Tchunga

@somnambulance So technically speaking, Part 1 IS a remake. It's using entirely new character models, assets, lighting, ect. All of the things you would use to qualify as a remake are found present here in Part 1. Now, you wouldn't necessarily know any of that unless you specifically went out of your way to look it up but.....yeah, this has got to be the most pointless remake of all time. The fact that most people are still working under the assumption that it's just another remaster is proof of that enough. Just what an incredible waste of time and effort

The Callisto Protocol is a solid 8/10. Unique dodging mechanics and linearity aren't cons to me. Just because it's not an open world and doesn't have a dedicated dodge button doesn't make this an automatic 6/10. I honestly wish we had more games like this. Bring back linearity you cowards!

No Trek to Yomi is disappointing but also unsurprising. While I enjoyed the game greatly it didn't really make waves and released to pretty mixed critical reception from what I remember. Oh well, it would have been a nice number 3 or number 4 option

As for game of the year itself it comes down to either Elden Ring or God of War Ragnarok. They're both pretty solid 9/10's in my book (neither of them are masterpieces). I'd say Elden Ring has higher highs but also lower lows. Ragnarok is the more consistent game overall, Unsurprising considering its smaller scope. I think it really just comes down to personal preference at the end of the day. Both of these games are excellent in their own right and you can't go wrong picking either one of them

Excuse me while I put my tinfoil hat on for a second but I can't help but find it interesting that both of Pushsquare's sister sites (Nintendolife and PureXbox) published a separate article headlining that Elden Ring won game of the year but Pushsquare itself did not.

Surely any game winning game of the year is news worthy no? 🤔

Regardless if what he said was in poor taste or not I really despise hit pieces like these. What do you really get out of assassinating someones character like this? Clout? A sense of moral superiority? It's quite sad really. Shame on you. I look forward to hearing a far more fair, and level-headed take from the Sacred Symbols next week

I haven't finished it yet so I'm going to abstain from voting but so far this game is an easy 9/10. The kind of quality I expect from a Sony 1st party game. After Horizon Forbidden West I almost forgot why I even own a Playstation over say an Xbox but GoW has reminded me. This is Playstation Studios putting their best foot forward

While I personally don't think it deserves it, I gotta say I'm really happy to see Stray up for Game of the Year. It's nice to see a game that doesn't take itself too seriously be nominated for the highest honor. I feel like gamers latley are far too dismissive of anything that isn't dark, gritty, or serious. So many people scoffed at Animal Crossing being nominated for GOTY in 2020 and I just can't seem to wrap my mind around the rational behind that. Can a game that's cartoony or cute not be of a high quality? I just hope people are more open minded in the GOTY discussion going forward and it's nice to see Stray get the nod

The nominees for GOTY will be:

A Plague Tale Requiem
Bayonetta 3
Elden Ring
God of War Ragnarok
Horizon Forbidden West
Neon White

I'll bet my lunch on it

@somnambulance Like I said, Elden Ring is my current game of the year. If it ends up winning GOTY at the game awards it will 100% deserve it in my book. And if Ragnarok ends up beating Elden Ring I'm sure it will have deserved it as well. But that's besides the point. What I'm refuting is specifically the use of the word "innovative". I've played every From Software release since 2009 and I struggle to see how ER innovates on anything. Fromsoft have very much stuck to the same formula for a while now. And while it's a formula I love, it is starting to get a bit long in the tooth. I'm hoping for a wild card like Sekiro in the future and less action RPG's. I think they've explored that genre pretty thoroughly at this point. But either way it seems we've reached a bit of an impass here. It sounds like we both agree that Elden Ring is a fantastic video game and maybe thats where we should leave this conversation

@somnambulance I find that interesting that you bring up the shared knowledge and discussion aspect of Elden Ring because that's exactly how all From Software games are. They're incredibly obtuse with little in the way of tutorials or explanations of basic gameplay mechanics. So the community naturally comes together in order to try and piece the rules of these games together. I would argue the shared knowledge aspect was even stronger back in the Demon's/Dark Souls days because they weren't nearly as popular, and there was less coverage and guides for them online as a result. This kind of forced the community to come together and communicate. You couldn't just YouTube search "Top 10 most OP Demon's Souls builds" Because there just wasn't that kind of a following for the game. You had to scour through message boards or simply learn things through word of mouth, it was a very different experience. Elden Ring's extreme popularity makes that shared discussion a bit less essential when there are so many guides and tutorials premade and ready to go. That was definitely an aspect of Elden Ring I felt sorely lacked compared to their past titles

