Melee_Ace

@ShogunRok "Guiding light" may be a smidge over the top, but I look forward to your articles and reviews the most since our tastes seem to align. Keep up the good work!

@riceNpea I can't tell if you're joking but "prioritize" is also correct.

@thedevilsjester I understand, and I will say the improvement is obvious. I personally just don't consider it worth $12.50 per game (or $18 for some individually). If the collection had sold for $40-60 and it had the content from the PSP/GBA ports I'd be more open.

Especially when you compare to other collections the asking price is a lot higher than normal, like the Castlevania Dominus Collection that just came out. Konami, of all companies, offered 4 games plus a flippin' remake all for $25. Yeah the titles weren't as reworked as FF (Haunted Castle Revisited aside) but side by side I'd say there's a clear difference in value.

I think what disappoints me more than anything is that the pixel remasters have been out for years but the price is still that high. I've never seen it below $60 in a digital sale, and I find it peculiar that Square has held on to that price point for so long.

"For the pretty reasonable ask of USD 74.99 (or your local equivalent)"

I don't know, it seems too high to me. End of the day, these are 30+ year old games being sold for over the price of a new game. I think $60 at most is reasonable, though preferably this collection would sell for lower.

@Czar_Khastik Enough talk. Have at your wallet!

@ShogunRok No pressure at all, I just thought you might have already. Thanks.

@Loamy There's another patch planned or do you just mean you want to see the performance on the Pro in general?

Have you checked out the performance post-patch, @ShogunRok? If so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

@Ashina True, but I think the bigger issue is all of the product placements and licenses. MGS4 is absolutely peppered with them.

@guestwork Yes, but my point is that we shouldn't assume a remaster will match or exceed the original's frame rate, even if it seems very reasonable to assume so.

@guestwork Sadly the original frame rate isn't a guarantee. Both the recent Paper Mario and Chrono Cross remasters ran at lower rates than their originals.

I have 106 platinums. When this collection was announced I thought I'd wait on other games and "almost platinum" them instead, just so my 108th would be Suikoden. I've been doing that for 2 years. Glad it seems not much longer now.

@Leon_93 I hear you, but I think the PS2 titles might be next if they're going to remaster more. But both those and the Lord of Shadows are a whole different ballpark remaster-wise from what we got so far.

I'm impressed with what I've seen so far and I'm eagerly looking forward to the release. Some performance concerns and my dislike of the wavy health and stamina bars aside, this looks like it could be an all time favorite.

Glad Konami didn't give up on the DS titles after all. Nice surprise today.

This would be great for the aforementioned monsters built for multiplayer when you can't get a party together. To this day I haven't beaten Behemoth or Ancient Leshen in World.

As has been said the game isn't out yet and there may still be room for improvement. However, for the sake of argument let's assume the worst and say we're only getting 30 fps, and unstable at that. I'd be disappointed, sure, but I am glad at least that the extra processing power is being utilized in a meaningful way other than just cosmetics.

There are so many games where we have a big open world filled with meaningless objects and NPCs and such detailed poly counts on models and textures that are aiming for photorealism. I would much prefer Wilds where the monster behavior, weather, interactable objects, etc. are directly relevant to gameplay and the series is pushed forward from that perspective.

Call me old but this is the kind of evolution I remember being the most exciting back on PS2 coming from PS1. It's not just the added graphics, it's what you could do with all that power.

@Nem Following up from the other article, I see new moves in this trailer that weren't in the weapon showcases. The dual blades in particular seem to suggest (according to online comments online, I've only played World) that switch skills are coming back.

@Enuo What's the point in bringing up performance when a) that's not what the article is about at all, and b) you can't even judge the performance seeing as the game is still in development and for all we know Capcom chose graphics mode for their presentations?

@Nem They probably haven't shown all of the weapons' moves. Wilds might be more "grounded" than Rise but I don't think you should automatically assume a move isn't coming back.

I voted Dual Blades because that's what I used in World but I want to do something different this time, probably Insect Glaive. Might start with DB to see the differences though.

Really looking forward to Wilds, that's about it.

@Bingbongboyo I'd say even 80% is too much, because then you're more likely to only get opinions from people that liked the game enough to continue to (near) completion. And then you have the opposite problem where the review section is an echo chamber of support, kind of like a game's subreddit.

@Czar_Khastik Lucky for you then Lidia is not free!

When I read the title I thought it was Jin Kazama and wondered what he had to do with Sony.

@PuppetMaster 100% with you on this. A few guests here or there is fine but I'm personally not a fan of them taking up so many slots that could go to actual series staples (it took this long to get Cyrax and Sektor?) or, dare I say it, original characters.

"Your Local Time"
How... How do you know where I live, Sammy?

@Quintumply Awesome to hear! One thing is a bit unclear though. Was the entire preview hands off or did you get to play a portion after an initial demo?

Also, did you happen to catch any new/interesting moves for the longsword and dual blades?

So a bunch of people bought Shadow of the Erdtree for the new content only to get NIHIL!

This is what I watched SGF for. I get they're not showing that much, but there seem to be a few new mechanics every trailer and a showcase of how the monsters behave in packs and with the environment. Looks good so far, really looking forward to the game.

@Quintumply I'm not really planning to use the community help feature myself (PowerPyx and YouTube cover the majority of what I want), but out of curiosity do you know of a list of supported games?

With all due respect to Jeff Grubb, he's not 100% accurate. Otherwise I'd probably be playing Wind Waker and Twilight Princess on the Switch by now.

