KidRisky

This was an absolute pleasure to platinum. The creative use of VR in this game still has not been topped.

One of my favorite games. The thrill of being told to swap the CD because I’d accessed a new area was was almost too much for me.

A big part of the reason I bought PSVR2–at a deep discount—was the announcement that Firmament was going to come to the platform. Then it came out and reviews panned the performance. I’d like to see the VR versions of Myst and Riven, if they’re in a playable state.

I don’t play online multiplayer games, and I don’t own stock in Sony, so I don’t care how the game does.

But why does everyone, including Push Square, seem so emotionally invested in everything? Is it because admitting that it doesn’t matter whether or not a game does well would be a step towards admitting that this hobby we all enjoy doesn’t really matter either?

These are just games, meant to entertain people for a while. Take a step back, take a deep breath, and take a break from the forever war that makes everyone crazy and miserable.

The Yakuza Remastered Collection (3, 4 and 5) is available on Amazon for less than $30, for those who truly care.

I mean, you had years to buy this game. And you still can.

Continuing my backlog reduction initiative, I finally started playing the first game this week. Only a little into it, but the art design is breathtaking.

So far, it reminds me of Planet Alpha in terms of game design—platforming, puzzles & stealth. Very nice.

I played the demo on a base ps5 and saw no issues with the graphics. That image on the right is crazy.

Did anyone at Push Square download the demo and see for themselves what it looks like?

Also, don’t bother turning HDR on. It makes everything look awful.

I just played the demo on the base PS5 and it looks nothing like that screenshot. I can’t imagine how it would be possible to get the image on the right without altering it somehow.

I recently started replaying the series from 0 to get ready for Yakuza 3, and you can see that there’s not a lot of continuity. Kiryu is always Kiryu, but many of the side characters change personalities and motivations from game to game, with maybe a hand-wave explanation in an early part of the game about the change. They decide on the story, then fit the characters into the slots the story needs to have filled.

Each game plays differently, too. While many of the minigames repeat in every game, the main ones with associated substories vary wildly. Combat gets tweaked so that knowledge of one game’s system gets you started on the next, you’ll still have a learning curve. In retrospect, the switch to turn-based should not have been such a surprise. I love both styles, and am glad they keep the action combat in the spin-off games.

If it sounds like I’m criticizing their approach, I don’t mean to: the overall story is so entertaining that if they need the occasional retcon to make it work, it’s worth it.

@PuppetMaster If that had happened to me, I might feel the same. It’s not supposed to work like that, but it looks like in your case it did.

Knowing me, I’m much more likely to misplace or scratch a disc than most people, so I grab physical when it’s a good deal but I’d rather not take the chance.

@PuppetMaster PT was a case of Konami being incredibly vindictive, and I suppose they can have the legal justification that no one paid for it, so no one lost money, so no one can sue them. It was still a lousy thing to do.

The other two games you mention must have infuriated you. I would have been infuriated, for sure. I wonder if the buggy state of the PS Vita store- and I assume the PS3 store, since I don’t have a PS3–is the culprit.

There’s a Chaos Rings Preservation Society that was suggesting people buy the Vita version before the store’s announced closure a few years ago. They must have believed it would remain available to redownload. Maybe you could contact them for advice? I also know how cluttered the Vita download list can get and I often can’t find what I’m looking for there.

Sony certainly doesn’t want to make it easy to use those old storefronts, but so far, everything I’ve had the patience to find has worked out for me.

It probably sounds silly, but have you tried PlayStation customer service? I’d be interested in what they have to say.

Good luck!

I bought the Yakuza Remastered Collection digitally, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It was something like $6 for three games, and delisting a digital game does not mean anyone who owns it digitally loses access.

No one seems to understand what delisting means.

Buy games in the format you want. There are pros and cons to both. Unnecessary arguments should be avoided.

