RudeAnimat0r

These guys are pretty prolific. I thought SH2 was very well done, so they're on my radar. I'll probably try and get to Cronos later this year - maybe it'll be my Halloween '26 game.

Decent month. I'll definitely check out Ultros.

I don't necessarily agree that there should be a Metacritic for reviewers, but I think I understand his sentiment - one that Gerstmann willfully ignores in his response.

There are reviewers who take pleasure in eviscerating a game, and it often doesn't appear they care if people spent years of their lives making it. A game can be bad and we can call it bad, but we don't have to be nasty about it for the sake of clicks.

Gerstmann's comment irks me. Should you receive death threats for any game review? No. But should critics be civil in their discourse? Yeah, ideally. I think Vinke is ultimately looking for a healthier discourse in general, where games can be critiqued and it's not the developers - or reviewers - themselves being graded.

With all that said, I won't pretend that I haven't enjoyed some satirical game reviews in my lifetime. I think it's a delicate balance. I used to love Zero Punctuation, which rarely held back.

@ErrantRob I haven't played Cosmic Invasion, but that was by Tribute, which also made Shredder's Revenge. I thought TMNT was really solid, but I didn't feel compelled to play it more than beating it once.

Absolum is by the gameplay team from Streets of Rage 4, and I think you can feel it. Plus there's always new nuances to play with given the rogue-lite setup, which I think works here brilliantly.

I have nothing but praise for this game. It's not a large game, but every run I feel like I am finding new paths, treasure chests and little side quests.

I cannot recommend it enough.

I'm actually playing this currently. In hindsight, this is definitely my 2025 GOTY.

It's right there with Streets of Rage 4 and Scott Pilgrim as an all-timer beat em' up.

Calling the announcement at the next State of Play

I have no interest in a PS6 yet. There aren't even exclusive PS5 games out yet from most of Sony's studios!! I'm sure at this point some will be cross gen with PS6, but everything is too expensive to be thinking about buying new hardware when RAM, tariffs and god knows what else will be effecting it.

I've dabbled in Early Access on PC and really enjoy the game. I'm looking forward to trying out Caitlyn and seeing if I can get some friends into it.

Skyrim is the only TES game I've played and while I played a crap ton of it, I'm not sitting around pining for 6. There's a part of me that thinks I might be done with this style of open world time sink anyway - I had a hard time even getting into Outer Worlds, which is a diet Bethesda game. I just don't have the time or the patience anymore for 100 hours of sneaking around generic dungeons and picking up tons of junk.

We'll see! I hope TES6 is great. If it isn't, I worry about Bethesda as a studio - although, I suppose they can live off remakes and Fallout TV hype for a while.

I think it's a good selection, I just have the two big headliners. I might try out Darkest Dungeon 2 and Art of Rally though.

Major bummer if Freeman isn't in season 2.

Village and Infinite Wealth are nice additions, but I own them both.

I think this is the nail in the coffin for this game for me. It's a fun game, but like a 1/4 of the roster will be guest characters after Kenshiro.

All I want tor season 2 is Freeman, maybe a couple other old FF characters and new blood. That's one of the reasons people loved Garo, because it was almost like SF3 for SNK. It kind of hit reset on the franchise and people like myself jumped in and didn't feel like we were missing out.

I haven't played any of the LiS games after 2, which I actually enjoyed. I meant to play True Colors but just never got around to it - I think I needed a break from that game format.

I agree with a previous post, I think ditching the anthology format was an admission that they couldn't find a way to make the series work anymore. I also think in general, Deck 9 hasn't done as good a job as Dontnod. Before the Storm was enjoyable but it also was coasting largely on Dontnod's world building.

I think the amount of time you spend with Persona and Metaphor isn't a detriment to those games, but I do think it's an obstacle toward wider acceptance. However, I think the anime aesthetic AND the heavy social sim stuff is a bigger turn off to most. I love Atlus' games, and I do think there is some work for their overall accessibility. Sometimes I don't want a 90 hour game either.

As for Persona 5 selling 10m copies or whatever, I think that is a phenomenal number, but I forget, is that for all P5 titles, or just 5 and R? Also, that's 10m copies over a loooooooooong time.

