FullMetalWesker

As others have said, considering this version of Halo doesn’t include MP (you know, the main draw of the series), along with it being a lot more expensive, and the Halo franchise not being as present in the minds of the general gaming audience these days, it’s not surprising that it’s not doing as well as the CoD ports. Had these Black Ops ports also ditched the multiplayer, and didn’t launch with a sale, I can assure you they wouldn’t have sold as well either.

@somnambulance - To be fair, there are some differences between the two: Resynched is closer to a remake than TLOU remastered (I’m assuming you’re referring to that, and not the “The Last of Us Part One” remake), it’s the only re-release the game has had (unlike TLoU, which got a remaster, a remake, and a TV adaptation), and unlike TLoU, it does make one significant change from the original (the removal of the modern day sections), so I can see this being received a bit better.
Also, the time difference between ACIV and Resynched is around 13 years, whereas the two re-releases for TLoU are 1 and 9 years respectively, so you could also argue it’s not quite as bad in that respect.
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Honestly, I don’t really have a stake here, as I haven’t played a single one of these entries yet (might change that later though) but I ended up giving a vote to the new Avatar fighting game, as at least that’s a new game that I’ve been hearing some good things about.

@get2sammyb - Likewise, the article could have simply listed the more accurate/relevant statistic that physical games made up 20% of console sales and made the same argument, but instead deliberately listed a much lower number, then added the comment that 60% of these numbers were PC, thus all but guaranteeing a slew of angry comments from people pointing out the problem with the data.

Also, just because physical gaming is a niche, doesn’t mean it’s obsolete, or serves no purpose, and should be wiped out completely. As others have also pointed out, film and tv still have a physical market, and that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere; heck, vinyl of all things has made a small comeback as a niche, so why not simply reduce the scale of production, but keep it as a option for those who are interested? I mean, we already have the PS5 pro having a physical drive as a add-on, so it’s not like there’s any downside on the hardware side of things, so why the need to wipe out physical gaming media completely? It just devalues the medium, and makes it that much easier to see it as a shallow consumable that’s about as meaningful as buying a can of coke.

To be fair, if Modern Warfare was actually good, then this might be an okay month: unfortunately, it isn’t.

On a related note, just out of curiosity, has anybody played For The King II and can offer any insight/comments on how good (or not) it is? (Since PS doesn’t seem to have a review for it)

@Llamageddon - To be fair, the problem there is that usually those who are against difficulty modifiers, are usually just against difficulty reductions, they just don’t call it that.

@MrPeanutbutterz - You do realise difficulty options are in most From games, right? They’re not hard presets like how most games handle it, but they are there (e.g. estus flasks: the game gives you a set amount to start with, but then it’s up to the player to decide how many (to a point) they want to acquire, each one essentially lowering the difficulty by pretty much giving the player more health).
Heck, you referenced them yourself when you said “When I see someone with an Eldin Ring plat, I wonder what build they used”.

@Nepp67 - Just out of curiosity, are you actually against accessibility as a whole, or just anything that modifies gameplay difficulty? Even then, what does it matter if it’s tucked away in the options menu?

@nomither6 - Long story short, it got a tad overused, appearing in pretty much every game, and sometimes with little thought put into whether they needed to be there (as they were probably only there to check a box). After a while, people just got fed up with them, myself included (though I don’t mind them if they’re done well)
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That…..is a lot of options (so many they had to add a new option allowing you to keep track of them all). Most of it seems minor, but I’m surprised UI text size is new; I thought that would’ve been added by now. Got a chuckle when I saw profanity filter was one of the new options (though personally I feel it might’ve been better, if slightly more expensive, if it substituted other words in, rather than just leaving possibly awkward silences).

@AdamNovice - I tend to agree with you on most things, but on this, I’m not sure I get the problem: If you need the modifiers to have fun with the game, what does it matter if you don’t get some digital trophies? The game itself, and the experience you have with it, remain the same, so why not take the trade-off, shrug your shoulders and move on?

