Aelynn

I'm really happy the game seems to be getting positive reviews, but I have two worries that are deal-breakers for me.
1- Does the game have one of those stages where you have to avoid ALL items of one type or else it's an instant fail?
2- Does it have trophies tied to the multiplayer mode?

The whole "family group" is a massive loophole in security. I was spammed for multiple days in a row by some rando who kept inviting me to his family group as a scam. Basically, you can apparently send an invite to anyone as long as you have their email address, no matter what their privacy settings are on the console. The guy would set up fake email addresses (with deliberately rude domains that obviously wouldn't exist) to try and push people to contact him on Telegram, with the goal to steal their accounts. Because he immediately deletes his PSN accounts after sending the fake invites, you can't actually report him to Sony, because the username no longer exists by the time you try to do so. I tried to report this issue to Sony, but their customer support basically said "there's nothing we can do about a third party". It's been such a nuisance, I really wish there was a setting on the account to say "never allow family invitations from random accounts". My settings are already set to private "No one" or "close friends only" for everything possible, why is some rando still able to spam me through their family invitation system?

Cobra is still super popular in France and other francophone countries, so it's no surprise that Microids is releasing it. I assume it'll be like all Microids games: very mid, but tolerable if you happen to really like the IP.

1.6 was a dud with nauseating mazes, but at least 1.7 looks promising story-wise. People are so keen on the housing system being added, but after the massive disaster that is the dyeing system, I'm dreading how paywalled it'll be.

Strangely enough, the art style had echoes of Vanillaware to me. I liked Bloodstained, so I'll keep an eye on this one.

I hope they confirm good discounts on the subs soon.

@KidRisky Yep, the games can be fun if you like the genre, but they're really janky. If you care about trophies, avoid them like the plague. Years later, they still refuse to fix the bugged ones, yet keep churning broken ports on more consoles.

This is a great little Picross game!

@Member_the_game @thefourfoldroot1

Sony's offers are inconsistent to say the least. It wouldn't let me take advantage of any offers/sale either while I had a ongoing sub. I'm hoping there'll be some sort of deal available before the end of April, but I'm not holding my breath. Usually the offers come at the same time every year, and the next ones probably won't be before the next Days of Play (end of May/early June).

My subscription ended a few days after the outage. I thought that meant I wouldn't get compensation. I was very surprised to get an email on March 27, telling me they were giving me 5 days of PS+ free... from March 25. I lost 2 "free days" because I happened not to use the console during the working week. They could have sent an email earlier or a notification in the PS app, but no. At least I was able to grab the monthly games for March.

I really hope that the Global servers get the synched exploration map that they've recently added for the Chinese server. Hunting down those last few dews of inspiration in each region will be the death of me.

I always add them all.
It used to be out of habit, in a "it's included, might as well" kind of way, but now, even if I know I'd never want to actually play any of them, there's always the chance that they'll one day be included in a PS Stars campaign that gives coins (or at the very least, a collectible). I'm always happy to discover I have at least one of the titles to complete a campaign in the library.

@XanderTigerclaw Oh wow! We're 502 Bad Gateway buddies~!

I really liked the demo, but the JP Steam reviews are... not good. Hopefully, the game will have been polished since the original launch.

@JohnnyShoulder You should listen to @themightyant because the game is well worth a playthrough!

@MrHabushi Quite right! It's been one hell of a week, my brain is mush, I meant 4000 instead of 5000.

@MrHabushi £5 is 1250 pts. The new £10 one is 2500 pts, so it's the same rate. The £20 one was 5000 pts (instead of 6000 pts or 1250x4), so it offered a slightly better rate, but in the end I never managed to get enough pts to claim it.

@themightyant What they've shared so far is all in English (apart from a few monster names which are meant to stay in French as a stylistic choice, I think?), but you can see the spacing from the menus and the battle UI shown in the trailers.

It's so refreshing to see a game where the UI has been planned to accomodate French from the beginning, and not have to squeeze and compromise everywhere with a translation that can't quite fit properly!

I've lost the £20 one, but gained a £10 one overnight. The £5 remains for now. The £20 one was better value, but I never spent enough to accumulate the pts for it. And now that they'll stop giving points for renewing subscriptions, I definitely won't. Such a disappointing scheme... Why force people to use the app anyway? Why can't we access Stars from the console?

Tried the demo, and dropped it instantly since it had scratchy sound pushed through the controller that you couldn't turn off. That's an instant fail in my book. I really can't stand it.

@TheAmbienWalrus Finally came back for me a few hours ago, but no pts accrued during the outage for me either...

Force closing & relaunching the app didn't work for me (UK). Guess I'll try again later.

Well, if they bring it back by noon tomorrow they'll get a few purchases from me for sure. Fingers crossed!

I got all of them, but the ones with the embroidered details really are the best ones.

The Voice of Cards trilogy is finally on sale at below £25, but I won't buy anything until PS Stars is fixed.

F2P games having a platinum or not doesn't bother me, even when they have ridiculous trophies that can only be earned through hundreds of gameplay hours. It's the nature of live service games, I suppose.
But I do have an issue with games I've already got the platinum for suddenly saying "52% complete" because the devs have added, months or even years later, some random DLC I'm not interested in purchasing and it's not counted separately.

I never understood why those CC aren't offered outside the US. Surely they could appeal to some people?

Couldn't wait! Completed the demo on the Switch even though my main playthrough will be on PS5. I'm glad I'll be able to start over now that I understand the mechanics a little better. Already so many options of recruit/don't recruit or kill/don't kill for potential allies/ennemies! I expect there will be multiple endings. Overall, I enjoyed the demo very much and it confirmed my decision to purchase the game.

"One of the modes sees you hoarding gems you mine from CPU enemies, but you can obviously be attacked by three other real-life players and have your resources stolen from you."
This sounds like a terrible idea...

The JP demo is also up, as advertised, but I'm curious about the localisation, so I suppose I'll have to be patient...

Dammit, I was looking forward to it, and it won't show up until later...

As usual, there's a 50pts campaign on PS Stars asking you to "try" one of the PS+ monthly games. I'm not sure which one I should pick...

This was a very satisfying gameplay trailer. I'll definitely keep an eye on this game now.

@UltimateOtaku91 Not sure if it's treated exactly the same, but I used my top-up credit to renew my sub last year and it gave me points as normal.

Those "gameplay" trailers that show no actual gameplay are very confusing to me. It looks slick, but I would like to see UI, menus, well, anything that could show how the controls work.