Topic: What PS4 Games Are You Currently Playing?

So, I've started 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim on the side as it's an easy game to quickly play a chapter of when I have some time, and... I have no clue what's going on. Don't get me wrong. I'm absolutely enjoying it so far and find both the visual novel and RTS parts of them very enjoyable, but I'm roughly six hours in and none the wiser. I imagine it'll take a while before any of this starts making total sense to me. The way it lets you play it in your own order is fascinating though, and I wonder how much of my confusion would be allayed if I had simply played in different orders or prioritised specific people. Not that I'm trying to min-max this game as I think that effort would go in vain, so I'll just keep going as I am and assume that eventually everything will click into place.

It is very satisfying to get small answers here and there while playing through though, and I'm starting to have some theories of my own. I think most of them will be proven untrue however, as it just keeps introducing new story elements that leave me flabbergasted. Like... what do you mean Natsuno Minami is in the 1940s, the 1980s and and the 2100s? What is going on here? Not to mention my recent thought being that maybe Chihiro is Morimura, but I think I may have lost the plot with that one. I'm highly invested, so I have no doubt I'll get all answers in time. It might be a while though. I've committed to alternating battles/VN segments, and within the VN segments alternating between every character. I've now done two chapters of each bar three of them. Not sure if that just makes it all the more messy or if I'm going the right way about it in trying to see how everyone connects before diving in deeper into their personal stories!

@Tjuz Ah, … 13 Sentinels. Another game that I never finished. 😕
For a long time I kept trying to keep it on my rotation to play but finally I gave up. Every now and then I think about trying it again. It’s been a few years since my last session with it and I completely forgot what was going on and how to play it.

I think that the very open nature of how one can approach the game is one reason I fell off. Like you, I was trying to alternate story bits with combat in an attempt to keep it feeling even, along with dipping into the different characters in a rotation. I made it far enough to see little snippets of connecting story between them all but it wasn’t enough to hold my attention, I guess.

I’ll be curious to hear what you make of it in the end. Perhaps if you really enjoy it then I’ll be motivated to pull it out of the pile of abandoned games.

@Th3solution I am so sorry to keep triggering your backlog PTSD with nigh any post I make on here! Maybe you'll have to press the ignore button on me sooner rather than later.

Definitely seems like an impossible game to get into after you've been out of it for a while. Much the same thing as restarting the TV show Dark myself on three occasions and still never getting past the finale of season 1... I've run into a wall with the whole alternating plan now, though! After my last play session earlier, combat has now been locked off until I reach 30% completion in the "adventure" portion. I am currently at 18%, so I guess that'll take a while before I can continue alternating the combat!

I'll let you know how I get on with it (or if it'll join my backlog of games I'll never get back to.) (waves over to Divinity: Original Sin 2)

@Tjuz 😂 No worries. And no ignore needed.

It is uncanny how there’s been several references that are included in my back catalogue recently. 😅

I wonder how far along my percentage was for 13 Sentinels… 🤔 I feel like I was probably about that far — maybe 15-20%? I think I also was trying to go for the platinum since I think it’s a fairly easy one, and sometimes that gets in the way of organic game progress. But reviewing my trophy list, I really only have the trophies for completing many character prologues and for doing 100 thought cloud interactions.

Have you played or considered Unicorn Overlord? People have really liked that one. I’m a little reluctant to play it due to the supposed time investment required, but it seems interesting. One thing about Vanillaware, despite their art style being very similar across games, they really innovate the gameplay.

@Th3solution Yeah, 15-20% is still fairly early on all things considering. I have logged about 8 hours and something so far, and that is with alternating the battles to the best of my ability. Since you said you tried keeping it in your rotation for a while, I imagine you most likely made it to around this point somewhere! I've had to look up the platinum since I'm not a trophy hunter myself, but yeah, that seems rather easy. No missables, and the vast majority of trophies will be gained just by playing through it normally. At least with a trophy list like that, I would think it shouldn't affect your playstyle heavily. Way different than when you get trophies like in The Witcher 3 where it randomly decides you need to slide down/fall off somewhere from a specific height.

