MemSec

@AdamNovice
While financial success is surely the primary motivator in a business, from an enthusiast perspective I think having a diverse output - even if less popular - is an important thing.

This will be a great loss for the identity of Playstation. While Naughty Dog, Guerilla and Santa Monica make excellent games, nothing feels like og Playstation than their japanese developed games.

@Voltan
Interesting, thanks!
It seems to me they added microtransactions after the low pre-orders and decided that it will be added to ps plus. This however led to the conundrum that they can’t offer it as a free-to-play title (which the monetization would suggest), but have to stick an arbitrary price on it, because plus titles need to have “value”.🤑

Wait, was it not for sale outside of PS Plus? I thought they kept the €70 pricetag. Weird.

If EA is this quick in cutting their losses, and only supporting initially succesful projects, they should at least put more effort into delivering quality titles in the first place. Still I don’t believe they’ll ever learn...

This game draws heavy inspiration from Hades. It may be unfair towards the devs, but still, the similarities are very apparent.

It seems like the curse of Chris Avellone has reached both Hardsuit Labs and Techland after his removal from their projects

@Bliquid
I’m very well aware of this fan theory, which may be indeed the intended (meta)narrative. Still the implementation is very poor in my opinion. The game alone does not give any explanation or hints on this, just cryptic, nonsensical dialog from Aerith and Sephiroth. The theory makes only sense if you have prior knowledge of the previous games and media in the franchise.
The developers have every right to change the original in any way they see fit, that’s not my issue. I find it a neat idea. Still the implementation and consequent changes in narrative are imo poorly executed.

@AdamNovice @nessisonett
I also think the end was out of left field, unearned and in consequence destroyed some of the best character building and suspense of the original. The remake imo could not establish anything meaningful about the character of Sephiroth, so the end does not make much sense, except if you are completely aware of not only the originals story, but also crisis core, advent children and other supplementary material.
I hope they can explain these things in the sequel, but not in the Nomura way.
Also, I hardly believe the game will be open world, like Horizon. If so, we won’t see it for another 4 years.

@Ralizah
I agree her design is not oversexualized in the usual way, but the reaction to the character has almost completely a sexual/kink nature. So I don’t really see a difference to the likes of Miranda/2B/Quiet. Also, no one buys that this was not a calculated move.

• Even more mini-reviews and suggestions for AA and indie titles.
• More long form think pieces and coverage of not so recent games.
• More dev interviews.
• Much less hyperbole in your language. If anything, recent debacles (CP2077) have shown the dangers of hype, please don’t add to it unnecessarily.

@Starkei
I wouldn’t call them a household name for Star Wars, but sure, fair enough. I stand corrected. Still, one can dream...

I did not have any issues with my 2 controllers. A friend of mine however did have stick drift (interestingly only after about 20 mins into a game). He did send it back to repair with warranty, 2 months later he got it back, stating they repaired it, except they replaced it with a new one.

I don’t really understand the exclamation ‘finally’ in the title of this story. Do you, or do we have any vested interest in the release of the console in China? Or in Sony shares? Or is there a significant chinese userbase of your site I’m not aware of? Sorry for my ignorance.

@zettaibaka
my problem was not that the story was changed. I’m all for such creative freedom. But how poorly it was done.
The gradual introduction of Sephiroth is one of the strongest parts of the original’s narrative. Not only did they change it, but what we got instead was a nonsensical mess.

@zettaibaka
Fair enough, but why call it a remake then?

@zettaibaka
Sure. It did have however an ending sequence, which butchered the original story - especially the introduction of the villain - so bad, I’m very curious how they try to make sense of it in the sequel.

@BranJ0
You know what they say: Not the destination, but the journey matters!
This is a game trilogy with around 200-300 hours worth of narratives, some of which are truly exceptional. Also, they did expand the original ending, to make it more satisfying. Holding a meme (at this point) against the whole series is quite unjustified. But still, your loss...

Also, in my experience, around 90% of games can’t stick the landing and have a poor ending. Recent examples for me: FF7 remake and The Last of Us 2. Still I wouldn’t say I didn’t enjoy the games despite the letdown.

Didn’t Crystal Dynamic recently announce, that work on the next Tomb Raider game has begun? Seems to me they don’t have plans to support this game for long. The state of Destiny 2 and Warframe in recent years has proven, that you can’t support a live service game with a skeleton crew.

Off topic: We have a dedicated deals tab on the ps5 store!!! Finally!

I was really hoping they would implement a similar method to dlss in the ps5 version as well. Hopefully Sony has something like this available soon for developers.

@MrDoug91
It sure seems to be a very lax definition... The corporate meaning may be: until production of consoles outweighs demand.

Launch window releases on ps5 really start to stress the meaning of “launch window”. 🤦

It seems they only do a sale section on the ps5 store, when there are native ps5 games on offer. Pretty stupid, Sony...

