The last good Tales of games I played was Tales of Hearts R. I loved Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Abyss, Tales of Graces and of course Tales of Vesperia... but cannot say the same about Xillia 1&2, Zestiria or Berseria.
Tales of Xillia had really easily forgotten story, Zestiria for me personaly was too boring to even finish (that's one of the few games I've never finished), Berseria was slightly better but still a huge miss.
@GREGORIAN "open up the real estate so we can buy more house and be able to own more business and have more activities" yeah exactly, I would love it if GTA was more up to current standards. I mean MC who is not exactly just a brainless thugh who happens to be where the stuff is happening, imagine someone more of a white-collar who knows how to steal cars but also how to sell those cars on the market, who knows how to cook the books. Instead of just avoiding police, having to avoid tax office. Learning how to invest money. I mean sure he can be a part of a larger scheme to catch some ruthless mafia boss, but please no more from zero to hero c***. A breed between saints row and GTA, with teammates who can die just like in Suikoden locking you out of some of the actions and endings. Right now GTA5 and GTA4 for me is just a pew pew simulator, I grew out of it, not to mention that for me GTA1 & 2 are still more fun to play.
@Rhaoulos If you are going for physical you pay for one rating instead of all or just release it in country which doesn't even require rating. You just sell physical copies via online shop.
Let's say average indie game is like 15 USD. 70% of it is 10,5 USD. That means you need to sell around 400 copies of a game to even start earning any money. Now let's remember that some niche games are released with limited run of 1000-2000 copies and that's for global demand. Sure that's not valid if someone thinks Persona 5 is "niche" game, but if we are talking about true niche games than again digital rarely is the answer.
And you really overestimate how expensive is manufacturing. Again lately a lot of games are released as physical only, which means it's valid option.
So you can use banana, but somehow PS4 controller is a problem? Joking, SONY is well known patent troll, they have great ammount of patents they never use.
@Rhaoulos While the logic might sugest that you are right, it's actually the other way. For most of indie devs releasing physical version of the game is THE cheaper option.
Believe it or not, releasing on PS Store is HUGE hassle. First of all, you need to provide ratings for your game for all corresponding regions (ESRB, PEGI, CERO, GSRR, USK, ACB, JSO etc) and platforms. In case of PEGI when game is relatively small it's around 400 USD for each of the platform, so PS4, PS5, PS Vita, PS3 that's already 1600 USD alone for ratings for JUST ONE region.
Now provided that you have ratings for your games, you still need to translate the description of your product to all languages of countries where you want to sell your game. Sometimes devs use google translate, but that might get sometimes refused by SONY.
This is why most of Vita games are released now as a Physical only. There are companies like Strictly Limited Game, Limited Run Games, East Asia Soft etc. Just check what games they released you will be surprised as many of them were either never relased digitally or released just in one region.
Tldr: It's actualy cheaper to release a physical edition.
@Number09 While that's true I am kinda inclined to think that there are more games that were pulled from PS Store and can be bought only in physical shop. There are dozens of games constantly being removed from PS Store due to licensing issues, take for example some of the games from Naruto series.
@Salt_AU Weeeellllll.... technically speaking you can't lose them. In reality if SONY will want to make it harder for you to find those game they will. Searching for something you bought on PSP or PS VITA few years ago, scrolling to hell and back downside, going through jungle of DLCs... it's like leaving all your game collection at the attic of your old house's, which you already rented to someone else so going there is a massive pain in the donkey.
@Balosi don't count on it. First, PS5 is already few years behind current newly build PC. That's something natural, PS5 price compared to high end PC is not that expensive. Secondly, new console means new profit and creating buzz around your own brand.
