IntrepidWombat

Oh man. I've been such a nerd for this franchise for 27 years. This was the second best reveal (only because the RE2 remake reveal will never be topped). I've already got my Out of Office on the calendar for this day. Here. We. Go.

Total snoozefest without RE9. That alone made it worth it.

Final Fantasy Tactics and Bloodstained are the only two I could get any kind of excited about. Maybe Pragmata? I need to see more.

Different on the US store - per Gematsu and the SquareEnix site, the game comes with the bundle. It also looks to be sold out unfortunately.

I tried Settlements and was disappointed by the mobile-game-like waiting. Why does this upgrade take two hours? That's a good way to make me shelve the game for 6 months. If they've fixed that though, I'm in.

Resident Evil IX or even the rumored Zero remake. Come on, Capcom!

Between this and Game Fest, there has to be some Resident Evil, right?

Right??

Not a lot of gaming this weekend. Drove for most of the day yesterday with my family and arrived in beautiful Kansas City for Breaking Benjamin and Staind on Sunday. This will be my teenage son's first concert, and he's excited. I brought a Switch along in case of some downtime and have Triangle Strategy on deck, but it's looking likely that it will stay in its case.

Have a fantastic weekend, everybody.

Capcom, pleeease. Resident Evil Anything-that's-not-live-service-multiplayer!

Enjoying Soul Hackers 2 a great deal. I wanted an Atlus title to help make up for the disappointment that was Metaphor, and this is it. Heading to my mother's shortly to take care of a couple things there, then back home to knock out some cleaning.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

I need at least one more opportunity to be disappointed at the lack of a Resident Evil reveal. Come on, Sony/Capcom.

Maaaan, I love this game. I remember coming home from work and finding that my father had bought me a copy after I'd mentioned it after seeing some commercials - we used to watch wrestling together twice a week. I'd just started my junior year in high school and was balancing that with my new position at the move theater. I stared at that game on the shelf for a solid week before I could tear into it, but I remembered being so thankful every time I looked. Dad was always awesome like that.

Now, if those jokers would only release this on disc, I'd be a happy buyer! Otherwise, I have my original (or emulated) copy to fall back on.

@Dominator2885 It's a good philosophy. People like X, so give them more X. PS1 era Resident Evil and SNES Final Fantasy games come to mind.

@SausageWearer Can't say I disagree. I'm at a stage in my life where I have more money to buy games than I do time to play them. As a result, I have more games now than I can hope to play.

@Ravix I could, but then we'd be me missing other context - cost of living in different regions, racial disparities, gender disparities, education, etc, etc. I understand what you're saying in that we would also need to check what percentage of income is considered disposable, but I'm trying to keep things surface level since this is a video game forum and it's not really that important.

@nessisonett If anyone is priced out, it will only be temporary for a given title provided that distribution remains varied. Prices of games drop based both on competitive pressure between retailers and with newer releases. It's damn difficult to be priced out of the hobby with an enormous number of titles available for peanuts on places like GOG that will run well on PCs that are cheaper than last gen's consoles.

Still, I don't believe wage stagnation is a good argument against the rise on prices. I'm going to us US numbers because that's where I am. Check out numbers for wherever you are. I'm using average over median because that data is more readily available.

2000:
Average Hourly Wage: $16.97 (census.gov)
Price of New Release: $49.99
Hours of work needed to buy a game: 2.9

2010:
Average Hourly Wage: $19.21
Price of New Release: $59.99
Hours of work needed to buy a game: 3.12

2020:
Average Hourly Wage: $33.36
Price of New Release: $59.99
Hours of work needed to buy a game: 1.8

2025:
Average Hourly Wage: $30.19
Price of New Release: $79.99
Hours of work needed to buy a game: 2.65

Wages have indeed stagnated and even fallen, but I would argue that game prices stagnated for even longer and what we're seeing is a market correction.

I'm really not sure. I got fed up with Metaphor this week and pulled the plug. 30+ hours in, and I'm over the way this game is designed. I don't like it.

My backlog is ridiculous. I really have no clue what to play right now. Since putting Metaphor back in its case, I must have cycled through 10 or 15 games, saving at the first opportunity, and then bailing on them. Maybe it's just a good weekend to knock out multiple projects.

