ShogunRok

@Fiendish-Beaver I hope you enjoy it when you eventually get around to it!

We'll hopefully be covering all of the major updates in news articles, too.

@Fiendish-Beaver How busy is your schedule looking...?

No but seriously, if you want to see everything this game has to offer, you're looking at an insane number of hours. Easily 100+. It's a proper life-consuming thing if you're prepared to go that deep.

As such, I'd be tempted to say that you should wait for updates. Pearl Abyss is bound to make some meaningful improvements over the coming weeks, and if you're going to spend that long playing a game, you may as well wait until it's in the best possible shape.

Having said that, it's not like the game's unplayable, especially on PS5 Pro. You can jump in now and enjoy it just like I have, with the knowledge that parts of it are pretty rough.

My personal advice would be to wait and see what the next update does — how big it is, what kinds of stuff it addresses — and then make a decision based on how long you're willing to wait.

@Drago201 At least Crimson Desert isn't one of them, you could play that one alone until Osiris Reborn comes out!

@IOI Where did you get the idea I don't like the game? So much of the review is praising all the stuff it gets right. The score gets dragged down primarily by performance issues and a distinct lack of quality of life design.

I swear some of you guys don't read the full review.

@IOI @lazarus11 @KundaliniRising333 My PS5 tracker says 45 hours, I said it was a lot longer than that.

Please read my comments instead of jumping to conclusions. I've been reviewing games for 14 years, I like to think I know what I'm doing!

@themightyant According to my PS5's tracker, I ended up spending around 45 hours with it — but it was longer than that.

I got through all of the main quests, and despite being spoiled by a YouTube thumbnail on the ending (I love when that happens), I can safely say it had zero impact on my inability to care about the narrative.

@IOI I adore Dragon's Dogma 2 but I'll admit I made a mistake with the initial review — or at least the score.

I can either give Crimson Desert the same score because I didn't ding DD2 two years ago, or I can learn from what I got wrong and judge the game's performance accordingly.

@Hyena_socks Yeah you can save at any time outside of cutscenes and battle. When you load that save, though, you may not spawn in the exact spot where you saved — the game often puts you at a nearby 'starting point', if that makes sense.

There are also autosaves which tend to be quite good, but in an open world as big as this, you can go a long time without realising that your last autosave was a while back. Best to use manual saves every now and then.

@somnambulance I don't have a Portal unfortunately, but I'd also be interested in seeing how it is. My only concern would be that much of the game would be illegible on a handheld screen because it's so detailed and packed with text.

@Shepherd_Tallon Sounds like we're on almost the exact same page!

@Kienda I'd be giving this a higher score if it wasn't for the technical issues. It's very hard to look past them, in my opinion.

If anyone's got any questions about the game or the review, let me know and I'll try to answer them.

Like the review suggests, I've been obsessed with this game. Couldn't put it down. But it's so hard to recommend right now.

If you're a big fan of open world exploration — just soaking up the vibes and taking everything at your own pace — then this is like a dream come true.

But if you want an engaging RPG in the form of something like The Witcher 3, or even a Bethesda title like Skyrim, then this isn't it. I'm tempted to say it boils down to being more of a fantasy life sim than a traditional adventure.

It really is a game you can completely lose yourself in once you're past the initial learning curve.

And that's why the performance issues are so damning. The potential is abundantly obvious but it shouldn't have been released in this state.

Would highly, highly recommend waiting on updates.

@Voltan I think this is the big problem that looms over everything. It really feels like the dev team don't have a clear vision for the game outside of "aggression" and even that seems poorly defined at this point.

Personally speaking, I believe Tekken 8 needs a bit of a reset, but it's like they went too far with Season 2 and now refuse to walk most of it back, so the spiral just continues.

Crazy mismanagement of a game that had insane potential.

@get2sammyb @vikramsingh The leak being a week early threw me off!

Edit is in place now, thanks!

Both have ended up being divisive games but as a fan of action and murky fantasy settings, I absolutely love them.

Would encourage anyone with similar tastes to give both a go, assuming this is true.

@rjejr Nah, no notes were exchanged, but I find myself agreeing with a lot of what Tom's written!

@EfYI I wouldn't say you win no matter what — some battles are still tricky — it's just that the AI companions will outperform you for a large stretch of the game.

It creates this weird dynamic where you're the main character but the AI's almost always capable of doing a better job than you.

They do more damage, they can heal every wound... I just think they take away a feeling of agency more than anything. You end up relying on them quite heavily for much of the game, but you have no say over their actions.

Hopefully that makes sense, it's a difficult thing to properly explain!