@get2sammyb - Out of curiosity, did we change how we think about reviews recently, becuase I always understood professional reviews were supposed to at least aim for objectivity, with the goal being not to describe the reviewer’s experience through their eyes, but offer a systematic analysis of what the game was, so everyone gets an idea on what the game had to offer.
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Yeah, I’ll throw myself into the “why are we selecting reviewers who can’t at least give a neutral review” pile, though I appreciate there was some attempt at it here. I’ll also throw in that whining and complaining is not really something that I feel needs to be in a professional review; again it wasn’t egregious, but it was still there.
Finally, I have a question: Why is “frustrating difficulty curves” listed as a con (seemingly a big one, judging from the score) when the reviewer noted the game has ways to make the game significantly easier? Surely if you can lower the difficulty that much, the “difficulty curves” would cease to be a problem?

@Propaperpusher - Just a piece of advice, try understanding what the issue is before making sweeping comments like that one. For example, this particular issue isn’t “Kojima made a video”, it’s “Kojima is getting involved with AI generated videos” a move that is understandably generating alarm.

@Skinny-Pete - Just going to jump in here for a bit to point out some possible problems with this comment:
First, you seem to be cherry picking examples you seem to not understand (abstract art is a thing, and does make sense generally if you understand what it is) and are using that to slander, or at least undermine art as a concept (after all, your argument seems to be “art isn’t worth protecting because xyz”). The problem here, is that Art is one of the few unique things we can actually do, and is much bigger than a few random abstract pieces; it absolutely should be something we protect.
Second, you seem to be thinking that this one video is an isolated incident, and that people are reacting to it as such. Just in case it needs to be pointed out, this isn’t an isolated incident, but a part of a growing trend (heck, you could basically title this article something like “Kojima joins the AI trend”), a trend that, thanks to human greed and shortsightedness, could have serious consequences in the not-too-distant-future (not only for the obvious damage to art, but the environmental and economic damage as well). Heck, the fact that it’s only a short video seems to suggest it’s a test, to see if there’s any potential for expanded use in the future, so to think it’s just some random, isolated video is unfortunately a bit naive.
Finally. “Political Correctness” refers to people speaking like bureaucrats, trying to say things they think they are supposed to say, but don’t believe in. Needless to say, that’s not what’s going on here (at best it’s unnecessary panic, at worst, well, see above).
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As for the article itself, hopefully this doesn’t lead to Kojima trying to make full-blown movies out of it, but as long as he sticks to the “auteur” label he’s given himself, I don’t think he’ll go that far with it (and to be fair, there’s more than one way to use the results of this experiment).

@Oram77 - In this case, I don’t think it’s a competition, so much as an interesting compare-and-contrast between two similar games that go in a somewhat different direction. Looking at these polls, you can make the case that Saros is a game where the combat shines more than anything else, whereas Returnal’s appeal lies in its atmosphere and story, which ends up giving each game it’s own flavour, rather than just going “well this game is clearly superior, I don’t know why you’d ever play that other one”.
That’s my understanding of it, anyway.
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I kinda have to agree, at least based off of what I’ve played so far. Saros seems like the kind of game you play when you just want a good action game to blitz through, whereas Returnal is more atmospheric and its survival horror lean make that stand out all the more, because it almost forces you to take it slow and pay more attention to the environment. Even the two player characters embody this: Selene is cautious, uncertain, but determined, whereas Arjun is a single-minded man-on-a-mission, charging through everything like he’s a gridiron player or supersoldier.
It’s interesting, because usually in cases like this the sequel ends up making the earlier entry irrelevant, but here it’s almost like they wanted to create a game that serves as the flip-side to its predecessor.

@DennisReynolds - Depends on the game, but I think in this case, you’d be better off doing something that took better advantage of the tech available now rather than resurrect an experience that was fun, but relatively unambitious back when it came out.
@Oram77 - Killzone 2 is something I’d actually like to see come back (if only so I might finally be able to get the Platinum trophy…), so if that’s a way to get it, I’ll second your trilogy.
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Honestly, while they might be nice for a few people, I don’t know if they’d be worth the investment it would take to make them happen. While the games were a bit of a novelty when they came out (in fact, the idea of playing a character with super powers in a sandbox environment was the reason I tried the first game out) nowadays it’s become something much more commonplace, and without that novelty factor, what you’re left with are a couple of decent-but-nothing-special games that might be worth playing for a few hours if you can get them cheap, but not much more than that, unfortunately.

