Topic: PlayStation 5 --OT--

@Th3solution Boy Aloy is not impressed.

@Th3solution First of all, I'd like to offer my sincere apologies to Aloy. Of course I recognised her beautiful, voluminous ginger hair, but my superiority complex got in the way of acknowledging her for the true star she is. I prioritised making fun of you and hurt our beloved mascot in the process, for which I now recognise I am a truly evil person. I shall punish myself with five whips of the longest ginger hair extensions I can find and damn myself to exclusively playing LEGO Horizon Adventures for as long as I shall live.

Nomenclature... searching brain for definition

Bless the overlords at Google. That's a solid line-up to have been into back in the day! It's also how I have now learned Gran Turismo has its origins in the Japanese gaming industry. Never had a clue. There's definitely aspects of back in the day that I wish we'd get back, such as the lack of subscription services or the effort put into the physical releases... but I think it'd be hard to say that we're not living in a better age overall now. The whole indie space has been a true marvel for the industry and simply would not have been possible back then. And like you said, the way games from other countries are much more universal nowadays and porting is a lot less spotty is only ever a benefit to the gamer. There's plenty of JRPGs available now on storefronts most people have never heard of, which back in the day would've just been stuck in Japan! I did listen to some Persona video essays recently, and I was surprised to find out that Persona 2 was actually two games. Does that have something to do with "the version you got" as you mentioned? Was only the first part available in the US, or were there significant changes made overall for the Western release?

Haha, when you've hit your senior years, you're going to love all the games about elderly care homes! It'll be a blast. On that note, Wayward Strand seems like the perfect game for you. I'm still young enough that these teenager narratives can feel relatable to me, but I'm definitely starting to reach the point where it's less and less so too. When Persona 5 first came out and got popular, I remember being very intrigued by the whole school setting, while nowadays I've started viewing it more as a negative. If I want to spend money to go to school, I'll simply go get a masters or something! That said, if the characters are worthwhile, I think any setting can work for a narrative. There'll always just be a more personal interest in some concepts than others, and Metaphor appealed to me a lot more in this case. Hence why I prioritised that immediately when it came out, rather than having it stuck on my eternal wishlist alongside their other games.

Yeah, I don't think I've ever really played any game that had that same system as Metaphor. That said, I also haven't played all too many games where grinding is expected, so I guess it wouldn't be necessary in most. I think you'd really appreciate the mechanics if and when you eventually get around to it. Definitely something I hope more JRPGs will start adopting! It's just such an appreciated time-save, and if there's one thing I cannot stand in games, it's when they unnecessarily elongate my time with it. I have plenty of games to get through, you don't need to artificially make yours longer just so I can "feel" I got more money's worth out of it or whatever!

@Tjuz Haha! Well, I hope your lashings taught you a lesson. As far as Aloy and I are concerned, your penitence is sufficient. 😄

And yeah, ‘nomenclature’ is the term I used, but I mean the jargon, the lingo, the lexicon of a series that is unique to it. Persona and SMT share some of the same terms, if I recall correctly, so that it feels familiar. Like names of demons, names of spells and their upgrades, etc. Final Fantasy a has its own set of terms to mean “level 2 fire attack” which is different from Persona’s or Star Ocean’s or Dragon Quest’s or whatever, despite the basic spell being the same thing across games. Kind of like how all games have Experience Points, some call it XP, or Skill Points, or Souls, or Blood Echoes, or whatever. Same for money within a game - it may be called Gil, or Gold, or Shards, or Credits, etc. So whenever you play any FF game, or Persona game, there’s some familiarity where you inherently know what they’re talking about if you’ve played other games in the series due the shared creative vocabulary and naming conventions.

With regard to Persona 2, I don’t know the history perfectly, but I do believe the two games that have the Persona 2 title are completely different games (but maybe somehow connected…?) Doing a quick google reminder search I find that I have misremembered — I think that we got both P2 games localized eventually, but there was a remake of one that maybe didn’t come over. The first P2 was “Innocent Sin” and the second “Eternal Punishment”. I honestly can’t remember which I played and maybe I ended up playing both. They all blur together with some of the other SMT games that I tried during that time period.

@Th3solution Ah, loud and clear. I did hear some discussion recently (I don't remember where) that Metaphor also recycles a lot of the jargon from Persona and SMT, so this checks out! I do think it's funny when a game goes clearly out of its way to come up with a new name for any currency just to be different. Like in the Star Ocean franchise, the money is called "fol". Apparently it's derived from Latin, but it doesn't really feel like that naming convention is inherent to its world rather than the devs just not wanting to call it "gold" or the like. Skill points are just skill points though, so their "not like the other girls"-energy had a limit!

What a mess with the release of Persona 2. Upon further Googling out of curiosity, it seems like the first part of it was released exclusively in the West with the remake you mentioned. It had never been localised or released before, but the direct sequel to the game was localised and released at release. Crazy! It's a good thing Japanese games are way more consistent in their Western releases nowadays. I didn't know the PSP was such a breeding ground for early remakes either! Between this and Star Ocean: First Departure, it must've been a bit of a trend back then as it is now. I wonder if that older Persona 2 remake holds up as well as Star Ocean does.

@Tjuz I’ve wondered too about how well the old Persona games hold up, as in the first one and the two P2’s. We know P3 hold up well. And glad to hear Star Ocean seems to as well.

If there’s an old JRPG that I’d like to revisit though, it would be Vagrant Story. Once if my gaming regrets is that I never finished that. I really only played it for a handful of hours but it has some real interesting tweaks in the jrpg formula that I think still hold up as unique. Maybe they’ll eventually port it (or remake it) to modern consoles. It’s often listed as one of the greatest games but I don’t think it sold well enough to get ongoing attention.

