Shepherd_Tallon

@Dogbreath The game definitely has its issues. Most of us here have been listing them since launch.

I get you're looking for some honest feedback too, and you'll absolutely get it here. Just try to avoid calling those of us who are enjoying the game liars when we say we're not having the same issues with it that others have.

Cons:

• Performance has been an issue on base PS5. Frames have been bad. I haven't seen much of that myself because of my setup, but it's absolutely an issue for others.
• I still see visual artifacts when I'm in interior areas or for example when I watch birds flying against a cloud.
• The UI and controls at launch were very clunky. In some cases I questioned if they had simply released it in an acceptable state because they absolutely had to hit the launch date.
• Apparently the story is bad, but I've barely touched that side of it.
• Alas, it doesn't enable us to make tea between frames.

Pros:

• A lot of the issues from launch have been fixed. Controls are improved and they've done some QoL adjustments with the UI.
• It's been a long time since I've played in a fantasy world this engaging. I saw @Retron reference Ocarina of Time above, and I fully agree. I legit feel like I'm back in school playing Ocarina of Time again for the first time.
• It's a high fantasy free sword life simulator. If you're into that, or if you grew up reading 80s and 90s heroic and high fantasy, this is your game.

Again I can't speak to frames still being an issue because it hasn't been a noticeable problem for me (not a liar, you can make of that what you will 🤷‍♂️), but others still complain about it being a problem on base PS5.

I would give you the same advice I gave my friend last week - It's the fantasy game I've been waiting forever for, but don't get it yet unless you have a PS5 Pro and a TV with VRR.
Otherwise you'll hit performance issues.

@Tatarimokke Same for me, I'm just not seeing the difference between those two modes.
Although I will say that if you're doing the archery tournament put it on performance mode. The extra frames make hitting the target before your opponent much easier 🤷‍♂️

But I get what you mean. It reminds me of when I was a kid in school buzzing to get home to play whatever I was playing at the time.
It doesn't seem to happen very often anymore.

@Dogbreath Speaking only for myself re your "lying about the frame rate or lying about how much they had played and hadn't reached the boss" comment - between VRR, playing on Pro and using balanced mode, I just haven't seen frames as an issue so far.

As for the Crow Caller, I've genuinely never heard of it.
I'll probably pass 70 hours today but like we've been saying, there's just so much to do.

I've just picked up a bounty now in my game and I've put the kettle on because I'm going to ride my horse back to the barracks at a canter so I can spend 15 minutes or so taking in the scenery while I have my tea.

@Boomers-r-us Exactly that.
By the time I realised I could get behind the waterfalls I think I had already found 5 or 6. Was happy to go back to each of them and collect the loot.

I'll tell you what, this makes me glad I've spent 63 hours farting around in the first 3 chapters.
It'll be nice playing the majority of the game with these improvements.

Store all selected items and the extra mounts, these two are very nice.

Edit: Just logged in thinking I'd have missed out on some of the new rewards, but had a bunch of them added now "based on your past game activity".
Nice.

Picked "Yes, I'd be there day one" but that's only because I'm starting to set funds aside for it now. I'd still dread to see it at that price.

Ideally I'd love to see Sony double down on PS5 for the next few years. I understand that contracts etc are part of the equation, but surely the better long term bet would be to wait for now (said without any insight).

@ErrantRob tbh Crimson Desert is soaking up most of my gaming time so I've only spent a few hours with Screamer, but I'm really liking what I've played of it so far.
The visual style is gorgeous and I love the arcade feel of it.

That said, I don't think the drift mechanic is for everyone. I like it, but I've heard some complaints.

If you're not sure my advice would be to wait for a sale.

I have to work until lunch, but after that;

• Crimson Desert
• Marvel maXimum Collection (but probably just the X-Men game)
• Screamer
• Yotei Legends
• Edit: Marathon if I can find the time...

@Eduard_Brenton Good luck with the P switches!!!
I got all of the ? panels and gave up on the collectibles after that.

@dskatter I hadn't heard that news about Google! Just looked it up after reading your comment.
Some hope then. Maybe.

The level-headed article I've been waiting for.
Thank you, @get2sammyb!

I have nothing else to add.
Obviously this all sucks. I have a real fear that if things don't change in the world some big names in our industry could go under.

@Vertere Loving your comments here 👍

Not surprised by the hike everywhere else (not happy but not surprised), but I would have been floored if they'd raised it in Japan too.
@get2sammyb With Nintendo's dominance there they must have been thinking that increasing the price of PS5 would be borderline suicidal.

@cainhurst94 Exactly the points I was alluding to, thanks.
Stephen covered it in that paragraph at the end of the article too. I guess I missed that on my first read.
My bad.

Surely PS6 will be pushed to 2028 now.
If PS5 has gone this high, I just can't see PS6 launching successfully at this or an even higher price.

@get2sammyb @Quintumply Is there anywhere to get an estimated breakdown of how much it costs to produce and ship a PS5?

There are a lot of comments in this thread stating why this increase is happening, many of them contradict each other but all are sure they're correct.

Maybe some info would help folks to understand why this has happened.
How much ram costs, the state of world supply lines, etc.