Short answer: let's go with nothing.

Have a good weekend, everybody.

Horrible decision. You may be able to do that if you build good will with the audience. 2K has absolutely not done that with that franchise. Capcom could do it with Resident Evil 9. Atlus could do it with Persona 6. Borderlands 4 though? Two flopped games and a flopped film in succession just don't warrant it.

A bit of Metaphor Re:Fantazio. I'm almost 30 hours in, and I am bordering on pulling the plug. I'm underwhelmed - I don't care for the press turn system, the field combat is seriously janky, and the balancing just feels off. The story is one that's not particularly inspired, and I can't stand the protagonist. I have only continued because it's Atlus and because so many have a lot of love for it, but if the next couple of hours don't change my mind, then I think it's going up on eBay.

Have a good weekend everybody.

@twitchtvpat Oh, I'm fully aware. That's why I'm not shy about being all in on emulation.

@Frmknst New doesn't mean better nor does it mean it will suit every individual taste. There are exactly three games out this year that I care about, and there is a lot I missed in previous console generations. This has been a heavy backlog year so far, and it will continue to be.

To the wider topic at hand, I can emulate PS3 games just fine on a 6 year old office computer with a workstation graphics card using software built by people doing it for free as a passion project. There's no technical reason that the PS5 couldn't play every generation of PlayStation just fine with the resources that Sony has at its disposal. It should be possible for me to put in any PlayStation disc that I own and play. Sony can't sell it to me for a third or fourth time if I could do that...

I've never liked GTA, so my main take away is that today I learned that sceptic is the proper British English spelling of skeptic. How neat.

A game from 2013 is ancient now. I need to sit down.

GungHo completely bungled the release of Lunar Remastered. Looks like there's still only scalped copies on Amazon. Hopefully this is smoother. I'm still hoping for PS5 releases of Zero and Azure based on the PC versions!

Ick, LRG. I will grab something if they are the only way to get a physical copy of something that I want (Persona 4 Golden for example), but this is nuts.

@Neither_scene A cinematic 24FPS it is. Lol.

$40 for just the first one...sheesh. The inclusion of multi-player though, I think that's going to be enough to drag me back in. I haven't really been into a console multiplayer game since Mass Effect 3, so this will be fun to hop back into. My brother and I played through the first game together in co-op. Let's see if our almost 20 years older selves still got it.

@Keyblade-Dan There's dozens of us!

Nothing that involves a screen! Out of town with my wife for our anniversary, and so far we've done an escape room, she's kicked my tail three times at Boggle, and I sank all her battleships. We'll see what's on the menu tonight before driving home tomorrow.

@Oram77 Haha, nice. Power to you!

@Oram77 How in the world have you been able to put 80 hours into a game in 5 days? That's wild!

Just waiting on my copy to arrive at this point. I'm playing Metaphor right now. I like it, but I don't love it.

I'm slightly concerned that the QTEs will be a turn off. We'll have to see.

I put so many hours into so many playthroughs of the original that I'm not sure I would pay more than the $7.99 or so that it will be in a couple years. I'm eager to see if reviews can change my mind though. If it has Shivering Isles and some horse armor (hahaha) from the jump, that'd make it a much better value proposition.

Decided yesterday that it would be a good idea to just go ahead and order my copy of Expedition 33 since it's out next week - estimated arrival date of May 19th? Holy smokes. I'll hunt for a copy in town in the meantime.

I decided to start Metaphor Refantazio. It's... fine. It's okay. I'll give it some more time. I also finally ordered Romancing Saga 2 - I adored the demo for that one. If Metaphor hasn't completely grabbed me by then, I'll switch to that.

Beyond all of that, I'm putting together an inexpensive PC for my mother to use since her last one gave up the ghost. Got a good deal on a used bare bones Optiplex. A few new parts, a few parts I have laying around, and she will have a perfectly serviceable web browser.

The old pool is finally coming down. If weather doesn't stop me, I'm going to finish cleaning out the muck that accumulated on the bottom and tear it completely down. I'm thinking I'd like a patio with a gazebo or something in its place.

Happy Easter everybody, and have a great weekend.

@Fishysensei Tekken: Dark Resurrection was on PSP, yes. It was the stripped down version. Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection was a port of the upgraded arcade version.

