I do not enjoy Soulslikes, but I really liked Tunic. Some things it has going for it:
It is extremely nonverbal, but what it does give you is invested in helping you figure out a path to success. By intention, that’s not always obvious. You may need to work out for yourself when to dodge or to block.
The atmosphere is bright and cheery, though it has its spooky and atmospheric bits.
The camera is top down, so you don’t need to manage the camera while playing.
Dying is not very punishing. You lose a bit of currency, which you can retain at the same spot; and that currency isn’t often critical to progress
What’s hard for some is easy for others, and vice versa. There’s definitely an appropriate level of intended challenge to any Soulslike game that makes it satisfying as you gradually overcome difficulties and adversity. Fall below that, for instance by spending 10 hours on the tutorial boss, OR breach that difficulty by never falling below 50% HP, and the experience loses luster.
No matter how much equipment is in it, Dark Souls is still on a pretty set level of difficulty, and it’s too high for a lot of people. Heck, there are other casual games out there that were “ultra hard” for some infrequent gamers I know.
I’m a little surprised it’s that low. I mean, considering their cloud and hardware divisions they’d be getting, shouldn’t Valve pay a bit more than $16m to buy Microsoft?
I still don’t understand what job “game journalist” entails.
Say a politician takes bribes. A journalist can investigate public record documents and paper trails, and visit state houses, to interview workers to uncover what’s going on there.
Game studio is working on a new sequel, but hasn’t announced it. But this is a private company that’s not required to report to anyone. They’re not consuming taxpayer money. What, legally, should a game journalist be doing to reveal this info?
They’re basically just there to echo press releases and provide scheduled interviews, all of which must be basically at the publisher’s approval, since there are far more journalists than interesting studios.
I think they’re okay with that. The budget for these games has ballooned so much, they feel like they need a market goal beyond the $60 sale. Microtransactions are one approach, but pulling people into a gaming ecosystem like PSN is another. If you’re not interested in either, you’re not their target demographic.
I still don’t think the enemy is “all live service games” exactly. A lot of us have a style of gameplay we enjoy that makes us go “That was fun! I want some more of it.”
Just that Rocksteady made singleplayer games well, and their poor shift just informs us that not all games need to be live service, especially when the gameplay shifts to something no one likes in order to achieve Number Go Up (similar situation with Gotham Knights)
I would agree, but XIV (the MMO) moved so far off the norm that I don’t really count it with the others. It managed to handle things pretty well, and was stomachable even if the combat mechanics aren’t often what draw people in.
I’ve started feeling this way about anime too, so it’s obviously a pervasive problem in Japanese markets.
Got a series that’s interesting? You can have some curious character developments and mysteries in the twelve episodes you get, but its REAL reason for existing is the hope of selling merchandise and concluding its story arc across 100 manga releases and 80 episodes (which almost never happens)
I was excited for Persona 5, but not FFXVI. I think they’ve headed a bit too far down the road of Western imitation - going full medieval look, action combat (which I’m sorry, they’re not good at and it’s still confusing), etc.
The main thing I’ve expected from JRPGs is having a story and world that surprises me. There was something signature about the look of a guy with an oversized sword in a steampunk grungy city that pulled me into those games.
I know they poured a lot of budget into FFXVI, but it feels unplanned and vision-less. Like they could have been making the eikon fights in one team before writing the rest of the story, like how studios will film a car chase in one country and then work it into their action movie’s plot however they want.
Interesting to see a review of an older game in the series. I’d always found it interesting from its steampunk appearance. My only real exposure was the recent PS4 game, which very depressingly checked off some tired anime tropes:
One guy in a house of ladies
Women are all incapable without their big strong male leader
Bizarre plot occurrences like warping to another dimension, with little acknowledgement from the cast
Requisite hot tub misunderstandings scene
There’s some other bits that didn’t make sense to me, but basically it didn’t feel like such a fleshed out world either, even if the characters are meant to be fun.
The most agonizing debate is one you agree with, but not nearly to the extreme degree of the position you’re responding to.
There are some nuts out there that literally only buy a certain gun because “it’s in Call of Duty and it’s cool.” Worse, this demographic are not likely to be responsible gun owners - they are not buying for any perceived need. They don’t lock their guns correctly, or keep ammo separate. Those guns are the type most likely to be stolen for use in a mass shooting (or used by their owners). Arguably, those guns are designed to appeal to this exact crowd, not serve as a functional tool or hobby item.
That said, there are much better targets for gun legislation than “scary looking black guns” or Call of Duty’s choice of theme.