@Th3solution I've only ever heard good things about Vagrant Story! I wouldn't put it past Square Enix to pop out one of their JRPG remakes they like to do eventually. If they've done Romancing SaGa 2 and Live A Live, then I don't see a good reason why they couldn't do Vagrant Story. I feel like that game's reputation precedes itself more so than the others, though I might be wrong after only getting into the JRPG space more recently. I see that VS is also more bite-sized, much like the first Star Ocean, comparatively to other JRPGs. I appreciate the shorter runtime in a genre where length seems to be king. Was there any particular reason you stopped playing it back in the day, or just one of those occasions where you never meant to stop but it still happened?

@Tjuz I can’t fully remember, but it was one of those situations where I never meant to stop but somehow I fell away from it. Maybe it was other games, maybe it was something going on in real life, I’m not fully sure. It may have been a combination of things. One of many such games over the years that fell by the wayside. One common element of some of these games I never completed is when they release close to the end of the generation and I move on to the new console. So many games have suffered that fate. The PS2 had backwards compatibility to play PS1 discs though, so I can’t see that would be the issue but it may have contributed too.

So according to Jason Schreier PS is abondaning PC port strategy and Nixxes is the next on the chopping blog.

I'm glad their focus is on "pure console" like good old days but I would like to see Nixxes help other instead of shutting down. Guys in there are very talented from what we see on PC ports of theirs.

This is maybe one example where shutting the studio makes sense if, IF, they are absorbing all of the actaul talent into their other studios. Maybe eventually Bluepoint will make sense IF they truly do make sure the actual talent are still employed. Although you think that they could have maybe survived for now and had a go at making a normal game before being dissolved if the live service brainrot hadn't got to Hermen too. That will still be the sticking factor for public perception.

But... No more in-house remakes. No more SP PC ports. It kind of makes sense if SIE does focus on premium PlayStation experiences. Or even AA PlayStation experiences to make up for lost time.

Main issue then being that live-service 'reaching' still makes the least sense of all and is the reason they wasted all that time and money. Maybe they have truly learned something this year. But we won't be seeing the results, if they truly have, for many more years.

Focusing on console for SP is positive though, and would be far more clear a message than Xbox is giving. Almost like "PlayStation wants to be PlayStation again" because being PlayStation is what made them successful.

@Ravix I agree that my hope is for the talent to remain in house for BP and Nixxes (if indeed that is going to happen) and I heard a lot of people talking about how the BP closure isn’t that bad because Hulst said they were going to try to keep around the best talent from the studio. The problem is, BP is (was) in Texas. Most of their other studios are in California and the West Coast (with I think one on the East Coast). So it’s like asking someone to move from London to Moscow, distance wise. Shoot, Bend and Sucker Punch are both far northwest, so even more like 3000 km (London to Istanbul?) I think many of the employees would rather find another tech job in Austin (which is a fairly large center for the tech industry with lots of other opportunity) as opposed to picking up their family and moving 2300 km away, and to a more expensive place to live (West Coast state taxes and cost of living tend to be higher) Not to mention trying to transfer to Liverpool or Amsterdam.
Unless they can stay and work remote, I guess. I have no idea how often that’s an option.

@Th3solution yeah, that is a good point, too. It would have to be an ideal world scenario, and it won't be. Again, the best thing would have been to not have Hermen s*** all that money down the toilet and have his talented devs work on something good instead, something that they specialise in. There still needs to be accountability for that. I can't believe there's no one else in SIE that has a vision for how to drive them forward rather than scrabble and beg for some forced GaaS model.

In an alternate world Concord was a single player,.story driven space-heist game with an optional multilayer element and we'd all be playing it. I still can't believe they put SIE cinematic effort and budget into that bland shooter that people would skip cutscenes for anyway (if they actually wanted to play it, that is) and I can believe even less how those in charge didn't realise it makes no sense to be making that game that way.

Can you remember the announcement trailer for that one? 😅 the realisation took seconds as our gamer brains go from 'oh Sony is making a guardians of the galaxy?', to 'oh no, that stuff is just hiding a pointless, repetitive shooter that will be unrelated to any of the cutscenes anyway, byeeeeeee'

I still believe it should be studied. Hermen got conned and must have not had a single critical thought about why it might not work. And I also can't beleive people bought in to it not being liked because of pronouns of purple aliens or whatever. I hate that these narratives take over, when the real issue is just total lack of critical thinking, but I suppose the two go hand in hand 😅

@Ravix If Marathon and Hunter’s Gathering bomb then I’ll almost feel sorry for Hulst and his cronies. The early reactions to Marathon seem shaky. This could get ugly.

I do agree on the accountability though. It’s rubs me the wrong way when companies or executives blame end users or the consumers for their failings. Like “This isn’t our fault. We’re just reacting to player trends and what users want. You guys asked for this” or “You folks didn’t spend enough money on these games so we had to shut down these studios and go this direction”. I’d like to see a little more accountability like “We misread user trends and made a poor investment in this studio or this project.” Or “We grew too fast and made bad business decisions and poorly forecasted the economy so we have to downsize.” The accountability seems replaced with finger pointing, often directed at you and me as the problem, rather than the suits, who apparently always make the correct decisions even when losing billions and laying off thousands. That, or we get a “Welp, it sucks that it’s turned out this way, but this is how business goes” where the blame is put more on the system. Deflection and scapegoating are more what we see rather than accountability.

https://www.eurogamer.net/we-dont-want-to-mislead-players-con...

No playable Jesse
No parry
Not soulslike

Sounds great!