@ObeseChihuahua2
Although production of it was discontinued, Sony still provides online services and a store where you can purchase software. I think it’s the bare minimum, to at least upload recent games to the appropriate sections of your storefront. I’m not expecting a redesign, or anything, just a proper cataloguing of stuff which you could until now only find by directly searching for it. Interestingly the only attention Sony gave the Vita in recent years was the occasional update solely designed to combat piracy. Can’t imagine why this would be a priority if they have “given up” on the system... 🤦

Maintaining the vita store cannot be more work, than what an IT trainee could do in max 2-4 hours a week. I can’t fathom that Sony does not have the inclination and finances to provide this bare minimum to their customers.

@LiamCroft
Fine, you win.
Second prediction: Beamdog studio, who made the remakes of Baldur’s Gate 1&2 and Planescape: Torment.

@Starkei
Where in the article exactly is something written that makes this unlikely? Disney has a relationship with SE (Avengers), which they botched but still, the deal could have been made before that. My guess is as good as any.

My guess is it’s a japanese developer, like Square-Enix or Capcom.

This developer does seem to have some issues with writers on it’s game... I hope the game still lives up to it’s own high ambitions.

@RobN
Thanks for the slight correction. Was aware of the fact, but not of the poor discount. Still, the sentiment counts somewhat. 🤷‍♂️

@Jimmer-jammer
If the upgrade is substantial - like Spider-man Remastered - then I’m all for a paid upgrade. People shouldn’t always expect to get stuff for free. Let’s hope the Control update is also not phoned in, so they can justify their purchase model.

@thefourfoldroot
Yeah, Sony is at least transparent in that way.

@fR_eeBritney
What I really hate with these services (Now and Game Pass) is that they pull games from time to time, MS more so than Sony in my experience. I simply don’t like that I’m being compelled to play certain games in a specific timeframe if I’m interested in them. Sony should at least offer heavy discounts on leaving titles like MS does.

Started playing Tomb Raider on PS Now, but it got pulled before I could finish it. Heavily considered buying it in a sale recently, I’m glad I dodged that bullet.

Also Greedfall being here almost but confirms the ps5 version will not be a free upgrade.

After getting a bit tired of AC Valhalla, I’m back at Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter on my Vita. Good times...

Blaming the coronavirus pandemic on everything has become very convenient. Corpo’s had ample of time to acclimate themselves to the situation (it’s been 9 months!), especially in IT fields, so please find another excuse!

A dedicated deals section on the ps5 storefront would also be neat 🤞

I am disappointed by the state of the game but I still eagerly await the patch for ps5. Thanks for the positivity! Now the wait is even harder ! 😉

@Jimmer-jammer
While the article states important things, and the proposed manipulation of the media was surely the case, the press still did jump on the hype train. When it was in their interest to overhype the product, they did exactly that. After the launch debacle everyone who praised the product suddenly sang a different tune. I simply can’t see them as the victims in this situation, they benefit either way because of traffic, and the press also has often manipulated situations to their own interests.

One major player in overhyping products is omitted regularly - besides the marketing dpt. and “toxic” fans - is imo the so called “enthusiast” press and influencers. Every party should take ample blame from situations like this. I wonder when the first article will appear in the press which discusses the possibilities of fair coverage without taking publisher statements for face value and also not succumbing to their own (oftentimes false) hype.

AC games had imo very weak writing, with Odyssey being a very low point for me. Valhalla on the other hand surprised me in the few hours I played. Story, setting and mood is quite good and they have minimised the “funny” bits to a few side quests. Intrigued!

@Wormold
Imagine the outrage if they release the Witcher 3 ps5 patch before the one for Cyberpunk 😎

@MightyDemon82
If I remember correctly, you can start with any archstone from that point. I went to 2-1 after tower knight, and continued onwards straight from there, then went back to 1-3 after finishing world 4. The difficulty seemed the pace accordingly.

If you would have asked me on wednesday, I would have told you Cyberpunk 2077... Now I’m back at AC: Valhalla 😭😭😭
Another “exciting” game I played was assembling an IKEA Pax wardrobe 🥵

@Kienda
You’re right, it’s a bad port, with very poor visuals and performance, an utter shame.
All I’m saying is that calling it “unplayable” is still hyperbole. We’re not disagreeing on the first part though. 🤷‍♂️

@Kienda
Well, I didn’t say it looked good, but looking like a ps3 game doesn’t equal being unplayable.

@Orpheus79V
It’s definitely a shame that the game will be marred from the terrible launch, and though I’m sure most issues will be fixed, CDPR can’t really blame anyone but themselves.

@zupertramp
While I’m also pissed that I payed the same for the game on ps5 than I would have on pc, only to get a severely subpar version, all these comments about how unplayable the game is, are laughable. Just the usual black and white worldview of people, being either overhyped or completely crestfallen.

@Floki
You’re assuming that development time does not cost anything. More than a thousand employees salary plus overhead costs a lot. You can’t extend development forever without revenue. Sure they have capital and income from GOG, investors and legacy game sales, but I’ll doubt they are in a healthy financial position like Valve. But I’m just guessing. One things for sure, the game on consoles should not have launched in this state. But why they thought it a good idea may not be so nefarious like some seem to believe.