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sub_, 8 miesięcy temu

I started playing Horizon Forbidden West, while this game is still okay, it seems like it’s taking some steps backwards:

• it’s becoming more AssAssIn’s Creed like, with lots of stuff on the map
• they should retire the focus / investigative / detective vision, because it’s really hard to see now
• the movement is still janky, Aloy feels slow even on a mount. While the climbing doesn’t feel good
• too many button inputs, sometimes they also feel inconsistent, and sometimes it feels like they are running out of buttons on the controller
• way too many weapons / armors that I probably won’t use. Why not discard the rarity type, and let user level up the weapons instead?
• it also has the trap of games with HDR, aka it’s too dark to see
• foliage sometimes obscures the whole thing that you can’t see what’s happening
• while side quests are unique, many of the characters are kinda boring and forgettable. Often I need to sit thru a long and boring / predictable conversation just to get a quest started.

Besides those complaints, I am still enjoying the game. It has an unique setting, and gameplay that prioritizes bow and arrows. However it feels like they are moving into AssAssIn’s Creed bloat.

sub_, 8 miesięcy temu

Let’s hope that whoever is taking over the position is not as tone deaf as Jim is

vice.com/…/playstation-boss-jim-ryan-abortion-ema…

sub_, 8 miesięcy temu

Thanks, I wanted to do quote, but somehow it breaks the newline. I’ll edit my post to use yours instead, thank you!

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu (edited 9 miesięcy temu)

• I’ve finished FF9 Remaster, the game has some problems, mainly the battle feels slow compared to its predecessor. And personally, Zidane is not as interesting / relatable, maybe until Disc 3. Vivi on the other hand, is one of the best characters in Final Fantasy.
• Halfway thru AI The Somnium Files Nirvana Initiative, the game is an improvement over the first game, so far it seems like there’s a sci-fi hook dangling in front of me, that keeps me going. Characters are still ridiculous, but never annoying. The Psync gameplay part is still nonsensical, but some of them are funny enough that I can look past it. Excited to see the reveal.

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu

Japan’s first successful hostile takeover only happened in June 2019

Many companies in Japan have keiretsu style cross shareholding,

• vertical keiretsu: with manufacturing industry largely comprises of parent company holding shares of their suppliers, distributors, etc, and in return those suppliers / distributors / sub companies hold some amount of shares of the parent company. These sort of shield them from market fluctuations.
• horizontal keiretsu: when the relationships between companies are more horizontally sliced, e.g. you often see Mitsubishi UFJ, Mitsubishi Electronics, Mitsubishi Materials, etc.

These cross shareholding systems create a resistance towards hostile takeover, which have both its up and down sides, but at least it has resisted the likes of corporate raiders, e.g. Carl Icahn, where they acquire companies for asset stripping. Corporate raiders don’t create values for society, it’s to fatten payouts.

Sorry for the long reply, it’s just for other users to get a glimpse on why hostile takeover is extremely rare in Japan, and probably doubly so when it comes to foreign hostile takeover.

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu

Final Fantasy IX Remaster

• I’ve never finished FF9 on PS1 (my optical drive died), then I got distracted playing FF9 remaster a few years earlier. Finally decided to stream the game with a guide
• The battle is slow, even with fast forward, the animation seems to be slower than FF8 or FF7
• The fast forward in this remaster is not implemented as good as FF8 remaster’s.
  • It’s only either 1x or 4x speed
  • If you started the fast forward and forgot to turn it off before a cutscene, then the cutscene will play at 4x without any way to reset the speed.
• Despite all that, I am enjoying the game, characters are likable. I’m currently at Disc 2, after the Clerya section

Resident Evil Remake

• Again, I’m following a guide to get unlimited rocket launcher. I really dislike that 3 hour time limit. Or maybe I just really dislike time limit in games.
• I’m not into survival horror, but I enjoy the shooting / action part of Resident Evil
• So far, not enjoying it, since I’m just kiting zombies, skipping cutscenes, etc. My aim is to get unlimited ammo, then finally play both Chris and Jill sections without the ammo, and in some ways, inventory constraints.

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu

2 game franchises came into my mind

• Zero Escape series, since I replayed it recently, and managed to skip some steps. It’s a flowchart game, so developer’s foresight is kinda needed.
• Metal Gear and anything by Hideo Kojima, I just found out while researching for this reply, that in Death Stranding since you can create pee grenade to damage BT, you can even pee on them directly.