@Futureshark That's only natural, PC biggest problem was piracy. People pirated games to hell and back. You can say that pirates are actual precursors of digital era. People got used to owning digital copy of the game even before Steam came to live. Heck I still remember period of various DRMs, those times were brutal. Take for example King's Bounty which had Starforce DRM, for many gamers who owned physical copy of the game (which was the only version of game back than) the only way to play the game... was download pirate version of the game they had. So yeah, moving to digital only Steam for PC gamers seemed as the natural step in evolution from pirate games. Btw. since Starforce I hate all DRMs, that's why i try to go GOG all the way.
@themightyant I am pretty sure the only right from having day 1 digital version of the game is "Just smile and wave boys... smile and wave..."
Few years ago I had interesting conversation on PS Blog EU about digital vs physical. Some lad tried to convince me that going full digital means that that prices of games will vastly drop as you will cut out the production cost, transportation, storage, 3rd shop profits etc. Meanwhile, I argued that full digital means that only SONY will dictate prices of games, and that means that in the end the prices will grow higher. And colour me surprised, I am not surprised at all. Not to mention there is also issue that you do not have full ownership of games you digitaly "own", according to EU law you should be able to re-sell those games. In most cases sales in physical shop are much better than those in PS store, unless we are talking about really niche games. Also being owner of PS Vita having over 50-60 physical copies of various games including some of the games never released in my own region (eg. Trails in the Sky series, Nobunaga Ambition, Oreshika, Dragon Quest Heroes etc.) I really cannot care less about digital games. I know perfectly well what SONY will do as soon as they will think there is no profit. There are more games on Vita right now released physical-only than those digitally, simply because PS Store is a mess (and requires to translate description of Eng-ONLY games to all languages in the world because of no reason)
Good old creation of demand by reducing supply. "oh look our product is so good it simply vanishes, everyone want it" strategy. Meanwhile I will just wait until there are actual games for it.
@Voltan Well... glad you like it I guess. I don't but that's how opinions works. Yours is as good as mine. Just don't be angry if Aerith will stay alive, Sephiroth will turn out to be a good guy trying to save the world or other shenanigans, and generally the original plot will be completely scratched to pursue something more Kingdom Hearts-ish. I liked the original, it definitely deserved to be upgraded and all the plot holes filled in, more mature and dark. As it is now FF VIIR for me is one of the weakest games in the entire series just after easily forgotten story of FF XV and of course the worst game of all times FF II.
FF VIIR was the biggest disappointment for me in last few years. I might pick up DLC whenever it will be really cheap. And it still surprise me that so many people wait for "part II" of remake, seeing the ending of FF VIIR and the fact it was called FF VIIR and not "FF VII R part I" I am really not sure if there will be "part II" of the "remake", more likely something entirely new FF VII Reimagined. I mean correct me if I am wrong SE usually calls it themselves "the next game" rather than mentioning "part II"
@Phelan Also don't forget that Jim Ryan was pushing for fast release of No Man's Sky. But yeah, "wah, wah cyberjunk is bad". Rockstar pays or something?
The only bitter person in the entire article is you Sammy Barker. You even called it "Cyberjunk" in subheading. I don't have any feeling that Jim Ryan was p*ssed after reading what he said. I am starting to wonder whether you are paid to write bad stuff about cyberpunk or you are simply juvenile.
@arsmolinarc Honestly it's "solid 8/10" only because of performance issues. The only grave mistake CDPR did was not releasing demo. It works on PS4 pretty much how one would expect from new gen games working on old gen consoles, epscially when we are talking about games which graphics is all about lightings (and neither RDR nor GoT had any artificial lighting so don't compare it). Which game in 2020 have the best graphics based on Digital Foundry? The PC version of Cyberpunk 2077, and as the guys mentioned nothing compares to it. Yes, it's that graphically advanced, and CDPR had to downscale it to PS4 released in 2013, a console which at release day could compare to already 4 years old PC. So what option did they have? If they would axe PS4 version people would whine either way.
I've seen a lot of materials whining about how CDPR lied removing half of the content that was supposed to be in game based on trailer with warning "not actual gameplay: work in progress folks!". But most of the stuff removed was due to design issues.
