I should have added Resident Evil and Sonic to my list of franchises I'm partway through. Last year I completed Sonic Rush Adventure, so would like to move on to something more modern. It was actually an interesting project because the DS cartridge was utterly fudged. It did however sharpen up my cleaning skills, and with the magic of rubbing alcohol and cotton buds it was perfect! Does make me think how many people don't look after their games properly.
Resident Evil 4 is one of my all-time favourite games, so I'm looking forward to playing the remake after 2 and 3.
@Marquez Luckily I have everything typed out in tables that I can quickly tick off, but thanks for the recommendation. 😀
@Ralizah By my count I have nine Trails games on my shelf, so it's going to be unmanageable if I don't play some soon! Especially if I wait for remakes of the Crossbell ones. Where it gets a little confusing in terms of chronology is that the Crossbell games take place concurrently with some of the Erebonia arc. If I were to wait for remakes, by that point I reckon the Cold Steel quadrilogy would be very janky and dated.
I do recall how much you enjoyed Lacrimosa of Dana. The only Ys game I didn't like that much was the second one, largely because I had to refer to a map online for one particularly labyrinthine dungeon. My favourites thus far are Origin and Oath in Felghana: the combat is so snappy and fun. However, I did like the party switching mechanic in Ys Seven and Memories of Celceta, as well as using skills to open up new areas.
Culling older games is much, much easier, but I actually have fewer on those systems (360 aside). With recent ones it feels more difficult, because they're games I still feel like I'll want to play.
@Werehog Fortunately I played Hitman 2016 as DLC in Hitman 2, so it's a relief that I'll be able to carry my progress over, mostly because of everything I unlocked. Not to say I wouldn't mind replaying some of Hitman 2016's levels. They're a work of mad genius.
Do you know if I would I need to purchase Hitman 2's levels digitally in World of Assassination, or are they included? I'm not entirely clear on how it works, particularly as I have the PS5 version of Hitman 3. I haven't popped the disc in, so have no idea what will actually happen. They couldn't have made this any more confusing if they tried! 😅
@Th3solution The mainlines in some open world games are so brief, if not outright disappointing, so it feels like the sidequests are the meat of the game. The most extreme examples I can think of are Bethesda RPGs. Of course, Ubisoft ones often go the other way. Do you think this experiment could ultimately impact your enjoyment? It will be interesting to see!
The mainlines in some open world games are so brief, if not outright disappointing, so it feels like the sidequests are the meat of the game. The most extreme examples I can think of are Bethesda RPGs. Of course, Ubisoft ones often go the other way. Do you think this experiment could ultimately impact your enjoyment? It will be interesting to see!
Yeah, I don’t know. I will probably be very selective when I try this out. It has to be a game that fits the bill of excess unnecessary side content, and also one that doesn’t penalize you for skipping that content, as far as being too under-leveled for the end boss. And after doing the targeted mainline run, I reserve the right to go back and mop up side content if I really feel like the experience warrants it.
I’ve never been able to be focused enough to do this, so I’ll be curious if I enjoy it or if FOMO will allow me to ignore the NPC yelling at me on the side of the road asking for help. 😅 Playing Baldur’s Gate 3 now, when talking to a side character who has a quest to give, one of the conversation options is always something like “Sorry man, but I don’t have time to do that, I’m on an important mission.” And I’ve never selected that option. I always say “Sure, I’ll delay saving the world to go and find your missing dog”, or whatever the case may be.
I’ve mentioned this a time or two over the years, but in my early days on Push Square, I read an article that really stuck with me, and I still think about it after all these years. It was by @ShogunRok talking about playing Dragon Age: Inquisition. I guess it was especially impactful because I had been enjoying DA:I for the first 70-80 hours and then finally hit a wall with how much content it had and I eventually just gave up on it. To this day I still never went back to finish it.
It’s worth a read. This article is the basis for my desire to attempt a focused approach and see if it will enhance my experience with some of the larger games. Heck, maybe I choose to go back to DA:I to do this experiment. But I have a few on my docket that are known for their bloatedness, like FF7 Rebirth, Horizon Forbidden West, and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. To be honest, the prospect of skipping side content scares me, so I don’t know if I have the intestinal fortitude to actually do this. 😂
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution Appreciate the shout out, I had completely forgotten about this article!
