no consequences, but it was a good laugh a first time and a satisfying achievement to get.

As for FFXV I'm sort of near the end now but I have pretty mixed feelings about it. There's a lot of fun stuff in the game and I like the character interactions, even if they can be a bit corny or nonsensical, but I feel like it really lacks focus and a lot of the potential it has is squandered. Stuff in the story sort of just happens, none of it really feels that meaningful. The car travel is a nice novelty like train travel in Spirit Tracks, but at the same time...what's the point? Railroads the travel for no reason. You can travel about on chocobo but there's not really much going on in the open world anyway. The sidequests are repetitive - it feels weird that there's unique dialogue for all of them. Like it's a nice touch but it barely elevates them to being more than a chore. Then there's the combat which is a bit basic. Would go on but I'm sure it's all been said a lot before.

Not that I haven't enjoyed the game overall, but it's also really disappointing. Could have been so much more. Can't help but think about what it'd be like if the world was smaller and they put more care into it, but then again you could say that about a fair few open world games. I have heard the DLC is pretty good though so I'll check that out at some point.

My PS4 I guess resurgence continues, after Final Fantasy VII Remake I moved on to the Spider-Man DLC which was on offer for £8 and the game was downloadable with PSNOW which I still had a 7 Day Trial to use.

It was more of the same which I wanted after FFVIIR and the story seemingly will tie in abit to Spider-Man 2.

Yesterday sort out of the blue as I wasn't that interested in it, till I saw some let's plays of Predator Hunting Grounds and I bought it. It's not my normal thing to do buy a digital only multiplayer game which is £35 (£29 as I found a voucher) and the game is rough, yet has been really fun to play so far. Even though slightly different it reminds me of Left 4 Dead which I've not played for ages and really enjoyed back in the day.

Tonight I started Sakura Wars, I've only done the first chapter which is still around 2hrs in. That was mainly the visual novel of things like talking to the girls, watching anime cutscenes etc. I did get one combat section which was real basic so far, yet was enjoyable and breaks up the game as I'm not if I would want 20hrs straight of VN.

Started Final Fantasy XIV this weekend in what will likely be the end of my free time forever. It was good knowing you all.

Seen you and Andy playing it, I did try it once then didn't go back, all the DLC's & how long it's been out now daunt's me being a mmo. That was waiting for the sort of announced Xbox verison and play on a Xbox only server but you guys seem to be doing fine on PS4.

Moyles, don't do this, you know how it ends. Moyles!? MOOOOOOOOYLES!

masofdas wrote:

Seen you and Andy playing it, I did try it once then didn't go back, all the DLC's & how long it's been out now daunt's me being a mmo. That was waiting for the sort of announced Xbox verison and play on a Xbox only server but you guys seem to be doing fine on PS4.

It took a wee bit of getting used to as the UI is VERY busy, but it's been smooth sailing ever since. I'm really digging just bashing out quests, levelling up the different classes and pottering about the world. It's a pretty relaxing game. I did buy a wireless keyboard though to allow me to chat to PC dude once we get into the busier content like raids and whatnot.

Balladeer wrote:

Moyles, don't do this, you know how it ends.  Moyles!?  MOOOOOOOOYLES!

Judgment

Only few hours in and I'm liking it a lot. However, much of that time has been playing the arcade games and other minigames, much of which were already in Yakuza 6 and previous games... Though I have to say I prefer Judgment's offerings on the arcade front overall. As well as Virtua Fighter 5 returning, there's Flying Vipers and Motor Raid, two games I had never heard before but which both have a ton of 3D retro charm.

Decided I'd play the game with the English dub because I was curious and I guess it'll also help it feel more distinct from the Yakuza series which it obviously borrows a lot from. It seemed pretty damn weird at first but I'm getting used to it and I'm enjoying some of the voice talent. That said I don't really mind that it's so similar to Yakuza in a lot of ways since I enjoyed that series enough to play seven of them, each of which are fairly similar to each other anyway. I also really liked Yakuza 6's engine so it's good to be in it again and with some improvements, though my poor base PS4 is struggling a bit more frame rate wise.

Don't mind the upgrades system getting streamlined a bit but I think it's a shame they've removed how eating worked in 6. I liked how 6 made it so it wasn't strictly tied to your health, and instead just added a sort of penalty for eating on a full stomach. The 'stomach' system is just gone here and it's back to how it was treated in past games. Not a big deal, but still.

Didn't think I'd have played all the mainline Yakuza games plus Judgment before getting around to Yakuza 7 when it's released over here but it looks like I'm going to make it.

I've been trying to space out my time between Yakuza games as they're definitely all cut from the same cloth, so I reckon I need breaks between them. I'll get around to the later games in the series someday.

I'm still on my FFXIV train and I'm smashed through all the base game content and I'm into the first expansion, Heavensward.

I started playing through Nioh the other day.

Enjoying it quite a lot mechanically, although I'm relying quite a lot on my guardian spirit at times. Did any of you ever get through the game?

Muss wrote:

I started playing through Nioh the other day.

Enjoying it quite a lot mechanically, although I'm relying quite a lot on my guardian spirit at times. Did any of you ever get through the game?

I got to the first boss and thought "F*** this". I really wanted to like it as the combat is satisfying (which I didn't get from Dark Souls) and it looks gorgeous, but the first boss did me like 10 times on the trot, and when I googled how to beat it, I realised that it's not even the ACTUAL first boss. Decided it wasn't for me!

Sorry, I realise this doesn't answer your question, as I didn't even get TO the game, let alone through it. But would love to hear thoughts on the first few hours and whether there are tricks or mechanics that would help.

I played quite a bit of Nioh but I stopped one day and I don’t know why.

I bounced hard off the Alpha version, but I'd imagine they'll have fine-tuned the difficulty since then as I found that brutally tough.

I've only played the alpha's & beta demos too, I like what I played and will get around to playing it properly one day but a thing that always bugged me was the game wants the combat to focus on the ki/stamina system yet I found it hard to keep an eye on that HUD element plus what your enemy is doing at times.

I played a bit of the first ones trials and same with the second one. I did like what I played of the second but would have to git gud eventually to finish it, and can't be arsed as so many other games I could be playing instead.