SplooshDmg

@Green-Bandit I've considered buying RDR2 on PC for the 60fps, but I platinumed it on PS4 and I'm really not sure I ever want to play it again. But something really needs to happen with RDR1. It's a shame that such a great game is so largely unavailable now, outside of Series X|S. It never even had a PC release.

@GKT The music in Konda Village is so good that I'll just stand there and let it run on repeat. Lol

Gonna have to go ahead and slide Genshin Impact to number 1.

@Green-Bandit I like TLOU as much as I could possibly like anything in the horror genre, but Dan Houser's writing is basically untouchable, as far I'm concerned. I really, really hope Rockstar can continue to deliver the quality they are known for now that he has left the house, but I'm not going to be convinced until I see it. Writers like him aren't really just a dime a dozen. Even GTAV, as much as people like to knock on it because it's hyper popular and we're all way beyond burnt out on GTAO. The story is just such a sublime and masterfully told crime drama.

@Slayer25c The original SO2 was a PS1 title. Then was later released worldwide on PSP as Second Evolution. However, Second Evolution was later updated and ported to PS3, PS4 and Vita, but only for Japan. Heartbreaking stuff this is. I haven't given up hope that one day it will get a western release.

There's a far greater injustice in this world than this. Every Star Ocean is playable on PS5... EXCEPT SO2. So... You know. The best one.

RDR is better than TLOU in every possible way.

@NEStalgia The PC version is basically still just broken. Like most of SE's PC ports. I bought a PS5 for the "In case of Square Enix-type PC port, break glass" situations.

@NEStalgia It beats me, but they seriously need to get their crap together. As someone who has been playing games from both Enix and Square for 30 years, it's hard to look at them these days and say, "Wow, look at the quality of this craftsmanship." It's truly disappointing. A lot of the Japanese industry really stumbled in gen 7, but I feel like Capcom, SEGA and BanNam have gotten back on track, where Square Enix is still just completely lost in the weeds.

And no, there's nothing inherently special about Samsung TV's, this however was 15+ years ago and that's just the brand that was wildly popular around here. I have an LG LED and a Samsung QLED at the house right now, and I'd tell you I like the Samsung better, mostly because the TV software just cooperates better. But they're both good. The Samsung is the gaming TV, and the LG is the Crunchyroll TV.

@NEStalgia That's just it. I hardly love Tencent or NetEase, but SE as a corporation, as it stands right now aligns itself more with those two companies. Honestly, I think Tencent would mostly keep it business as usual, but probably just run it a lot better than it is right now. Tencent surely wants those properties for mobile games, but so does SE. They keep funneling resources into mobile games and shutting them down a year later because they have no idea what they're doing. Heck, Yuji Naka got to go to jail because he thought The First Soldier was the next big thing. Now he's in jail and the game has shut down. Lmao So, it's hard telling.

I remember when the Aquos TVs came out, and they were being hyped to the moon. They were pretty nice, the mythical fourth pixel. But they were a hard sale to make. I sold TVs at the time and selling anything that wasn't a Samsung was... Difficult.

@NEStalgia Basically until SE is truly swirling the drain, I don't see any buyout happening. Even then, I still think it's going to be Tencent or NetEase. Which I know makes you cringe, rightfully so. Maybe SE will just merge with Bandai Namco and makes Super Square Bandai Enix Namco. Toss in SEGA and we'll have enough parts for a proper Voltron-like mega publisher. We will just continue the celebrated Japanese tradition of merging with a friendly competitor when times get tough. Total buyouts paint too much of an image that you failed and sold because you're a loser. You know... Like... Sharp.

@Ralizah I think that's a part people are largely just ignoring. Square Enix doesn't really move the needle much. I mean FF7R has been their biggest game in probably a decade, and it sold MAYBE 10 million copies over the course of several years? Square Enix has a lot of legacy franchises, but they aren't exactly printing money these days. I imagine Sony locks up games like FF because... Why not? It's probably fairly cheap and it strategically makes sense. But start talking about sinking billions of dollars and taking over the liabilities of a sinking ship and Sony might change their mind on how valuable that franchise is to them. I'd like to see the figures of what portion of PS's total sales are from Square Enix as a publisher. I honestly couldn't see it being much more than a low single digit.

