Ralizah

@kyleforrester87 Oh, absolutely. But that's the reality of the world these days. Either keep your mouth shut and avoid drama or own your words. Apologizing like this just teaches people that they can bully you into submission.

"I'm sorry you're angry," basically. Not what I would call a "groveling apology," personally.

Not that I think he should apologize at all. He meant what he said. He should own it.

@RainbowGazelle So I shouldn't buy a game I know I'll enjoy because some aging voice actor is being replaced? lol

Meh.

Korone or bust.

@Oram77 Might be a little awkward considering she retired.

Eh. PS6 is likely only a couple of years away. Anyone who has gone this long can wait a little longer and score a device that'll be future-proof for another 7 - 10 years, plus have access to all of the PS5 games they wanted.

At the end of all this, I wonder how much money Sony will have burned in this doomed pursuit?

I know they make a lot of money from PSN, but surely they can't afford for project and project after project to crash and burn, right? Not when they're this expensive.

@MamaSymphonia Yup. Couldn't do main story stuff, but it was helpful for advancing your life ranks. This one is considerably more limited on that front.

If you liked the 3DS game, you'll like this one. Single player is a straight up improvement.

They really need to patch/adjust the way multiplayer is handled in this one. Being more restrictive than the 3DS version is ridiculous.

That aside, as a single player experience, it's incredibly fun, and it's really sucking me in just like the original did.

@get2sammyb Yup. And their games won't be trapped on a single platform anymore.

Really hoping the new Layton is good. I'd love to see remasters of the DS and 3DS trilogies on modern platforms, too.

@belmont Program a back button as F11 so you can switch to borderless fullscreen, and it essentially works perfectly otherwise. I locked it to 45fps and turned up most of the settings to max, and it has been doing so well. If you own an OLED SD, the HDR looks gorgeous in this.

They're actually charging $40 for this? 😬

It's difficult to imagine this won't be another bomb. Maybe not as spectacular as Concord, but I'll be shocked if this survives a year. Especially with the compounding effect negative press tends to have.

Wow, that sucks. I had high hopes for Hentai Supermarket Simulator. 😂

Anyway, these services (PSN, Steam, eShop) have a LOT of software hitting them every week, most of it ultra niche, so it's easy for something like this to slip through. Better to empower the user with discussion boards, the ability to review games, filter out certain games, etc. like you can on Steam, because Sony will always miss some things if they try to play Whack-A-Mole with releases like this themselves.

Fantasy Life is even higher at the moment. It absolutely recaptures the charming magic of the original, and I'm so happy there's such a surge of interest in it.

But yeah, Stellar Blade was always going to hit on PC. Bloodborne would too. And definitely Astro Bot.

A livestream was not the way to go. I watched part of it, and it almost felt like a public shaming with that chat.

Anyway, this is a pattern with Bungie, and leadership needs to be held accountable so it stops happening.

@ChrisDeku Journalists not naming sources who don't want to be identified criticizing their former or current employer is standard practice. Do you have any reason to actually doubt this reporting, or is this just you attacking someone because they're writing a negative piece about a Sony developer?

Oh god, more Denuvo scaremongering.

Look, companies want to actually make money on their PC games, surprise surprise. Denuvo absolutely is NOT easy to crack anymore. Every time Sony puts a Denuvo-less game up on Steam, the thing is also live on pirate sites within hours.

Plenty of games utilize Denuvo and manage to run well.

"Live service" encompasses a lot of different types of games, honestly. People will flock to a fun, interesting game in this vein like Genshin or, heck, Sony's own Helldivers 2. The issue is Sony keeps investing in the most boring, generic looking multiplayer games like Concord and Marathon instead of making something that leans into their strengths as a publisher.

It also doesn't help that this is in conjunction with a fairly anemic level of quality first party support this gen for their single player titles.

It's incredible to think about how many resources Sony is blowing chasing trends as of late.

I think the Cyberpunk port will be a very interesting showpiece for the capabilities of the system. It already looks so much better than The Witcher 3 did on Switch 1, so that's encouraging.