The series peaked with Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection on PS3. It's fighting game perfection.

The comments section in this article successfully solved the issue, but we're to believe that the developer couldn't? Come on. It has to be a cop-out.

Just bought my son a PS5 because he's an awesome kid who's obliterating school. He's cycling between Sakura Wars, Persona 3 Reload, Madden 25, and Unicorn Overlord so far. We'll spend time detailing cars this weekend and installing a dashcam into my wife's vehicle.

The parts cannon I fired at my mower has dried up, and now it runs amazing - a 20 year old machine that should hopefully last another 20.

Having just finished Unicorn Overlord last night (two trophies from the platinum, but I'm not spending hours in the mining mini game just to find treasure maps), I'm going to spend a bit of time sampling some games that I haven't finished. At the top of my list are Trails into Reverie and Triangle Strategy. We'll see how that shakes out.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

Unicorn Overlord. It looks like I may finish it in time to play Clair Obscure when it comes out.

@FinneasGH Black Lotus with the rapier, all day long!

I've had a switch for almost 7 years. I've purchased two games for it and played it a cumulative four hours or so. I'd sell it if there wasn't sentimental value attached. Instead I check in on it every few months and make sure the battery is topped off and healthy.

The reason I bought an XBox 360 - my roommate and I went in on it and traded off. Lots of great memories of this one.

Unicorn Overlord is huge! I'm 25 hours in and feel like I've barely scratched the surface. Burn ban was lifted today, so I just finished burning a brush pile from trimming bushes a few weeks back. I've fired the parts cannon at my mower to fix a surging issue. It's not fixed yet, but it's different (the new coils sure woke it up!). I just really didn't want to pull the carb, but that's what I'm going to have to do. I'm going to make that a tomorrow problem.

Another conundrum - my son loves Madden 25, but the rumor mill suggests that Madden 26 won't be on PS4. So I'm thinking either he gets a PS5 Slim or I get a pro and he gets my base. I don't have a nice enough TV to take advantage of a pro, so I'm wondering if that's even worth the extra $300 or so. What do y'all think?

Have a great weekend, everybody.

When a job like this can be done from anywhere with power and an internet connection, prolonged strikes don't make a lot of sense.

I get what they're trying to do, but it's not like they're highly-skilled factory workers with deep knowledge of specialized machines who are difficult to replace on-location. They don't have the leverage to drag this out like laborers of yesteryear did.

Not sure if this is good or bad for the value of my sealed PS2 copy.

Oh jeez. I need to finish Reverie.

What I'd love to see are higher quality ports of Zero and Azure for PS5 (based on the PC versions!!). It's a pipe dream, but a man can wish.

My most anticipated game of this year. Can't wait to dive in.

Altaïr is still my favorite character from the series. I tried the second one and Black Flag but couldn't get into either of them. I think I spent a good 10 to 12 hours on Odyssey. Neat at first, but terribly repetitive. With this one, I think all it's going to do is make me wish I was playing Ghost of Tsushima or Tenchu instead.

Finally bought Unicorn Overlord. I came around on the combat. While I wish it was playable in real time, I have a better understanding of the strategy elements at play. I'm going to finish the demo, and if I'm still into it, I'll go ahead and take the plastic off my copy and spin it up for real.

I started Alan Wake II - not a big fan of the mind room mechanic at all.

Spun up the PS4 remaster of Onimusha this past week and had a lot of fun with it. Started Onimusha 2 on original hardware, but abandoned that after about 10 minutes and went to PCSX2 upscaled to 4k with a wide-screen patch. There's a bit of jank, but it works great.

Have a good weekend, everybody.

I hope Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 is a smash hit and shows SE that people still want that kind of gameplay. I understand that I'm in the minority - especially on this site - but for me, the combat in Rebirth was so bad as to be completely unplayable just from the demo - I couldn't even finish it, and I absolutely refuse to buy it. Nothing about it works. Even in Remake, I avoided battles as much as I could because I just couldn't stand the combat system. I'd hoped that they had learned a thing or two about action combat with Final Fantasy XVI which was decent in its own right, but nowhere near the peak years of the franchise. A return to the series' roots would be incredible.