I have Unicorn Overlord on my radar! I saw it when browsing through Vanillaware's other titles. Is it really that long of a game? I guess I just somewhat assumed it'd be similar in length to 13 Sentinels, but since it advertises itself as a strategy RPG, it makes sense if it's a lot on the longer side. My one caveat with that one I have thus far (aside from wanting to finish this one first for sure) is that I heard the story is not quite up to par despite the great presentation. I think I'll still give it a shot eventually though with how much I've been enjoying this one! GrimGrimoire OnceMore (which is a remaster of an older Vanillaware title for PS4/PS5) also caught my eye. I'm always up for some magical adventures, and by all accounts, that's one of their shorter games. Maybe one to look up for you as well if you haven't heard about it already!

(And after looking up the trophies just now... it's a guaranteed Platinum by the time you finish the game!)

@Tjuz The estimates through howlongtobeat have Unicorn Overlord in the 60 hour neighborhood but I think I’d see people reporting taking upwards of 70-80 hours with it. Probably double the length of 13S anyway.
I’m not sure how strong the story is, but I get the feeling it’s good and the characters are a real highlight, if I recall people’s reactions correctly.

As for GrimGrimoire OnceMore (certainly the most awkwardly named Vanillaware game 😅) I had not heard of it, or if I had it didn’t stick in my memory. Looking it up, the game looks very nice, especially for a PS2 remaster, although maybe a bit pricey for what it is ($50). And it does look like it’s a shorter (15ish hours) experience, which is more along the lines with some of their early output like Dragon’s Crown and Muramasa. Speaking of, I played both of those and enjoyed both, although I never finished Muramasa. I got stuck not knowing where to go to progress and became frustrated, as I tend to do with these 2D side scrollers, especially if there’s a lot of backtracking required.

The only other one of their main releases I never tried was Odin Sphere, which is apparently excellent. I just never got to it. And over time I’ve drifted away from 2D games, much preferring the modern 3D architecture. But I try to keep an open mind about it all.

Oh, and regarding the 13S trophies, I thought there was one or two battle related trophies that did require some specific skill or outcome, but I must be misremembering then.

You should totally play Odin Sphere if you can (or at least look up a playthrough) @Tjuz & @Th3solution as it's one of my favourite games of all time.

Sadly all incarnations of Odin Sphere are trapped to PlayStation hardware. (The original to the PS2 and the Leifthrasir remake/Update to PS3/PS4/Vita).

It's inspired by the epic "Der Ring des Nibelungen" by Wagner so there's a heavy norse mythos tied up with Shakespearean tragedy.

The english voice cast is amazing too with Liam O'Brien, Michelle Ruff, Yuri Lowninthal, Stephanie Sheh, Derek Stephen Prince, Karen Strassman and so many others... They really nail the tone well.

The only negative I'd say with Odin Sphere is that you'll see the most of the main levels 5 times at least thanks to the game's set up of 5 different interconnected narratives and the small pool of areas (I believe at the time with Odin Sphere's original PS2 release it was their first game and they had more artists then programmers).

And yeah it still looks gorgeous to this day... That artstyle is iconic~!

@HallowMoonshadow Back when I was looking to keep my Vita alive with games to play on it, Odin’s Sphere was one I considered. But over the last few years I lost interest in the Vita and haven’t turned it on for ages now. Maybe I need to rectify that. Thanks for the recommendation all the same!

Returned to Borderlands 2 this week after having played a bit back in 2021. Solid game with some good gunplay and enemy variety. Not sure if I’m as into the series as a lot of people seem to be (judging by the sales figures for Borderlands 4 recently) but I am enjoying it for sure.

Big thanks to @CaptD whose already plat’d the game twice (PS3 & PSVR) and who’s decided to not only triple-dip to play through the whole thing again with me in co-op… but also to be very patient this morning and early afternoon, when we had to play through the same section around 50 times hoping that an RNG enemy would spawn (for a challenge, which in turn is part of a trophy for completing all challenges). I can only imagine how bored Cap was, who’s already spawned this guy for his previous plats, as I myself found it absolute gaming torture… and this was my first (& only) time. The right-honourable Jimmy Jenkins did eventually spawn thank god, and we were the able to finally move forward. ****ing rng! 🤬

@graymamba
Ha ha one in five chance, more like one in fifty five. It must be my bad luck plus your bad luck and we wound up with bad luck squared, I can’t remember it being anywhere near as bad as it was today on my previous occasions, Randy Pitchford is definitely off my Christmas card list.