@somnambulance Elden Ring is absolutely a phenomenon I completely agree. It managed to break out into the mainstream in a way that the Souls series never could. Hell, It's my current GOTY and it likely won't be toppled unless Ragnarok ends up being as good as all the reviews say it is. With that being said though it's still not innovative. From Software took the established Souls formula and applied it to an open world and they managed to do so with resounding success. But as successful as they were at the end of the day Elden Ring is still big Dark Souls. Long time fans will know this but the original Dark Souls was a mini open world of sorts already. There were a series of interlinking paths that would lead you out in a multitude of directions. Not too dissimilar from the nonlinear design found in Elden Ring. From Software took Dark Souls design philosophy and truly ran with it. Creating something bigger, and even better.

To call Elden Ring "innovative" is kind of missing the point. It's a culmination of From Software's previous work. They wouldn't have been able to make a titan like Elden Ring without building off the bones of Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne or Sekiro. Iteration is often used as a negative when describing games but I disagree. Iteration isn't a bad thing, It got us Elden Ring after all

@jrt87 Just as a heads up, you might want to be careful when criticizing Sony 1st party games on this site. And by "be careful" I mean you're probably just better off not criticizing them at all. Save yourself the trouble

@somnambulance I don't think Ragnarok will be any more or less innovative than Elden Ring. Granted I haven't played Ragnarok yet but I think its safe to assume that it'll iterate off of GoW 2018. Which is exactly what Elden Ring did with Dark Souls (Or Demon's Souls if you want to be technical). The Souls games were innovative, Elden Ring just improves upon that established formula

So Elden Ring is far and away my current game of the year. That being said though, if Ragnarok sticks its landing I could see it overtaking Elden Ring for me. As much as I adore ER it really did stumble in its third act. The whole mountaintop of the giants section was a bit of a slog to get through. If Ragnarok ends on a high note I could see it dethroning Elden Ring for sure

@Shepherd_Tallon If you say so 🙂

This state of play will be amazing it's going to be the best state of play ever. Sony never does anything wrong or lets anyone down every decision they make is the right decision. The Last of Us Remake was a good idea, the God of War and Horizon TV shows are a good idea, they're all good ideas don't let anyone tell you otherwise if they do they're just a hater or a troll. No criticism of Sony or Playstation allowed

@NintenGuy What makes me think it hasn't sold well? Well, the fact that Sony hasn't released any sales figures for 3 consecutive months now. Meanwhile Bandai Namco and Nintendo have been very vocal about how well Elden Ring and Kirby have been selling during that same time frame. That combined with this new PS5 bundle for a game that, as I mentioned, is only 3 months old at the time of writing. I'm no Michael Pachter but this all strikes me as just a little bit odd

And I don't really know if you're right about that MK8 bundle, pretty sure Nintendo only started bundling MK8 since last year. I could be wrong but either way there's a big difference between bundling a game that's already a couple years old and one that's only been on the market for 3 months. Trying to pretend that the MK8 Switch bundle and the Horizon PS5 bundle are indistinguishable is incredibly disingenuous

So basically Sony has to bundle Horizon with PlayStation 5s in order for it to sell, Lol. At least they can pretend like it's selling well now 😅

So this is a Dark Souls 2 tier sequel essentially. That's rather unfortunate, Salt & Sanctuary was one of my very favorite PS4 games and to hear they didn't capitalize on the strengths of the original is just incredibly disappointing. Even if it isn't outwardly "bad"

@Flaming_Kaiser And I'd say I agree with you and that's an excellent take to have but unfortunatley your profile picture IS an anime dragon. You see, Anime dragons invalidate any opinions regarding The Last of Us or Nintendo remasters 😕 Sorry. And It was a really good take up until then too

@Flaming_Kaiser You're seriously going after my profile avatar? Talk about grasping at straws. The reason I have a Pokemon as my avatar is because this particular Pokemon, Incineroar, is my main in Smash Brothers. It has literally nothing to do with the actual Pokemon games.

