This makes financial sense, but I don't have to like it. It'd be cool if they could throw us a bone and have a good single player campaign. Battlefront II on PS2 was one of my favorite "turn of the brain" games ever.

Respawn makes a lot of sense to make it. I don't play a lot of straight shooters, but Titanfall 2 was so much fun.

I loved Requiem. Pragmata was excellent. Onimusha is... ok. I'm real hot and cold on it so far about 4 hours in. I think I like it, but I don't love it.

Regardless, Capcom is in a heater. They've got their fingers on the pulse and understand what it is people want out of single player experiences.

Given that their back catalog games are frequently available for $5 a pop, obviously.

Silent Hill AND Code Veronica AND Persona 4 all remade in the same year? Good heavens.

I game over'd on the first boss probably 7 or 8 times. Took a walk, came in, decided to be more aggressive, and smacked him down only taking a single hit. Very strange, definitely a "me" issue. I took a break when I finally decided to platinum RE2: Remake (finally done), and I'll probably play a bit tonight.

The trash mobs seem easy so far. They never seem to attack at once; they seem to just take turns letting you kill them. That's a little disappointing.

@StrickenBiged I'm with you. Bioware put out three stinkers in the last 10 years and had this other Mass Effect game in preproduction for the last 5 with barely anything to show for it. If the trailer is any indication, it was sadly on the same track - very neat, flashy cinematics bogged down by terrible writing. Bioware in its final state had no business trying to make that game. I'm happy with the trilogy that we got. In the words of Depeche Mode, more games are "very unnecessary, they can only do harm."

Village in the Shade looks really cool. Backlog is a bit jammed at the moment, so it'll need to wait.

I finished Trails in the Sky FC this past week - great game. It was the 12th title that I beat this year and the 7th JRPG. I started Trails in the Sky SC and decided to shift gears, so it will be Onimusha this weekend.

If for some reason I bounce off of this one, then I could go for some Castlevania, so something out of the Dominus collection.

My son cleared Persona 5 Royal about a half hour ago. I'll make a MegaTen fan of him yet. He's going to try Strikers next.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

This would be a fun poll for more games. I always take a day for Resident Evil. This game, I couldn't care less about it.

Outstanding news.

All of the people who made it great were long gone. It's a sad day, though. The cancelation of the next Mass Effect is a gut punch.

The PC build I have saved on PC Part Picker isn't terribly high end, and it's $2,500. The refusal by companies to ramp production of memory is infuriating.

Big companies like this aren't hovering up studios for their development talent - they want the IPs. I think what we're seeing is an overdue correction from the buying spree. Telecoms have been doing this same thing for years. I hate it for everyone involved, though it's not surprising.

Incidentally, there is currently a job opening in Redmond, WA for a "Xbox Games Supply Strategist" where part of the job description is: "The Xbox Games Supply Strategist will coordinate the launch of physical Xbox games across all platforms, lead development & oversee execution of global supply positioning strategies across all stages of the product lifecycle, ensure that inventory is positioned to deliver working capital/cost/service goals, and oversee the sales & channel execution of those games."

I find that very interesting. A peek into part of their next gen strategy perhaps? There's a newer one similar to it focused on accessories.

With many developers integrating AI into their workflow, how do you distinguish one from the other? If a solo dev or small team uses AI to develop an honest to goodness high effort game and must declare it, do Capcom and Square also need to declare it? Would their games get caught in the same filter?

I'm not arguing against the need to filter out garbage. There just has to be a way to define what the garbage is. You know it when you see it, but how do you build a filter for it?

Not enough options here. Sony would have to:

1.) Backtrack on discs. Charge more for them, I don't care. Customers want options.
2.) Massive improvements to their store and EULA to ensure that customers can keep what they purchase. We still can't gift, the refund policy is terrible, dynamic pricing needs to go, the wishlist bug is still there - this is worrisome.
3.) More flexibility with customer data - save data, for example. It's become progressively more difficult to back up as console generations have progressed.
4.) Total backwards compatibility. The system will be capable of playing 6 generations of console. I want to be able to grab one off the shelf - or load one up from a previous generation digital store purchase - and run it as it was when I bought it.

With all four of those? I would pay $1,000 for PS6. I'll take two. Without? They can kick rocks.

The gacha DNA of Resonance has me a little leery. Hard to have an immersive story when they're shoving Cloud, Terra, and Zidane in as 'member berries. I'll check it out at some point, but my backlog already has several of these.

For those with premium, Dino Crisis 2 is such a treat. It's nothing like the first game, but that's okay - it's got an arcade feel to it and an unhinged plot to boot. Very fun game.

@Llamageddon The used vehicle market is pretty bad. You can do better if you're willing to put in the work, but you have to have a place to work on a car and the knowledge to do it. As long as you're doing due diligence, $24k is going to be a safe and fairly modern vehicle. I can go to the lot down the road and buy a car for $5k, but man, I'm not feeling great about it unless I really go through it.