@Ralizah @NEStalgia The console warrior rhetoric for buyouts is stuff that truly makes me cock my head sideways, and often time squint really hard to see what I'm missing. Like, every time someone says Sony should buy Konami. Okay, they buy Konami and then what? Konami doesnt really have any prestigious studios anymore. So, it's hand the IP to another PS team, which they could surely already do if they really wanted to. Then Sony can just double down on the God of War erotic violence pachinko machines, which is basically most of Konami's revenue these days. The console wars are such a bizarre thing.

Guh. I want these, but I just don't need these.

Remote play has become one of my favorite modern gaming features and I use it daily. However, I mostly just use it at home and my iPad with an Xbox controller does the job. Not really sure I need a probably expensive handheld to handle this. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't kind of intrigued by a sort of Wii U type tablet controller existing for a PS5.

I'm sure a time will come when a PS5 Pro would be welcomed, and a year and half from now when cross gen is hopefully good and gone, I can surely see devs making use of one. However, I'm not sure I'd need or want one. More frames, more raytracing, higher resolutions would all surely be possible, but until 60fps modes start becoming a PS5 Pro only thing, I don't think there would be enough to twist my arm into getting one.

Like the Logitech streaming handheld, I think it's neat, and could be useful in situations. However, the price of admission is just way too high for that thing, and I'm sure it would be too high for this thing. I remote play on the ipad at home nearly every day, but even with 1gbps fiber and a wifi 6 router, I still find cloud play to be far behind a remote play on a local network. I'm not going to buy a PS handheld I can only use at home with my PS5, when PS RemotePlay on my iPad already achieves that. This is definitely an area I think MS has gotten right. Just find clever ways to bring games to devices people already have. Cloud is still a baby, but the tech will mature in time.

All that said, I think the future of handhelds is a bit troubled. Hardware has gotten so large so fast and doesn't seem to be shrinking down as quickly as it used to. The SteamDeck is cool, but it's pretty large, and the thing just guzzles the battery. I imagine Nintendo is maybe having difficulties developing the successor to the Switch by needing to get a meaningful performance gain and keeping a smaller form factor and reasonable battery life. So, I'm not shocked Sony is going this route, however I just don't see it as a product for many people.

God bless the PC modding community. Thanks to their efforts, I was able to play Elden Ring as 2B.

@NEStalgia I actually remember that, now that you say it. So, what's a guy gotta do to get Castlevania Erotic Violence: The Vidya Game?

@NEStalgia Did you just Rule 34 the pachinko machine in your mind brain?

@NEStalgia Goemon Pachinko machine. That's the best they can do. Take it or leave it.

@NEStalgia Gen 9 is the 2021 model, so not the newest, but the second newest. However, iPads are the only thing Apple makes that I find are actually worth a damn. Even the newest regular iPad is only like $450. So they're reasonable, and there really just isn't much competition in the tablet market like there is the cellphone market.

Yeah, Team Asano games so far haven't branched out much, but SE seems to finally be getting their head somewhat out of their arse and realizing that all these exclusives maybe aren't doing them any favors.

@NEStalgia Okay, so Wal-Mart had Gen 9 iPads discounted for $50 off, so $279.99 down from $329.99. I price matched Wal-Marts price at Best Buy and got one there for $279.99. Well, then like two weeks later, Best Buy had them for $249.99, and I price matched it again to see if I could get the other $30 off. However, they honored the price match and gave me the additional $80 off, instead of just refunding the difference. So, it turned into like $214 after sales tax. Lmao

Yeah, I'm honestly resisting buying more games. I'm catching up on my Steam backlog via SteamLink while sitting in bed. I really want Fire Emblem: Colgate Rangers Engage! But I haven't bit on it yet. Kinda considering doing a voucher and maybe getting Tears of the Kingdom, but I'm still not entirely sure if I really want it or not. The hype says yes, but my heart says (You idiot, you hate Zelda).

@NEStalgia Yeah, it beats me. The PS app surely doesn't suggest anything outside of a PS controller, but it works. I checked, and I guess that app is still in beta for iOS, I'll check it out if/when it finally releases, but the PS Remote app on iOS works pretty well in my experience, so far.