He was never on mine tbh… he is certainly now on my 💩-list though 😏

@Th3solution Well, I'm glad to hear you've heard overall very positive things about Unicorn Overlord! It's not like I actively followed its reception when it came out, so I'll take your word for it. Might be a while before I get to it, and it probably depends on how 13 Sentinels nails the landing or not for whether I'll prioritise it any time soon. I'll always have a harder time convincing myself to start such a big time commitment, but I'm intrigued by it for sure.

Haha, GrimGrimoire OnceMore is definitely a mouthful. Wonder if that has something to do with it overall being a rather unknown title despite Vanillaware's pedigree. Doesn't even look like PushSquare has a review for it at all! $50 is easily way too much to ask for a smaller game like that that initially flopped anyway. I've seen it come up for a tenner or so here in Germany, so I'd say that's much more reasonably priced. I haven't really looked into the other ones you mentioned in any depth. Since I'm not currently in possession of any PlayStation console, I've just taken a closer look to the ones also available on Switch, but if there's ever a Switch port or I get back on the PlayStation train, they'll have my attention for sure.

@HallowMoonshadow I had no clue Odin Sphere had such an established cast of voice actors! Is this one of those cases where they did a re-dub for the remaster as well, or are they the same voice cast in every version? I'm not actually familiar with Der Ring des Nibelungen, but having lived in Berlin for somewhat over 2 years now, maybe I ought to be to get better integrated with German culture! Maybe this is one of the easy gateways into doing so. The thought of going through the same levels multiple times through an interconnected narrative at least doesn't put me off. Like I said above, if ever I am able to get my hands on it through whichever console I'll own, I'll definitely give it a looksie!

@graymamba Is this the first Borderlands you've played? I've only started the second one in co-op on several occasions as well, but never got too far. That series always struck me as the kind where if you've played one, you've seen it all. I played the first one in full with the same buddy, so when I realised the sequel was mostly more of the same, I quickly fizzled out on it. That said, the series clearly has a dedicated fanbase like you said, so there's plenty of people who do enjoy it for what it has to offer! I'm glad you were able to play it in co-op despite the suffering you've had to go through with CaptD! I always imagined these games to be much more fun with a friend, but I've never played it single-player to be able to test that theory.

@Tjuz I did actually play the original too back on ps3 (on an old profile) but I don’t remember a great deal… apart from thinking it was at the very least okay. I do remember thinking back then that I’d have liked to have played it in co-op but didn’t have the opportunity back then to test it out.

Having done so now (and back in 2021 when I initially played a bit with @mcnoisy) it’s made for co-operative play. Apart from the stress of rng enemy spawns (and bloody rng npc spawns too yesterday!) it’s been a good laugh… and I don’t think it’d feel that way in solo. I’ll be in no real rush to play another but maybe in a year or two I’ll be relatively excited to see how B3 turned out (and then maybe B4 sometime after that).

You're welcome @Th3solution! I have no idea about how well it plays on the vita... But it should be fine... Maybe? 😅

They're in both the PS2 version and the Leifthrasir remaster/make. They did add a couple of minor characters in Leifthrasir so a few new voices were added and maybe they changed a couple of background characters as well? (It's been a while since I played it) But the main cast is the same for sure.

I was not familiar with Der Ring des Nibelungen at all when I played Odin Sphere. Either version! I only learnt something about it within the past few years and yeah... It only takes very light inspiration from it.

You can actually play the PS2 version in the Leifthrasir version from what I recall (And actually at a stable framerate I believe as again they had very few programmers compared to artists when they did the PS2 version) but the Leifthrasir version completely overhauls the actiony beat 'em up like gameplay with a bunch of skills for everyone, adds a couple new bosses, the artwork is spruced up and all sorts.

Every character plays differently so even though you'll have to go through the same areas it should hopefully do enough to get over the small pool of areas.

If you ever get round to it, I hope you end up liking it!

@graymamba I'm glad that the co-op has helped to get you more invested in the game! It is undeniably fun to just be shooting enemies with a friend, no matter the setting. Even the major criticism of Borderlands 3 with how cringy its story allegedly is might be offset by the fact that you could laugh at it with a friend! I'd imagine one day I'll be back in that world when just needing something mindless to play with a friend as well. Co-op games in general are always in high demand as far as I'm concerned! I had no clue the series was so uptight with RNG spawns though. Or well, I didn't know that the RNG spawns were even a thing to begin with. I'll pray for you and your partners that from now on, the odds may ever be in your favour!