Getting in a comment before the section gets closed off, one thing I feel like pointing out (since a lot of the comments seem to miss this point, including the ones just above me) is that there’s a difference between sexy outfits, and badly designed sexy outfits. The ones presented in the article seem to be clear examples of the latter (I have to agree with Liam in that they kinda do look like bad mobile game designs) and that’s probably what the article is trying to go for, albeit not in the most professional manner.
Also, the comments by the people associated with the game make it clear what the intent is, and that’s “female characters should only have cheap, skimpy outfits, and anything else is woke”, which (besides being a complete reversal of the previous game’s approach)…..isn’t the best stance to have, if I’m being honest, but it’s another thing that’s relevant that seems to be more ignored by some of the comments here.
Just some food for thought…

I’ll admit, I was ready to dismiss it purely based on the name alone, but after finally convincing myself to try it, and playing through most of it, I have to admit, it is actually pretty good. The combat is possibly the best turn-based gameplay I’ve experienced, the music is great, and the story, while a bit silly at first, does get good once you assemble your party. Speaking of, the cast is surprisingly solid; I see a few saying the game took them back to old Final Fantasy games. I see why, but talking to everyone at the camp also drew me back to Bioware’s old games, where half of the experience was getting to know your party and hearing their take on the situations you were in (Speaking of FF though, I did appreciate seeing a proper old-school overworld in a game newer than FFIX, that was nice).

@1970sGamer - Funniest part for me is seeing so many people struggle with reconciling the “strong survival horror gameplay” pro with the “not enough survival horror gameplay” con, and then everyone having to explain what would probably take less than a minute if they thought about it 😂
Getting to your point though, to be fair, I can understand being a bit disappointed that a new game from a series like Resident Evil is getting an 8/10, as that effectively means it isn’t likely to be a new classic, but will instead sit comfortably in the B tier - Good, solid, but not exceptional.
Anything beyond that though, yeah, that’s kinda silly.
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Interesting review; Disappointing to hear Grace, the new character, isn’t given at least equal focus (I like Leon, but I feel like this series desperately needs new regulars at this point) but it sounds like the game itself should still be fun enough. Looking forward to dissecting the game myself and seeing how the game is structured, how everything flows, etc. compared to the rest of the series (I’m predicting it’s gonna be a bit of a mess, but still reasonably enjoyable).

@AdamNovice - Considering the main appeal of the game is co-op multiplayer, would an arcade mode at launch have been worth the investment?
@scottXedgar - I’m surprised you feel that way. Out of curiosity, was there anything wrong with the game itself, or was it just the monitisation you didn’t like?
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January is once again a weak month, but for me, the clear pick is 2XKO: admittedly it was the only game I played, but looking at the list, outside maybe Cairn, I don’t see anything I’d likely pick over it (and being a fighter, this game honestly needs all the votes it can get…).

@LikelySatan - These changes are not due to a “flight of fancy”, they’re a course correction after the S2 changes were so unanimously criticised.

@LifeGirl @J2theEzzo - I think J2’s right here; if you take a look at this picture https://manualdosgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/roger-jr-tekken-8-1024x540.jpg
You can see that the “pouch” is actually part of the clothing the big kanga is wearing. That, combined with the much more masculine looking physique makes me think they’ve, for whatever reason, kept the joey, but swapped out the mum for the dad.
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I’m curious as to what they mean with their “back to basics” statement, will be looking out for how that unfolds. As for the characters, Kunimitsu is an expected and welcome return, Bob I honestly could have done without, but I guess he is at least a unique character, and as for Roger, as mentioned above, it seems they’ve ditched the mama kangaroo in favour of Roger Sr., which is…..an odd change, but other than that, nice to see the character come back.

So, after all those comments on how 'wack' Push Squre's top 10 list was, let's check out their list and see what a quality top 10 list looks like:
"10. Battlefield 6 - 213 votes (3%)"

...never mind.