@BIG3 Yeah you will get used to it eventually, just takes a while for things to become muscle memory, especially in combat.

If you really enjoy the gameplay as a whole I don't think the convoluted menus con will be that big of a deal in the long run.

It's definitely something you can overcome if you play long enough, it's just a shame that they're not a little more intuitive.

@Kraven Each game has a standalone story, so no prior knowledge is needed at all.

Playing the first two games will give you a head start on certain systems and gameplay mechanics, but that's it.

@RedRiot193 No, Capcom sent out incredibly early review code for this one. It arrived about one month ahead of today's embargo, which is crazy (and hugely helpful).

We'd need to check to be totally sure, but I think this might have been the earliest review code we've ever received.

If anyone's got any questions about the game or the review, let me know and I'll try to answer them.

To say I became addicted to Stories 3 is an understatement. Spent many nights staying up far too late, hatching god-knows how many monsters in search of rare mutations.

Like the review says, it's a shame that the combat system in particular takes so long to even out. The core gameplay loop is ridiculously good if you don't mind the grind.

Thanks for reading!

Also, apologies for some of the screenshots looking so washed out.

I spent the opening hours with my PS5's HDR settings turned on, and it was only after the demo launched that Capcom confirmed it wasn't supported.

By that point I was so far in that I couldn't think about going back to start a new game for the sake of screenshots.

So just know that the game definitely doesn't look that bright under normal circumstances.

@johncalmc Same, but I convinced myself that I'll go back when the mod support happens. It's been tough.

@Fighting_Game_Loser Yeah I think even if you're a super hardcore Strive player, it's hard to complain about the lack of communication because so few games get this level of support five whole years after launch.

I'm guessing 2.00 will be Strive's last major update, and it'll lay the groundwork for the game's final form, from the perspective of ASW.

It'll be really interesting to see what they change / add.

@Fiendish-Beaver Yeah like others have said, it depends on the game.

Some games (rather annoyingly, in my opinion) will enable PSSR by default, so you're stuck with whatever settings the developer has deemed appropriate.

Other games simply provide a PSSR toggle in their settings.

And then the rest just don't bother with PSSR support, for better or worse. In short, it's developer-dependant.

@UltimateOtaku91 All the Warriors / Musou games, including the licensed spin-offs, are primarily handled by Omega Force, which is a different developer under Koei Tecmo.

No word on any reshuffling there as far as I can see.

@ElkinFencer10 It's interesting, because I think you're in a different position to many Yakuza fans who have been playing the series since the PS2 or PS3 days.

From your perspective, the original Yakuza 3, 4, and 5 — and their remasters — will seem really old and clunky, because you're only familiar with the newer games.

For example, going from Kiwami 2 to the Yakuza 3 Remaster for the first time is going to seem like a real step back in terms of combat design, graphics, and general controls.

In that sense, I don't think there's anything wrong with going to Kiwami 3 next. Purely from a gameplay perspective, I think it's probably the better option. Just keep in mind that it does make quite a lot of changes compared to the original.

And you can always go back and play the remasters if you really want to, depending on how invested you are in the property as a whole.

@Kienda It's a better role-playing game than Skyrim in terms of having an impact on the story and quests via dialogue options and decisions.

But it's not the kind of immersive open world RPG that Skyrim is. Its open areas look great and they're fun to explore, but they're largely static.

The same is true of towns, etc. Very static environments where NPCs just stand in place and you can't interact with them. There's no crime system or anything like that.

Combat is definitely better than it is in Skyrim, and there are more defined ways to build your character.

The bottom line is that if you want an immersive open world experience like Skyrim, Avowed probably won't give you that.

But it will give you a more involved, player-driven narrative and a lot of enjoyable combat encounters.

@guacguacboo Oh bloody hell, wish I'd realised that while I was playing!

@JalapenoSpiceLife You can basically adjust everything. Your damage, enemy damage, your health, enemy health, enemy aggression, how easy stealth is, how tanky your companions are... There's a huge list of options.

Definitely worth playing around with them because I think the default difficulty has some weird flaws like sudden, overpowered enemies and the need to grind for upgrade materials.

@TheLotteryMan1 Avowed is the higher budget, more polished game, but I've seen people say super positive things about Tainted Grail. From footage I've watched, it's definitely the more surprising of the two in terms of taking risks with story, characters, and gameplay.

But I haven't played Tainted Grail, so I wouldn't want to give it a straight recommendation over anything else.

@lazarus11 Nah, NPCs and objects are still largely static. There's no lawbreaking or murder or any kind of life-sim style stuff you'd get in a Bethesda title.

