Topic: Games you've recently beat

Has anyone played that Greedfall? I finished it the other day. It's quite good as it goes. Not that I have much to compare it to as I don't normally play RPGs. I've played a fair few this year though!

@ralphdibny I haven’t played Greedfall, but the setting and look of the game are appealing. It’s didn’t review all that well, so I have cast it aside.

What in particular did you like about it? Story, combat, exploration, visuals, music, …all of the above?

@Th3solution I think story, setting, characters and aesthetic. It's hard for me to say because my experience with RPGs is limited. I was attracted by the setting initially. The kind of colonial, pirate-y but with cool looking monsters.

Lack of RPG experience being noted, I explored everywhere I could first and then ploughed through the story and sidequests using fast travel. Life was easier for me like that. Even though the exploration part was slow and tedious, it meant the story moved along at a fairly quick pace.

I have read online that they didn't have a lot of time to finish the game and what was left on the cutting room floor included all the bloat, fetch quests, collectathons and the like. So the opinions I've been reading have said that it is a fairly tight experience as RPGs go. I wouldn't disagree but I don't have much to compare it too!

The thing I didn't like, and I suspect it is a usual RPG trapping, was mainly the inventory management. Every two or three travels, I would have to sort my inventory and give everyone the best gear and sell or store the rest. That broke up the pace a bit and if I didn't do it then I'd reach the weight limit and my character could no longer run. No good for my speedy approach to the actual story!!

It's probably worth a look in if you claimed it through Plus though. I let my Plus expire so I played it initially on Game Pass. But then it left Game Pass so I moved onto Mass Effect (which gave me a better understanding of RPGs) and eventually just bought Greedfall and it's DLc for like 15 quid

@ralphdibny Yeah, I “own” access to Greedfall via PS+, so it doesn’t cost me anything extra to play it but time, which is unfortunately my most precious commodity.

The inventory and equipment management is an issue with RPGs, to be sure. Some people love the granular nature of poring through 20 different types of leggings or shields or whatever to balance out stats. Some people hate that. I actually like it sometimes. It needs to be a balance. I find that I have less tolerance than I used to for such things though.

I guess I assume everyone has some level of RPG experience. It seems like most games have some RPG elements nowadays. You’ve not played Horizon Zero Dawn, Witcher 3, Ghost of Tsushima, Assassins Creed, etc?

Haha tell me about it! Me too!

I think I pretty much hate inventory management. I suppose it depends on the game. Like I might enjoy it in a game I'm really into or love or if the inventory management is fun in some way. For average Joe RPGs that I'm playing for the sake of it, not so much lol.

I haven't played any of those games you mentioned actually 😅. Horizon and GoT are on the "to play" list though. I did play one Assassin's creed but I thought it was Ass(assin). I think it was freedom cry or something that came with Plus and I haven't touched another one since.

Yeah, there's lots of RPG elements in more mainstream games but they usually take the less tedious parts of RPGs to keep it relatively light. Stuff like skill trees, light crafting and side quests etc.

I played quite a few Pokémon games when I was younger, I think I played from Blue up to Black and gave up on the series after a few hours in X. I played all the mainline Yakuza games including Like a Dragon over the pandemic too. Mass Effect and Greedfall were my first proper Western RPG experiences that I stuck out until the end though!

@ralphdibny you should really play Ghost of Tsushima. It's such an amazing experience. It's the a pretty big time sink but one well worth. I played it for the first time this year and it's now in my top 3 games of all time. From the moment I started it I felt like i was Jin the Samurai and it felt like I was really in feudal Japan instead of playing it, usually it's a very good rpg then.

@Lavalera oh really, that's some high praise! I'm sort of on the fence about starting certain PS4 games and I wonder whether I should wait until I have a PS5 which will probably be either some years away or just a random impulse purchase much sooner.

In a bit of a rut with it really because I have a lot of unplayed digital and disc games on my base PS4. Not sure how much of an upgrade they'd get on PS5 anyway as I've heard that loading times aren't much improved unless an upgrade patch has been made available. I wonder how it compares to Series X where every game I've played, patch or not has seen some serious improvement in terms of loading times but also the Auto HDR

@ralphdibny I forget you’re still on last gen only… 😅
The first party games look and run fantastic on PS4, so you are guaranteed a great smooth experience for games like GoT, GoW, TLoU2, and Spider-Man. Of course the PS5 perks are nice but I’d say that of the PS4 RPGs, GoT has loading times that are amazingly brief even on PS4. I think I read that Sucker Punch actually had to slow down the load screen a little to allow people to read the hint on the loading screen.

