Kingy

I am shocked. SHOCKED!
Well, not that shocked

The series gets spotty by RE6 onwards but I'm obsessed with it nonetheless.
Depending on the day of the week or alignment of the moon I could easily put RE4, RE2, or REmake at the top. All three are masterpieces.

Sold out on Amazon and my local retailers. I guess it's not a big deal since I'm still playing Resident Evil and Arknights, but I'm very much looking forward to this one.

@Oram77 The funny part is that we only ever learn about Carla from Ada's campaign. From Leon's perspective he only ever watched the tape of Ada 2 being "born" and never got a proper explanation.
It's actually hilarious to think about how each character in that game would recall the events given how much info they lack from the other campaigns. It's complete gobbledegook

@Oram77 Ada seems like the obvious choice but let's not forget that she's a spy and international criminal. And- provided that RE6 is still canon- the last time we've seen these two interact Leon saw Ada hatch from an egg and never got any context lmao.
Honestly if this guy is married, I would hope it's just to some random woman we've never met, if only so his home life can be relatively normal

Arle is a goated pick, but I hope they don't skip out on all the Dreamcast era characters that made up a lot of the roster in the older Sonic Racing games. I'm less interested in the third party / non-game characters, though Mega Man and Proto Man are cool.

So basically they do the opposite of what you guys do. Not surprised this got you salty enough to make a whole article to vent about it.

1. The games listed are all in niche genres and shouldn't be expected to always blow up. In fact you should expect them to sell modestly, which they do.
2. You guys give every game a good review so your word doesn't mean anything.

@MaelysSedisia Except this popularity contest determines how long the game stays online and available to the market.

Remember, industry creeps like this benefit the most from you the player not knowing how much engagement a game is getting. If they could take it from you, they would.

And like I said in a previous article. Nobody says "***** the steam charts" for games that actually have good numbers on the steam charts.

@GamerDad76 I've noticed this "yeah, ***** the steam charts" argument is never rolled out for games that are actually pulling good numbers in the steam charts 🤔

Lmao dude. Like clockwork at this point

Maybe Marathon can manage two months

Guys, stop talking about Bluepoint already, that's like last week's news. How am I supposed to lap up Sony's next live service swill if you guys keep criticizing them!?

I didn't think these kind of corpo-weasel tactics were still effective, but unfortunately it seems like it is to some extent.

All three of them (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo) have been headless chickens for some time now. All brand no brains

Not inspiring hope for DoA7

Wow. Fingers crossed they didn't steal anymore art to make this

Eeehh, this game was plenty looked when it came out last year. I think just not a lot of people actually liked it. Nice try though

Considering brain-dead has been the new standard difficulty mode for a while, this doesn't really tell me much. But I love the energy regardless. Looking forward to this one.

My guy, the PS5 has like 10 games and you already want to move on to the PS6??

"Preview: Ignore The Haters, Concord Is a Good PS5 Shooter We Can't Wait to Play More Of" - Push Square article from July 2024
Also the "Highguard is potentially great on PS5" article from last month.

You guys have a great track record for these kinds of games.

@Bez87 A remake implies changes, no? I don't imagine the current GoW team is interested in just doing a graphical overhaul, they're probably going to make them play like the Norse games and be as narratively focused as they are. Guess we won't know until they have something to show.

Neat, I need to play these games. I always liked the MC designs when I saw them in Project X Zone

They should stay in, but there's about a 99.9% chance it's cut.

Also, I haven't really delved into GoW yet so I can't say, but why are they remaking these games in the first place? Other than money obviously.
Isn't the crux of Kratos' characterization in the Norse games reliant on his actions in the original trilogy? Wouldn't changing things start to confuse the narrative? Just seems like a baffling announcement in general rather than moving on to a new setting and pantheon.

That's pretty *****. I remember in the Jaffe video he complained that characters kept breaking the flow to stop and yap.
So I wonder if they locked co-op initially so you have less incentive to skip the story. Sounds like a very Sony move nowadays. Movie first, game second.

@Fluberuper The factory beckons... It beckons

@Runex2121 The cuts are baffling and I hope it's something that stays exclusive to this remake due to SE being terrified of DQVII's online reputation. Cause quite frankly if Reimagined is a window for what we can expect for future remakes and DQXII, I wouldn't be interested in the franchise anymore.

It goes beyond cuts for me too. Things like your characters auto-reviving on death and reloading an autosave after a party wipe are way more than a QoL features, they fundamentally change the game design. They've essentially stripped out any semblance of a failure state in the game and it's not something you can turn off.