Jokes aside, it is interesting to see the comparisons and contrasts in the two lists. Looking at both in hindsight, I'm kinda surprised that a Sonic Racing game was able to beat out Silksong, Silent Hill, and Indy on Push Square's list, and doubly surprised that neither Ninja Gaiden (either of them), nor Shinobi made either list (not even the top 20 in the user poll). On the other hand, it seems that there are five games considered unanimously among the best of the year: KC:D2, DS2, GoY, SF, and of course, CO:E33. So there was some agreement on about half the list, just not so much on the other half.
As for me, I haven't really played enough games to put together a good top 10 myself, but if I had to it'd probably look something like this:
Death Stranding 2
Indiana Jones
Ninja Gaiden Ragebound (Currently playing)
Shinobi (based off Demo)
Clair Obscur (Currently playing)
Assassin's Creed Shadows (Played Part 1)
Pirate Yakuza
Doom: The Dark Ages
A few "good, but not great" games, along with a couple of gems and some possible gems that I just haven't played enough of yet (not to mention all the possible gems I haven't even played yet).

Finally, a GOTY pick I can properly comment on (seems I missed out on most of the years best games this time, I’ll have to see about fixing that).
Overall, I feel like DS2 shares some similarities to Andor S2, in that both are follow-ups to a more grounded, messy, and unusual story (in Andor’s case, unusual for Star Wars) that made changes to become much more accessible and streamlined. However, while Andor is arguably as good, if not better than S1, DS2 feels like it lost something in the transition. The game now feels more fun than ever before, with combat the stand-out in that regard. However, the actual story itself, specifically the emotional beats, for the most part don’t really hit as hard this time around. So while I was still having fun (for the most part) it rarely felt like I was doing much more than that, which, for me, prevents the game from being the proper GOTY experience I feel it could have been (in other words, Kojima was kinda right when he said he was worried he made the game too digestible). There also seemed to be some ideas that never felt like they were properly utilised, like the gate quake mechanic, or rescuing animals, but thankfully those were more minor problems.

Got 12/15, and one of the three I got wrong was a bit of a tricky question (I mean, who’s going to be looking at the number of reviews a game has on Metacritic, let alone take that into consideration) so not bad all things considered.

So, this is only for those who purchased a digital copy and if you do, you can’t carry over your save data?
If that’s the case, then I’m not really sure what the point of these are. More to the point, why did Sega bother with an upgrade path at all, if they weren’t going to do them properly?

I guess Kiwami 2 being essentially a free 60fps patch is kinda nice, but even then, if you’re forced to start from scratch, I can only see it being worth it if you haven’t played it in a while.

Also, what exactly does the upgrade do for Kiwami? 0 adds the extra stuff from the Director’s Cut, and 2 adds 60fps support, but afaik, neither of these things apply with Kiwami, so what exactly has changed?

Still haven’t gotten around to trying out Obscure Expedition 33 (I may end up liking it, but that title not so much) so I can’t really comment on how the two games actually compare, but crossover content is (almost) always nice to see. Wonder if we’ll end up seeing something more substantial in the upcoming FFVII Part 3?

While I understand taking an optimistic approach to your work as a way to ensure you’re giving it your all, the comments here alone unfortunately highlight that ultimately his goal of pleasing both newcomers and veterans likely won’t happen. Even if the final product is the best it could be (and going by the two prior installments there’s a decent chance it’ll get reasonably close to that) there’ll be people mad about it for not being “turn-based” (either using the exact same atb system as the original 7 or just a turn-based system in general) while others will criticise it for other changes it’ll make to the original. Even when it’s adapting elements faithfully, there’s potential problems due to either imperfections in the source material (sorry og FFVII fans), or complications with being adapted into a three-game story (I should add I’m actually overall in favour of the multi-game approach here, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore any challenges it brings) so either way, it’s going to annoy a few people.
Still, trying to look on the bright side, if he feels like this will “please everyone” that at least implies he’s satisfied with the game overall, so at the very least it sounds like the development process wasn’t a particularly hazardous one, which is at least something imo.