Hacking with monowires became useless if you can hack with eyes (it's 2077 you don't need to plug directly to someone to hack him, that's how scary it is).
No wall climbing with mantis blades was the only rational decision, as outside of the battles it would be simply gamebreaking. Stuff like this works only if you have either very linear maps or the scale of the world is relatively small. People need to remember the map is 20 times bigger than in spiderman.
People whining about their backstories not having as big impact on gameplay as they want... come on, it's exactly like in Dragon Age: Origins (the best of the entire series). Do people really expected that it will be entirely different game depending on their choice? Anyone is aware how enormous trouble it would cause for voice recording to capture "spirit" of your origins in each of voiceovers? Sure it's dissapointing that we have only 1 female 1 male voice, and that white female voice completly does not match black female characters. And there are even people whining "omg, I am trans and I wanted to have female voice but want others to adress me hethem". Language packs are already aroung 6 GB big, imagine recording several voice overs IN ALL DUBBED languages. That's 18 languages folks! Anyone wants to complain how GTAV is better with just 1 language version? That's also exaclty the reason why most of NPCs have 2 replies.
Do anyone miss the ads that were specially designed to your needs? Nobody needed this, it's obvious why in game developing process this was axed.
And the most funny part is... CDPR during development mentioned which parts had to go. Already like half year before release they came clear saying "no mantis climbing", and somehow people still expected it to be in game.
Game really have issues, but most of really important stuff is very rarely mentioned because people focus on some silly ideas. Again, it's not 10/10 even with bugs fixed. But imho there wasn't a single 10/10 games in many years. It's 8/10 but could have been 9/10 with 3 more months in production. And again the demo should be must have for all games.
Yes game is buggy, no it's not 10/10 masterpiece, nevertheless I am playing on base PS4 and it's still one of the best games of 2020. Already on second playthrough with more than 200 hours invested. I am getting tired of this "wah, it's bad". Why nobody mentions frequent crashes that people had in FFVII Remake, or constant problems with textures not loading properly? I have one crash per two days in cyberpunk and it's still great. Started playing 2 weeks after release, most of whining comes from people either paid to whine or that never played to begin. "OMG, GTA is better because tires were poping when you shot them" it's 2077 lore for god sake. Even in 2020 there are tires that won't pop if you puncture them. All that whining about prejudice against LGBT when one of the main characters in game is trans, and she is not sexualized in any way. Save is corrupted? Sure that happens, just load previous save it's literally auto saving every few minutes. Game is solid 8/10 even with silly AI, and all the bugs. Lore is dark and mature with plenty of stuff to read. But sure if you expect shallow story with everything given on silver platter like most of games nowadays... It will be meh. And no it was not SONY's decision, it was CDPR decision because it was the only way for people to get refund. There are literally officially statements staying just that Just created account to write this.
Comments 18
Re: Anticipated JPRG Tales of Arise Surfaces After Long Absence
The last good Tales of games I played was Tales of Hearts R. I loved Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Abyss, Tales of Graces and of course Tales of Vesperia... but cannot say the same about Xillia 1&2, Zestiria or Berseria.
Tales of Xillia had really easily forgotten story, Zestiria for me personaly was too boring to even finish (that's one of the few games I've never finished), Berseria was slightly better but still a huge miss.
In my opinion (<- an actual opinion not objective fact) there is something really bad happening in story department. I love jRPG genre but Tales is the very definition of series that is constantly using cliché of the cliché of several traits of jRPG system. Looking at heroine all I see is yet another Alisha.
Might play this but when it will become really cheap. I lost my trust in the series.