I'm reaching the end of my PS1 playthrough now, and I've realized that DQVII is probably one of my favorite games ever made. For how long it is, it still manages to be succinct and briskly paced with its chapters, none of them overstay their welcome and I can't think of more than a couple occasions that I felt the game was wasting my time.
And that surprised me cause when I played the 3DS version as a teen I bounced off the game in 20hrs. I thought it was bland and meandering. I've had a complete 180 on it.
Unfortunately, the producer of Reimagined had similar impressions of the game that I did as a kid, and decided those initial impressions warranted "fixing" the game over, and that's why Reimagined is the way it is. I find that a bit depressing, but at least this led to me rediscovering a game I will never forget.

@Leetware1 Nothing new for this site lol, these kinds of articles turn up fairly frequently

@wittedbugle Yeah, Sony's done a good job building up a fanbase that aren't receptive to their games being criticized.
Definitely not to the degree of Nintendo fans, who will defend actual shovelware as long as Nintendo's sticker is on in.
When I see basically everyone unanimously reject Sony's live service garbage- even while it's still being pushed by the media- I feel a little bit of hope in my cold heart lol

In this case they've certainly cheaped out on Sons of Sparta like you said, and to add to that I'd say they probably don't value these kinds of retro-inspired games much anymore. Most of their recent products are more theatric than they are gamey, so I imagine this was a tough sell to them.
Granted, it seems like they're beginning to open up to a wider variety of games, so maybe this won't be the case for much longer.

Just to come back with an example. There's a game called Crimson Capes that released the same day as Sons of Sparta, that I think does a lot better of a job capturing the kind of retro PC / Amiga side-scrolling style it's going for. It's half the price and as far as I can tell made by one guy.

I expect better from something tied to a megacorp like Sony.

@wittedbugle True, I've never heard him contradict himself, regardless if I agree or not.
But I don't regularly tune in to him either, really only ever hear from him when he stirs the internet up

I mean I'm not gonna pretend like the game looks great, but Jaffe has been a lolcow for quite a few years now, his opinions aren't typically valued by many. Seems like he's got a habit of getting stuck on one aspect of a game and dismisses the rest of it. Which is fine for someone like me or you, but y'know, people expect a more substantive critique from a developer, even if he's not developing anymore.
That being said, he's correct that no one was asking for the Adventures of Baby Kratos, and I think the game would be more appealing if they just made an action platformer divorced from the wider story.
Also I agree that Sons of Sparta should look a lot better for such a massive IP and the asking price. It doesn't look bad, but certainly awkward in motion

Easily the biggest announcement for me. Looking forward to updates and fingers crossed they learned from DoA6's many mishaps...
But until we see more I refuse to anticipate anything.

MGS4 and Peace Walker HD being freed from PS3 exclusivity is a pretty big deal.
I liked the first Kena enough despite never finishing it, why not a second.
Crimson Moon looked neat, so did that rooster musou game.
Uhh, hope for the best on DoA7 but I have no expectations until I see how they're approaching it. I just bought DoA6 on sale not too long ago, not buying it again.
Castlevania looks alright, looks like Dead Cells. New Silent Hill will probably suck but they're always welcome to prove me wrong.
2D God of War cool, cool. And Saros looks ***** sick.

They didn't even spend that much time on Concord 3, not too shabby a presentation at all. Beats the hell out of that recent Nintendo Direct easy

Just got my copy today but I still have the post game to tackle in the original. I will not rest until the dog boy becomes a platinum king jewel.

This could've closed out the State of Play tbh

Now I don't have an excuse to show off my Dragon's Crown wallpaper to my friends and family smh

I thought I'd drop this game fast cause I only ever saw the characters / combat pre-release. Cool, but I already sink enough hours into Zenless...
...Then you get to the factory building and that changed everything. Now my harem of anime women watch for hours as I tear down and rebuild my factory ad infinitum for MAXIMUM efficiency.
Between this, ZZZ, and Umamusume, gacha games are taking over my life!!

@Runex2121 3DS version is mostly faithful to the original, with significant cuts to the prologue and some small omissions in story scenarios to make them slightly faster (also the modern DQ localization, which I've grown to hate but I understand why people like it). I wouldn't say cut content ever really makes a game better, I can't think of a single example at least.

Reimagined cuts three full islands and their scenarios, Monster jobs, much of the flavor text (which is a significant hit to the game's characters and personality), side quests and minigames like the Casino, Immigrant Town, Monster Park, World Ranking Association, all features from the 3DS version like Monster Tablets and alternate costumes for jobs, etc
Sure it's more streamlined, at a heavy cost of much of the content that endears someone to the game in the first place. I'd argue such heavy cuts isn't necessary to create a more "understandable experience", the 3DS version already laid on the hand-holding pretty thick and didn't need to cut content to do it. Not that DQVII was ever a particularly difficult game to begin with.