I had considered something like a Kishi, but I just said to heck with it. I got a new Gen 9 iPad for $200, and I typically don't buy Apple stuff, but Android tablets just suck. Those new Lenovo tablets look pretty solid, but they were still double what I paid for the iPad and the displays didn't look nearly as good. But I love the iPad for what I use it for, and the apps are all cooperative. Plus, Genshin on iOS has controller support, where it doesn't on Android. That was a deal breaker for the Lenovo tablet. I just like the idea of the bigger screen for home remote play, more so than trying to make my phone a Switch-like device.

I'm happy with just sticking to Switch for truly portable gaming, but I'm seriously kicking around the idea of buying Skyrim for Switch. I have $50 on my eShop account burning a hole in my pocket and I do love giving Todd my money.

@NEStalgia I've just been using the PS remote app on ipad and it's fine. It does support the Xbox controller as well, so I guess it's been updated. Beats me. The only real issue is that I have to connect the Xbox controller after the iPad has already connected to the PS5, or it will just throw an error. It all works well on my network tho. Granted I have 1gbps fiber and a wifi 6 mesh router. But really, SteamLink is god compared to PS remote play and I use that far more often. I don't use my phone for any remote play, really. I have a Pixel 7 Pro, but I have a wall mount in the bed for the iPad. So I just connect a controller to that and game on it like a tiny TV.

@NEStalgia I've discovered if I remote play my PS5 on my iPad, I can bypass the Dualsense and play PS5 games with an Xbox controller. It's a good thing.

Port DOA Xtreme Venus Vacation to console, and bring it to the west, you cowards! The game is already entirely in English if you use a VPN and add the Asia release to your Steam library.

@Shigurui Yup! I've nearly completed a legendary strayer set for her, and my Amenoma is up to refinement rank 3. So we're getting her there. I had just funneled all my resources into leveling my Tighnari quicken team, and then I pulled Ayaka, so I'm working on next to nothing until the next battle pass. 😅

@Uncharted2007 This is seriously not an April fool's joke. This launched for free on Steam yesterday. Lol

@Shigurui Will do. I was thinking of maybe running Xingqiu, Rosaria, and maybe Barbara. I really wish I had Shenhe for this team, but considering I just got Ayaka, I don't expect to get lucky enough to pull Shenhe on this banner.

@themightyant I think something clicked for me with a lot of today's really popular games. Genshin is a game that honestly doesn't demand lots of time all at once, but just lots of time over the course of forever. In a way, it just makes sense for gamers in today's busy world. It's more satisfying to fire Genshin up for 30 minutes, do some domains or bosses, then log out. As opposed to trying to dig into a 40 hour epic, and you only maybe have 30-45 minutes a day to play. In a way, it's been kind of liberating because I don't feel so committed to finishing all of these enormous stories all the time now. I got 30 hours into P5R and just turned it off, because it's just Persona 5 again (mostly), and I just don't have 100+ hours for this stuff anymore.

@themightyant At first glance, I really thought it was just some gacha money pit. Then I realized, IT IS a gacha money pit, but it is also extremely fun. I don't feel many games have character building and combat that is nearly as fun as this game. Now that I'm caught up with the Archon quests and I've burnt all my fragile resin I had accumulated, I'm not playing nearly as much. It's just fun to have something to log in and work on little by little each day. It's just such a satisfying game, even if it feels a waste of time.

Joel is really having his Craig moment here.

@themightyant I've gone down this rabbit hole, probably never to return. I'm running a Keqing main with an aggravate team and she absolutely melts stuff, I love her. I have Tighnari at 90 and I'm working on a quicken team for him, but he's pretty fun to play if you can stack a ton of energy regen on him. I also somehow got lucky enough to get Ayaka and can't decide if I want to go for a freeze or melt team. My soul is lost. I play Genshin now. NES doesn't understand.

I said this would be a GOTY contender last May when I first played this on Steam during it's early access. People thought I was crazy. I feel pretty satisfied right now.

Finally, been waiting for Sackboy for ages.

@NEStalgia Oh, I wouldn't miss this one for anything. I mean, I like my PS5, it's fine. But I like the utter madness MS is stirring up WAY MORE.

@NEStalgia A wild Sploosh appears

Now this is a celebration I just can't ignore.