I think Atlus is concerned because Metaphor has not sold as well, although I'd say 2m or whatever is a great start for a new JRPG IP. And, more importantly, their games are taking forever now. Yes, they made Metaphor, but Persona 5 people may forget debuted on PS3, and that game itself was a looooong time after 4, with only Catherine in between (I think).

Probably get Saros, Control and Tokon. A couple other games are of interest, but not at launch, like Wolverine, Onimusha, Pragmata and RE9.

@nomither6 A lot of F2P games don't require Plus to play online, so I'm not sure if this one does or doesn't.

And I just went on Reddit and they all seem to believe 2XKO will not require a Plus subscription.

I'd like a reveal for Persona 6 this year, hopefully with a 2027 release to follow? I'd expect P4R to come out late this year.

What I really want is ports of the Persona 1 and 2 PSP/Vita versions. I love modern Persona, but I only played Eternal Punishment back in the day and would like to play Revelations and Innocent Sin.

Does it require Plus to play online? My friend doesn't have Plus, but I'd love to play this with him.

I've played a bit on PC and I really enjoy it so far. I just wish it had some sort of singleplayer mode, other than training/trials/etc.

While this is awesome, it's also infuriating that Yakuza is still the only way to experience some of Sega's weirdest arcade games.

I actually prefer the Original Sin games to BG3. I might check this out at some point.

My number 1 game for the year isn't listed, but it's Wheel World. I've adored playing that game this year, it really captures the feeling of cycling, which I adore.

My 2-5 are Clair Obscure, Shinobi, Dispatch and Ninja Gaiden Ragebound. Fatal Fury would be an honorable mention. It's really fun but was also pretty disappointing as an entire package, following SF6 to me.

Major bummer. I honestly forgot Creative Assembly was still owned by Sega - I'm probably confusing them with Relic. Anyway, I was definitely hoping we'd see an update on any of the other 4 titles they teased in that now infamous Sega revival trailer from several years back. It's wild that Shinobi is the only one of the group to see release.

I instantly knew it was a new Nagoshi game. My reaction was... these games need to be shown with Japanese dialogue

Honestly, it looks nice, but I don't think the market for Yakuza games is big enough for 2 competing franchises?

Bummed, but hopefully we'll get something better in the end. I honestly didn't think they're take looked as awful as others, but I'm okay waiting.

I'm hype that Vampire Savior is the classic game this year. I've never really seen that game played at a high level, so that should be pretty interesting.

Even if Tokon isn't one of the "main" games, it's not like they can't have some sort of big invitational or other unofficial tournament. I think since it's being published by Sony that they are being cagey about the launch window. Holiday feels too far off for me, but Winter 2026 also seems too close. Sony has in recent years dropped occasional releases in the late Spring window, so it might just be cutting it too close to make TOKON a main stage event.

I recently looked through the Fatal Fury characters from over the years and found shockingly few characters I recognized. All I want is Freeman, after that maybe Duck King? I'd like to see some new characters. I think that's one of the reasons I loved Garou, it really kind of hit a reset button for FF.

I don't have high expectations for this, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't morbidly curious. I would love some solid B games.

Looks predictably awesome. The Housemarque legacy continues.

I'm currently playing through it and I've played a single episode at a time. I'm always tempted to play a second in one go but I like the cadence of playing a little bit and then waiting for more.

I agree that Dispatch works because it's episodes are really bite size and the releases were tightly spaced and effectively communicated. It also works because the writing is mostly good - I would argue it tries a little too hard with "mature cartoon" vibe, which isn't all that mature.

MGS4 might be my least favorite entry. I'm kind of okay with it being stuck on PS3.

I haven't waited for any of the definitive editions of Atlus titles, but I have felt bummed out when they drop. But I haven't double dipped on any of them initially - I do have P4G now, but I got it for $10 on Switch.

If anything I would guess the expanded versions pad Atlus game sales because some people do double dip. I considered it with Royal, but I did not want to start over a 95 hour game that I played a year or two prior.

As far as Metaphor goes, if they aren't satisfied with sales I would assume it's due to it being a new IP and it hedging very close to Persona underpinnings. I loved it by the end, but I think it's a hard sell to someone who doesn't like Persona.