Re: Why GTA 5 on PS5 Will Be More Than Just a 'Simple Port'
@GREGORIAN "open up the real estate so we can buy more house and be able to own more business and have more activities" yeah exactly, I would love it if GTA was more up to current standards. I mean MC who is not exactly just a brainless thugh who happens to be where the stuff is happening, imagine someone more of a white-collar who knows how to steal cars but also how to sell those cars on the market, who knows how to cook the books. Instead of just avoiding police, having to avoid tax office. Learning how to invest money. I mean sure he can be a part of a larger scheme to catch some ruthless mafia boss, but please no more from zero to hero c***. A breed between saints row and GTA, with teammates who can die just like in Suikoden locking you out of some of the actions and endings. Right now GTA5 and GTA4 for me is just a pew pew simulator, I grew out of it, not to mention that for me GTA1 & 2 are still more fun to play.
Re: Last Year, the UK's Gaming Purchases Were 85 Per Cent Digital
@Rhaoulos If you are going for physical you pay for one rating instead of all or just release it in country which doesn't even require rating. You just sell physical copies via online shop.
Let's say average indie game is like 15 USD. 70% of it is 10,5 USD. That means you need to sell around 400 copies of a game to even start earning any money. Now let's remember that some niche games are released with limited run of 1000-2000 copies and that's for global demand. Sure that's not valid if someone thinks Persona 5 is "niche" game, but if we are talking about true niche games than again digital rarely is the answer.
And you really overestimate how expensive is manufacturing. Again lately a lot of games are released as physical only, which means it's valid option.
Re: Why GTA 5 on PS5 Will Be More Than Just a 'Simple Port'
@Amusei Not my cup of tea, but I definitely acknowledge that it's by far better. Still a fry cry from older titles though.
Re: Why GTA 5 on PS5 Will Be More Than Just a 'Simple Port'
Meh, they won't fix the worst thing: the plot.
The last GTA games were GTA3 and SA. Sorry nothing will change my opinion. But hey I respect people who disagree
Re: This Sh*t Is Bananas! PlayStation Patents Fruit Peripheral
So you can use banana, but somehow PS4 controller is a problem? Joking, SONY is well known patent troll, they have great ammount of patents they never use.
Re: Last Year, the UK's Gaming Purchases Were 85 Per Cent Digital
@Rhaoulos While the logic might sugest that you are right, it's actually the other way. For most of indie devs releasing physical version of the game is THE cheaper option.
Believe it or not, releasing on PS Store is HUGE hassle. First of all, you need to provide ratings for your game for all corresponding regions (ESRB, PEGI, CERO, GSRR, USK, ACB, JSO etc) and platforms. In case of PEGI when game is relatively small it's around 400 USD for each of the platform, so PS4, PS5, PS Vita, PS3 that's already 1600 USD alone for ratings for JUST ONE region.
Now provided that you have ratings for your games, you still need to translate the description of your product to all languages of countries where you want to sell your game. Sometimes devs use google translate, but that might get sometimes refused by SONY.
This is why most of Vita games are released now as a Physical only. There are companies like Strictly Limited Game, Limited Run Games, East Asia Soft etc. Just check what games they released you will be surprised as many of them were either never relased digitally or released just in one region.
Tldr: It's actualy cheaper to release a physical edition.
Re: Last Year, the UK's Gaming Purchases Were 85 Per Cent Digital
@Number09 While that's true I am kinda inclined to think that there are more games that were pulled from PS Store and can be bought only in physical shop. There are dozens of games constantly being removed from PS Store due to licensing issues, take for example some of the games from Naruto series.
Re: Last Year, the UK's Gaming Purchases Were 85 Per Cent Digital
@Salt_AU Weeeellllll.... technically speaking you can't lose them. In reality if SONY will want to make it harder for you to find those game they will. Searching for something you bought on PSP or PS VITA few years ago, scrolling to hell and back downside, going through jungle of DLCs... it's like leaving all your game collection at the attic of your old house's, which you already rented to someone else so going there is a massive pain in the donkey.
Re: Last Year, the UK's Gaming Purchases Were 85 Per Cent Digital
@Balosi don't count on it. First, PS5 is already few years behind current newly build PC. That's something natural, PS5 price compared to high end PC is not that expensive. Secondly, new console means new profit and creating buzz around your own brand.