My wife wanted a new car a few years back, so we kept her 2012 Camry since it still runs and drives amazing. The dealership was only offering $10k, so it will go to our son who turns 16 in a few weeks.

I am undecided - I'm at the end of Trails in the Sky FC, I suspect the last hour or so. After that, I could jump straight into SC. I also have on deck The Adventures of Elliot and Onimusha - I might veer off to one of those if I need a change of pace game. There's also the Castlevania Dominus Collection, Suikoden, Lunar II...

Has everyone seen the new Biohazard short film written, directed, and starring Chandler Riggs yet? It is outstanding. Highly recommend it - very faithful adaptation of RE7's opening bits. It's the best 20 minutes you can spend on YouTube if you are a Resident Evil fan.

I think I might go buy a chainsaw tomorrow. My neighbor behind me has a patch of forest that's been encroaching on my back fence for way too long (and my corded electric saw won't reach), and the weather is getting so nice. We're still under a burn ban though, so I think I'll need to wait before I get to hacking.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

@tameshiyaku It's good to pay attention to who criticizes ideas versus who criticizes people, specifically ad hominem. Using the "ignore" function on the people who routinely engage in the latter tend to make discussions much more rewarding.

I'll check it out next year. I liked the first game's gun play a lot. Too many games to play right now though. I'm real happy for Remedy; their stuff is quality.

@KundaliniRising333 I'm wondering about this too. I preordered the steelbook but haven't taken the plastic off. Finishing the demo put me off of it, honestly. The combat is fine, nothing special. The MC talks way too much, and the hints are over the top. I love the original trilogy, but this one is not as big a hit as Pragmata was earlier this year.

@Angelus3K @Slippship How weird that we all had girls born in 2004 (or late 2003 maybe).

My son will be 16 in a few weeks and played the mess out of this game on PS3. This is definitely going to be one we revisit.

Maybe next year. I'm still not sold on the concept of shoehorning characters from other games into it. Still have the demo on deck.

Any time someone uses "dated" in the context of a JRPG, you can sign me up. Thanks for the review!

So far, it looks like the physical release will be import only for North America. Hopefully VGP stocks it.

Hitting enemies has this weird intentional stutter / vibrate / light flash thing going on I think to create a feeling of weight. I really didn't care for that. The gameplay doesn't feel quite as tight as I would hope from a Castlevania - Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (a game in the same genre that I played a couple months ago) feels much better to play, and it was a lower budget game from an obscure developer.

Still making my way through Trails in the Sky FC, closing in on the end of Chapter 3. It took a while for the narrative to pick up, but it's getting better. It's nice to have background on the events that they mentioned in passing in the Cold Steel games.

I don't anticipate playing anything else - I did find a copy of Cars 2 for the PS3 on eBay. If that happens to arrive, then we'll be all over it - it's an incredibly fun combat racer similar to Mario Kart, but with a Cars meets Bond aesthetic. It's truly an underrated gem and one that my family and I played to death ~10 years ago. Lots of good memories tied up there.

Before we do all that, I'm going to step my son through changing the oil in his car this morning. He's 16 in a few weeks, so we'll be conducting many such exercises to ensure that he's familiar with it.

After that, maybe some furniture shopping. We've needed new couches for a while, just have to figure out ones that the cats won't immediately destroy.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

@dskatter Thanks for the heads up. Hard to remember the last time that I pivoted so hard from intrigued to uninterested.

Trails in the Sky FC for sure - I'll finish it one of these days. I'm about 30 hours in.

I bought Death Stranding: Director's Cut last weekend. It has a really specific vibe to it. I'll need to be in the right mood to play it, but It's so delightfully Hideo Kojima. I have about 5 hours in it.

I may just go ahead and play Onimusha. I have some concerns from the demo, but I'm just gonna go for it.

I managed to find a copy of Adventures of Elliott for an acceptable price, so I'm looking forward to getting that. It may be Monday before it arrives though.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

The art style is heavily reminiscent of Eternights. Looks neat.

@katamariUK If PlayStation games were breakfast food, Sony is effectively closing down every IHOP, Waffle House, and Cracker Barrel so that your only option for breakfast is the suspect ham, egg, and cheese sandwiches at the gas station that Dirty Joe microwaved 6 hours ago and stuck under a heat lamp.

For the sake of everyone that sticks with the platform, I certainly hope that they take massive strides to improve it over the next year and change.

Fire up the old dev kits and make new games in PS1 style. Tank controls, fixed camera, pre-rendered backgrounds, amateur voice actors directed by people who don't speak English, the works.

Then they can just remake those a few years later.

Then they can demake the RE Engine games to PS1 style starting with 7.

Gotta get creative!

@GigaGaia Read the name of the person that you responded to out loud, then consider that the name aligns with the posts. It's good fun, don't take the account seriously.

I'm trying to figure out whether this is good or not. Critics tend to have a "type" of game - the scores tell us how well the game fits into what critics like. With a score that's significantly higher than the rest of the series, I worry about just how different it is from the rest of the games. Maybe that's unfounded. I bought it anyway, but that just means that I have four trails games (and Ys X Proud Nordics!) in plastic that I haven't touched yet. Sheesh, slow down Falcom.