But please continue to mouth off about Pokemon and Nintendo. I'm 110% platform agnostic, it doesn't effect me in the slightest

@Flaming_Kaiser Well I'm certain Sony would be more than happy to take your money. Afterall that's the only reason decisions like "remaking The Last of Us" ever get made

@Flaming_Kaiser By that logic every game that's past the 7 year mark should be remade. Regardless if it still holds up or not

@get2sammyb Okay sure. A Last of Us remake probably makes sense to someone in a suit that's crunching numbers in a boardroom somewhere. Fair enough, I'll give you that. But literally anyone else with even an inch of common sense would tell you that a remake of a game that isn't even a decade old yet and that still holds up extremely well even to this very day is an incredible waste of time and resources.

@get2sammyb So you'd rather have a remake of a fairly recent, modern game (that still looks and plays great on modern hardware by the way) over a potential new entry in a classic and beloved PlayStation franchise?

Are YOU serious?

@RevGaming 1.4 million in 17 days. This is only accounting through the end of March. It's likely sold even more since then

@GorosBat I don't know Sekiro was pretty different from their usual gameplay style but I agree I hope From tries something new with their next game. They've stayed very close to the typical souls formula for a while now. Wouldn't hurt for them to branch out a little

@OmegaStriver That's interesting, I feel the exact opposite. I found Sekiro to be somewhat overrated despite the fact that I really enjoyed it. I thought "out of all of FromSoftware's games throughout the years THIS is the one that's getting all the recognition?" Elden Ring on the other hand I understand the praise for completely. It feels like the culmination of everything From has done up until now. It's a natural evolution of Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Sekiro's gameplay

@Hibari89 And I'd argue that's what's so great about it!

@Th3solution I also enjoy engaging in discourse but if I believe you are misrepresenting or misquoting what I'm saying then I am going to take issue with that. As I'm sure anyone else would. It's fine though, I got nothing against ya mate. Just some of your words that's all 😛

@Th3solution The comment that you're referring to was on an entirely different article. I don't really see how it's relevant here. And even if it was relevant I never said it was the "gospel truth" that Elden Ring was the hardest Souls game. I merely stated that it was my opinion. I'm not really sure who this irrational character is you're painting me as but it sure ain't me

@arzis100193 Since when is handing out a high score considered "pushing it onto people"? Pretty sure the reviewers just rated the game based purely off of their enjoyment of it. There is no ulterior motive here.

I knew Elden Ring's metacritic score would bring out the salt in some particulars but holy moly, some of y'all really just can't handle the fact that people are loving this game

@Th3solution Okay? My comment has nothing to do with Elden Ring being easier or harder than other Souls games. That's not the point. It's about it not having any difficulty sliders 🤔

Where are all those people that said Fromsoft needed to add difficulty options for their games to sell? 🤔 Seems like their games are selling just fine without them

@Th3solution What you've been reading is either marketing bs or just a lie. Elden Ring is From Softwares most challenging game yet. And that's not a hot take either. It's a widely shared sentiment online. A lot of the mid to late game bosses can two or even one shot you, and that's with a decently upgraded health stat to boot. And the "stakes of marika" that act as checkpoints are more so just there to account for the fact that the game is open world now. So you arent constantly having to ride around everywhere on horseback. They dont make the game "easier" they just cut out some of the time. There are still some bosses that don't even have the stakes of marika at all. Those were made out to be a much bigger deal than they actually are.

So no, Elden Ring isn't From taking player feedback into consideration. If anything it's them being unapologetically From Software 😉

Ah sh*t, here we go again.

You know, out of all the time spent begging for an easy mode in Souls games is time that could be spent just playing something else. Like something you actually enjoy. Instead of deliberately going out of your way to demand a game that you know isnt for you change to fit your needs, you could just play the hundreds of thousands of games out there that already cater to you, that have the options you're looking for

"It's not something we're willing to abandon, it's our identity" That's straight from the director and president of From Software's mouth dude. Just how more clear does it have to be? How clear does it have to be before it finally sinks in. Miyazaki and his team don't give a **** about adding an easy mode. They just don't. The sooner everyone realizes and accepts that the sooner we can move on from this incredibly tired debate

@Col_McCafferty What is wrong with targeting a specific audience? And an increasingly growing audience I might add. These games are only getting bigger and bigger. Like it or not but there are a significant group of people that enjoy this type of genre, and they don't want to risk losing what makes it special by watering it down. And that's not an unreasonable take to have. Not every game has to be catered to everyone. That's the beauty of this medium. If you find there's one cup of tea that isn't particularly for you there's likely a dozen others that are

Counterpoint: It's okay to like Horizon over Elden Ring, and vice versa. You don't have to enjoy both of them, you don't owe either of these games anything

@dark_knightmare2 Let's not put the cart before the horse. None of us have actually sat down with ER ourselves yet. The gap between ER and HFW metacritic scores could be completely justified, or not. We simply don't know yet one way or the other

@Medic_Alert If we want to talk about conspiracies then we should probably mention that HFW is apparently getting "review bombed" on metacritic even though it's user score is sitting at an 8.1.