Had a quick re-read of it and I still hold that opinion almost completely to this day. In fact, I think I might actually be even more allergic to pace-sapping side stuff now than I was back then. Maybe it's just an age thing and running out of patience...
But I still totally get where you're coming from. Sometimes it's so hard to just skip something optional, but I promise you, if you can get into the habit of somehow telling yourself "nah, this game is now just wasting my time", it's so freeing.
Best example I can think of that's fairly recent is Final Fantasy 16. Great game, shockingly bad side quests. On my second playthrough, I skipped every single one of them barring the monster hunts and the ones that upgrade your gear. It was an infinitely better experience.
Thronebreaker is really good. If you enjoy Midnight Suns and have love for The Witcher, you'll have a good time! So many people forgot about this game. It's not The Witcher 4, of course, but it's very well done.
@ShogunRok@Th3solution This is something I wanna try too sometime. I have a really hard time saying no to a quest on any game I'm enjoying. It feels like the game saying "you want more of this game you're enjoying?" It's kind of a trap of course, because so often the side quest has lower quality than the game you were really enjoying up to that point.
Another resolution I have is that I wanna try and play more games that I think are going to be interesting based on their premise, instead of based on their name.
So I wanna try and do less of "I'll play the new game in the X series I like so much" and more of "I'll play this game because a game in which you do X sounds interesting"
I guess for me it means skipping games like Control Resonant and Slay The Spire 2, and instead playing games like Mewgenics or No Ghosts At The Grand.
Not necessarily those games, and not as a hard rule, but as a guideline for the year!
@ShogunRok This is why I had over 60 hours in AC Shadows and had barely scratched the surface of the story (I had unlocked Yasuke). Main quest or shiny map marker? Find out what's happening to our protagonists or spend hours map clearing via inconsequential side fluff? This is why I am starting the game again in 2026 and adopting a way more focussed approach. It just feels like it will be a better experience that way. Article definitely still relevant!
@ShogunRok Thanks for the advice and encouragement. 👍🏼
Patience and especially time are getting thin on the ground around here too. Will definitely post some updates when I attempt my “ShogunRok method” playthrough.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
I don't have any targets in terms of how many games I play or complete but after some thought there are a couple of things I could attempt to go for...
1) Play some PS4 games.
I love my PS4 Pro. It's got loads that I bought or claimed, downloaded and then forgot about. Don't boot it up too much the last year or so so I hope to complete at least one PS4 game on my PS4 each month... And maybe give it a dust from time to time.
2) Similarly.. Play some multiplayer stuff with Dodge.
Dodge is one of my oldest friends and we don't get together too much these days. Our main method of keeping in touch is via a PSN party that on days where we're both gaming. I should probably also win to be playing one game with him whenever we're doing so. If at least every week or two.
Though he does tend to play every multiplayer tat thing that rolls around and I'm not going to play any FIFA, COD or Fortnite type of stuff.
3) As for the PS5 well it's just backlog busting tbh. I purchase games I want to play or have heard positive things about and then do that again before getting around to them. So I aim to complete more games than I purchase this year (this resolution may well go the same way as many people's diets and health regimes tend to but hey ho).
And some of the games I really want to get around to in the next few months include:
GoW Ragnorok
Returnal
Tunic
Disco Elysium
Cocoon
Diablo IV
Will try to update every few months to see how I'm getting on.
@Werehog Fortunately I played Hitman 2016 as DLC in Hitman 2, so it's a relief that I'll be able to carry my progress over, mostly because of everything I unlocked. Not to say I wouldn't mind replaying some of Hitman 2016's levels. They're a work of mad genius.
Do you know if I would I need to purchase Hitman 2's levels digitally in World of Assassination, or are they included? I'm not entirely clear on how it works, particularly as I have the PS5 version of Hitman 3. I haven't popped the disc in, so have no idea what will actually happen. They couldn't have made this any more confusing if they tried! 😅
Ah, phew! You might still need to access your PS4 copy of Hitman 2 in order to sync everything up, but so long as your save is still there, you should be all set.