@Rhaoulos I hope Square is learning this lesson. Falcom and Atlus are doing well here.

I work for a patent-happy company - the thought is that, even if we're not going to use a good idea, someone might. We want to control that intellectual property. Regardless, this type of idea is very on-brand for Sony on 2026.

Piscatella didn't say there was no change.

He said that there was no "significant change" in "[their] tracking." He hedged twice in the same statement. What is "significant?" Whose definition is it? What exactly were they tracking? Is it suitable to gauge the number of people who participated? We don't know any of this.

Someone who drops non-falsifiable statements on a niche social media platform that he cannot (due to his company's proprietary hold on that data) back up is clout chasing. Anything that he says should be met with a heavy dose of skepticism.

Even if his statement is most likely correct, treating it as gospel to call the endeavor a failure is shaky at best.

I haven't quite figured it out yet. SMT V Vengeance was outstanding. I finished my play through on Wednesday night.

I tried getting back into Trails in the Sky FC. Even for a Trails game, the pacing is glacial.

I will try a few today to see what sucks me in. A little bit more Sky FC and perhaps Raidou, Castlevania (from the Dominus collection), or something else off the wall.

I'm in a bit of a dilemma with Onimusha: WTS. I have the steelbook on the shelf still in plastic. I played through the second part of the demo to get whatever unlockable, and I kind of hate it.

It's very linear, and the protagonist will not shut up. I'm not asking for an open world, just an area to explore, keys to find, puzzles to solve, just like the first three games - and when there is a puzzle, don't blurt out the answer 5 seconds after I get to the area or zoom in over my shoulder to show me what to do. The constant one-liners are over-the-top and grating. And that's just the demo.

My dilemma is - I could play it and see if it gets better, or I could just sell it to get my money back (or honestly just sit on it and see what the value does).

Anyone else see those issues in Onimusha, or am I just being too cantankerous?

Have a great weekend everybody.

@GirlVersusGame You've likely heard it many times before, but Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is an impeccable game if you would like an entry into the 2D branch of the series.

If you like the genre in general, I'll also recommend what became one of my favorites in Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth. I'd consider the latter a hidden gem.

@ShogunRok A man of culture.

I want a Gundam game that plays like Zone of the Enders. It's all I've ever wanted from this franchise.

@ShogunRok Tell us: Epyon or Tallgeese?

Enslaved was so good. I remember the first time playing Horizon: Zero Dawn and doing a double take. I thought at first that I was looking at a sequel, but no, just a very strange coincidence.

@SBBuds I have a few hundred disc and cartridge based games accumulated over the course of 30 years. I do have a modest digital library, but I don't feel anything for it. For most of them, I paid no more than the price of a Blockbuster rental. I like picking up a game case and reflecting on where it came from, what life was like when I got it, whether it was a gift or a game that I bought, used, new, etc. It's a lot of fun when the receipt is still in the game case. I couldn't imagine spending thousands and having nothing to hold in my hand - but as you said, two sides to every coin.

In my criticisms of Rebirth's content, one of the most common responses that I received was to just skip the side quests, to which I argued that the main game's content is balanced around doing them. They're not optional, especially if you happen to be bad at the combat or otherwise have a strong dislike for it (I am in both camps).

I do not have any plans to play Revelations. With that being said - this is certainly an odd way to go about this. It's a tacit admission that the game is in fact balanced around the side content to the point that not engaging with it requires this automated catch-up. I rather hope that this isn't a trend that catches on.

Nearing the end of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance. What a trip. I imagine it will take my gaming time through to next week as well. The customization options are deep. Great exploration.

After that? I'm really looking forward to taking the plastic off of Onimusha and need to finish Trails in the Sky FC since SC is now sitting there looking at me.

Go Steelers. Go Buckeyes.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

@lacerz A system disc that will be frequently written to and read from should not get more than about 80% full - you are right about that. As for read-only optical storage? Pack in every last bit. No big deal.

Games like this make me wish that I liked Soulslike games. I hope fans of the genre enjoy this one; it looks neat.

@kmtrain83 You're not imagining things, it's dated and tropey. I love the hell out of it, but it's not for everybody. I'm having trouble with the pacing of the first of the remake of FC - I still haven't finished it. Definitely finish the demo of FC - it's quite long and enough to understand if you're going to like it or not.

I managed to grab Dragon Quest III HD-2D for $20 last week off of Amazon. Last month, I saw Lost Soul Aside for $10, so I grabbed it as well. I'm going to miss deals like that.

Not seeing a lot here that's compelling for the price. Resident Evil games under $10 are always a treat.

1440p 60fps is fantastic news for the base system. I don't think I'll be able to play this one at launch, but it'll be on my list. Very cool to read.

I was a "maybe on sale eventually" prior to the reviews. I'm a hard no after. Everything I was keeping my eye on went the wrong way. I'm glad that some people are enjoying it. This one just isn't for me.