Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

@JohnnyShoulder Yeah, I think FIFA 2001 and Gran Turismo 2 were the only games with scratch and sniff discs! Gran Turismo 2’s disc apparently smelled like a pit-stop, whatever that means 😂

@RogerRoger Yeah, it's pretty big. Each route gives you about 5ish hours worth of gameplay, and all three routes are accessible from the start of the demo. So, depending on how much you play, there's a LOT of content to dig into here.

I feel like Omega Force is putting more and more effort into these crossovers as time goes on, in terms of trying to make them feel like organic extensions of the games they're based on. Their previous crossover game, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, took a similar approach in that it functioned as a spinoff of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and adopted significant stylistic and mechanical elements from it, and quickly became the best-selling musou title of all time, so if Three Hopes sells well, I expect this will become their new strategy for future musou crossover titles.

The pop-in won't be fixed. That it runs at a reasonable framerate is honestly enough. It's not really any worse than Three Houses in that regard, so it's not too distracting.

The game is out near the end of June, so not long. Unfortunately, that's also around the time when Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course, AI: The Somnium Files - Nirvana Initative, Elechead, and Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak are launching, so I have no idea which game I'm going to go for first!

We're mostly recovered, thankfully, aside from a lingering sense of tiredness (my exercise of choice is walking, and long walks that barely caused me to sweat before now have me gasping by the time I'm done) and a lack of the ability to smell or taste much of anything. My mother is dealing with severe pain caused by a torn rotator cuff, but she's off the oxygen now, so I'll count my blessings.

Thanks for reading!

@nessisonett I never knew scratch-and-sniff discs were a thing. To be honest, while I know people in my age bracket are often eager to resurrect everything from their childhoods to distract themselves from the fact that they're rapidly becoming Olds themselves, I feel like the "scratch-and-sniff" concept is one probably best left in the past.

I do sometimes wonder how good these disposable yearly sports titles really are. Sad to hear it's mechanically broken, but it sounds like there's some fun to be had in it regardless.

@Ralizah There’s something quite satisfying about going through these yearly titles, I think it helps me appreciate the newer ones as you tend to gloss over how much more refined they actually are than games from the PS2 era. And hey, I won a game scoring over 30 goals so at least it’s mechanically broken in a way that makes you win!

@Ralizah Wow! That's really stretching the definition of the word "demo", I reckon! Can you carry your progress over into the full release, or will you be starting over? Sounds like your Switch is gonna get pretty crowded next week; first world problems an' all, but I do kinda hate it when that happens. Perhaps making so much of Three Hopes available for free wasn't so smart of the publishers after all, as you might be more likely to think that you've played enough of it for now, and opt for something else.

Sorry to hear your road to recovery has been, and continues to be, a long one. Don't push yourself too hard, and I'm sure you'll be able to build yourself back up again. Also, I apologise if I'm wording this badly, but at least your Mom's physical injury is a fixable problem, if that makes sense? It's a known thing that you can see and hopefully sort, rather than some mysterious virus that may or may not randomly cause varying degrees of problems. At any rate, I'm glad she's off the oxygen, and I hope that she's able to stay as comfortable as possible. Best wishes to you all.

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@ThereThere You're right, the Shenmue III trophy list is... let's call it obtuse. None of it is challenging to execute, but there's a lot of demanding busywork and grinding required. Picking herbs is one thing, but obtaining all the Skill Books and capsule toy sets is where I drew the line.

Nevertheless, I would like to return and platinum it someday, because I have the plats from the previous pair and it'd be nice to have a matching set. I'll definitely be using a guide, though.

You're not alone in slowly saying farewell to physical collections. It's tough to get started, but I'd agree that the process can eventually become cathartic, despite the occasional wrench. Kudos for having the strength to ditch your classic consoles! You might wanna consider selling that spare Chai toy next, as eBay has them priced between £50 and £70. No idea if anybody'd bite at that price, but it's an encouraging ballpark to start in, at least. Seems like a crazy price to me, but then collectors are crazy folk!

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@nessisonett That's a brilliant way to approach classic FIFA games! We haven't seen many annual sportsball series' represented in this topic before, but you're the obvious candidate to represent 'em given your deep background knowledge on the subject, as well as your flair for the funny. Thanks for making me laugh multiple times! I wonder what the FIFA 2002 disc will smell like? No, wait, there's a more important question... how the heck do you know what Sol Campbell's jockstrap smells like?!

I believe it's only the very beginning of the game itself. Most people will only try one route anyway, since they won't want to go through the tutorial stuff at the very start again to see the story differences in the demo.

Yes, the data carries over. This has increasingly been the case with demos of Switch games where you're essentially given free access to the first few hours of the game.

I don't think people getting their fill with the demo is too much of a risk. In my experience, unless a game is super short or has a shallow gameplay loop, a good demo is more likely to invest you and keep the game on your mind.