Ultimately, it seems like it'll probably be powerful enough to run 95% of games, with unoptimized games and CPU hogs that can barely run on the home consoles not making the jump. And, of course, I expect Nintendo's own developers will make it sing. Still a little wild I'll be able to play Metroid Prime 4 at 4K/60 on official hardware lol

@ButterySmooth30FPS Still need Persona 5 Arena, Persona 5 on Ice, and a Persona 5 kart racer first. Plenty of juice left. ❤️

VERY nice. They did mention that compatibility with PC handhelds was something they were working on.

I could really see the Steam release popping off.

Yeah, just waiting for the Switch release of this. Getting a new GBA title playable on the console in 2025 is cool, but I'm very over playing those games on old hardware lol

Might as well push it out to every viable platform. Even Sony doesn't keep its games on Playstation anymore.

@1UP-HUSKY I genuinely can't imagine the company that is publishing a 3DS game remaster as a Game-Key Card won't also publish these as Game-Key Cards.

Bought it on Steam. So have other people, it seems, considering it's obliterating all of their previous releases in terms of player count.

It's a wild, ambitious, incredibly weird game, and it will hopefully find its audience.

Wolverine and whatever is coming next for PS5 that hasn't announced its price is 100% gonna be $80.

Suddenly having an enormous backlog seems like such a blessing.

Launching on PC but not PS5 does make me wonder how well these games sell on Sony's console. After all, when Nintendo pays for exclusivity, it's for full exclusivity, even if only for a time.

But yeah, it's a pretty cool game. You can really see the Uchikoshi aspect of the scenario after a certain point.

Honestly, if it runs at a solid 1080p/30 undocked, I'll play it again on Switch 2. I never played the expansion anyway, and going through it portably would probably be unique enough to justify a second playthrough.

The original was a ton of fun, especially in local co-op. Looking forward to playing this on PC.

@NotTelevision That's the sense I got. It's one of those games you play, even if you don't play these sort of games. Excellence transcends genre.

But I do appreciate hearing a diverse set of opinions on any game, as long as they're constructive, as opposed to a chorus of voices glazing it. Circlejerks can be fun, but are rarely informative.

I might wait to see if the price drops more tbh.

@Frmknst I mean, I can't say much without actually playing it, but it seems like the developers did interesting things with the narrative and role-playing aspects of this game, which will become a reference point for other Western RPG devs going forward.

It could burn me, of course. God knows critically acclaimed darlings like The Last of Us, Journey, and Bloodborne weren't my cup of tea, either.

What didn't you like about this game, if you don't mind me asking?

I really, really need to play this at some point.

But my unfamiliarity with D&D and my lack of willingness to add yet another huge RPG to my pile when my backlog is chock full of them is really keeping me away.

@Avol Same. Sequel is better, at least, and better paced than the original is.

The gameplay in this looks so improved, though. Maybe it'll carry me through 40 hours of nothing happening.

It's powerful enough to run the vast, vast majority of games well enough, which is more than could be said for Switch. It'll miss out on some stuff, but the AAA gap that existed on Switch probably won't be an issue with Switch 2.

You obviously won't buy it to play the biggest third-party games at the highest level of quality and performance, but just having a Nintendo console that can run most of what comes out is more than enough, considering people will still primarily be coming for the first-party titles.

@PlatinumMikey Adults 20 - 40 comprise the bulk of traditional console gamers, and Nintendo's own data has shown that this was true for Switch 1 as well. Children are primarily playing on tablets and smartphones, I imagine.

Switch 2 may or may not pop off as hard as the first one did, but even if it doesn't, it'll likely sell 100 million lifetime at absolute minimum.

No? It's simply more like the SNES insofar as it's a more powerful iteration of what came before it.

If anything, I'd say Nintendo is the only one of the big three left that isn't completely unrecognizable at this point.

Falcom has long targeted one platform and developed games for it.