It would be nice if it was left up as an option, but the game is over 15 years old. If you really wanted it, you would have bought it. If you just decided you really want it, it’s right there now.

The Yakuza Remastered Collection on disc (Yakuza 3, 4, and 5) is available on Amazon for $25, so you could go that route if you wanted to.

This is why you buy physical games.

Loved this game but I missed out on the menu interactions because I kept putting the PS4 in rest mode. That sapped the choice you’re asked to make at the end of its impact as I hadn’t gotten to know the character.

Valorie Curry was the show-stealer for me,

While the white covers are ugly, the prices they charge for covers are obscene.

I just don’t look at it.

This would let me finally finish Arkham Knight. I knocked it down to easy, restarted the game and put every possible point into the Batmobile, and still couldn’t catch the bad guy because I suck at driving games. I hadn’t realized I’d bought one.

This is a great game that I haven’t heard anyone really mention since I played it. Great puzzle design, art direction and score. The atmosphere is playfully gruesome.

I’m enjoying this series, and hope to pick up some recommendations for games I haven’t yet played, since our tastes seem to be similar.

This is a silly way to judge the value of a subscription. I’m (mostly) happy that I get a game I want to play every month or two. If they only included online multiplayers and sports titles, the retail prices of those games would not convince me to be happy about it.

Imagine subscribing to a fruit-of-the-month club, and every other month they ship you a durian. That would be excellent value for money, but so what? But at least you could resell the durian.

If only we could get a $5 credit for every Essential game we didn’t claim.

Blue Prince for me. Mysteries within mysteries. Early on, when you haven’t learned how to affect RNG, you have so many options for what to explore further that you can gain some knowledge no matter what the game decides to give you.

Gee, I hope they’re not going to all this trouble on my account. I’m not even sure I want it.

This shows just how influential game journalists are.

I had pretty much the same experience: PS Plus game, first Telltale, no real knowledge of Borderlands, and enjoyed the story. Would play again.

I started on PS4 when Yakuza Kiwami was a monthly PS Plus title, and loved it so much I bought the collection for I think only $10 or so. I’ve really enjoyed all their games, and RGG is the only studio whose games I consider pre-ordering. I didn’t think I’d like the Like a Dragon games because of the move to turn-based but they turned out to be some of my favorites.

Am I reading the description of the upcoming Yakuza 3 correctly that owners of the original get the new game free?

@DanteDevilHunter I had trouble too, but I think I got that one through PS Plus, which doesn’t get the upgrade. The description is pretty clear that the main difference is added English options, so I’ll stick with the PS4 version of that one.

I have this platinum, but it comes with a shameful admission: I exploited a bug to get it.

I don’t know if it’s still the case, but when I did the final challenge it was possible to make the timer irrelevant and let you solve the final puzzle at leisure. I did that. I’m not proud of it, but I wanted the real ending and “In the Hall of the Mountain King” was driving me insane after a few dozen attempts.

I fled Netflix three or four price hikes ago. HBO Max offered a good selection, and the ad-supported tier cost me only $6/month after a credit card rebate. The ads are usually 30 seconds about every half hour. Everything was fine.

I don’t care so much about the WB games, although I really enjoyed Hogwarts Legacy. But I need to go make sure I turned off auto renewal on my Max subscription .

If you’ve done this kind of sale roundup before, I’ve missed it. It’s a great help, because try as I might to check all the sales the smaller games get lost in the mix.

I don’t have any reason to buy one of their games in the first few years after release. Let them figure out whatever added content they will package into it, let the dust settle, wait another year, then buy at a deep discount because it’s such an old game now.

I have tentatively planned to play Metaphor over Christmas of 2029.

@EfYI That’s why I downgraded to Essential in June. I kept piling on unplayed games either bought on sale or received through Essential, and playing Extra games before they left. If I ever get my backlog down to a manageable size, I might go back to Extra for a year. In the meantime, it’s liberating to play the games I want to play for a change.