@Gaia093 - I don’t know about that: 86 for a game is good, but I think it needs to be at least a 90 to have “critical acclaim”, or “rave reviews”, to use the articles words.
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Honestly surprised it beat out Silksong, considering the latter not only is (I assume) more widely known, but also got better reviews, but going by the recent comments, maybe Silent Hill had more resonance here specifically?
In any case, nice to see a decent game win; interesting to see what the remainder of the year gives us.

@Dragon83 - I’m aware, my point was that gameplay-wise, V is pretty much a remake of PW already. Nothing PW does isn’t also done (sometimes much better) in V, and once you take that out, you’re really not left with much outside the story (and given how barebones that is, I don’t think you really need a remake for that). Ultimately, I just don’t feel like you’d get much out of a PW remake, especially compared with the titles I mentioned in my other post.

At this point I feel MG1&2, MGS1&2, and PW are all fair game for remakes (though personally I don’t see much point in remaking PW when V exists), so the cleanest option would probably be to start with MG1 and just do the first four in a row, though really (almost) any of these would be a good choice imo.

That said, I agree with those who say don’t use the Twin Snakes as the basis for the MGS1 remake; give that version a remaster instead, and base the remake on the original version so you get the best of both worlds.

@pyrrhic_victory - “ Welcome to Raccoon City fumbled the ball because Johannes Roberts, for some reason, decided to cram BOTH RE1&2 into a single 107 minute film, ”
To be fair, I think the problem there wasn’t that they tried to do a 2-in-1 (after all, the Resident Evil games aren’t exactly detailed stories) but more they picked the wrong two games*. Instead of tying 1 and 2 together, they probably should’ve tried 0 and 1, or 2 and 3. Not only do these games happen at the same time, but their stories are more closely related to each other.
*That said, having read through the film’s synopsis, the way they went about adapting the two wasn’t the best either. It really reads like they just crammed the events of 1 inside the events of 2, whereas they really should’ve been relegated 1 to flashbacks explaining why the outbreak happened.
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Considering how acclaimed Weapons has been, having the director involved does sound promising and this being a “original story” hopefully means there’ll be somewhat more creative freedom available here for him to actually play to his strengths. That said, I’m still not entirely sure what can be gained from making a Resident Evil movie at this point, since anything you can do with a movie you can also do in the games (in addition to having that interactive element games intrinsically have).

@Pacific - Take a look at the actual categories it’s being nominated for: pretty much all of them (outside one for best series) are for either acting, or the production (e.g. makeup, sound, etc.). Nothing for writing, or even directing, which, considering all these other nominations, is quite telling on which parts they thought was good and which parts weren’t.

@yazzika - All the info you need is in the article, so if you take another look it should make sense which is which.
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If this is accurate (taking it with a grain of salt since it seems a tad unbelievable) that’s a new low in low effort, to the point where I have to ask “why bother?”.
That this is coming after the seemingly never ending controversy this game has attracted since the launch of S2 makes me wonder if they”ll be asking that same question with the game itself before long (a shame, since the game was pretty fun to play for a while).

Unfortunately, I haven’t played any of the favourites so far (except Blue Prince, and even then, I haven’t played enough to get a good impression as yet) so my picks were for the few games that I have played so far: Indiana Jones, Nightreign, and Pirate Yakuza. All reasonably solid titles, but outside of maybe Indy, not ones I’d normally consider GOTY material.

Didn’t realise solo play was even possible, might have to look into that for when I’m having trouble finding a game (or just looking to experiment). Nice that they’re making sure it’s a somewhat viable option (though I understand being hesitant about making it overly so).

I guess it’s time to try out Inscryption then, see if it was as good as I’d heard.
Also nice to know only a small amount of titles are going next month, after losing a ton this month.

Looking at the lineup, you’d think it’d be a somewhat tight contest between at least a few titles, but instead, it seems the anime-JRPG-of-the-month has so thoroughly captivated the voters here that it’s beaten everything here by a country mile. Personally I don’t see the appeal (nothing I’ve seen so far has convinced me it’s anything more than your average JRPG game) but if that’s what people like, then that’s how it is, I guess.