No, I totally agree. The pain might be making her miserable, but rotator cuff injuries are fairly common in older people and it'll either heal on its own or require some surgical intervention that we'll need to schedule. Long term, it's far less scary than some weird disease doing additional damage to her heart and lungs, which aren't good in the first place. We did give her a drug that's supposed to prevent severe covid when she first started showing symptoms, so maybe that helped.

@RogerRoger Thanks for the kind words! I found I had quite a bit of energy to spare after writing so much for uni so thought I’d take the time to put words to paper in a more structured way than I normally do.

@Ralizah I haven't really chimed in much, but I'm glad to see that any issues with your mother are at worst fixable. It's still not ideal of course, but at least it's something that will get better in time.

Hopefully your own lingering issues from COVID also get better soon. When I had it early this year, I luckily didn't loose much smell or taste, but it did take a good week or two to feel normal again as far as energy and such. At least nothing major came of it.

For my kind words, care to buy me a Switch? No, that's not why I typed this out. lol Honestly, I don't really have time for a Switch and a PS5 (and I still have a Series X even though I don't use it anymore). I wouldn't mind playing some of the JRPGs and such on there, but bouncing back and forth between consoles last generation kept me from playing as many games on my PS4 as I would have liked, so I think it would be best just to stick with my PS5.

@KilloWertz Thanks. Yeah, considering how covid has torn through families in the past, I'm thankful we all seem to have made it out the other end without severe complications. I'm guessing it'll take me months before I feel 100% again, but that's fine.

While I like owning multiple platforms to have full access to all of the games I want, it quickly becomes too much. I also discovered that last generation. Still, it's hard to resist the allure of new hardware at times.

Is your wanting to play more games on Playstation thing more about trophies, or just wanting to keep your library primarily centered in one ecosystem?

@Ralizah Yeah, unfortunately the side effects can linger a while for whatever reason for some people.

I understand for you as I know you really like a lot of the Nintendo franchises. While PlayStation has games in those genres too, some aren't quite Zelda, Xenoblade Chronicles, etc. Maybe someday since Nintendo is the one that is most different from PlayStation, but not anytime soon.

I like trophies, but I don't really go out of my way to get a platinum unless it's easy. Like Life is Strange: True Colors, where you just have to beat the game and find all of the memories. Obviously I got that one, but the answer would be one ecosystem. I ended up buying several games twice last generation on Xbox and PlayStation, but I much prefer the exclusives on PlayStation, so PlayStation it is for the most part this gen.

@Ralizah I'm glad there's carryover. I haven't played many digital demos before, because you're right, they tend to be a hefty download of the full game that locks you out after a while. It's a far cry from getting a free disc sellotaped to the front of a monthly magazine!

Demos have always walked a tightrope for me. There were numerous PSone and PS2 games which I didn't feel the need to buy in full, because I had access to enough of 'em via those free demo discs. Then again, I'm also somebody who doesn't mind replaying old favourites, so perhaps my tendency for that mindset helps shore up my satisfaction with playing a small chunk of something over and over, rather than reaching the end after an hour or so and thinking, "I need more of this; where's my wallet?"

And I'm glad you got my point. Thanks for the reassurance, as I'd hate to cause offence! Sounds like you did, and are doing, everything right, but I'm keeping two of my fingers crossed for y'all regardless!

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@nessisonett It seems a funny thing to say, but I know exactly what you mean. I wrote some of my best bits of fiction back when I was a student, in between writing formal essays. You'd think that, after being forced to write so much, writing for fun would be the last thing on your mind, but it's quite the opposite! Almost as if you wanna reclaim writing for yourself or something!

Beyond: Two Souls (PS3) - Impressions

Just finished Beyond: Two Souls on PS3. This game was surprisingly really good. I mean, after coming from Heavy Rain I didn't expect much for QuanticDream's next title but it went beyond (no pun intended) my expectations. I definitely think Beyond is better than Heavy Rain, and more or less better than Detroit: Become Human in all honesty.

The main thing Beyond managed to do better than Detroit was having engaging combat. Normally in these games, there will be tons of QTEs you need to press in order to be successful. However, Beyond didn't have any QTEs, or rather they were baked into the combat side of the gameplay. When you fight people, you just press the direction that they're coming at you with, or when you need to dodge you press the opposite direction. This felt more natural to me than simple QTEs where you have to press for example square or circle in order to dodge attacks. On top of this, you have the "spirit" mechanic of wandering outside of your body and performing certain actions, such as killing people or possessing them, which worked great. Then there were stealth sections where you actually get to take out people with the protagonist while coordinating with the spirit in order to take out distant foes.

In short, the gameplay aspect of Beyond is the best one that QuanticDream has ever created and not even Detroit has surpassed it. This is the primary reason why I liked Beyond the most out of Quantic's three main titles. It felt like I was playing an actual game and not just a walking simulator with QTEs.

