Topic: What PS5 Games Are You Currently Playing?

@Tjuz I’d be perfectly happy if this remained a one-off, I think the ambiguity actually serves this outcome but of course I’d welcome a sequel as well. It really does feel like some of the mechanics were just hitting their stride.

That ‘pivotal moment’ you mentioned is the literal moment I fell in love with the game! It really does elevate the experience and I couldn’t agree more that fumbling it might have derailed the more intriguing aspects of the narrative.

The Last of Us Part II is quite the experience. Hope you enjoy the ride!

@GirlVersusGame I let his two accomplices go after my Mimic first and backstabbed them whilst they were attacking him. This was in order to keep my Mimic alive to assist me with help against the boss. Then it didn't take long to get him to the stage where we could visceral him, and after that it was smooth sailing, my Mimic died shortly after the visceral attack, but by then he had so little health left that I could confidently finish him off without healing.

Yeah, I am mainly using the Mimic Tear Ash, I experimented with the Jellyfish ashes at an earlier stage of the game, but once the bosses became more powerful and I'd gained access to the Mimic, after defeating Radahn, it made more sense to use him instead.

Sol has experimented with different builds in the Souls games also, he and I were discussing this elsewhere on the website recently. I was telling him that I had previously gone for Guts Greatsword builds before I discovered Manga, Anime & Sekiro!

@Metonymy Hey man, great to see you knocking around these parts again, hopefully whatever it is you're currently playing is going well, and hopefully we can continue to have further discussions on here. When is it that you think Miyazaki will unveil his next single-player campaign game? I predict 2027 or perhaps later this year at the earliest.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Hey man! Been playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which has been really great thus far. Are you a fan of Indy at all? Hoping to have it finished up in time for Nioh 3.

As for Miyazaki’s next game, outside of ‘Duskbloods’ I’m really not sure what else they could be working on but I think your estimation sounds perfectly reasonable. I’m pretty curious to see what it might be! Any thoughts?

@Metonymy Miyazaki has said he'd be interested in return to Sekiro-like combat in the future! So hopefully either a prequel to that fabled game or an entirely different ip, potentially set in a different universe, with similar combat mechanics, that's my prediction, based on what I've read on the internet. But he's also said he'd like to do something "warm" or "abstract" and other people have predicted an Ico-like game, based on what he's said. Which could be good as well.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN I thought you'd been raised by Manga and Anime, like Bane 'born by it, molded by it'. That must have been interesting, I discovered Manga maybe two weeks ago. It hasn't taken yet, I'm still trying to finish the one MD83 recommended. It's maybe one thousand plus pages, a collection of volumes. I have the Vampyre Hunter D ones, they've been sitting idle for a few years, maybe I'll try those next. I did read the Dark Souls comics, you'd probably like those. There's a collection available now. There might be a Sekiro Manga too, a Bloodborne comic too.

The Sekiro Manga, maybe you already read it.

I probably ruined my original playthrough of Elden Ring with magic. Range is never the same, it almost sounds like we played two different games. At the time there weren't a lot of builds with swords, people were mainly complaining about blood builds because every invader used them so the fix was magic, those seeking missiles worked against them. The other fix was to play offline, but that removes so much of the experience. I liked the Black Knife Tiche companion, I don't know if you've found that one yet. They are fast, I think they did a debuff too, I'm sure I used them near the end of the game. I tried most of them, the rats, the dogs (obviously) the skeletons. I'm sure Tiche was my go to once I had her unlocked. They've probably nerfed her now, she was fast and impossible to hit. She needed a lot of FP, which as a mage worked great but on other builds might be tricky.

I can't remember the Jelly Fish ash much, I think I lost it by returning them to another Jelly Fish, probably by accident. It could have been a bug too, I definitely had them then didn't. Skeletons were probably my early game go to. It's good to hear that people are using ashes more, at launch there was a lot of 'if you use ashes you are weak', the game was maybe two hours old and people were already gate keeping. Then it balanced off as normal people started to play, post, and mix. I saw someone mention a Dark Souls 3 remake last night (BlackMamba?) that was the first I heard of it. If true then that will be a day one buy for me. I was bad with Sekiro, I was too anxious after that guy came screaming through the sky and knocked me off the roof, I kept waiting for someone to do it again. Dark Souls is different, I expected to just keep dying there, and did.

@GirlVersusGame Thanks for mentioning the Sekiro manga, I am already familiar, and recommended it to you in the 'Books You're Currently Reading?' Thread, before I read this post. But, yeah, I think Afro Samurai was the first anime I watched as an adult, despite flirting with Dragonball Z in my teens, I've read more mangas than watched animes, though, I like Vagabond, some Berserk, Afro Samurai, obviously, the Sekiro manga, and some others I read previously but have forgotten. I used to like Alan Moore comics, especially Providence, for it's Lovecraftian horror elements, the less-frequently seen sexual aspects of them were something I was a lot less keen on, there's a lot more of that in Neonomicon than Providence, so I obviously vastly preferred the latter, which is more of a traditional cosmic horror, for the most part.

