Topic: What PS5 Games Are You Currently Playing?

Advancing in The Witcher 3 but the game throws too much at you from the start. Also, the controls and movement are clunky.

And I hope the other zones feel better than Velen ... what a depressing HOLE!

Currently I am doing a quest for the Witches of Crookback Bog.

I started playing Crisis Core Final Fanrasy 7: Reunion. Or is it Final Fantasy 7 Crisis Core: Reunion? Or is it Reunion: Final Fantasy 7, Crisis Core? How many subheadings are allowed per title? 😂

Anyway, that FF7 spin-off with the dark-haired Cloud, Zack, that was first a PSP game. You know the one. So far I’ve just made it through the prologue but it looks pretty good. I like the combat system but it does throw a lot at you in the opening hour. After 120 hours of Dark Souls 2, I habitually tried to play the first boss like a Souls game and it really doesn’t have that accurate of a dodge system. 😅 It’s a much more dynamic combat system than I was expecting. For some reason I thought this was turn based, but it’s actually quite similar to the modern FF7 games and their action-ey combat. Trying to learn a good flow state of spamming sword attacks alternating with materia magic and special attacks, whilst trying to learn the timing of mashing guard or dodge.

The story seems ok so far but I’m barely starting into the main events. There’s that familiar old JRPG cheese evident already. The melodramatic dialogue and line delivery is so… typical of those early Gen games. My tolerance for that tone is waning, but I think I’m settling in. Zack is no Clive Rosfield, I guess I’d say. We’ll see though. Maybe he gets some depth of character soon.

@Zulijaras Yeah Iam like always irritated when a game throws to much at you in the begining. I want a slow a opening where you like have limited options at the start.

@Th3solution interesting choice to follow up the gargantuan playtime you had with Dark Souls 2 with Crisis Core as it’s also pretty meaty from what I hear. As a relatively new FF fan (and someone who also has it tucked away in the backlog) it’ll be good to hear your take on it as you progress.

Personally, I remember being really excited by the announcement that they were remaking Crisis Core but now I kinda feel a bit concerned by the fact that it was simply a PSP game and with the exception of tarting-up the graphics, how different could it be? I’m pretty sure that I’d probably end up enjoying it if I gave it a go but there is a bit of doubt.

@colonelkilgore Crisis Core is not a long game at all unless you are going for the platinum. Then it can be quite long, but the side missions annoyed me enough that I stopped worrying about trying to do all of them.

@KilloWertz must’ve been the time-to-plat that was in my head then… without checking 60ish hours occurred to me.

Edit. Just checked and it’s a mere trifle at 40 hrs

@colonelkilgore Well, I finished Deliver Us the Moon in between for a short palate cleanser. It was a nice little 6-7 hour simple ‘explore and piece together a story’ type of game with light puzzles. Very reminiscent of Tacoma or Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. And a lot like Gone Home, Firewatch, etc. It has a very achievable platinum if you’re ever in the mood. There’s a chapter select to go back for missed audio logs and collectibles and do little tasks if you didn’t do it the first time. I could probably get the platinum in another hour to two but I’m not going to right now.

I also have done a little Balatro since finishing DS2 to rest my action rpg brain a little. Such an addicting little game, that is. I have to limit myself to one run a night so I that don’t let it take over my life. 😅

As for Crisis Core-FF7-Reunion, HLTB has it estimated at around 21 hrs for a “Main + Extra” run and a “Completionist” is 48 hours. I usually fall somewhere in between, so I reckon 30-35 hrs, maybe. So not too bad. But then again, Scholar of the First Sin Completionist run is listed at 104 hours and I definitely went over that! 😆 And I didn’t even get the platinum! But I did do everything and beat every boss, so that’s reasonable.

Anyway, I’ll be sure to drop more impressions of FF7 CC when I get more under my belt.

@Th3solution ahh fair enough, was probably a good idea to get something short and sweet done in-between the two bigger games to be fair. I have heard that Deliver Us the Moon (& it’s sequel) are pretty decent… and obviously Balatro is meant to be more addictive than crack, so kudos for keeping that in control! 😅

I've been delving into the Astro Bot speedrun levels. @Quintumply your times are tumbling boyo

@colonelkilgore Yeah, I’m not sure how much you’d get along with Deliver Us the Moon, as it’s quite light in the gameplay department. But it doesn’t overstay its welcome and it’s decent enough, if not a smidge janky. I got stuck in the environment more than once and had to load a previous save. There was one point where a door didn’t open that was the place to walk through to progress and I wasted about 30 minutes rummaging around, not sure how to continue and get out of the tram I was stuck in. Since there’s often cryptic puzzley ways to move from room to room I just assumed I was being daft and couldn’t figure it out. Finally I searched a walkthrough on YouTube, and saw that the door was supposed to have just opened automatically and for some reason it didn’t for me. Grrrrr…
Thankfully the last save point wasn’t far removed but it was frustrating all the same.
But yeah, AA misses aside, I’ll still be playing the sequel because it’s a type of game I enjoy doing from time to time.

