Matroska

I've never heard this swish sound - I'm not saying you're wrong, I've seen it mentioned around a lot. I've noticed enemy-specific audio cues - there was a particularly annoying enemy, a Chromatic type, and it seemed impossible until I noticed that really obvious noise it makes before it shoots you is the audio cue.

Also, sometimes you can actually parry successfully if you do one too early. It depends how early and how long the attack windup is. I've dodged too early and then hammered the parry button and got it to work, too.

@Max_the_German Not just the PS5, if you grew up with the Master System, Mega Drive, NES or SNES, pretty much all games were 60fps then. Then on the PS1 and N64 it suddenly became rarer because of 3D. Even then, over 100 games were 60fps on the PS1, Tekken 3 for one example. Also, oddly, the battles in FFVII but not the rest of the game.

At this point they're basically depending on Switch sales as over on PC a huge part of the target audience is playing COE33. As much as I'd like a PS5 port, I could still play it on PC or Switch but I'm too into Oblivion and the aforementioned game. They couldn't have known about Oblivion but I think they really underestimated the appeal of Clair Obscur. Probably due to the Japanese not really rating Western games.

@Enigk It's available all over the place. It's on Amazon now, and The Game Collection, and Argos. So the first three places I checked all have it. In America it's in stock at GameStop.

But that does remind me of another issue with physical preorders - they can cancel them if they later find out they don't have enough stock. Or you get locked in with the retailer you preordered from even if they can't fulfill the orders and other places still have it (like what's presumably happening in America with COE33).

Edit:
I checked the interest rate thing and I'd make about 75p in 5 months on the price of the game. Not enough for a packet of crisps or a can of Coke, sadly (I remember when a can was 25p...)

@DonkeyFantasy Stock isn't going to run out for a physical copy either, especially for a major first party game. At least with a digital preorder you get to preload the game before launch and start playing as soon as it hits midnight.

It's a pretty foregone conclusion, though. Firstly it's been long established that people that like JRPGs or similar games are significantly more likely to buy a Playstation than an Xbox. Secondly, anyone willing to pay £50 for something is obviously much more invested in something than a person trying it as one game of many in a monthly subscription.

It's like saying "People that buy £500+ bottles of whisky know more about whisky than people who only have tried free samples of Bells in supermarkets". The payment part is a barrier to entry that's breached by interest, passion, knowledge, or whatever. But it keeps more passive or casual people out, whereas anyone can wander into a game when it's free to try, like a supermarket free sample.

@ecurb7 The point is that there's a correlation between time spent playing the game and if people paid for the game or not. The group that paid for it (us) have played it more on average than people who got it for "free".

@danzoEX Loads of Japanese devs have done Kickstarter stuff. Even famous devs like Keiji Inafune who worked on Mega Man, Onimusha, Street Fighter etc.

Talking of this game and Clair Obscur, one of the devs of the latter recently recommended this game. To be honest, I'd totally forgotten about it until that. It really released at a bad time.

https://twitter.com/expedition33/status/1917500503627555303

@GirlVersusGame To be fair, and while I do overall agree, I played this game for probably 2 hours and I have absolutely no memory of the story or the characters. It made such a weak impression on me. As someone said earlier in the comments, or to paraphrase them, to me it's like the kind of game you'd rent (back when that was common) play a bit and then forget about.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of games I love that are very far away from being considered classics - like the .hack games. Man, I even enjoyed that cowboy game called Gun, if you remember that. And that was terrible.

Good for them. This has now entered the special category of games that I've actually dreamed about. I can barely remember what happened but last night I know I was having dreams about being in this world with these characters, but the typical scrambled dream thing where different things are happening.

@DennisReynolds Well I do get that. The play in bed, or even if you're feeling a bit risky you can play in the bath, kind of thing. I get that. I've just never seen anyone play outside with any handheld apart from one guy with a 3DS on the train (which I forgot about until this post). But yeah, some games are so much better in bed, like the Ace Attorney series. Like reading a good book in bed.

@Ravix To be fair, people don't pay £1000 or so for the new phone each year, they just adjust their subscription and get the latest model. They stick at about 40-50 each month while keeping the newest phone. With the Switch 2, will parents pay £450 to 500 to get something that seems to be the same thing they already paid for? Time will tell, but it's genuinely up in the air as far as I can see.

@DennisReynolds As a genuine, good faith question, what do you mean by portable? And who else do you know what plays games outside? Because with all honesty, as a Switch owner myself, I've never seen anyone in public with a Switch or any handheld. For one, the screen isn't bright enough to see outside. But even past that, if people are out and about, they're doing something - they're with friends or whatever. I don't see this "oh but it's handheld" thing in real life. As a genuine question, do people you know actually, say, go to the park and play on the Switch?