What a nightmare in ELDEN RING, this morning!. I went to the Consecrated Snowfield to try and find the teleporter to get to Mohg's Palace. When I got there I kept running into enemies and trying to evade them, looking for a grace. Eventually I got close to where I was supposed to be, because the Sanguine Noble invaded and I knew I "had" to defeat him in order to access the teleporter, but I was low on flasks so I decided to evade him, find a grace, and then take him on. Anyway, after evading him successfully, he returned to his own world. After that ,I stumbled across the teleporter, unguarded, luckily. And it was accessible! I went to Mohg's Palace via the teleporter and acquired the remaining upgrade materials to fully upgrade my Mimic Tear, but when I got back to the Roundtable Hold, it had been invaded! After that further ordeal, dispatching the invader and whatnot, I was able to fully upgrade my Mimic Tear, and left things there. That's enough fun for the day, for sure!

back to Midgard for more pain and agony. Bought Forza Horizon 5 and been driving around in my tricked out Porsche 911 TUrbo 1982 model enjoying what Mexico can offer. Fun game, so much to do and its a bit overwhelming at times, but i am just driving around, listening to music on my favourite Creative player. Its just like GTA without the murdering. But Midgard is calling and Kratos has a quest to finish. Now it is Rota the Valkyrie that needs help to escape her curse. Damn, that woman can stamp the Valhalla out of you. I will show myself being worthy this challenge. Happy new year everyone, lets hope this year gets better than the last. Make love not war

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN I would totally be up for something like Ico, or just to see Miyazaki head up something outside of what we’ve come to expect. On the flip side, Duskbloods looks almost like a greatest hits and kind of uninteresting to me.

Returnal:

Into act 3 and I've only got one of the sun fragments to find so I can go for the true ending, really enjoying my time with this but the spawn rates of logs/glyths will probably keep me from the platinum.

@Metonymy Yeah, I definitely concur with your opinion about The Duskbloods. Hopefully a Sekiro-esque game will be next on the cards for Miyazaki-san.

@Decoy_Snake That was my limit too; the sun fragments were consistent in where they’d be and sometimes took a few runs to get to but getting the logs was a step too far for me.

Maybe one day if I ever get on top of the games I still have to play I’ll go back to it but it’s pretty unlikely. Wonderful game though!

@Thrillho @Decoy_Snake Those were a pain to get, especially if the RNG gods were smiling on you that day.

There was one late game collectable that is in a hidden room, which I would have never a found without consulting a guide!

@JohnnyShoulder @Thrillho I'm missing a load of glyths & logs in the second area but in the rest I'm missing one collectable. I've not even thought about looking at a guide since it's all lunch based on if the rooms show up, are they easy to follow?

Finished the main story of Clair Obscur Expedition 33! it was an amazing story with so much depth and emotional baggage that was breathtaking, now just doing some side content & post endgame stuff

Defeated Fire Giant in ELDEN RING this morning, took about three attempts, I actually found Commander Niall to be harder. But, then, I didn't have my Mimic Tear Ashes at +10, by that point. It was a great boss fight, sad that the game is almost over, but, hey! I can start the DLC soon, two more bosses to go, Godskin Duo and Mohg (want to get my weapon to +24 before starting the DLC).

@JohnnyShoulder You even got the platinum already?! I'm surprsied that completing a Final Draft playthrough was not necessary for it, but I guess that's because it came out as an update. I didn't know obtaining the platinum was so achievable upon first playthrough. You work quickly either way. I'm glad you ended up having such a great time with it. It really is an impressive game. What was your favourite part of the story? I think I'm partial to the performance in the forest, to say it as spoiler-free as possible. I know a lot of people praise the Old Gods of Asgard moment in the first game, but I honestly felt like that was a better version of that loved moment.

I didn't make the connection for that tease at the time when I played The Lake House DLC! Only when I saw pieces of the trailer of Control Resonant is when I realised... wait, this looks somewhat familiar and I got what that moment teased exactly. I am very intrigued by the advertised genre change into more role-playing territory though. I find it fascinating how Remedy continues to evolve their games in different ways and isn't scared to try new stuff with existing IPs. I definitely need to get back on the wagon for the first one in time for the second one's release!

I did hear about the ''true ending'', but I don't think I've actually bothered to look it up yet. Thanks for the reminder! I definitely don't plan to replay it either (I'm the same way in never replaying), so to YouTube I go.

@Tjuz Most of the trophies were pretty straightforward. I'm not usually one to do a thing above and aboard to go for trophies, most of the time anything that proves too problematic I don't bother with.

There is a certain point in the game which is best to mop up any remaining collectables, which is after completing the old folks home section. This is when you will have all the equipment to open up any locked doors and containers, and also any later in the game will be at night time so will be more tricky to find stuff.

I think the aforementioned old folks home was my favourite, as that it is when most of the story beats come together. I like how the game always kept me second guessing about what was really going on, as I'm more of a person that likes to let the story reveal things to me naturally.

Yes I'm very intrigued about Control Resonant and the apparent change up genre. I've deliberately avoided seeing much about the game though, as I think too much is revealed about games before they are released these days.

@JohnnyShoulder I think after the old folks' home is also when I mopped up any remaining collectibles. Luckily, it wasn't a huge amount of them as I'd picked up 90% of them along the way. It was still a trek to slowly walk across that map and pick up the last few I needed to unlock the secrets that come with it, though... This movement speed was not made for collectible clean-up! I sorely missed the addition of a fast travel, but obviously I understood why it wasn't there.

Totally agree that the old folks home was another great section. I feel like ''the part where everything comes together'' really depends on how you play the chapters however. How did you pace switching between Alan and Saga (if you even switched at all inbetween)? I switched roughly every time a major area was finished or I was presented with a bucket. I ended up doing the cinema of Alan's campaign last before the point of no return. I realised that had I prioritised Alan at certain points, the coming together of the narrative would've happen very differently. I guess that's the beauty of it. No matter which way you play it, it works all ways!