Topic: What PS5 Games Are You Currently Playing?

@Bentleyma @trev666 Yeah, it was one of my favourites the year it released and remains one of my favourite survival horror games full stop. I’ve always thought it undeservedly flew under the radar. This years Cronos had me thinking about it again as I have similar feelings about it. Unfortunately, what with Tango going through the wringer, I doubt we’ll ever see a follow-up.

@Kairuuu Cute. Yeah I may take you up on that the next time I fire the game up.

'Sekiro II' (ELDEN RING with a Sekiro build.) Loving it, feeling truly op for these enemies that I am currently farming, but gonna complete my build and get even more op for the DLC. (SOTE, aka 'Sekiro 2.5'!) 🤣

The farming grind really makes the game feel rewarding

Guys, do not touch Sacred 2 Remaster, this is a warning!

Even after couple updates, things are not better they are worse!

• The main quest is removed from the world map when you exit the game. It is NOT back on, EVER! You have to find it somewhere in the world and the quest description will NOT help you.
• The sound of the WHOLE game disappears randomly just by entering the menus/inventory.
• After the latest update you cant throw item from your inventory. You either destroy them or sell them. The freaking button does not work at all!
• Random crashes. Want to talk to a vendor? How about a crash!
• After playing the game for a while and not teleporting with the portals (to refresh the world) the game slows down ... a freaking memory leak.

THQ should be ashamed of this release.

This is the worst state of a game I have ever seen.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN It's worth noting, if you don't know already, that Shadows of the Erdtree has its own progression system within Elden Ring. You're unlikely to be OP when you start it regardless of what level you are, although it's recommended you be at least level 150.

@Kairuuu Yeah, thanks for the heads up. I definitely plan on obtaining as many scadutree fragments as possible before tackling any of the major bosses within the DLC. Afaik, there are YouTube tutorials on how to get them this way.

@Zuljaras Yikes. Sounds like the Life is Strange "remasters" I struggled through earlier this year. Always a shame when a project designed to improve a game ends up doing the complete opposite, or when post-launch patches end up breaking more than they fix.

Just started Tomb raider anniversary on PS5 although this post should really be in the “What PS2 game are you playing?”

Game looks and plays great plus the Rewind feature is a big plus with a game like this.

@Kairuuu Following your advice, I have decided to level End to around 30, so I can meet the recommended level for the DLC of 150, that will be after I get Vig to 60, I currently have Vig at 52. Thanks again for the heads up, I am assuming it will provide a beneficial difference to my DLC playthrough.

I've been slowly chipping away at The Outer Worlds 2 and enjoying it, but I have to echo the sentiment I've seen from others in that it feels like it's missing something. It's the type of critique I've seen often for the first game, but personally, I didn't have that experience at the time. This sequel seems to land me squarely in that same zone however, despite being bigger and better in many aspects.

I think the problem for me thus far is that it feels like there's less variety in the areas you explore. I'm stuck for longer in the same type of locale, which wouldn't necessarily be an issue with how densely the maps are covered in stuff to find or places to explore, except that the main narrative hasn't quite hooked me the same. I find The Order to be a fascinating faction and by far my favorite, while Auntie's Choice is a somewhat predictable rehash of the first game's factions and the Protectorate doesn't feel particularly fleshed out. Even worse, I'd say the Protectorate seems to rely entirely on the idea of Mental Refreshment, which is a concept the game has introduced and mentioned about every five minutes since. If the concept itself was something really cool and unique, you might get away with making that the defining factor of the faction, but it's a pretty old and tired sci-fi trope with new naming.

I just don't find myself very invested in any of the characters I come across. The dialogue still gives me a chuckle often enough that I'm not actively bored, and some quests do some interesting stuff, but I just don't find myself caring about the driving force of the narrative. I still enjoy exploring the maps and seeing what's around every corner, but I don't feel rewarded by it narratively as much as it's just the serotonin boost of ticking off things for someone with completionism disorder. It all sounds very negative as I'm writing it right now, but I'm not sure how I'm able to put a more positive spin on it. As I said at the start, I am still enjoying the game and hardly regret my purchase, but I'm also not glued to my monitor the same way I've been with other game recently and expected to be here. Most of my game sessions are limited to an hour at a time, while Hades II for example had the opposite issue where I simply couldn't put it down.

I'm practically at the end of the second major planet now (Dorado), as I've almost fully explored its contents and I think I'm nearing the end of the story arc here. Now that it's introduced all of the major players, I hope maybe the narrative picks up after I leave the planet and I start being a bit more invested in all of that. I imagine I'm a bit over halfway, because as far as I know, the later areas are smaller and less dense in content. I do like the squadmates I've found so far generally, so at least there's that! I have good company with interesting takes on story developments while I progress through it, and I find them generally entertaining to engage with. Tristan and Aza are currently my squad. Sorry to the others, who I did think were noticeably more boring.