@Ravix I don't know. The last time Nintendo had a huge hit of a console on their hands, the follow up was a massive flop that forced them to go to a new console really quickly. In that case the reason was the mainly non-gamer crowd that made the Wii so successful weren't the type of customer to buy the next console. The question now is that will tens of millions of parents buy their kids a console that looks the same as the last one, with the main launch game (MK) looking very similar to the last one to non-gamer parent eyes.

And when each new game is so expensive. I think kids are more likely to want the new Switch than non-gamers were to want a Wii U, but it's all down to if the legions of parents will be happy to spend £500 plus on something they'll see as "but we already have a Switch at home". And as you say, even the gamer parents will realise most of the stuff on offer is available elsewhere for less, and often running and looking better. It really could go either way, but I don't think it's a foregone conclusion (for either failure or success).

It's interesting that Xbox is on its knees so it's just down to Playstation and the Switch, but only two of the games in the top 10 can be played on the Switch and both of them are on everything else anyway.

Especially striking since I'd imagine Nintendo have a higher percentage of physical sales than Sony since the Switch has limited storage, the games are actually played off the carts rather than being fully installed like on PS4/5, and that since the Switch is the more kid-friendly console parents aren't often going to be willing to put their card details in for digital purchases.

@dardel The problem with the dodging and parrying in Clair Obscur is that it overshadows the entire rest of the battle system. If you're bad at the real time elements you're going to die a lot, apart from on Easy, even if you totally grasp the game tactically. You could be an idiot who's terrible at the game in general but has amazing timing and you're going to win every fight without taking damage.

Even the QTE things when attacking make too much of a difference, in my opinion. Lune has an AoE fire attack that does great damage to all enemies, but if you mistime it, it hits her instead. There are single target buff spells that, if timed perfectly twice, now affect the entire party. Granted, these are easier than dodging and parrying but I think it being a turn-based tactical RPG is really overshadowed by the action-y elements.

The whole thing's pretty muddied by badly defined ideas. Most FFs aren't truly turn-based - things happen in real time based on the ATB meter, which is effectively a universal cooldown for each character. If you don't do anything enemies can still act, whereas if we played chess, you couldn't just take all my pieces while I sat there thinking. I mean it's called "active time battle", it's right there in the name.

But then people might say "okay, but I just want menu-based combat where I don't have to dodge or parry or anything". Okay, but you do have to dodge and parry in Clair Obscur. So what do people actually want? Real time but with a menu? Actual turn-based but with real time elements? Actual full turn-based like FFX or DQ? From SE's perspective people are asking for three different things while thinking they're asking for one.

@Ray_Ray_Regasis Yeah but there's typically a small crossover for JRPGs and WRPGs. I'm an exception, I got Oblivion and this, and I've liked both subgenres since FFVII and BG1. But there's no evidence at all that those 200k on Steam would've bought this if they didn't have Oblivion Remastered. They already had access to the original Oblivion which could be modded to look amazing and be much more advanced in terms of gameplay, not to mention the fan patch that fixes thousands of bugs that are back in the remastered version.

@KillerBoy Sure but "people" aren't just one hypocritical person. Some people say something is bad, other people do the thing the other group of people think is bad. It's like saying "people say stealing is bad but people still steal". Also there's a difference between a classic but antiquated game getting a remake or remaster and a recent game that's basically getting a res or FPS boost for £60.

@LiamCroft There's also an appearance you can get by giving a costume to a kid who's at the party you have before you leave. I can't remember getting it in the first place but when I spoke to him I gave it to him and it said "appearance unlocked".

There's also the thing at the same place with the tokens you exchange for various things including a haircut for Gustave.

Edit: Apparently the token rewards are unmissable (well, the tokens are) so I guess there's no need to mention them.

Edit again: Ah, just noticed there's a separate section for costumes.

@Bagwag82 Madame Web's a relatively recent film set in the Spider-Man universe that's famous for being an embarrassing flop. It's surprising you haven't heard of it as it was all over the internet when it came out due to being so bad. Most people haven't seen it but they know about it due to it being a massive meme, same as Morbius.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is a Tarantino film, you have to have heard of that, surely? 😅

Argh, just got it and now have to wait 14 hours to play it where now all other games don't seem interesting to me to play.

@LiamCroft Okay, thanks. They liked it overall but those were two criticisms they made. As I said, I put more weight on PS reviews than EG's so I thought I'd ask.