@Futureshark That's only natural, PC biggest problem was piracy. People pirated games to hell and back. You can say that pirates are actual precursors of digital era. People got used to owning digital copy of the game even before Steam came to live. Heck I still remember period of various DRMs, those times were brutal. Take for example King's Bounty which had Starforce DRM, for many gamers who owned physical copy of the game (which was the only version of game back than) the only way to play the game... was download pirate version of the game they had. So yeah, moving to digital only Steam for PC gamers seemed as the natural step in evolution from pirate games. Btw. since Starforce I hate all DRMs, that's why i try to go GOG all the way.
@themightyant I am pretty sure the only right from having day 1 digital version of the game is "Just smile and wave boys... smile and wave..."
Re: Last Year, the UK's Gaming Purchases Were 85 Per Cent Digital
Few years ago I had interesting conversation on PS Blog EU about digital vs physical. Some lad tried to convince me that going full digital means that that prices of games will vastly drop as you will cut out the production cost, transportation, storage, 3rd shop profits etc. Meanwhile, I argued that full digital means that only SONY will dictate prices of games, and that means that in the end the prices will grow higher. And colour me surprised, I am not surprised at all. Not to mention there is also issue that you do not have full ownership of games you digitaly "own", according to EU law you should be able to re-sell those games. In most cases sales in physical shop are much better than those in PS store, unless we are talking about really niche games. Also being owner of PS Vita having over 50-60 physical copies of various games including some of the games never released in my own region (eg. Trails in the Sky series, Nobunaga Ambition, Oreshika, Dragon Quest Heroes etc.) I really cannot care less about digital games. I know perfectly well what SONY will do as soon as they will think there is no profit. There are more games on Vita right now released physical-only than those digitally, simply because PS Store is a mess (and requires to translate description of Eng-ONLY games to all languages in the world because of no reason)
90% Physical, 10% Digital if found in scrap bin
Re: PS5 Stock: When and Where to Buy PlayStation 5 in March 2021
Good old creation of demand by reducing supply. "oh look our product is so good it simply vanishes, everyone want it" strategy. Meanwhile I will just wait until there are actual games for it.
Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake Yuffie DLC Detailed, Will Be Two Chapters Long
@Voltan Well... glad you like it I guess. I don't but that's how opinions works. Yours is as good as mine. Just don't be angry if Aerith will stay alive, Sephiroth will turn out to be a good guy trying to save the world or other shenanigans, and generally the original plot will be completely scratched to pursue something more Kingdom Hearts-ish. I liked the original, it definitely deserved to be upgraded and all the plot holes filled in, more mature and dark. As it is now FF VIIR for me is one of the weakest games in the entire series just after easily forgotten story of FF XV and of course the worst game of all times FF II.
Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake Yuffie DLC Detailed, Will Be Two Chapters Long
FF VIIR was the biggest disappointment for me in last few years. I might pick up DLC whenever it will be really cheap. And it still surprise me that so many people wait for "part II" of remake, seeing the ending of FF VIIR and the fact it was called FF VIIR and not "FF VII R part I" I am really not sure if there will be "part II" of the "remake", more likely something entirely new FF VII Reimagined. I mean correct me if I am wrong SE usually calls it themselves "the next game" rather than mentioning "part II"
Re: Sony Sounds Bitter About the Cyberpunk 2077 Debacle
@Phelan Also don't forget that Jim Ryan was pushing for fast release of No Man's Sky. But yeah, "wah, wah cyberjunk is bad". Rockstar pays or something?
Re: Sony Sounds Bitter About the Cyberpunk 2077 Debacle
The only bitter person in the entire article is you Sammy Barker. You even called it "Cyberjunk" in subheading. I don't have any feeling that Jim Ryan was p*ssed after reading what he said. I am starting to wonder whether you are paid to write bad stuff about cyberpunk or you are simply juvenile.