@Th3solution yeah that door-issue would’ve annoyed the hell out of me 🤣… I’ll probably still play it (& it’s sequel) at some point though, as it sounds like a nice change of pace between the longer more involved games that I tend to play normally.

@Th3solution I didn't realise Deliver the Moon was a walking simulator, which admittely does put me off trying the game any time soon. Not that I was going to though, but will bear that in mind next time I come across it. I always assumed the gameplay was more involved when I've seen it previously.

@JohnnyShoulder I don’t know if they quite classify it as a walking sim, although many sections of it do play like that. It has elements of classic walking sims tropes, but other mechanics as well. In the continuum of the genre it has more gameplay compared to a full walking sim like Dear Esther or Virginia where literally you just walk and there’s not any complex input or mechanics. In DUtM you can jump and you do occasionally contend with gravity (or lack thereof) and oxygen (or lack thereof) and there’s a few section of traps to navigate, timed sections to complete something, and driving bits in a lunar rover, etc. There’s no combat but you can definitely die and I did many times in my playthrough — by asphyxiation, electrocution, and failing a task and sealing the end of the world in the process.

So perhaps my comparison to Tacoma and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is a bit misleading as it does have more gameplay than those. But the way you play as a silent protagonist, piecing together a story by walking from one recorded video or audio log to another, yeah, that’s at the core. It’s just getting to the next story clue does sometimes take some puzzling, light platforming, and interaction with the environment with use of some tools and exploring to find items. But if you’re not a fan of walking sims then you probably should have the expectations that yes, it’s basically in that ballpark.

@Th3solution I have a mixed history with walking sims, so am always a bit more wary about trying them out. Same with rogue-lites/likes (i really do hate that term lol), I have probably fallen of more than I've enjoyed enough to keep playing to complete them.

I tried Wuthering Waves on PC like six months ago and thought the controls were just a complete and utter mess. Was excited to see it was being ported to PS5, as I was hoping they would create a much cleaner, dedicated, set of bindings for controller and that... hasn't happened. The game is still just an utter mess to control. I'm sure if I stuck with it I'll get used to it eventually, but my brain and muscle memory is very limited, and right now I have about a dozen ZZZ characters floating around in my noggin I need to remember how to control, and I'm worried I'd lose that if I dedicated myself to getting used to Wuthering Waves. And if there can be only one, I pick ZZZ, sorry WuWa.

So I started playing Deathloop last week after having it in my backlog for years and I'm having a good time with it. In general, I love the whole timey wimey loop concepts in any media for storytelling, and this one definitely scratches the itch on that front. I love the puzzly nature of trying to figure out the best way to kill all Visionaries in one go, and so far it has felt very rewarding to go into an area again and again and discover new information that might help me in my next loop. It does annoy me when the game presents me with locations I can do nothing with that loop as I don't have the appropriate gear or information, but that's more of a personal issue than bad game design, haha.

However, the reason I wanted to make this post right now is the Julianna invasions. I had a horrible time with that gameplay feature yesterday. When I last stopped playing before then, I had saved after going into an area already in case I'd forget where I wanted to go next play session. As soon as I entered the area, a Julianna invasion instantly started. All good, I have no problem playing a cat and mouse game first before getting to my main objectives. Except for the fact that I got sniped from across the map as soon as I got into a somewhat vulnerable position. Only to respawn and instantly get sniped again five seconds later from lord knows where.

Okay, bad experience, but fine. I'll just restart the map. I walk out of the tunnels and... Julianna invasion. This time I didn't get instantly sniped from all over the place. This Julianna was putting traps everywhere, which is fun. Eventually however, they must've noticed the commotion I was causing killing a bunch of Eternalists and came running my way. I see her, start shooting her... she teleports right into my face and blasts a shotgun into me instantly killing me. Alright... I'll get her next time after I respawn. I go to my corpse to collect my residuum... and they were camping it to blast me in the face instantly with a shotgun again. Now, mind you, I just started playing not too long ago and my arsenal is not very big or powerful, so I can't really counter that easily with my own weapons if I wanted to.

Third try, I walk into the map and... Julianna invasion. At this point, I'm just annoyed. It's not particularly fun to try and play and explore only to constantly be interrupted by way higher-skilled and equipped players than you who easily just maul you to bits. Thus... I ran straight for the antenna and found her standing there. The player must've still been loading in or whatever, but I took that opportuntiy to blast a bunch of pistol shots in her face and was able to kill her before she could react luckily. I would've turned PvP invasions off before this point already, but as I kept spawning into a game where I was not able to change my online settings I was stuck on online mode.