Edit: Just saw the paragraph at the end 👍

@ShogunRok Bang on 👍
tbh reading the article was like reading all of the thoughts I've had about the game since last week.
It's an 8-9 out of 10 game for me based on what I want from a game of this type (and I'm more easily pleased with my games than others, I know), but the technical issues are there unfortunately.

It's not beyond repair though which is great. I just wonder why they didn't delay the launch a month. They clearly had a deadline they had to hit.

It's hard to disagree with anything that's written here.

I think the VRR on my TV and my Pro are doing a lot of heavy lifting, because I don't come across any noticeable framerate issues, but the metallic effect on some of the characters and the visual artifacts when you're inside a building have definitely happened a few times.

I'm obsessed, I love it, I'm 50 hours in so far and I just finished watching some streams for the latest Twitch drops. I can't wait for work to finish so I can get back into it.
There's a level of ambition in the world that I personally have never seen in a single player game before.

I described the game to a friend of mine the other day as the fantasy game that I've been waiting forever for - It feels like I'm in an 80s heroic fantasy novel at times.
But when she asked would I recommend it I simply told her no, not yet.
It's nowhere near the mess Cyberpunk was, but even so, wait for the rest of the patches.

@spcspc I think what we're seeing is Sony reorganising themselves.
A bit of a reset back to what works seems to be underway (although in this case I think market conditions were the cause).
Hopefully they dont become too afraid of taking risks...

@get2sammyb The whole thing never felt like more than a concept car to me. How would you insure something with that many things distracting the driver?

@CielloArc Yeah tbh that's the real problem as far as I can see - Lack of transparency re how it works.

Is it a standard sale, and then a deeper sale for loyalty customers or something?
Not sure what to make of it without knowing how it works.

@Flaming_Kaiser Agreed on Bungie, but I think Square Enix would have been a mistake now (although I thought it was a good idea at the time too).
As much as I will always love Final Fantasy, they just don't draw the numbers they used to.
Kadokawa/FromSoftware still looks like the one that got away to me.

@Flaming_Kaiser I think it was as much panic as it was greed.
During the pandemic gaming exploded. It was lockdown proof and it looked like one megacorp or another was going to buy up Sony's third party GAAS partners. So they lost their heads and decided they had to have a massive live success at all costs.

As it turns out, from the outside looking in, investing in and publishing third party projects seems to have been the way to go. Helldivers has been great TBF, and Tokon looks very exciting. Both made by external teams.
The gatcha games have been huge for Sony too, and I'll be surprised if they don't market GTA VI in a big way.

But yeah, greed and panic were the order of the day. And what we're seeing now with the closing of these studios and dumping of internal GAAS projects looks to be a huge course correction.

@Carnage Well put. I feel like I've been saying this for ages.
I didn't factor first party games into which consoles I bought until The Last of Us came out at the end of the PS3 gen and I saw what Sony's studios were capable of.

I bought the PS1 initially for Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy VII and Resident Evil.
PS2 was for Final Fantasy X.
PS3 was Demon's Souls and Valkyria Chronicles.

First party games are great, but like you say, they're just one piece of the library.

Folks, do the hours you're contracted to do and no more unless you need the OT pay, and if you're sick go to the doctor.
I used to kill myself working too, until I woke up on the floor beside my desk one day with no idea how I got there, then had to go to the hospital with stress and exhaustion.

Lesson learned.

None of the suits even know our names anyway, and when push comes to shove they'd let us all go in a second if it was the easiest move for them.
We all get let go at some point no matter how hard we've worked.

Loving this game.
I'm back at work today and all I'm thinking about is a puzzle I found last night before I went to bed and the boss it took me two hours and most of my resources to kill yesterday.
I'm obsessed.

They've fixed every issue I had with it 🤷‍♂️ It's just a great game now. Glad I had the foresight to take today off work, because I can't stop playing.

@Gremio108 You beautiful person!
I'll check it this evening. It has to be something that's locked to a story mission, and something that early one would make sense 🙏

Crimson Desert, Yotei Legends and I might try to chase down the platinum in Nioh III. I finished the game during the week with 4 trophies left (not counting the plat), but for the life of me I can't find the last myth or the last hot spring...

@Brumblescope I found that confusing myself. It left me doubting my own memory of how the intro had played out for me.

The main thing I'm enjoying about the game is that it feels like it's trying to be a game for me specifically, rather than be a game for everyone.
It feels like it grew out of the old 80s and 90s PC D&D games, and I'm here for it.

@Titntin One thing that struck me about the side missions, many of the early ones are preparing us for some of the meatier side features that come later I think.
Taken in isolation they're just fetch quests, but put them together and it's gotten me a little excited to see what's ahead.

"I never thought this game would be for everyone, and I can understand why. But it IS for me, I'm happy so far."
This for me too.

I'm still half playing this game like it's the Witcher 3, but it's nothing like that.

@lazarus11 He does right? I was half afraid to say it in case I was remembering it wrong. I kept getting distracted by scenery and views when that guy spoke.