The reason I call the PS1 DQVII the best is because for all the talk of streamlining the "longest and most tedious Dragon Quest" the remakes really aren't that much shorter or less "tedious" for all the flaws they claim to fix.

3DS version for example absolutely ruins the encounter rate by adding monsters on the overworld, that are unavoidable in dungeons due to hallways being too cramped. So you end up getting in like 5x the encounters you would have in the original. That's not an improvement.
Reimagined on the other hand completely fixes the 3DS game's screw up, but then overcorrects by planting Goddess Statues outside and inside of dungeons and letting you continue from autosave on death. I'm sure some people think this is an improvement, but the game basically plays itself now... in fact it literally CAN play itself now.
In the name of streamlining, they create problems the PS1 version just didn't have. All so they can appeal to people who weren't going to buy the game anyways. And I think that's worth addressing to people before they buy / emulate any version of this game.
It's a time sink no matter which version you choose, and IMHO if you're gonna dive into DQVII it should be the version with the most content and least compromises, which is PS1 > 3DS > Reimagined.

@somnambulance It's notably less charming. Much of the flavor text from your party has been replaced by repeated tutorial dialogue unfortunately. If you didn't like the original, this probably won't do much better for you.
Prologue went from 3 hours to 2 hours, as an example, that's not a major difference in time.

Just a heads up, if you don't have a tolerance for long games this remake isn't going to remedy that. It's still very slow compared to other modern games.

I've been playing through the PS1 original in preparation for Reimagined and for reference I'm around 75hrs and close to the end of the main story, and that includes several hours of job class grinding (which isn't necessary to beat it, I'm just going above and beyond cause I love the game).
There isn't anything notably tedious about the original, that's just something that's been parroted on the internet, widely by people who only heard that secondhand. This remake cuts the job grinding down by a lot by letting you have two jobs at a time... But it also cuts more than half the jobs out of the game (Monster Hearts being used for unlocking new jobs have been replaced with Monster Hearts as equipment, which is neat but not really as interesting).

This remake cuts a lot of content in fact, and sands down much of the prologue into something that fails to capture the same tone and development the original did, you can expect much the same for the rest of the game. Basically, it's going to be too slow paced for most people in general but too fast paced for people who enjoyed the original. Worst of both worlds.
This isn't me saying this remake is bad, it will still be good if it's using DQVII as a base.
But much like the 3DS remake, Square Enix is too insecure with its online reputation and ends up expediting the soul out of it. Many scenarios, characters and mechanics are watered down for the sake of saving just a little bit of time, and as a result both remakes suffer where the original doesn't.
It remains the definitive way to experience Dragon Quest VII, and probably will forever.

Just something to consider before buying. I'll still be picking up the remake, and I'll probably enjoy it for what it is, but you're not getting DQVII at its best, of course other than best looking.

Brother I can't even imagine being in the position of needing to shill for this game. What do you even say? I guess you did your best trying to put a positive spin on it.
This one's a tough sell and it's FREE!

This is in no way controversial and we already do this informally. IGN and many others like it already have a reputation of being pretty crap from a not insignificant amount of people, and their reviews have many times been at odds with the opinion of the average gamer.

I'll go even farther than Swen and say don't take ANY of these game review sites seriously, period. They're a dying puppet of corporate interests that struggle for relevancy in an age of social media.
You have your own eyes and your own tastes and you make up your own mind, I don't think these sites actually have much sway in that regard.

Is Season 2 paid DLC, or is it free like S1?

I don't like how badly the 3DS remake and Reimagined butcher the prologue of the original. But I won't deny it certainly looks the part... aside from some wonky looking characters (Kiefer especially) and generally washed out color palette.
I prefer this style to the HD-2D remakes, it has a lot more personality. Reimagined is going to have to do a lot to best the DQV remake on the PS2 though. That game is a bona fide masterpiece, and I wouldn't exactly say this one puts its best foot forward outside of presentation.

Also shout out to the DQII remake last year. It's a bit bloated with unnecessary busywork to pad out the original's short runtime, but they did a really great job fleshing out your party members and endearing you to them. Good stuff.

Currently trucking through the PS1 original, 35hrs in and on the 11th(?) island - Litroud. Quite a bit farther behind in the 3DS remake, I haven't picked it up since clearing Faraday, but I plan on beating all three versions.
Despite my concerns with changes and cut content, I'm still hopeful this new remake will be a good time. Though I doubt it'll live up the OG.

Sigh it's always Limited Run

Ah yes, quantity over quality. Well, just quantity really.

This is a good reason why you never take these award shows seriously