I've now put the invasions to AI only, because I don't think I'm going to enjoy having to deal with more of that. Those twenty minutes already almost ruined my fun for the play session. I love the concept and think it's very cool, but if this is what it's like in practice, I'll pass. I don't really play PvP shooters for a reason. Maybe I'll try turning real players on again when my characters is a bit more well equipped and I can actually counter the powerful guns they come blazing in with, but until then I'm fine just dealing with the AI and actually focusing on what I'm trying to get out of the game.

Anyone else had fun or unfun experiences with this system?

@Tjuz - That sounds like a classic “I jumped into this multiplayer game years after it came out and the only players left are seasoned pros who tear me to shreds” situation. Personally I think you made the right call there, give yourself the opportunity to get some proper experience and better gear. Once you’ve got a good handle on the game, and you feel like a challenge, then it might be worth a go, but as you noticed, trying to do so with early-game gear and less experience is just asking for trouble.
As for my own experience, I played the game a bit earlier (early-to-mid 2022 iirc), so it was a bit more balanced back then (certainly never had someone spawn-camping with a shotgun, thank goodness), but I think I still ended up switching to offline so I could get the plat a bit easier: unfortunately it was a while ago now, so I don’t remember much in the way of specifics, but I don’t think it was particularly unfair, just annoying when I’m trying to get a particular trophy.
Anyway, I hope now the game goes back to being fun for you, now you don’t have to worry about getting melted straight out of the gate
Oh, and by the way, are you going for trophies/challenges? If so, let me know how “Judgment Day” goes? I’m curious to know others experience with that particular challenge.
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Been playing some Warhammer 40k Darktide, and I’ve gotta admit, it’s actually pretty good so far. I appreciate the IG getting some love here, as they don’t usually (afaik) get the chance to be playable. Beyond that, the graphics look decent, the gunplay (and swordplay) is satisfying, and I like that players can jump in even after you’ve started a game, rather than only being allowed during the pre-game matchmaking period. Admittedly, the game might get a bit repetitive later on, as it seems like it doesn’t evolve past “kill a bunch of enemies, occasionally complete some objectives, then reach the evac point”, but as long as I don’t play too much of it at once, I reckon I’ll be fine.

@FullMetalWesker Haha, it's exactly that situation! It doesn't particularly help that I'm not very good at shooters to begin with, so it just makes it all the more frustrating. You'll never catch me making some amazing trick shot or having competent accuracy with my aiming. This is why I prefer to just bring a sword to gunfight every time. There at least I can just spam the button and eventually it'll connect! I've played more since and it's been a blast, so it definitely hasn't ruined anything about the game long-term... as I wouldn't have expected it to either.

I actually did two Julianna games earlier today, just to see what it's like from the other perspective. I can't say I did particularly well, as both Colts managed to take me out. At least the first one I was able to kill twice before I finally feigned to his machete. The second one... just had admittedly better aim and I respect him for it.

I'm not actually a big trophy guy (which you probably could make up out of my allergy to competitiveness). I tend to look at the trophy list not too long before finishing the game to see if there's any I can get that are not too time-consuming, but I won't go out of my way for them. The only game where I've done that would be Spider-Man on the PS4, but as far as I know that's considered an easy platinum by any self-respecting trophy hunter, haha. I did take a look what Judgment Day was, and... guess we'll find out if I end up going that route. Judging by the low completion score, I'm doubting it!

Speaking of low completion scores for trophies though, I was surprised to see two pop earlier today in the sub-10s. They were both ones I achieved on my first go around in Karl's Bay that I would've expected tons of people to have done. One was simply the challenge of the experimental machine to craft a powerful trinket which involved just shooting a few waves of enemies and collecting their residuum. The other one was killing the Garbage Collector which gets you Frank's slab that he dumped away. Especially the second one, I would've thought plenty of players would get it. Are so many people just missing a slab? Either way, I'm sure it also all depends on what times you go to what location to be able to do what and some people just not ever having gone to Karl's Bay in the afternoon possibly. Who knows!

@Tjuz - Hey, on the plus side, you probably gave them their only win of the day, so there’s a decent chance at least some good came out of it…probably.
Yeah, about Judgment Day: something I somehow forgot about with that trophy was that it wasn’t just difficult, but outright bugged; not to the point where you can’t get it ofc, but enough so you may have to re-do it a few times for the trophy to pop (so don’t worry if you think the game/PSN screwed you over, because it probably did ).
As for the low acquisition rate for those two trophies, to be fair, most trophies for this game seem to have that problem: looking at PSN, over 80% of players completed the prologue, but only a bit under 43% completed “The Longest Day” and only 37% have gone through a full time loop, so yeah, once you’ve removed that much of the playerbase, it makes sense why trophies like those would be so rare (which is a shame, but I guess is how it goes sometimes).

Now that I’ve beaten Stalker 2, I am finally playing Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. I’m a couple of hours in, but it’s pretty good so far. The protagonists are compelling, the voice acting is top notch, the story is interesting, the combat is simple but serviceable, and the open world, while bloated, is relatively small compared to Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla. I may try and go for the platinum since it doesn’t seem too difficult.