I really liked the combat but I don't know if it's been updated since you played it. Enemy variety is slightly lacking still, even though later versions of the same enemies have new spells and abilities.

@rjejr No it reminded me of KoA a bit as well, especially the overgrown forest areas!

And there is a third-person mode, but you can't switch between the two perspectives in-game. You've got to do it from the options menu, which is a bit clunky.

You can also adjust the field of view in both perspectives, which is nice.

@Kraven I don't think you can get them all in one playthrough. Some Trophies are tied to certain story events where you make a choice — and some of those choices are the result of other, earlier choices.

New Game+ should make getting the Platinum a lot easier, though.

@OldGamer999 For what it's worth, I played the whole game on PS5 Pro and didn't notice any graphical issues across any of the three modes (Quality, Balanced, and Performance).

Hopefully it was a bug that's since been squashed!

If anyone's got any questions about the game or the review, let me know and I'll try to answer them.

As evidenced by the review, I really enjoyed Avowed. It never quite blew me away, but I think it's a rock solid RPG, and I personally much prefer it over The Outer Words, if we're comparing modern Obsidian's output.

I'd highly recommend checking it out if you're in the mood for an RPG with a good sense of adventure and a focus on action.

@RoomWithaMoose Any other screenshot I could get was a blur. Honest!

@Haruki_NLI YouTube trailer specifically says 'PS5 Games' so we can only roll with it.

(Agree it will almost certainly be on PS6, the way it's being framed.)

@Oram77 It looks ridiculously good in the actual game footage too, with the way that the shards become more compact as you charge the attacks.

@UltimateOtaku91 Very good call on MHW expansion, wish I'd thought of that!

@Pat_trick There are skill trees. They're quite simplistic but you do get a lot of upgrades that unlock new moves and abilities, so they're quite impactful, and they do add some decent depth to the combat.

Unlocking them isn't a grind, either. The basic health and attack boosts require money (as Kiryu) but the combat skills require points that are acquired through just playing the game.

By the end I had more than enough money and points to buy everything, maybe even twice over.

@Nepp67 For what it's worth, the new fighting style is somewhat tied into Kiwami 3's new story stuff, so it doesn't feel quite as random as it might sound.

But yeah, it does still come across as a bit... awkward, having Kiryu running around Kamurocho with a little spear and shield. Would love to see updated versions of the styles from 0!

@dskatter I didn't get a chance to test it properly, but the game did receive an update after I'd finished it. From what I could tell, it seemed to fix (or at least improve) a lot of the lighting problems.

Before the update, the game had some very weird HDR issues and colour saturation problems. It look me a while to tweak the HDR and brightness settings so that it didn't look completely blown out, especially in Okinawa and Kamurocho during the day.

@johncalmc All in one.

The Trophy list is pretty straightforward as far as Yakuza games go. Just beat all the story chapters, complete the orphanage stuff, complete the Bad Boy Dragon stuff, complete Mine's stuff, and you're basically done outside of a few miscellaneous things like spinning a prize wheel 100 times.

If anyone's got any questions about the game or the review, let me know and I'll try to answer them.

Yakuza 3 was the game that introduced me to the series all those years ago, and I really enjoyed going back to that storyline. Like the review says, I think Kiwami 3 is a great remake, but that makes RGG and SEGA's more questionable decisions stand out even more.

I hope those who do buy it enjoy it as much as I did, but I also totally understand those who are against picking it up.

Just a quick note before anyone asks: You can play Dark Ties before or after the main game — it's separate from Kiwami 3 on the start menu.

However, you do get a warning that Dark Ties contains spoilers for Kiwami 3 if you decide to boot it up first.

Still, I played Dark Ties before Kiwami 3 and thought it was a great way to lead into the main game because of how much additional depth it gives to characters like Mine and Kanda.

Because of that, I'd almost recommend playing Dark Ties first if you're already familiar with Yakuza 3's story.

I've been keeping an eye on this one for ages, looking forward to finally playing it!

@rjejr Haha, sometimes it really does pay to wait!

But for the record, Relink first came out in 2024, so it's not like you've been missing out for too long.

@Czar_Khastik As a big Falcom fan I'd say it's a rock solid 7/10. Fun if slightly basic combat, generic but decent characters, okay story.

Worth a shot if you see it on sale and you fancy some anime-style action.

@Dan12836666 Yeah we don't have anything concrete on console performance yet. All we know is that it's pretty demanding on PC but seems be quite well optimised based on preview builds.

Personally I can see it being spotty on PS5 and better but not perfect on PS5 Pro.