I mean the game has its issues, but it's nowhere near what happened with Cyberpunk as some have suggested.
I've only had one crash so far. If I can forgive The Last of Us for launching with a bug that broke the auto save feature, I can forgive a game for crashing one time.

@Brumblescope I try to avoid criticising the writers here because I generally enjoy their stuff, but it does feel like there's a bit of a fever going around when it comes to this game.
Legitimate concerns about performance on the base PS5 version are absolutely fair of course, but some of the other things that have been raised have left me wondering if I'm playing a different game.

The more I play of it the more I love it. The clunky UI has stopped being an issue for me too as I've gotten more used to it.
Take the game as it is and it grows very quickly.

I've just woken up after 4am and I've got that buzz in my gut that demands I go and play more of it.

I play a lot of tabletop and read a lot of fantasy novels, so I didn't think twice about going to the tavern for info.
Then I overheard the beggar asking for a coin, so when the prompt to give him the coin appeared I figured, yeah okay.

I don't mind the sprint or jump functions either, but I agree about some of the other controls. A lot of it feels unnatural, but I'm taking it as it comes to me and just spamming L1 (block) and R1 (basic attack) during combat.

They have to update the UI though. It takes 3 button presses to complete actions that are super basic in other games.
And that first puzzle was so simple, but the instructions were so poor I had to look up what I was being told to do, twice.

One thing I would insist everyone do though - I had to reduce the gamma to 35, down from 50. It was giving me a brutal headache otherwise.
I had the same issue with Black Desert actually. I found that game hard to look at for long.

@Slippship I tend to have this approach too.
(Was just thinking about The Last Ninja the other day. Can't remember why now. Just popped into my head.)

A lot of people will bounce off of it I think.
Some of the UI is very heavy and convoluted. And walking feels like GTA - clunky and not always accurate. The precision jump helps with platforming though.

That huge 20gb+ patch addressed a few things, but it's going to need more work for the menus. There's so much going on there.

All of that aside, when you're just walking around in the world or in combat it feels great. I'm playing on pro with a Bravia Oled (HDR, VRR, quality settings, two patches installed so far), so I can't comment on the visual issues others are having. It looks and runs really good for me.
I keep thinking that just wandering around the world feels like being in a David Gemmell novel. That side of it is amazing.

7/10 for me until they fix the interface, but it's still going to be my go to fantasy game for a long time. There's so much to do.

I got the platinum in RE Requiem last night so I'm back to finishing off Nioh III today. I think I'm almost at the end.
After that I'll get into Yotei Legends properly for a few days before Crimson Desert lands.

Excellent!!!!
Can't wait for next Thursday morning!

I tend to buy physical and had forgotten about the targeted pricing thing. I think I only know about it because I read about it on this website.

They could release half a game each month as long as two of those halves added up to Alundra and I'd be happy.

Want me to stop asking for Alundra? I will. As soon as they give me Alundra.

I'd grab Golden Axe and Streets of Rage in a heartbeat and I've loved some of the Valkyria Chronicles games, but the rest of the Sega catalogue just isn't for me.
Shinobi and Sonic, I'm glad they exist and I loved them as a kid in the 90s, but at some point I forgot about them.

@AdamNovice We all have our moments ✌️

If they do remake it, please cut Steve out. Or if he can't be cut just change every single detail about the guy.
I always wanted to love that game, but could never fully get passed how completely annoying that little fool was.

Resident Evil Requiem, Nioh III and Marathon.
I have a feeling I won't get to Nioh and Marathon until the end credits role on RE though.

No thanks.
@UltimateOtaku91 Exactly this. Was just going to say the same thing.

42 here.
As much as I loved both versions of RE4, Requiem is the RE4 game I've wanted since I first played og RE3 when I was... 16?

My 43 year old cousin who first got me into Resi back in the 90s popped over the other day just to watch me play it for an hour. He doesn't have the time to play it himself anymore.

It's not my type of game at all but I loved what I played in the Server Slam. I was happily surprised.
I just fired it up to do the intro sections before I go back to Resident Evil for the night, but I'll definitely play Marathon long term.
Other than the menus it's very well put together.

I'd have given it to Nioh 3 but Resident Evil is too good.

@GamingGod I was thinking this same thing just last night. The Nioh series is definitely the best of those hardcore franchises that isn't made by FromSoftware, in my mind at least.

Nioh III is the best of the series for me so far too.
They've really nailed the formula this time.
I'm enjoying it so much that I'm also considering the platinum.

Too many big games at once!
Resident Evil Requiem, Marathon and Nioh III for me.

I have to do two hours work now, but I'm itching to turn the Pro on.

@captainsandman Agreed the menus are a bit much right now, but otherwise I like what I've seen of it so far.

@somnambulance
Gaming still bringing the family together though!

@LogicStrikesAgain It sits beside the PS1 in my mind in the sense that I bought both for third party games.
In the case of PSVR2 I've got;

• Moss 2
• Legendary Tales
• Behemoth
• Undead Citadel
• Aces of Thunder
• Grimlord (Out next month apparently)
• Flight Simulator's upcoming VR mode

That's not counting Horizon, or the VR modes in Gran Turismo, No Man"s Sky and Resident Evil.

There's plenty to play on it, if you have the time.