Thankfully, NISA seems intent on making sure their games are enjoyable across platforms. Proud Nordics will probably launch across all platforms once it comes West.

Eh, I'm glad they didn't mess with the gameplay too much tbh. I just want to experience cleaned up versions of these classics in HD, not someone's half-baked attempt at 'fixing' classic game design elements.

I'm unbelievably excited to play these classics again.

Picross is a ton of fun. Good one for the Portal owners, I'd say.

That's pretty neat. I remember transferring data back and forth between the PC and Switch 1 versions of The Witcher 3... which was actually slightly painful if I'd been playing the PC version for a while lol

@species No idea why you'd think it wouldn't sell well on Switch 2. TW3 sold well on Switch despite being substantially more compromised in terms of how the visuals and performance needed to be pared back. Plus this is a launch title, so it'll get a boost from early buyers hungry for new games to play as well.

The cutscenes in these games were so awesome. Like watching an old-school anime.

Really looking forward to this collection.

I might be the only person who actually likes the Game Key Card thing. Thing is developers that opted for this would've released codes in a box otherwise. Being able to re-sell digital games is actually a massive benefit compared to traditional digital distribution.

Switch 2 is almost certainly getting Remake AND Rebirth, considering the latter runs adequately on the Steam Deck, and native Switch 2 ports will probably be capable of more than what that device can offer (faster GPU clock speeds even undocked, DLSS, etc.).

Realistically, aside from certain poorly optimized or overtly demanding titles, pretty much everything should be capable of running on it.

Nintendo fans are about to enjoy proper third party support for the first time in generations lol

One of the few Atlus PS2 classics I never got around to, along with the other Raidou Kuzunoha game.

I'm happy to hear they're improving the combat mechanics, which seem like they would be a bit... janky in 2025.

But yeah, this was one of the few highlights of an otherwise underwhelming Direct for me.

I actually had no idea this wasn't already out on Playstation.

Watched a friend play it years back. It's... strange.

One of the few highlights in that otherwise dreadful Direct. Glad Atlus is continuing to dig into their back catalog.

@HonestHick Not at all. I'm not even disagreeing with you.

My point is that the Japanese gaming industry is far healthier overall. You have a lot of companies posting record profits and/or doing well for themselves. I'm sure GTA 6 and Fortnite make those earnings look a bit thin in comparison, but as with the economy at large, it's really not healthy or viable long term to have a few players at the top hog all the wealth and success.

So, yes, the biggest earners are probably American, but the American gaming industry at large is not looking good.

Although I'd be curious to know how Chinese gacha giant Mihoyo's earnings compare to the American titans. They've become extremely prominent in recent years between Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero.

Pretty much all of the creativity in American game development, in particular, has retreated into independent development.

@HonestHick You've pretty much highlighted the issue, right? American gaming is dominated by a small handful of live service titans, and you have an entire industry releasing expensive flop after expensive flop chasing that same success. That's pretty much the opposite of a healthy game dev scene.

I'd also argue that the exploitative practice of dissolving and laying off teams after big projects are finished is antithetical to creating a healthy foundation for future success. Short-sighted corporate greed and trend-chasing has, over time, rotted our development efforts from the inside out. It's no wonder the Eastern world is rising.

@Kienda It's good to have that context, thank you.

To my mind, traveling to another country is like being invited into someone else's home. If they're a proper host, they'll make you feel comfortable and at ease, but at the same time, there's an implicit understanding that you're still just a visitor, and it's not your place to disrespect their property or customs while you're a guest in their care.

Yet again, Western tourists legitimizing every xenophobic impulse still present in the Japanese psyche. 😐

Understandable, but also annoying. 🙄

I'll look much closer at any game that releases around GTA VI's launch.

Don't really care about the game, but the malding from a certain crowd that there wasn't a wider racist backlash to the game is extremely funny.

Keep the articles coming.

Never cared for it. Performance is janky, and I really found the environments to be somewhat samey compared to their other games.

In terms of the fun factor, it wasn't even in the same realm as Elden Ring for me.