Topic: What PS4 Games Are You Currently Playing?

@HallowMoonshadow I always find it difficult to break habits when it comes to party members. There are poor, neglected characters in every Mass Effect and Dragon Age with whom I have no issue, and I'd love to spend more time with them, but I just love others more. Of course, there's also the occasional Shana who I'm more than happy to sideline, too! Bravo on making the effort, at least!

You mention the translation being rough; is it an unintentionally funny "all your base are belong to us" kinda rough, or just bad and annoying, and therefore distracting?

I'm also one of those people who generally likes everyone in the party to be around the same level @RogerRoger so it's kinda annoying when Dart can't be taken out and will be vastly overlevelled to the rest of the cast.

Sooooo... I kinda had to kill him in order for Shana to get ALL the exp (As EXP is a shared pool dived between the three party members rather then everyone getting the full amount) to mass level her

Apparently Shana's the character to use for speedrunning though because of her ridiculous magic stat and thanks to magic being very viable in LoD compared to other RPG's.

... Also I might be being rather thorough and using all the characters for impressions/review purposes? Not promising anything but who knows?

As for the translation? It can be a little Google translate if you know what I mean with it being robotic and literal. Sentences can run over with a lack of syntax and all that jazz too.

So it can be a bit hit and miss on whether meaning or character's and personality is lost/muddied. There were defintely better translations/localisations at the time.

The voice acting meanwhile (Yes this PS1 JRPG game has some limited voice acting) is amazing. Whilst there is actually a decent voice or two... It's terrible otherwise but in THE best way possible

@HallowMoonshadow Urgh. I also hate not being able to keep everybody at the same level. Especially when you know a game's gonna lock you into using specific people at specific points. The fact that you had to kill one character to bring another up to speed, though...?!

Oh sweet, a full review would be real interesting! Although no pressure, of course!

And I do love me some "so bad it's good" voice acting! That'd more than make up for any shortcomings in the script, methinks. I'm definitely surprised that there's even any voice acting to speak of, and can only imagine that its rarity at the time added to the unintentional hilarity!

I did what had to be done

The VA is only in the CGI cutscenes and for attack call outs.

They call out the additions (your main attack in battles) when you sucessfully complete them. I was gonna link a video yesterday showcasing this (and I heard the Japanese versions for the first time which were equally amazing) but it did have spoilers in so I'll see about finding something.

I'll at least do an impressions piece after finishing off disc one and plop something showcasing the VA in there

Just finished Resident Evil 4 Remake. The original one was a masterpiece and this one is masterpiece as well.

I played it on a PS4 Pro. Yes, the graphics are downgraded compared to the PS5/PC but it was so enjoyable to play on performance settings. I had no issues at all! No slowdowns or crashes! No updates either, played it only from the disc installation!

I’ve been playing Valkyria Chronicles, The Messenger & still efootball.

I’m terrible at Valkyria Chronicles. The missions are rather long & even if it looks like you’re doing alright everything can change in one bad turn. Also when playing the map first time there’s no way of telling when an ‘event’ is triggered & completely changes the battlefield.

The Messenger is stunning. I’m only a couple of hours in, but I can see this game being one of my favourites for the year.

Efootball at this point will probably be my most played game of all time. Been playing it everyday for about a month now.
Even though I’ve completed the regular pass (100 matches) weeks ago I log in, get the bonus & play a couple of matches if no events are on.
It literally has me going through the motions as I’m eagerly awaiting for the next division & the new passes to refresh.

@Fight_Teza_Fight The first playthrough of a map in VC is largely to feel out the best possible way to blitz it and get high marks.

Or you could just scout rush with Alicia and trivialize the game's entire difficulty structure, but I've never enjoyed doing that.

Gone back to finish off Far Cry: New Dawn this week, after playing around 5 hours a few years back. I’ve always quite liked Far Cry games but I remember not feeling this one too much back in 2020 due to the RPG-lite elements in terms of levelled enemies. I don’t know if it’s just getting back into a Far Cry for the first time in three years, or if the whole levelled enemies thing wasn’t that bad in the first place but I’ve enjoyed it. Finished off the story and most of the side stuff this last couple of days… just a little mopping up left.

Valkyria chronicles is in backlog and has been for a few years, I really should get round to it.
I will remember to use Alicia. 😃

@colonelkilgore I've always liked the Far cry games and did enjoy New Dawn, I think fc5 is my favourite mainly due to the planes. I've yet to play Fc6.

@CaptD yeah I loved 5 too, definitely my favourite of the series… though I would add the the level 3 expeditions in New Dawn have been awesome too. Funny you should mention 6, the only reason I’ve gone back to finish of New Dawn is as I’ve really wanted to get into 6 but not before I’ve taken care of unfinished business. I’ll be well up for some co-op on 6 as and when… if you’re keen 👍

@colonelkilgore Definitely up for that, with Ubisoft games I normally wait for the Gold edition and did actually see a Amazon Germany deal today on a deals website for £20, however with PS++ I'm waiting for it to appear on there as Ubisoft did state that they were going to dump a load of titles on the service.

@CaptD yeah no rush dude, New Dawn has satiated my Far Cry-jones for while I reckon.

@colonelkilgore Glad its been a winner mate! I’m still open to a little co-op incidentally if you’re free at some point.

I’m also eyeing up 6 in the current sale, so may jump in with yourself and @CaptD if and when you get round to it 👍(if you’ll have me that is 😉)

@AgentCooper yeah I’ll keep it installed so as and when you wanna get the online trophy popped, give me a shout 👍

@Ralizah Yes I’ve found out that out now. It’s a bit annoying because I try to save everyone regardless.

I know that this game is beloved, but it seems like the series has fallen off now. Any reason why? The art style is charming & the gameplay is challenging but fair.

@Fight_Teza_Fight It's hard to shake the feeling that Valkyria Chronicles 4 (which was designed as a companion piece to the original, btw; same war, different perspective) didn't sell as well as SEGA wanted. Which is a shame, because, for me, at least, it took what worked in the original and improved it significantly with some revamped elements. It was my 2018 GOTY, easily.

Before that, they dabbled in truncated handheld entries (one of which was never even officially localized) and weird spinoffs that nobody wanted.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake continues to amaze me. Does it stay that strong all the way through?

@Kidfried I've always maintained that an experience that is 95% amazing can't be ruined by the last 5% being bad or underwhelming.

FF7R really put that belief to the test for me.

Still probably my favorite game from 2020, though. I really need to grab the new version with the Yuffie expansion.

@Kidfried I loved it from start to finish enough to play it on the PS4 and then again when the PS5 version came out.

@Kidfried Glad to hear you’re enjoying it! It does have some weird moments and the final chapter is very divisive but I loved it overall and have played through it three times which is unheard of for me these days.

I will use the chance to make the same post I make every few months and say hard mode is where the game really shined for me as it forces you to use all the combat mechanics in the game. On my first run, I pretty much stuck to using Cloud with the occasional input from others but Hard mode makes you utilise every character and really think about how to beat fights.

The DLC is fine but I wasn’t overly impressed with it to be honest.