So long as you're playing on the same PSN profile, then Hitman III (a.k.a. World of Assassination) should automatically recognise your ownership of the previous Hitman games and unlock their content accordingly. I think unifying everything under the World of Assassination title only counted for new purchases going forward, not folks who'd purchased previous physical versions of Hitman (2016) or Hitman 2. You might need to claim a "free" item from the PS Store to start the download. I seem to recall having to do that with my copy of Hitman III, but they might have streamlined that process since.
Also, Hitman. Don't say Hitman. I said Hitman. Yep, the word has lost all meaning now!
***
@sorteddan Speaking as somebody who keeps his PS4 Pro set up right alongside his PS5, I love your first resolution! Whilst I obviously use my PS5 more, I still use its predecessor quite frequently, mostly for old favourites but also some of what you describe, the "downloaded but not forgotten". It can be a little weird switching between a DualSense and a DualShock 4, but it works!
"If I let not knowing anything stop me from doing something, I'd never do everything!"
@Werehog
Yeah thanks 👍
(I still have it set up and plugged in as well, just got a bit neglected over the last year)
If I play either from cold then it's fine. If I go from PS4 to PS5 then it's fine but if I go from PS5 to PS4 it's like 'woah this controller doesn't weigh anything, it's like a baby toy or something!'
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
@mookysam Honestly, look at the Cold Steel games and then Trails 1st Chapter remake. They're already very janky and dated. The first two are literally PS Vita games.
Yeah, when it comes to culling games, I just have to be ruthless. Am I enjoying this game or not? If not, out it goes. Unless I'm close to the end and it's short, and then I feel a weird obligation to finish.
@Kairuuu Like, with the menus and stuff in Japanese, or just Japanese vocals?
@Th3solution don't overthink it, man (the time to complete stuff) I was very open about how BG3 was definitely a ~300 hour game for me😅 and some games just take a long time, but usually they are the ones we enjoy as slow-players. Some games are needlessly bloated, yes, and in those cases it may be best to either skip the bloat or move on from the game and come back to it another time if the mood takes you. I discard a bunch of games, for example, and I always want to believe I will stick with them or go back to them, but honestly, it is tough to do that. If i happen to be more interested in something else at the time then at least i'm playing what I want to be playing in that moment, rather than just carrying on with something i'm less sure about.
PS5 Pro wise: I recently decided I would try DA: Veilguard for a similar reason you mentioned, as I wanted to see some good graphics and frame enhancements (I didn't rate the graphics anyway, urgh, and i'd consider it a bad 60fps rather than a smooth feeling game), and by the time I hit the first upgrade screen I felt I'd had enough of it. I looked at a build tree and thought... "does any of this even matter?" Because the gameplay feels bad, movement is janky (you can walk through your companions??? No physics at all) everyone has an annoying IG filter face, and the dialogue is still the absolute worst trash marvel rip-off nonsense, way worse than that sony exclusive with the talking wristwatch Jarvis-alike and the "happy almost birthday" protagonist (I genuinely can't remember the name of the game) I might give DA one more chance, but gaming shouldn't feel like it is wasting your time, and that doesn't really equate to the amount of time spent, but the quality of time spent. That's why I like to use Elden Ring and Stray as examples, Elden Ring I loved and that was at ~200 hours and took months, but I loved Stray nearly as much and that was at just 9 hours. DA:V (at 2 hours) feels like a pointless venture, but the fact Rog likes it makes me want to at least give it a good and fair chance to win me around with some kind of redeemable quality, especially since I can't really decide whether to commit to carrying on with Dos2 at the moment (it is massive) or move onto something new like E33 or DS2, or go back and finish a backlog game like Hogwarts.
The urge to play something really well enhanced on Pro is definitely in my mind at the moment, though, hence dallying on Dos2 as it is a time sink (a really good one well worth the time, but a time sink all the same when the urge to play something new is there)
I suppose this is why I can't do resolutions, myself. I don't know what I will want to play in 2 months time and my gaming can get relegated to just casual at any moment as other interests take over or time is spent elsewhere.
Anyway, hopefully that somehow gives you a boost towards your own goals, and lets you know that you aren't in some way wrong for taking time with games, and that it really does vary on a game by game basis whether it respects your time or not, and only you can really know that by the feeling you get.