Finally, I do think the game is less reactive to the players' action than both the marketing and the positive feedback from players make it out to be. I still love the dialogue system as I've mentioned before, and it remains a great way of seeing everything you're missing out on because of the way you've built your character. It does make it feel meaningful, whereas when the game would simply hide such options, you might never have any clue there are other ways to resolve certain matters.

That said, the worlds feel rather static. My biggest example of this is in (spoilers for the first planet) Paradise Island. You finish the main storyline of this planet with essentially deciding the crash site of the Vox Relay station. I chose to blow it up on space where neither faction would get hurt, as I wasn't particularly convinced by either of their plights. Besides, the amount of innocent people that would get hurt in that type of blast hardly justifies either other option in my opinion. However, when I went back into the cities afterwards to see what people had to say about the literal biggest station on the most colonised planet in the system flying into space and exploding, I didn't find one NPC with a word to say about it. I'd imagine this is a pretty big deal for them, and especially the ones who were aware I was looking for a way in might have questions to ask me... and yet nothing. I thought that was quite disappointing, and found myself somewhat disillusioned with the whole world reactivity since.

@Tjuz I enjoyed reading your thoughts on OW2. It’s too bad they it’s been slightly disappointing, but it sounds like it’s not a complete loss. Strikes me as a solid 7 so far for you. Here’s hoping that the narrative aspects and world building really ramp up in the latter half to elevate the experience.

Middling games are still very worthwhile and I’ve been glad to have played many 7’s over the years. Although we all want every game to be a 10 but it makes it that much more enjoyable when we do get one. Sounds like Hades II is shaping up to be great though. I’ve read a few mixed things about that one too. I really need to get around to playing the first one.

@Th3solution Appreciate it! Like you said, I'd place it as a tentative 7/10 for now, but if it doesn't pick up in any way, I might be tempted to put it a scooch lower. You're right though, not everything needs to be a perfect game. There's plenty of enjoyment to be had here, and it's not like I would want to turn anyone interested off of it since their mileage may vary. I've seen plenty of fans say more positive things about it than myself. It's a solid game at its foundation, but I just wish it'd be hitting me a bit more.

Don't let the critique of Hades II steer you away! I imagine the discourse you've seen is mostly around the ending, but they've actually been making steps to improve that post-launch. Sadly nothing that I will get to experience fresh, but I appreciate that they're putting in the effort. I think I liked the ending more than most. I still went for the epilogue afterwards at the very least and had a grand time. With the first game, I never actually made it to the end, let alone the epilogue. Not because I necessarily liked it less, but because it got repetitive quicker and I just got worn out. This sequel is filled to the brim with way more content, so I easily doubled my playtime compared to the first before I was done with it.

@Tjuz Oh, that’s useful information about Hades. I own the first game so it’s just a matter of time before I boot it up, and it’s good to know that the sequel actually expands content to make it less repetitive. Since I don’t have a Switch or PC, I can’t play Hades II for a while anyway, so I do look forward to them having patched it up to address any issues regarding the ending. I actually don’t remember the specifics of the divergent opinions online that I read and what the particular complaints were, but I think there has definitely been more positive appraisal instead of negative.

Booted this up earlier today myself, too. It looks substantially better than the PS5 re-release of Legend, that's for sure. Helps that Anniversary was always technically very impressive and polished for a PS2 game (and just out of interest, its PSP port is equally remarkable) but this has got to be one of the best-running re-releases on PSN right now.

I also appreciate its simplified trophy list. The PS3 HD version asked way too much for its platinum!

I don't think I've played anything on my PS5 since sailing released on Old School RuneScape last week but we're just under a week away from the Elden Ring Nightreign DLC so I'll hope to get back on that from now until then to stock up on murk so I can try to roll the necessary relics for Undertaker and Scholar.

Only six more days!

@Bentleyma Glad to hear it clicked! Once you learn what the game expects of you, I think its difficulty is balanced very nicely. Hope it continues to go well. Personally, I think the game mostly gets better as it goes.

Finished Split/Fiction with a sibling and wow that game was amazing, also 40 hours into my first playthru of Ghost of Yotei and it's amazing

Played some more Elden Ring Nightreign today after about a week or so of not playing. God, this game is good. Very excited for the DLC to drop on Thursday.

I'm also going to give Where Winds Meet a go. It's a hefty download but I'm hopeful I can play it later!

@parhko Yeah, totally, I think I know what you mean there, my friend. I am about 23 levels away from being ready for the DLC, but then I still have to go through the mandatory steps to access it and get some cosmetic s*it sorted out for my build. What are you playing rn?