As for me, I was prepared to vote for City of the Wolves, but it hasn’t been the hit I was expecting it to be, and since I haven’t played much of Blue Prince that left Indy as my pick of the month.

Here’s a page with a bit more info on the game: https://www.starwars.com/games-apps/star-wars-zero-company

Notably, it mentions that it will feature “authored and custom characters” meaning it’ll have fixed, “canon” characters, as well as generic mooks you can give a name and face to ala XCOM. That, combined wih the mention of base building makes it seem like this will in fact be closer to XCOM than Midnight Suns, which is a bit of a relief for me, as I much preferred the former to the latter. Interested to see how it turns out now, hopefully it meets the hype.

@ShogunRok - *sigh * Seriously? They’re no worse now than they’ve been in the past.

@Colour - “we keep getting bad Star Wars games”
Which games are you talking about? Last I checked, we haven’t really been getting many at all (unless you’re talking about mobile titles?) and what few games we have been getting (Squadrons, Jedi: Survivor and Outlaws for this decade) have been generally good (unlike half of the games we got in the 2000’s) so I’m not sure where you’re getting that from (unless, again, you’re talking about mobile games, in which case, that’s probably to be expected to be fair).
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Was interested in the concept, but after seeing this picture I’m having second thoughts. Based on the characters shown here, I’m guessing we’ll be getting something closer to Midnight Sun (i.e. pre-existing characters) than X-Com, which isn’t quite as interesting to me. I’ll check out the full reveal to see what it’ll actually look like, but if it turns out to be not actually be like X-Com, then I’ll probably skip it.

@SMJ - “Can we all agree that no-one wanted this…”
Actually, I did, as I didn’t have either, but I got the impression it wasn’t coming and bought them separately when they were on sale.
Also, not sure why you seem to be under the impression that this bundle coming out means fewer new 1st party games are being developed? Pretty sure you can have both pretty easily, Especially since the physical is only being released on Sony’s own store.

@Drago201 - It is an option, but pretty much no-one’s picking it (myself included).
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As much as I wish I could say Bleach, unfortunately the game didn’t quite turn out as well as I hoped it would (though I’d still say it’s decent overall) so that leaves me with the sole other new game I played this month; Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which, while not a revolutionary game, is probably one of the better entries in the series, and a gorgeous looking game in general.

@PuppetMaster - From what I understand (haven’t finished many AC games post III, but have dabbled in all of them) after III, the present day story got put on the back burner; stuff still happened in them, but they weren’t as important and I don’t think even did a whole lot to move the overall story forward. Then, Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla attempted to actual do something with the present day setting by giving you a new character in Layla, who is given a story spanning those three games, but from what I’ve read, her story ends in Valhalla in much the same way Desmonds did (sacrificing herself to stop some big disaster from occurring). Mirage, being a DLC expansion originally, doesn’t have a present day story segment at all, so where this stuff is at now is dependent on what Shadows is doing with it, but considering Ubisoft want to continue making these games until the end of time, I would guess the “main story” (as in, the conflict between Assassins and Templars in the present day) to be something that just continues until the series dies (and considering most play these games for the historical part, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just ditched it entirely at one point).
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Bought the game online yesterday, waiting for it to arrive. Interested in seeing how it goes, though disappointed that the RPG stats are apparently still a thing (one thing I loved about Mirage).

A shame they weren’t able to do one more, especially if they had a clear idea on what they wanted to do with it, but I do agree that, given how saturated the market was at the time with FPS and post-apocalyptic games, the timing probably wasn’t right (a factor that likely contributed to the previous game’s low sales).

That said, if anyone at Insomniac wants to do one now, it might do alright.

Feeling a bit mixed on this one: on the one hand, I’m pretty impressed I managed to get 12/15, considering I skipped every entry between Gladiator/Deadlocked and Rift Apart but on the other hand, it could’ve been 13 if I had chosen to read through all of the choices for the first question, rather than seeing Vita and immediately thinking it had to be that one -_-

I still feel like the effort spent on these projects would be better spent on a full-game version of Mercenaries. An RE engine entry, with a massive cast of characters and locations from across the series, a variety of modes and both offline and online co-op would be an excellent side game imo, and a much better way to celebrate the series’ 25th anniversary than…whatever this was.