Also they said there's only a few towns - is that another exaggeration?

@LiamCroft It says fun exploration but the Eurogamer review says it's incredibly linear and the dungeons are boring. It compares it to FFXIII. I trust PS more than EG bit it's still a stark contrast.

@ChrisDeku No, the animations are new. The original game didn't even have enemies reacting to being hit, and no sound effects for things in combat. Also if you went into third-person there were no animations for running diagonally (like say you were facing north and strafed and ran at the same time so you moved NW) so if you did that, your character used the run forward animation but slid sideways. It looked awful. Oblivion was incredibly undercooked at the time and felt really weird even back then. As did Skyrim in a slightly better way back in 2011.

Like so many other people, the first person perspective puts me off. Also the stealth focus. I like when stealth is an option, whether we're taking action game or RPG, but I dislike when it's the kind of thing where you're usually boned when spotted by multiple enemies and so getting spotted may as well just auto reload your last save.

I've not seems apply to the guys here, but all too often game journalists seem to struggle with the gameplay elements the most. Both in terms of doing them and in terms of describing them. It's a shame but it's not rare to read a review and not really know how levelling up works, how combat works, how deep is the crafting system, what the endgame is like, etc, but you do know all about the writer's feelings on various controversies the game might have triggered, as well as all sorts of assorted fluff.

That Eurogamer article above takes 9 paragraphs to name a specific mechanical reason the combat was tough - no lock-on (and incidentally a lot of gamers that like combat focussed games prefer that) but just 3 sentences in we know the writer is "amazed" by the "glistening sweaty limbs of a warrior in a fluffy bear skin cloak". True to form he also admits he "died immediately" in the tutorial.

@Stevemalkpus @get2sammyb I just searched around for this. A few years ago the CEO of Take Two said they want to make more RDR games but that's it. No mention of Rockstar officially announcing it, nothing on their Twitter.

If it had the board game thing in Project Justice this would've been a definite buy for me. Same as the school life mode in the first one. Those two things have had this kind of mythical quality to me since those games came out here without them.

I hope they fix the NPCs and their conversations.
"Hello!"
"I'm tired of talking to you!"
Man stands on table
"Do you know about mudcrabs?"
"Good bye!"
Man repeatedly walks into corner
"Hello!"

@UltimateOtaku91 It's not that they've never been about hardware power. The NES, SNES, N64 and GameCube were all more powerful than the Sega or Sony competitors. The Xbox (original) was probably more powerful than the GC though. Remember, they called the N64 that because it was 64-bit rather than 32-bit like the Saturn and PS1. They used the name of the console, and several games like Mario 64, to boast about the power. Imagine if Uncharted 4 was called Uncharted 1.6 (or 1600 depending on if we're talking GHz or MHz) because that was the speed of the PS4 CPU. It's pretty weird when you think about it.

@TBubs311 Yeah, it was pretty ham-fisted. It gave the game what I assume was an unintentional Young Adult kind of feel, like basic satire aimed at younger teens. It's also not a particularly interesting thing to satirise - most agree with the sentiment. And doing it in such a cartoony way makes the satire feel toothless and ineffective.

Well Obsidian didn't own or make Fallout (well funnily enough until Bethesda owned it, with New Vegas). Black Isle was the developer and Interplay published it. Some people from Black Isle made Obsidian not long before Black Isle was shut down, having cancelled the original Fallout 3. Unfortunately Chris Avellone, who wrote a lot of Fallout 2 and had the idea of the vaults being used for experiments on the population, and Tim Cain, the creator of the series, don't work for Obsidian anymore (Cain wasn't a founding member but did join in about 2010 or 2011 but left a few years ago).

Talking of the 90s originating, very loose translation, it's by a group called Working Designs who did quite a few similar arguably grating localisations. You can actually get fan translations for these games that are labelled as "Un-Working Designs" they're so notorious.

I remember playing Phantasy Star Universe many years ago and I was in a group with two American kids who constantly freestyle rapped - very badly. So yeah, I know how annoying this stuff can be. Perhaps that rap experience is one of the reasons I hardly play online games, come to think of it. 😂

@get2sammyb , you've had about 19 years to read FSN on PC! 😄 The remaster only adds a flowchart, though that is quite handy for seeing alternate scenes without making loads of saves, to be fair.

"It’s perhaps worth remembering that few thought Helldivers 2 would be a success either, and it went on to become Sony’s best-selling first-party game of all time."
Well, a possible counterpoint is that people responded as shown in the poll even though they know you can get a surprise success. Their minds are more open to the possibility because of HD2 yet they still don't have high hopes for Marathon. (Also, potentially, each game like HD2 that's popular takes away players from future releases. Think how many more players other games would have if FIFA and Fortnite didn't exist.)