I still play the previous Lonely Mountains on and off, so I'm happy to have a winter version.

I think shadow dropping a remake of a beloved entry in a hugely popular series works. People largely know what they are getting, and therefore people didn't need to be convinced over months or years that this was a game for them.

Now, it's interesting to think of whether this would have beneficial for Starfield. I don't think Microsoft would have allowed it, because at that point they still wanted to sell Xboxs, but the game wouldn't have had the same troubled pre-release narrative that it got - even if it was warranted.

This is a great get that I've been following for a while.

I'm only 2 episodes in, but I'd give it an 8 so far. I like it a lot, however I do think some of the writing is a bit too over the top.

I just have no desire to go to Premium, so this is the annual bummer. I get not wanting people to stack them years in advance, but it'd be nice if there was some sort of smaller discount to resub - like give me 20% off, or only allow a single year purchase.

I like episodic conceptually, but a lot of games that tried it were spaced too far apart. I agree that a weekly schedule was definitely in its favor, but can see how that quick a turnaround only works if all of the episodes are already complete and ready to go. That doesn't usually seem to be the case with episodic series.

Man, stacked indie week for me, with Demonschool, Neon Inferno and Morsels. Not sure I'll get anything at launch, but tempted.

Decent month with an eclectic mix of games. I already have Pacific Drive, which is pretty neat, but I'm definitely excited to check out Thank Goodness You're Here. Probably too much of a wuss for Still Wakes the Deep - I tried one Chinese Room game and it was a hard nope!

Fallout 4 was a thoroughly solid game that I played the heck out of. My complaints about the game largely stem from it moving even further away from the Black Isle Stuidos DNA and base building. But I enjoyed it, and there's some memorable stuff there, however, it might be least favorite Fallout of the Bethesda era - even including 76?

I guess I'm curious how popular it is. I understand Sony is pleased with it, but I don't know anyone IRL who owns one and I doubt any of my PS5 owning friends even know what it is.

I think it's a cool device but I just have a lot of doubts about how well it would stream on my hone network, so I don't think I'd ever get one. The other thing is, I don't think a lot of the games I play would be enjoyable on handheld - I had this problem with some Switch games too.

Stray is great but I played it a while back now. I'm sure the rally game is decent but it's a rally game!

I mean, I've never been happy multi-player for online multiplayer. Most of the time I don't play games online enough to warrant the expense, but now I do play online weekly and I get PS Extra, so I kind of forget I'm evening paying for MP rather than just game catalog.

I would love to see online gaming on PS6, but I suspect if Sony does anything it will be highlighting all of the other Plus benefits, so you're not thinking about the MP cost. But also, they may do nothing if the next Xbox is as PREMIUM as insinuated, which will make up the cost difference.

I try to play something spooky but it doesn't always play out that way. This year I made good playing Crow Country and finally playing my copy of Silent Hill 2, which I am still working through (at the prison now).

I had my eye on Signalis too, but might save that for next year.

For $10 I'll upgrade. They referenced the VF4 SP mode when making the new mode, and VF4evo has IMO the pest SP mode in the genre.

I'm sure lots of devs use AI now, but EA is basically toast to me with this and the sale to the Saudis. I know it isn't much but I sold Jedi Survivor and deleted Skate, which I was actually enjoying.

I was into 76 for a little bit. Played through the campaign and dabbled online a bit - I actually enjoyed the old Battle Royale mode it had. I haven't touched it since Wastelanders, though. Maybe a PS5 version would be the reason to boot it back up.

I think there's even a part of me that liked it more than 4... but still much less than 3 and NV.

Did they announce if there's an upgrade path for PS4 owners?

I already have SH2 and Like a Dragon, so kind of meh for me. V Rising looks alright, but not really interested in the genre anymore.

@twitchtvpat I know this is blasphemy, but I liked Downpour as well. It's honestly my 3rd favorite game in the series, following 1 and 2.

I'm really happy Konami returned to the series and has partnered with developers who've done a solid job so far. I hope they continue to nurture the series and recognize it isn't a massive franchise, but it can be a profitable one with the right partners and budget.