Apparently any sort of negative review of Horizon constitutes as review bombing. It can't be that some people simply don't like the game.

What's more impressive to me than all the crazy high review scores is that Elden Ring actually somehow managed to live up to the insane hype surrounding it. Most games crack under that kind of pressure I mean just look at Cyberpunk. But it just goes to show you can never count From Software out. And it looks like they have another masterpiece under their belt. Man, friday can't come soon enough

@clianvXAi Adding an easy mode would defeat the purpose of these kinds of games. They're meant to be challenging, it's baked into the world, lore and atmosphere. And overcoming that challenge is part of the intended design experience

So I'm actually shocked with the positive reception of this game. The way I feel about Sifu is "What if Sekiro but only its combat, and nothing else" because that's pretty much what Sifu is. There is no platforming or stealth to help break up the gameplay. It's just fighting. It's moving from one room to the next in a very linear fashion fighting bad guys along the way.

Which pretty much leaves the combat to be Sifu's only real saving grace. And is the combat good? Sure, it's good enough. I wouldn't say it's amazing though. This style of gameplay has been done before and been done better imo.

There is the roguelike mechanic with the aging system and this is arguably the most interesting aspect of Sifu I would say. It gives the game an extra layer of challenge and intrigue that kept me playing til I saw the credits roll. If not for the aging mechanic I might have lost interest and dropped it halfway through.

Overall though Sifu probably sits at around a 7 for me. It's a decent enough action game with some pretty cool ideas that doesn't offer much outside of it's incredibly repetitive combat

@DarthKiwi enut_butter said the game was supposed to be realistic. AKA the metacritic user who gave Horizon Forbidden West a 0. It's the review that Pushsquare has highlighted in the thumbnail of their article.

@DarthKiwi It being set in a post apocalyptic world hundreds of, if not thousands of years in the future make the diversity of these incredibly primitive villages make even less sense, not more. Again, it doesn't bother me. I'm all for diversity for diversities sake but to say it's realistic is simply not true

Well, I suspect I might get some heat for this but I actually don't necessarily disagree with anything this "enut_butter" said in his (or her) metacritic review. Assuming Forbidden West is more of the same (haven't gotten to Forbidden West yet), I found the original, Zero Dawn to be incredibly inoffensive and tame. And I'd say it was pretty unrealistically diverse as well. Now whether that's an issue for you or not is purely subjective. That sort of thing doesn't bother me personally but it was definitely something I noticed during my initial playthrough.

My biggest issue with the review isn't actually anything that's said it's the score that's given. A 0 out of 10 is a bit harsh for those particular criticisms. Is being tame, boring and inoffensive really worth docking 10 points? Most reasonable people would probably say no. If this review was worded the exact same way but the user had given the game a 6 or a 7 it wouldn't be met with nearly as much scrutiny. There would still be some toxicity levied from those that can't handle any sort of criticism but that's to be expected. If you're going to give a game like Horizon Forbidden West a 0 out of 10 you better have some damn good arguments as to why. I would actually love to see a well thought out argument from that perspective, this however unfortunately is not it

I think it's important to make a distinction between best and favorite. That being said though I'm going with the Bell Gargoyles from Dark Souls 1. Maybe an unpopular pick but this was the Maneater fight done right in my opinion.

You have a larger center platform, giving you much more wiggle room to dodge and attack. It's also in broad daylight so you can actually see what you're doing. The Maneater arena was so dark it was hard to tell what was going on half the time. Plus the music in this fight is simply incredible, It's the same track they used in a lot of the promotional material I believe.

From Software would actually go on to reintroduce and improve a lot of boss concepts that were first introduced in Demon's Souls. Not just the Maneaters. I like to think of that game as a test bed of sorts and a springboard for the rest of the series

@Col_McCafferty You probably typed this comment thinking it was something cool to say. But it's not 2003, No one really thinks like this anymore. Games can be of a high quality irrespective of the age demographic they target. A lot of Nintendo's first party offerings rival Sony's very best, surpass even in some cases