Damn, I didn't realise this was an online shooter. I don't typically play FPS but the artstyle of this got my attention and I was interested in getting it until I read this article.

@GirlVersusGame Ouch! Yeah, it felt like it was just a matter of time before I fell off. I actually walked while watching the LotR trilogy - I ended up walking 38 miles. Though my treadmill has this annoying thing where the timer only goes up to 99 minutes and then rather than simply stopping counting the time, it turns off. When it first did that I nearly walked off it into the TV. So yeah exercise bikes are way safer, lol.

I thought the original was okay but it was sort of expected to be like New Vegas (in space!) but I thought it was more like Mass Effect. But yeah, the characters were undercooked, it could often be boring, and the sense of humour could be grating.

@GirlVersusGame Well you don't have to hold the handlebars on an exercise bike, but I guess the seats aren't that comfortable so there's that too. I've done it quite a bit with games too - like you said, it's better with more mindless stuff because I find you tend to stop pedaling if you're doing something really focused like a Dark Souls boss. I tried it with my treadmill too but that's just an accident waiting to happen. 😂

The crowd animations are kinda of stiff and the trees look overly fluffy, but yeah, some of it does look actually photorealistic.

@carlos82 Yeah exactly. I look at it on a £ per day basis. Like, the PS5 cost me £450 but I've had it since launch so according to my phone calculator that's (being basic and saying it came out 4.5 years ago) 27p a day and getting cheaper each day. Gaming is a cheap hobby, not an expensive one.

@Mostik Yeah I remember many years ago going to London and having my mind blown that it was £5 a pint. Here in Birmingham at the time it was about £3 - so as you might think of it too, that's 3 pints for a tenner rather than 2. Now it's nearly £6 where I live just south of Birmingham.

"The only issue is kids, little ones pestering parents for games at a £80 - £100 a pop is ridiculous!"
Yeah true. And I think there's some cynicism on Nintendo's part here. Of all three console manufacturers plus PC, they're by far the one who benefits most from the "kids nagging parents" effect so they can take the piss with it more.

Nintendo have always been kind of dodgy in this way. They tend to get away with it. Like BotW has pay-to-win in the sense food, weapons and arrows etc are limited resources but you can just get them daily with an amiibo. You can pay for the best horse. Pay for a wolf companion who fights for you. Pay for armour that detects korok seeds for you (with no normal way of detecting them). The remaster of Twilight Princess has only one truly new thing, an extra dungeon. And that was locked behind the Wolf Link amiibo. Oh, and the wolf bodyguard I mentioned before? He has levels and you can only level him up by also buying TP and playing through that dungeon I mentioned.

I said they get away with it. Well they do in America (and Japan, though it seems they're still more besotted with mobile gacha) but internationally they're still seen as more of a kids' toy manufacturer. I know that's contentious online (where there are lots of Americans) but IRL it's just a given. I think most parents aren't aware of the aforementioned stuff or just think of it as typical cash grab stuff that kids' products do all the time.

@carlos82 Yeah, same. A few weeks ago I went out to some pubs in the village I live in, with some friends and my nephew. I bought a pint at each pub (4), got him some soft drinks at each one, then got my hair cut, took him home, and got some cans from the shop. The day cost me about £70. More recently I bought AC Shadows for £60 and many days later I'm still playing it. I mean, Jesus, I've had rare nights out that cost literally hundreds. I'm not rich but games are ridiculous value for money for what you get out of them.

@Kelrics90 Does that matter if the English voice acting isn't done in China, though? Like, for example, Japanese made games have certain things censored due to Japanese law, yet the same game published by the same company in, say, America can have those things still intact. For example, exploding heads in RE.

Isn't it the power draw rather than the power output? The console isn't powering something else, it's taking power.

@Sakhasm They'll be running a lot of the same games so a spec comparison is relevant. It's not apples to oranges, it's like comparing different TVs, different ovens, different cars, and so on. Especially since the Switch 2 is more expensive than a PS5 digital edition. (Even then the apples to oranges figure of speech is weird; you can absolutely compare them - which has more calories, which has more sugar, which has more vitamins etc.)

@LifeGirl But as was said, they're often by the same bands so it'd be the same rights. And even if it's different bands, a lot are signed to the same label and it's via the labels they'd get the rights. That said, you're still right that having the old and new tracks would be the obvious best choice. Maybe they're gonna do an original track DLC.