Moreover, even though the game's levels are divided up in a disjointed way, I thought that contributed to a more refreshing take on telling a story. You had to actually pay attention in order to piece together the sequence of events. It also led to a good pacing as you would have moments of relaxation and moments of action spread evenly throughout the campaign. Furthermore, the action levels were truly interesting and exciting. One would see you getting chased, another puts you in a horror situation and a third would put you in a military operation. The variety of the scenarios was just so good and these levels were very well done.

Speaking of horror, I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was a fair amount of focus on horror elements in this game. I did not expect that going in but I'm glad that they did that as it made for some tense moments with creepy atmosphere.

The story and the characters were interesting enough to keep me playing but the main appeal of this game was definitely the gameplay. This is in contrast to Detroit where the main appeal for me was the game's setting, story and characters. Unfortunately, Beyond leaves very little in terms of choices, which will be disappointing to most people who play these games for that aspect. It's simply here to tell a story in a certain way and I didn't mind that at all. Sometimes, games where choices have a major impact on the direction of the story can be overwhelming and annoying for me. I just don't like when I end up picking something that I regret, which happens a lot. So I was glad that I could avoid all that with Beyond.

All in all, I enjoyed this game a lot more than I expected. The gameplay was definitely the highlight for me but the story was still compelling enough for me to keep playing. Moreover, I didn't mind that the story wasn't told in a chronological order as it contributed to good pacing and made the game more enjoyable overall. Beyond: Two Souls is such a huge improvement over Heavy Rain and is still the best game of QuanticDream's main three in terms of gameplay. I highly recommend giving it a go.

Tagging @Th3solution here as I remember we talked about the game a while back.

@nessisonett well done on the FIFA. I like the older ones mainly as all the new sports games are very complicated. I like the simple more arcady feel, so older games like 2001 is more fun for me. It would be great if you can buy older sports games digitally.

@LtSarge i try to get into narrative games but often lose interest. I do own this one though and based on your review, I may give it a second go. The one that held me the most was Unfinished Swan. The story and art style was so unique it kept me hooked.

@Elodin Yeah, there’s definitely fun to be had in their simplicity. Even if that results in 200 goals a season! Thanks for reading.

@LtSarge Thanks for the persuasive review; I’m glad you ended up enjoying Beyond Two Souls so much. I can understand now why opinions are split as it sounds quite different from Quantic Dream’s other games, and perhaps people have gone in expecting it do be the same as Heavy Rain or Detroit. I definitely need to give it a whirl, given I have it in my library.

Knowing they they can create a game with intricate gameplay makes me more excited to see what QD can do with their Star Wars game.

@LtSarge Interesting to hear about how Beyond Two Souls kind of subverts expectations, given their design choices with Heavy Rain and Detroid: Become Human. I definitely need to pull the trigger on their older titles one day. Especially this one, since it sounds like it offers a unique experience that's distinct from their other major releases.

Nice write-up!

@LtSarge Really enjoyed reading your impressions of Beyond: Two Souls. My first-hand experience with QuanticDream's output starts and ends with Detroit and, as you say, that's largely because its premise and characters appealed to me (that, and it was free on PS Plus). It sounds like Beyond has more of its own identity, in that it wants to be a "playable" game with more of a linear story, rather than just another walking simulator with a series of branching choices. You're not alone in being impressed. I've seen and heard some other folks say that it's their favourite QD game, but never really stopped to ask or read why, so it's cool to finally get some well-structured, well-written thoughts. Thanks for sharing!

@LtSarge
I enjoyed this also a few years back. As usual on my first play I have to make all the morally correct decisions and be the good guy. I had much more fun going through second time and doing all the evil stuff. Did you play through multiple times?

@LtSarge I only skimmed a bit of the review as I have yet to play it, but good to see another very positive opinion of the game on here. I plan on playing it soon hopefully, as I've had it for a while but just never played it. Probably partially because it was divisive with people when it came out, but after loving Detroit: Become Human when I played that several months ago and remembering loving Heavy Rain way back on the PS3, it shot up my list of games in my backlog.

@Elodin I think it's worth a second shot. Do get back to me if you decide to give it another go, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

@Th3solution Yeah I think Beyond was a great experiment and I'd love to see more like it from QuanticDream in the future. It definitely felt more immersive than the other titles, that's for sure.

@Ralizah Oh yeah, for sure. If you do give it a try, let me know what you think about it!

Thanks!

@RogerRoger I appreciate the kind words! Yeah, I haven't read much about Beyond before because I've barely seen anyone talk about it. Which is too bad, because it really is a great game. Hopefully more people will play it. Maybe it could be a choice for Game Club? I think it'd be a fitting game for that.

@sorteddan Unfortunately no, I just don't have the time to be replaying games. But I can definitely see the potential for multiple playthroughs as there were a lot of moments where you could be evil. I decided to just play it safe since I wanted a positive ending and I was satisfied with what I got.

@KilloWertz Nice one, yeah definitely give it a shot as it's such a good game. Let me know what you think about it when you get around to it!