Re: Cyberpunk 2077 Approaching Two Months Absent from PS Store
@arsmolinarc Honestly it's "solid 8/10" only because of performance issues. The only grave mistake CDPR did was not releasing demo. It works on PS4 pretty much how one would expect from new gen games working on old gen consoles, epscially when we are talking about games which graphics is all about lightings (and neither RDR nor GoT had any artificial lighting so don't compare it). Which game in 2020 have the best graphics based on Digital Foundry? The PC version of Cyberpunk 2077, and as the guys mentioned nothing compares to it. Yes, it's that graphically advanced, and CDPR had to downscale it to PS4 released in 2013, a console which at release day could compare to already 4 years old PC. So what option did they have? If they would axe PS4 version people would whine either way.
I've seen a lot of materials whining about how CDPR lied removing half of the content that was supposed to be in game based on trailer with warning "not actual gameplay: work in progress folks!". But most of the stuff removed was due to design issues.
Hacking with monowires became useless if you can hack with eyes (it's 2077 you don't need to plug directly to someone to hack him, that's how scary it is).
No wall climbing with mantis blades was the only rational decision, as outside of the battles it would be simply gamebreaking. Stuff like this works only if you have either very linear maps or the scale of the world is relatively small. People need to remember the map is 20 times bigger than in spiderman.
People whining about their backstories not having as big impact on gameplay as they want... come on, it's exactly like in Dragon Age: Origins (the best of the entire series). Do people really expected that it will be entirely different game depending on their choice? Anyone is aware how enormous trouble it would cause for voice recording to capture "spirit" of your origins in each of voiceovers? Sure it's dissapointing that we have only 1 female 1 male voice, and that white female voice completly does not match black female characters. And there are even people whining "omg, I am trans and I wanted to have female voice but want others to adress me hethem". Language packs are already aroung 6 GB big, imagine recording several voice overs IN ALL DUBBED languages. That's 18 languages folks! Anyone wants to complain how GTAV is better with just 1 language version? That's also exaclty the reason why most of NPCs have 2 replies.
Do anyone miss the ads that were specially designed to your needs? Nobody needed this, it's obvious why in game developing process this was axed.
And the most funny part is... CDPR during development mentioned which parts had to go. Already like half year before release they came clear saying "no mantis climbing", and somehow people still expected it to be in game.
Game really have issues, but most of really important stuff is very rarely mentioned because people focus on some silly ideas. Again, it's not 10/10 even with bugs fixed. But imho there wasn't a single 10/10 games in many years. It's 8/10 but could have been 9/10 with 3 more months in production. And again the demo should be must have for all games.
Re: Cyberpunk 2077 Approaching Two Months Absent from PS Store
Yes game is buggy, no it's not 10/10 masterpiece, nevertheless I am playing on base PS4 and it's still one of the best games of 2020. Already on second playthrough with more than 200 hours invested. I am getting tired of this "wah, it's bad". Why nobody mentions frequent crashes that people had in FFVII Remake, or constant problems with textures not loading properly? I have one crash per two days in cyberpunk and it's still great. Started playing 2 weeks after release, most of whining comes from people either paid to whine or that never played to begin. "OMG, GTA is better because tires were poping when you shot them" it's 2077 lore for god sake. Even in 2020 there are tires that won't pop if you puncture them. All that whining about prejudice against LGBT when one of the main characters in game is trans, and she is not sexualized in any way. Save is corrupted? Sure that happens, just load previous save it's literally auto saving every few minutes. Game is solid 8/10 even with silly AI, and all the bugs. Lore is dark and mature with plenty of stuff to read. But sure if you expect shallow story with everything given on silver platter like most of games nowadays... It will be meh. And no it was not SONY's decision, it was CDPR decision because it was the only way for people to get refund. There are literally officially statements staying just that Just created account to write this.