I’ve left the higher tiers for Essential, but would have liked getting Still Wakes the Deep and Thank Goodness You’re Here, as they’re both in my wishlist. Just trying to get my backlog to a manageable level (<25 games? Is that even possible?) before buying much of anything, barring a great deal.

I will keep my eye out for this. Could be a fun time.

I’ve enjoyed both previous games, but preferred the first because of Date. Fun, unique puzzle elements that aren’t too taxing, good replay value (requirement to see different endings for the platinum).

This was the best announcement of the show, I thought. I had been hoping for something from RGG, but this will do.

@Balaam_ Sorry you’re getting responses that seem oddly aggressive. I’m not sure where the hostility is coming from. If I read you right, you only want to play games that you would enjoy playing to 100%. So you do that, and then additional trophies are added at a later date that don’t just expand the game, but change the very nature of the gameplay. Is that right?

I don’t care about getting 100%, but if you think of that metric the same way many people do about platinum trophies (just as arbitrary an achievement) I can certainly imagine an uproar over having a platinum trophy revoked because dlc was added—especially if the dlc introduced and required a new style of play.

It’s surprising that the resources needed to finish 50% of the DLC would have prevented RDR2 from being made.

I’ll probably try to platinum the PS4 version of Stray. If that one trophy doesn’t kill me first. Other than that, nothing I want here.

I haven’t played the game, and I understand there’s been a lot of fair criticisms, but if every game publisher were as transparent with their sales data as Capcom, wouldn’t we see this kind of drop off all the time?

It seems like, whatever your intentions, you’re explaining to your readers why it’s rare to get accurate data about sales.

I boycott everything that I have no interest in. And that goes double for this.

Can’t Cat-ch Me was so frustrating. I must have tried 100 times, rage-deleted it, then got it pretty quickly when I saw it was leaving Extra.

It’s a very good game with good visuals, a nice story, and you’re a cat. It’s not a walking simulator, I’d call it a puzzle-platformer,

The only thing PlayStation could do to persuade me to buy a PS6 at launch would be to announce they’ll be following this generation’s strategy of ramping up the price over its lifetime.

I appreciate seeing the actual figures.

If there’s a star rating system, then it makes sense to post reviews justifying the rating you give. I don’t see the downside, unless it’s just too difficult to see opinions you disagree with. The solution to that problem is to ignore the reviews, and then your experience won’t change one bit.

MS knows people won’t pay this. They’ll gladly take the money from the few who do, but the middle tier is where they’ll end up. If first-party games show up within a year, that’s better than PS Plus Extra (where’s Knack 2, PlayStation?) but at a much higher price.

I’m down to PS Plus Essential now, and for the same reason I wouldn’t be on the middle tier of GP: I don’t want to play every game available, and by the time they get to the service they’ve already gone on sale. With my backlog I can wait until a price is too good to pass up.

For all the crap you get for rating games 7/10, at least your 9s mean something.

How gracious of PlayStation to allow us to purchase overpriced merchandise! Did Viva la Dirt League come up with this idea?

@windxtravelerx I missed this when it came out. Thanks for mentioning the demo— going to take a look at it.

@Muscleblackcop I think you have me confused with someone else.

This is the first month this year that all 3 games appeal to me.

I was excited until you said the VR version isn’t included.

I requested one refund: Yooka-Laylee & the Impossible Lair. I bought it on the app, but when I told it to download to my PS5 it told me it was incompatible. I started with customer service on the app, then had to switch to a phone call. Then I was told it would be have to be resolved by a supervisor and was given a ticket number.

After a week I called back, angry that something so straightforward was such a problem, only to be told that the refund had been processed the same day I spoke to someone. They don’t bother sending an email when the issue is resolved.

All told, it took a little over an hour—and a week of aggravation—to get back the $5. The new system seems like it will shave off maybe 5 minutes at the beginning. The non-aggravating part, in other words.

No torture porn for me, thanks.