Topic: PS Extra and Premium, What are you playing?

I'm playing Yakuza LAD now and enjoying it so far. My biggest complaint is the lack of full voice acting. It is annoying when a character says the first word than the rest is text. I'd rather they don't say anything if it's not going to be fully voiced. When at first it happened, I thought the game glitched. It's a minor annoyance to what is turning out to be a fun game, noting I'm only 5 hours in.

@Kairu
Yeah it's an interesting enough experience and like you say very short. I did it a few weeks ago and think first play through was around 5-6 hours or so, then another couple for collectables and trophy clean up. I enjoyed it well enough.

@Elodin Tales of Arise did a similar thing, where are lot of the optional dialogue isn't fully voiced. I understand that budgets are limited and there's a ton of talking in these games, so I didn't mind it that much personally.

@Elodin It's pretty standard fare for the Yakuza series, probably because of the sheer amount of dialogue. I think Y6 was the only to be fully voiced.

Not that I minded too much as I always played with Japanese dialogue so it meant I could skip through the written dialogue quickly.

@Thrillho @Voltan yeah, I've noticed it in other games as well. It just bothers me. Not a terrible complaint just a minor one. Still a great game.

A game I want to recommend to adventure fans is 11-11 Memories Retold. Beautiful WW1 story game.

@dschons agreed! I played it on PS4, and it is highly recommended.

The art style may seem a little odd, but once the story gets going it is beautiful.

@dschons @HarmanSmith Thanks for the recommendation. I’ve been on a WWI kick lately and was not aware of this game. I haven’t upgraded to Extra yet, but here’s another game to put on the list for when I do it eventually.

@Th3solution Hope you like it! As a bit of trivia, it has Elijah Wood's voice acting.

When I saw this title on PS Extra/Premium (I think here it is called "Deluxe" - man, Sony did mess up the tiers by region) I thought "well, that's a nice title I hope more people will play".

Now, I am starting "Last Day of June", one which I found interesting since I saw it, but I never get to buy.

@Th3solution Very welcome! Hope you'll enjoy it. It has a nice bit of historic background information when you find collectibles as well.

@HarmanSmith IIRC correctly, Last Day of June features music by Steven Wilson, which got me interested. Good to know it's on the service too.

@Voltan You're right! That's a nice plus (even if some of the themes, IIRC, are "recycled" from Hand Cannot Erase, methinks).

Anyway, it is worth a look

Playing through Assassin's Creed Valhalla. I've played the others on PC, but had gone right off the series (even if Odyssey was decent). This is more of the same. It's alright. It's still not really Assassin's Creed, to me.

I’ve been playing Lego Star Wars III, which I started off a bit unsure about but now I’m totally convinced that it’s really quite good. I think the problem was that I did the Count Dooku missions first, which were primarily the RTS-esque levels, and I really dislike RTS games. The General Grievous levels were a lot better and closer to the older Lego levels. The animations are really impressive actually, each lightsaber wielder feels different and the lightsabers even cause sparks when they brush against the environment. While I’ve only seen bits and pieces of the first season of the Clone Wars, I did recognise a few set pieces from the show and they totally nail the recreation. Each level is suitably epic due to the show following an anthology format, so you don’t have the slow build that a movie has. The scale of the levels is impressive even coming off some of the newer Lego games. It puts the Marvel ones to shame.

Think you said it was your favourite Lego game @RogerRoger and I can definitely see why! Just got the Asajj Ventress levels now and if they’re as good as the General Grievous levels then I could see it being pretty high in my personal ranking too.

@nessisonett Real glad you're enjoying the game, thanks for the tag! It's a shame that they don't strike a better balance between the various mission types, and that chasing Dooku leads to one RTS after another. I mean, their hands were obviously tied by the source material, but I do find some of the RTS level choices surprising. The PSP version demonstrates that linear, more traditional levels could've worked in their place, but I suppose it was one of the console version's big new gimmicks, so they wanted to implement it wherever possible (that, and I imagine it was quicker and easier to design).

And yeah, the care and attention given to each Jedi's lightsaber form feels fantastic. It's something that they remembered to carry forward for The Skywalker Saga, but it's less obvious to me in that game. Perhaps it's the combination of animation and voice acting, given that all the grunts and yelps are performed by The Clone Wars cast, or the fact that the moves were already exaggerated in the source material, so they're easier to recognisably translate. Anyway, whatever the reason, it really works!

Best of luck wrapping it all up, and hope you continue to enjoy, but brace yourself for more RTS gameplay if you're planning on making a platinum run, as there's a bit of a grind required.

After failing for about 90 minutes straight on the last Valkyrie in God of war, even on easy its a hell, which is the last trophy i need for the plat, I decided to start the next game Trials of Mana.Got added just this month on extra, but hadn't played it before. It looks pretty interesting. It's a remake of a classic JRPG. Haven't play any of the other Mana series,but since it's standalone that shouldn't matter. Hope this can take my mind of that valkyrie a bit, which i will try again later this week.

@Lavalera Trials is a cool game, quite a 'basic' JRPG - but in the best possible way. Not too much emphasis needed on skill traits or min/max etc, and it is pretty faithful to the original game (from which this remaster/remake is based on). I played Trials on Switch during the pandemic, and its definitely a good time. It is quite easy, so I'd recommend playing on hard difficulty to get the most out of it. Quite replayable as well, considering each playthrough requires you choose 3 characters from a selection of 6.

Secret of Mana (the prequel game) is still my favorite game on the SNES, and well worth a play if you enjoy this new version of Trials

@CJD87 The basic JRPG feel is what i was kinda looking for, the more relaxing type like DQ11, which i didn't play that long ago. So good to hear it's pretty basic and not to complex. Started my playthrough on normal, i'm generally not the biggest fan of challenge in games, so i'll see how i fare with it. Since I have to do 3 playthroughs for the plat anyways, if I decide to go for that, i can decide if my first one was to easy to do hard on the 2nd or 3rd one since i know the mechanics and such better then.

How is the quality on the secret and legend remasters/remakes? I don't own a switch so I'm limited to the Remake/remaster version and hearing mixed signals about them.

@Lavalera
Don't give up!
I remember exactly the same struggle with that b****. Way harder than the rest of the game, you just gotta time those dodges and stay away when necessary. If I managed it you can too.

@sorteddan Thanks for the vote of confidence m8! Normally i would have given up since i can get easily frustrated by these kind of fights. But i am trying to not let it get to me. I already looked up some tips for best gear and trying to level gear to level 9 an such. I just have to get her down. Biggest problem is, there isn't really a fixed pattern she is using, all her abilities i know by now, but the randomness is what gets me every time. But i'll find a way, just have to do it a few tries at a time and get a chillax game on the side to relax a bit after it when i failed, but i found that now haha