@mountain_spider @JohnKasarinlan - *sigh * I could keep trying to clarify what I’m saying, but I get the feeling I’d just be repeating myself, so I might just end it here. You guys can re-read my previous comments if you want answers.
That said, one final point before I go; I personally have no problem with difficult games, or high difficulties in games, in fact I tend to gravitate towards them. That doesn’t mean I’m going to refrain from calling out a game’s particular difficulty mode for being easier than the equivalent mode in other games of the same type.

@mountain_spider @JohnKasarinlan - I’ll respond to you both since you’re both basically saying the same thing (which is “the intended experience of these games is at their highest difficulty”) and just say, no, it’s not. Just like with any other game type, higher difficulties are an optional extra for those who want to take a more challenging run, that’s it. They’re not the intended experience. You may see it as the “definitive experience “ and sure, maybe you’re right, but that isn’t the same thing. And when it comes to a professional critic review, especially a quick one like this is, it’ll be the intended experience, for the average player, that will be considered, not whatever one person considers the “definitive experience” (to borrow your fighting game analogy, a review for, say, Street Fighter 6, isn’t going to be targeting the pro tournament gamers who will mine this game’s potential till it’s dry, but the more casual crowd who probably won’t rise higher than Platinum).

@JohnKasarinlan - “you and the reviewer were probably…”
You know, if you actually read both the review and my comment properly you’d notice that we both specifically said we played on hard mode, which means Path of the Warrior. Also, whether it was called that in a prior release doesn’t really matter, what does is what it’s called in this release (though it certainly wasn’t just this release, as Sigma 2 uses the same difficulty naming scheme)
Edit: So, out of curiosity, I tracked down what the original game called these difficulties…..and they don’t. They just list the “path of the…” names and that’s it. And the descriptions seem to line up with what they’re called now (for example, Path of the Warrior starts with “Those adept at battle…” which fits in more with hard mode than normal imo) so I’m not sure where you’re getting your info from, but it doesn’t seem to line up with what I’m seeing.
“Come back when you play Mentor and Master Ninja”
I probably will at some point, but doing so won’t change what the game is generally. The strategy will likely still be the same: slash at enemies till they lose a limb, then press triangle to finish them off. Rinse and repeat (maybe use a ninpo spell every now and again if you get too crowded).
Also, if I have to play what the game calls “very hard” and above to get a good challenge, then at best, the difficulty names are a bit off. For the average gamer, normal and hard are what the game should be putting forward as the “intended experience”.

@PuppetMaster - Out of curiosity, where is the skill issue here? Unless I’m mistaken, skill issue implies a lack of skill (at least, that’s how I always see it used) yet the reviewer stated they had no difficulties at all, even though they were playing through on hard mode (which lines up with my experience, I was expecting hard mode to be pretty challenging much like the first game, but it ended up no different than Sigma 2).
Also, regarding your second comment, as mentioned before, I played through the entire game on Warrior(hard) mode, and I at least never really had to make that much use of the game’s mechanics. Heck, once you get some weapons, like the scythe, you can almost turn the game into a Warriors game the regular enemies are that easy to deal with. And that might be how the game is supposed to work, as it does feel very much like it’s main goal is to make the player feel like a badass by allowing you to pull off lots of cool moves that tear through enemies like butter. But it does mean that it can come across as shallow and “breezy” if you aren’t playing on the two highest difficulties since….that’s all the game is.
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I pretty much agree with the review (outside of the camera, which didn’t bother me at all) though I’d bump the score up to either a 7 or 8, since it is pretty fun all things considered, but at the same time, it does feel like what it calls hard mode is actually normal mode for some reason, so if you’re expecting a challenge from it then yeah, you might end up somewhat disappointed.
Overall, it’s good if all you want is a simple, straightforward action game where you spend 95% of the game tearing through enemies with cool moves, but if you’re looking for anything more, you might be better off looking elsewhere.