Of course the 60fps is the other perk, along with resolution. I didn’t play GoT on PS5 (yet?) but I imagine the 60 frames is sweet, but if you’re not used to it yet, you won’t miss it in that beautiful game.

A couple RPGs I can recommend which come to mind that don’t have any PS5 patch or version — Dragon’s Dogma, Bloodborne, Nier Automata, Infamous Second Son, and RDR2. Those are each excellent in their own way and you’re not missing out on anything by not having a PS5 (outside of the standard SSD boost). Another would be The Outer Worlds, which I started but never finished, only because I got distracted, but it’s a good game that I want to go back to some day.

@ralphdibny I think most PS4 games load a fair bit quicker when played on PS5 even without a patch and also perform better within increased frame rate and resolution in some cases.

@Th3solution now you are mentioning some games that I actually have played! I loved Infamous Second Son / First Light and Spider-Man. I have the first 2 Infamous (+Festival of Blood) games on PS3 as well as Miles Morales PS4 I'm my backlog!

I need to revisit RDR2 as well at some point. It just came out during a busy release period and I played a good few hours of it but never got back into it unfortunately.

I think I have gotten quite used to 60FPS due to Series X. It's funny cos I always chose quality modes on the One X but I lean towards Performance modes on Series X. I do find it a bit annoying to have to choose, i.e. to make a sacrifice but some games do run like doggy doodoo in quality mode on Series X (Greedfall being one of them - I've heard quality mode is much smoother on PS5 though...) So I guess it's good to have the option.

@JohnnyShoulder oh really, that's good to know actually. Sounds fairly similar to the Series then. All non patched games I've played have a serious upgrade to load times but their frame rate is still locked - I'd have to say that I can't tell if they hit their locked frame rate more consistently as I wouldn't have played them on a prior console. They also get the system's automatically applied HDR/Dolby Vision too which can be turned off if it doesn't suit the game in some way but I've yet to turn it off for anything. There are two level of patches though, the "One X Enhanced" games which were patched for the mid gen upgrade and the "Optimised for Series" games which are for the new consoles.

@ralphdibny I have found for me it has ruined playing some games on PS4 when I've started them on PS5. I couldn't play much of FFXII The Zodiac Age on my Dad's PS4 as it was making me queasy, but I was fine when I played it on my PS5.

@JohnnyShoulder hmm, that's interesting. I've yet to go back and play the same game on weaker hardware after I've played it on better hardware. I do jump around platforms for different games but I'd say I've always chosen whatever is the best console I own to play it on unless there was some specific reason not too (Wii U game pad, nerfed features, exclusive content or something)

@ralphdibny Yeah I definitely don't after that. Whenever I play on my Dad's PS4 it is always for smaller scale games these days.

Finally finished Forbidden West. Took me long enough lol. It was alright, I enjoyed it, but I had to force myself to finish it. Skipped most of the dialogue though, didn't really care about the story.

@Octane That’s too bad. I hadn’t heard a lot of detractors for HFW. I’ve yet to play it and was looking forward to another mind-blowing narrative. Did you enjoy HZD?

@Th3solution HZD was fun, partly because it was new as well. Though I have to say that I didn't care for HZD's story either. The combat is fun, and that's still there, but it does feel like it's just more of the same, a very "safe" sequel. It also feels bigger, which I'm not sure is a good thing. I think I beat HZD in 60-70 hours (got the platinum I think). HFW took 100 hours to beat, and I even ignored most of the side stuff (combat challenges, Strike mini-game, etc.). So maybe it overstays it welcome a little.

@Octane The increased size does worry me. I got lost in HZD and had to take a break from it in the middle. Only when I went back to it a year later did I really appreciate it and enjoy the story more. It’s an issue becoming more common in the open world genre. I blame Witcher 3 for setting the trend. 😄

@Th3solution Same thing with me. Got really confused with what to do next in HZD. Same went with The Witcher 3 and Skyrim. Except I beat HZD and got really far into Skyrim (which I then recently deleted because of it being too lengthy and because I had much too much shorter games in my backlog).

Back to the main topic, I recently platinumed both Nier: Automata and Doom: Eternal, both masterpieces, especially the first one. Honestly if you haven't played Nier yet idk what you're doing go buy it and play it no matter what.

@RogerRoger Howlongtobeat averages HZD to 60 hours for completion and HFW to 87. Which is relatively on par with what I've played actually.