@Balosi I didn't mean the difficulty per se, more so the idea that when you get back into a game that's been expanded you're inclined to play the new stuff right away without having to play catch up. Iceborne's starting level in terms of equipment is much higher than base, so the Defender gear is used to blitz through the main game and avoid having to grind out the "less exciting" main campaign.

@ShogunRok I don't play MMOs, but I've seen this sort of problem addressed in Monster Hunter World. When Iceborne released the developers added the Defender/Guardian gear to the start of the base game. They're overpowered and much maligned by fans when new players use them, but theoretically they're supposed to be used to bring returning players up to speed. Interested to hear your thoughts.

I'm a bit confused (maybe this is what they're going for). You buy this battle pass with real money for the privilege of competing for items? Sounds like the worst of both worlds.

Also, a bit of a side note, Eddy's out next week already? Unless I missed the release date announcement that crept up fast.

@ShogunRok Thanks for the rundown. You say with ray tracing off you typically hit above 30 fps, but do you have an estimate of the average outside of towns? 45 ish? I don't know if you have software that can measure it or you're comfortable enough eyeballing it.

Disclaimer: I don't mean to criticize Khayl or anyone in particular, or even the Grandia collection in this post. It's just that the point raised about remasters and the expectations from them got me thinking and so I thought I'd give my two cents.

It confuses me when people criticize remasters or collections for being "barebones". Whenever a collection is announced I'm mostly excited to play the games again in a resolution that doesn't look awful on a modern screen (a boosted framerate is nice too), especially if they're stuck on older consoles you can't buy anymore. I don't ever think "Yes! Mega Man X Collection announced! Totally pumped to check out all the concept art they package in!", instead it's more like "It's been a long time since I've played X4, excited for another run!" or "Never got to play X7, time to see how accurate the negative reviews were."

I kind of wonder how publishers will read into such feedback. I remember when Mario 3D All Stars was released on Switch, it was heavily criticized for not having anything added besides the soundtracks. It ended up being pulled from digital stores (presumably for some other reasons), but in all honesty the ports themselves were fine for the system they were brought to. Will we get fewer collections of old games now? Are Capcom thinking "People are asking for the Legends games, but they're really not going to be happy unless we add some novel mode in like X Challenge. Not worth the investment. Pass."?

I'm not trying to excuse things like the MGS Master Collection coming out at 720p on PS5, nor am I saying you can't expect more for the price. I also understand we're not all a hive mind as consumers, but I do think the disparity is confusing and it may not be to our benefit in the long run. It's the kind of thing that makes me wonder if we really needed to have the "upcoming" Suikoden remasters redrawn from the ground up when they were announced in September 2022 (if I remember correctly), dated for 2023, then delayed indefinitely with no release window whatsoever.

I'm happy to hear any disagreements. Ideally our consoles would be a lot more backwards compatible (with performance boosts like on Xbox) and digital libraries would be more complete so we could just play the actual older titles, but unfortunately this isn't the case.

This is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read related to gaming.

...Still intrigued though.

I keep getting excited that it's a Chrono Trigger/Cross sequel before I remember there's no relation.

@LiamCroft You tend to give lower scores from what I've seen (nothing wrong with that) but the texts of the reviews are often pretty generous, like here. I actually do like me some classic RE so you've convinced me to look into AITD.

That and I somehow wasn't aware of the game's existence till now.

@MikeOrator As someone who occasionally preorders digitally, it allows for preloading and sometimes you even get a slight discount. I only do this for games I'm reasonably sure would be good (based on previews from trusted sources, demos, etc.) and I would enjoy.

@ShogunRok I imagine a lot of people are hoping for Dragon's Crown 2 now that Vanillaware is done with Unicorn Overlord.

@ShogunRok I mostly agree, but I just wanted to add that it's especially helpful to have a performance mode when you have a 120 Hz screen. For some reason 30 fps stutters like crazy, and it's a bigger issue than simply the frame rate itself.

I did manage to get around this by turning game mode off then back on (for some reason this works on my screen), but performance mode would still be preferable if not for how blurry it is. Hopefully this upcoming patch can make things better.

Of course a 40 fps mode would be very interesting.

@Ichiban What a generous notion. You know, I'm still waiting on Sony to implement a gift feature like Steam has.

@nocdaes It's been less than 24 hours and the game dropped in the middle of the work week. Just because it's available doesn't mean everyone who's interested has played to the end, and it doesn't give license to people to spoil plot points (which as others have said may very well be brand new).

"It's also confirmed there'll be a poisoned swamp area in Shadow of the Erdtree, so have fun with that."

Of course there is. I'd almost be disappointed if there wasn't.

$40?! I hope this is an Iceborne sized expansion. Trailer looked good though.

Maybe I'm just used to it, but I don't think the junction system is complicated as much as it is tedious. The average newcomer to FFVIII isn't going to think to play some cards and mod the spoils to 100 Tornados to junction to Str and break the game, they'll draw 20+ times from a single enemy to stock up on Fire, the Blizzard, etc. If a hypothetical remake alleviates or replaces that process then great.

@DennisReynolds Same here. I'm guessing she'll start taking more recoverable damage from her moves, maybe add a few frames here or there.

"Infamously, Atlus refused to provide any upgrade path for Persona 5 players when the Royal Edition rolled around, demanding players pay full price to experience its expanded offerings, in a move which we called out as an insult to fans and the game itself."

Inaccurate. Feel how you will about Royal being a separate release, but the linked article is talking about an upgrade path from PS4 Royal to PS5 Royal, not vanilla to Royal.