@Dalamar - Have you seen the sales figures for the series? The critic scores? Every main GTA game is a big thing at the time it came out, even spin off games like the two PSP games usually rank among the best selling on their platform. GTA V is still a strong seller, over a decade after release. When taking those things into account, of course GTA VI is already being considered a big thing.
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If what Mat is saying is accurate, then yeah, I’m not sure there’s a great reason for raising the price of the base game that high (unless you’re wanting to increase the price of the collector’s editions as well, but I’m not sure how many will buy those if you’re raising those by the same amount). If this has anything like the same level of budget and care as RDR2, then I can understand $70 USD, even maybe $75-80, but not $100. Especially since it’ll most likely include the monetization machine that is GTA online.

Been playing Ninja Gaiden Black 2, gone through the first seven levels so far, and I’m surprised at how easy the game has been so far, even on the game’s equivalent to hard mode. Still fun though, which is a far cry from my experience trying to finish Turok 2 on Switch -_-

Ragnarok and Gaiden are both great games for those who haven’t played them, and Sayonara Wilds Hearts is supposedly pretty good as well, so a good selection overall this month for Extra, just not much for me personally (though I’ve got a few games on my backlog atm, so it’s no problem).

@rjejr - It’s not really a GaaS game to be fair, just a game that’s had some bonus content released haphazardly afterwards. A GaaS is designed from the ground up to support a steady stream of content (usually with a road map), where the launch content is merely a starting point. Astro Bot doesn’t really have that: at best it has a minor GaaS component with the speed run levels, but those are clearly a bonus tacked on, as opposed to a core part of the game experience, as it is with games like Suicide Squad, or Destiny (and even then, from what I understand, most GaaS involve either a subscription or paid microtransactions, neither of which apply here).
So ultimately, when you see people dunking on some games for being GaaS, they’re dunking on games that are clearly unfinished on release, that have extensive monetised content drip-fed over the course of years, that abruptly end when it’s time to move on to the next thing. Astro Bot, on the other hand, has a complete story experience straight out of the box, with a few extra free bonus levels released afterwards. That’s it.

P.S. Oh, and a lot of GaaS games are multiplayer focused endeavors: Astro Bot is purely single-player.

Surprised to see Ghost of Yotei go toe to toe with a juggernaut like GTA VI; guess people really liked Ghost of Tsushima.
Personally a bit disappointed to see fighting games continue to prove unpopular, since there are some pretty good ones coming out this year, but I guess no-one cares much. Even 2XKO, the (I thought) highly anticipated LoL fighter (though one I’m not personally interested in) isn’t anywhere in the top 20, whereas some obscure games (including one literally called “Clair Obscur”) I’ve never heard of are.
Oh well, in any case, there’s a pretty decent selection of games this year, so, provided they mostly turn out as expected, things should be good for the next few months.

@Fishnpeas - I thought the same after seeing Half-Life: Alyx, that it was a step forward for video gaming as a whole, but unfortunately, it seems very few (admittedly myself included) actually play VR games regularly and so these games tend to get overlooked in favour of more ‘traditional’ video games.
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Just got the Platinum and yeah, I can see why this is GOTY. An absolute joy to play from start to finish, and a wonderful way to cap off PlayStation’s 30th anniversary.
I only wish Square weren’t quite so stingy and at least allowed Cloud and Sora into the game (other FF and KH characters would be nice as well, but those two are particularly big absences). Other than that though, this is an excellent follow-up and realisation of what was already a pretty good (if small) game (and presumably the original VR game as well).

Yeah, I had a feeling this was one of the reasons why VII Rebirth was ranked so low. And tbh, I still don’t see why that is. From what I’ve played of Stellar Blade (i.e. the demo) the game overall seems decent, with good combat during the boss fights and…….that’s it. Admittedly that’s only from the demo, but unless the game gets significantly better afterwards, I’m having trouble seeing this game as a #4 as opposed to a #7 or 8.

Yeah, I’d like to know the reasoning behind why this game isn’t at least at number 5, because outside of Astro Bot and Metaphor, I can’t see any game being placed above it, really. Maybe Balatro and Silent Hill, to put it at number 5, but that’s about it.