Weirdly, TW3 might be a good next game for you, even though it is massive and has the yellow text dialogue choice set up like BG3/KCD etc. Within that you can focus on contracts and quests in a more focused way than in BG3, as they don't all span like 3 acts, so it might actually feel fresh to just tackle say 1 or 2 quests and a contract in a session and then pick up some more for the next time as you slowly make your way through the world living day-to-day as a witcher. Plus getting to control action in fights is a change of pace to BG3.
My resolutions 🤷♂️ read less gaming news. Play more games? I definitely want to play some more Witcher this year (maybe there will be DLC 🙌) then there is Death Stranding 2. 007, Mafia TOC and E33 on the docket. (Haven't heard much about Crimson Desert recently) There's a bunch of games I want to try, but they are games I know I probably wouldn't finish (Avowed, Outer Worlds 2 that kind of thing) and games I should play but might not GoW:R, Horizon FW etc. And games I should finish (Cyberpunk, haha, I legitimately still haven't rolled credits on that. Hogwarts etc)
If someone could invent some kind of time altering device so I can play more games that would be appreciated.
When it seems you're out of luck.
There's just one man who gives a f*************ck
⚔️🛡🐎
Play more VR, I’ve neglected VR lately in order to finish PS Plus Extra/Premium games before my sub is up and consequently my VR backlog is crazy.
Finish Hitman. I started this in VR and have played about three levels of H1 before dropping it for Extra games but I really enjoyed those levels which I completed to 100%, well completed to the trophy requirement at least.
Finally get into No Man’s Sky, again in VR.
And finally, obtain my PPL and the (currently unobtainable) platinum in MS Flight Sim, again in VR...fingers crossed it is great when that mode is released.
@Ravix Thanks for the thoughts and insight. I don’t think I’ll ever change the kind of player I am (leaning obsessive-compulsive, that is) but I know there’s certain games that do have the bloat, as you mention. Late PS4 and early PS5 games are particularly bad about it. There seems to have been a stretch (honestly, probably brought about by TW3 and its popularity and high reception. And also RDR2) where game makers felt that they needed to make their single player games 100+ hours. And gamers initially were positive about ‘getting their money’s worth’ with these longer games. But I think that developers and players are starting to realize quantity doesn’t always equal quality, and there seems to be a shift toward more streamlined design in those games that don’t really justify lots of side content.
As an example with Assassins Creed, there was Origins —> Odyssey —> Valhalla, and the bloat seems to have peaked and now a bit of a pendulum swinging back to Mirage and Shadows which have smaller runtimes. Another series that comes to mind that’s reined in its ballooning length is Resident Evil. Also, Dragon Age (more on that later)
At the same time, games that are very long seem to be justifiable like BG3, Elden Ring, etc. where they have meaningful content and systems that promote an individualized playthrough.
Or, it may be that games are getting a little shorter the last couple years because development costs have ballooned along with the development times and out of necessity there needs to be a trimming of the fat, so to speak. Also, with the advent of subscription services there’s more focus on quantity of releases to flood the market with options.
For whatever reason, I feel like game length is becoming more appropriate than it once was, but maybe I’m just imagining things though.
Back on DA Veilguard, as you mentioned, it’s definitely on my radar. I did have someone tell me it is one of the most polished looking games he’d ever seen. I’m definitely curious about it. As I mentioned, I was really enjoying Inquisition before I dropped it, so a tighter DA experience that’s only 60-80 hours sounds enticing.
Alas, I’ll need to finish BG3 before making any decisions and as far as TW3, I want to at least finish Sword of Destiny and maybe Blood of Elves before I jump into the gaming universe. I’ll post updates on those two projects in their respective threads when I get a chance.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Herculean Thanks for the encouragement on Thronebreaker! Especially since I've discovered I enjoy the top-down CRPG look, it's been on my radar. I wonder how reactive it is to the choices you make compared to The Witcher 3. Would you say it's more or less reactive? I imagine with the art-style it has it would be easier to implement long-ranging consequences, but I imagine it was quite the lower-budget affair, so I don't want to have unrealistic expectations on that front.
@Tjuz I dont react there being any meaningful choices at all! I still liked the story, and I believe there are a few times where you have to pick something. But I don't remember them having effect in the long run.
I just really like the world of the Witcher and the relaxed card game vibes!
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Topic: Gaming Resolutions for the New Year of 2026
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