***

@HallowMoonshadow Sounds like the Leifthrasir version is essentially just the way to go then! I'd assume so, but you hear more and more often how ''remasters'' turn out to be a worse version of the original. It's cool that they not only let you play the new and improved version, but also the game exactly as it used to be on the PS2 with less technical difficulties! I'll definitely take a look at it. If I start going through Vanillaware's whole library over time, it might just be worth it to see if I could possibly emulate it as well. I have heard that for many it's their magnum opus, so I would say it's a priority as far as those developers are concerned!

@Tjuz in fairness mate, the rng of various rare enemy and npc spawns would effect nobody other than the obsessed platinum hunters like myself… and the a lot of those would’ve had more favourable luck than I.

As for the rubbish story of Borderland 3… except for very rare games and games series, I pay very little attention to a games narrative. I couldn’t tell you what the hell is going on in B2 and I’ve been playing it all week! 😂

@graymamba Haha, totally fair. It's a shame you've gotten so unlucky with the RNG thus far, but let's hope it was simply a false start! And yeah, if you're not someone who cares really about the quality of a narrative in a game for the most part, then I'm sure it won't affect your enjoyment of the third game. By all accounts, the mechanics are incredibly refined and the best the series had to offer at the time! I do think the universe is ripe for good storytelling however, as I feel Tales from the Borderlands (as well as its controversial sequel) proved. I suppose I'll always be at odds with the franchise when it comes to their more mechanically focused nature in the main titles, but you should get more of a kick out of them at least! Not every game needs to cater towards me specifically after all... 😜

@Tjuz I actually have both Tales of… games, so maybe I’ll understand what I’m missing when I eventually get around to them. It’s a cool world for sure… it’s kinda like Mad Max if it was written by Mike Judge (which I’m all about tbh).

As someone who gamed from the ZX Spectrum (1982), games have always been about gameplay for me at least. It was almost a badge of honour back-in-the-day to not care about the graphics and favour the mechanics… not that I know when your day was, nor am I judging honestly 😊. I just honestly find it really intriguing how pivotal storytelling is within gaming for many people these days. I mean don’t get me wrong, there are games which hit different when I’m engaged with the narrative but it takes a real lot for me to not just mash-through cut-scenes till I can kill-**** again. 😅

@graymamba I would've never put the Mad Max if it was Mike Judge together, but I feel like you hit the head on the nail with that one! Worth trying either one (though obviously I´d start with the more broadly liked original) if and when you ever feel settling in for a narrative adventure.

Haha, no offense or judgment taken whatsoever. You correctly assumed that the ZX Spectrum would´ve been before my time, as in all honesty, I'm not sure I've ever actually heard of it to begin with. I am currently in precisely my mid-20's! My first console was a SNES, thanks to it being gifted second-hand to me by my gaming grandma. I at least have some experience with when games where way more about mechanics than narrative thanks to that, because (at least the games I played at the time) hardly had a story at all. Or if they did, like in the case of Illusion of Gaia/Time, I was too young to understand how to even progress it. I think I spent dozens of hours just walking through the opening area with my character talking to all the NPCs and making up my own stories just because I thought the game looked pretty!

Suffice to say that I'm definitely one of the people for whom narrative eventually became of utmost importance to however. Even with my humble beginnings on that console or a DS, I think I was always destined to become more of a story-first player. As a young child in my first year of primary school, I'd already be writing Harry Potter fan-fictions or spending my afternoons sitting in our kitchen improvising songs and lyrics and writing them down! It's always been my creative outlet, so I'm not surprised it became such a big deal in gaming for me either as I got older and was able to engage with them better. Anyway, sorry, didn't mean to turn this into a whole personal ramble! But essentially: I'm glad we're able to prioritise different aspects in games and still find common ground, haha!

@graymamba
“Pray very little to narrative...mash through cut-scenes”
Clearly Devs feel the same way and they don’t want you to waste time watching cutscenes otherwise they would pause the speed run timers (looking at you Naughty Dog among many others).