Topic: Your Latest PS4 Purchase

@nessisonett For me, I’m ecstatic that it’s not an RPG when it doesn’t need to be. I feel like RPGs are the new grey FPS and it’s shoehorned I’m so much. I get where you’re coming from since that used to be the series, but I’m just glad I don’t have to worry at all about stats or items.

@Jaz007 I guess there’s loads of JRPGs but there’s actually a real lack of good Tactical RPGs on PS4, XCOM and Valkyrie Chronicles are the only big ones I can think of.

@nessisonett Langrisser is similar to Fire Emblem and is good I’ve heard. You might want look at that one. A collection or something just came out for PS4.

Sakura Wars will be mine once it goes down in price a bit. SEGA burned me with the swift price drops to Valkyria Chronicles 4. Granted, the game was worth every cent I paid, but I'm not a big fan of the practice of punishing people who buy your games at launch.

Also not a fan of the move away from SRPG gameplay, but the rest of the package sounds like it'll be right up my alley.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Great! Particularly interested in hearing what you have to say about these games when you get around to them.

For a long time, access to the Danganronpa games were the best reason to own a Vita (besides Persona 4 Golden, that is). That's obviously not true anymore, but it still is the only device that can play them portably at this point in time.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy lol I have a big issue with playing too many games at the same time, since I tend to play something for a while, drop it, play other things, and then don't return to finish it for months. So I'll have anywhere between 7 - 12 games going at any one time.

@KratosMD Rondo and SotN are arguably the best exemplars of the two major schools of Castlevania game design. You're in for a treat.

I caved and bought Deracine for PSVR and also Sea of Solitude which will no doubt go straight into my indie backlog. These were part of the hidden gems sales which is pretty good right now.

Grabbed Saints Row IV on impulse off the PSN store sale for 5 bucks. Not that big of a Saint's fan, but I figured I'd give it a shot.

Not really a purchase per se given that I got it for free, but I have got Dreams, so I will probably give that a try later and see what all the fuss is about.

@Ralizah That’s literally me, I always have about 6 games at once. It’s worse given that I have games like FF7R, Death Stranding, DmC V etc just sitting on my hard drive while I play 4 hours of MLB The Show 20 a day despite the gameplay being basically broken.

@KratosMD Just play whoever you enjoy playing as. I completed the game multiple times with both characters, and they're both quite fun. The game is absolutely easier with Maria, but it's not like you're cheating yourself of the "proper" Castlevania experience. Even the cutscenes are somewhat different between characters. Play as her: if it felt too easy, you can replay the game as Richter.

@nessisonett I'm that way with Animal Crossing right now. I've made no progress on anything in days because I'm so damn busy picking fruit and tending to my town every day.

Well, I'm still messing around with the post-game/hard mode of FF7R, I guess. I'll be doing that for a while. Given how long we'll be waiting for a new FF7R title, I'm in no rush to 100%.

No problem! Hope you have a fun time with your PSP and Persona .

I love Dreams! It's essentially an indie game server, and all the games are free. I'm amazed by what people have created.

I down loaded The Council, love the game. Now one of my favorites on the PS4. It’s quite fun from what I I have played so far.

Just picked up Huntdown (came out today) - a couple of levels in, this is great! Perfect follow up after Streets of Rage 4. @themcnoisy I think you’d like this one, check it out!

@kyleforrester87 looks great. Ive played so many small games in a short space of time recently I'm gamed out!

May try to scrape a few Trophies off my backlog. And then play FF12 remaster. Then look back at the indie scene.

Does look good though, there was a game on a 16 bit computer were you can duck behind cover and in doorways in this style
, can't for the life of me remember the name and that was very difficult.

@Ralizah How would you describe the Danganronpa games? Are they RPGs?

@Draco_V_Ecliptic No. They're adventure games in the vein of Zero Escape or the Ace Attorney games.

I'll lay out the structure of the mainline games without specific spoilers for you.

You know the basic premise, right? Especially talented high school students are trapped in an environment like a facility or an island by a homocidal bear robot named Monokuma, who pushes the students to start killing one-another by promising to allow the murderer to escape if they can successfully evade being fingered for the crime.

You play as one of the trapped students, and gameplay is segmented into three phases within the mainline games.

In the exploration phases, you are able to explore the environment you're trapped in, talk to other students trapped in the facility/island/etc. with you and spend time with them (forming bonds with other students allows them to open up to you, and can unlock equippable skills that happen during trial gameplay). If you've ever played a Persona game, you might compare these relationship building sequences to the Social Links from those games. These sections are also home to visual novel segments where characters are talking to one-another and forwarding the plot.

After a murder is discovered, this phase ends, and you enter an investigation phase. If you're ever played an Ace Attorney game, you know what to expect. You visit areas connected to the murder and examine the environment for clues and evidence to use later on when you're trying to find the murderer.

The third phase is when you begin a class trial. In class trials, the characters will attempt to walk through the crime and use logic and evidence to discover who the culprit is (which is important, because one person participating in the trial is going to be the murderer and will attempt to fool everyone else). The general gameplay here is similar to Ace Attorney trials, where you'll scroll through a series of statements from other classmates and try to find something that either contradicts or corroborates existing evidence.

The trial sections are also home to a variety of minigames which you'll have to complete to advance further into the trial.

I mentioned skills. There are a number of gameplay elements to the trials I haven't really touched on, but skills can be unlocked throughout the game and equipped to your character, and these provide a variety of effects that alter the gameplay.

The appeal of the games are in the extensive world-building, vibrant characterizations, fun mystery writing, engaging trial gameplay, fantastic music/art design, and unexpected twists and turns that crop up throughout the games' stories. I want to emphasize that, despite the exploitation film sound of the description I provided, there's a lot to love here for people who enjoy speculative fiction.

@KratosMD Myself and Foxy have both played it. It’s fine for what it is. The controls can be a bit of a nightmare at times but it’s a fun game still and a relatively easy platinum if that’s your kind of thing.

Won't be playing them straight away (Xenoblade Chronicles), but I just got Days Gone and Death Stranding which were £13.99 and £21.99 respectively from Argos. It will be interesting giving them a whirl.