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu

Kinda expected, majority of Squeenix’s shareholders are big banks, they are expecting FF16 to sell a lot more than the current 3 mil copies.

Squeenix also had a kind of disappointing year between 2022 to 2023, with Babylon’s Fall failing, and Forspoken not doing great. The only big thing in the near future that’s announced is FF7 Rebirth, so I could see why shareholders don’t have much confidence in the company.

But I gotta admit, Square Enix of these past 2 years, have released tons of games that I want to play / enjoyed playing, albeit many of them are either remakes or smaller titles, e.g. Tactics Ogre Reborn, Chrono Cross Remastered, Octopath Traveler 2, Live a Live, Crisis Core, Paranormasight, FF Pixel Remaster, etc.

I hope this is just a stumble, and they will regain their footing, instead of them ended up getting acquired by large corporations.

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu

image

… someone should make Nic Cage the protagonist in their video game (that’s not Dead by Deadlight)

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu

• NEO: The World Ends With You

  • I’ve only played TWEWY Final Remix on Switch recently. I find the control frustrating. Docked, it’s barely playable with joycon motion control, while undocked, it’s tiring, and my finger keeps obstructing the screen. The game also keeps interrupting you, very often when you moved between screens, and sometimes just halfway running, someone will just stop what you’re doing halfway for conversation that’s not that essential.
  • Now, this sequel has improved the gameplay part a lot. It still has problem with interruptions. But at least with proper controller support, this game is way better than its predecessor.

• Immortality

  • This is very slow, not sure if I will eventually enjoy a 10 hour FMV mainly consists of clips not in proper order. Also, I prefer Her Story’s keyword search than this, because now I need to manually scrub the clips to the point of interests. So far I’m not enjoying the story as much, mainly because it’s about acting for now.
  • spoilerI know there’s some supernatural stuff in it
  • I can’t help but fantasize, what if the setting is sci-fi mystery, you scrub thru a number of CCTV, interviews, interrogations videos, about some weird alien / sci-fi murder. So far Immortality feels like a slog.

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu

Can’t say which one is the funniest (probably jazzpunk), but here are some that I found funny:

• Jazz Punk
• Procession to Cavalry
• Thousand Arms
• Metal Wolf Chaos
• Frog Fractions
• Monkey Island

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu

I finished NG of Armored Core 6, it’s a good game, and I like it a bit more than other Souls games, largely thanks to how speedy the mech movement is.

I’m going to do bit more NG+, restart Wattam, since I was distracted by some other games previously, and replaying AI The Somnium Files, since I can’t remember the story and bought the sequel on sale a few months ago.

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu

Just an update, finished NG++ of Armored Core 6. NG+ is NG but with slight variation of the mission, since there was branching paths. NG++ has way more unique content than NG+, and the end is satisfying. Final boss is tough, I needed a couple of attempts, and finally found my older loadout that works better against the boss.

I really enjoyed the game, especially since I am having Souls fatigue. Breaking down the game into missions ala Peacewalker makes the game more manageable, and maybe because it focuses so much on loadout, I find the game bit easier / less frustrating than say Elden Ring.

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu

Apparently Jeff Gerstmann received the review code quite a bit later than other publications. He said it’s quite a ridiculous story that perhaps he would talk about it someday (his tone sounds like this is a story in the far future)

Jeff is ex (old) Gamespot, ex Giantbomb, and the guy who got fired from Gamespot due to external pressure from Eidos after he gave Kane and Lynch a 6 out of 10.

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu

There’s a site called mangadex that has scanlations translated in many different languages, you can use the filter on advanced search to narrow it down to manga translated to Spanish (ES) or Spanish (Latam)

It’s also quite a good way to learn foreign languages (open up chapters translated to English and other foreign languages and read them like a polyglot book)

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu

oh wait, I didn’t realize that the table markdown works here.

Thanks for displaying it as a table!

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu

141.52

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu (edited 9 miesięcy temu)

Tenchu has kind of a weird / tangled development history.

• It was originally developed by Acquire and published by Sony Music Entertainment.
• Then Activision bought the rights from SME, and sold it to FromSoft afterwards.
• FromSoft holds the IP today
  • but out of the 9 games released, they only developed 3 Tenchu games, and 2 of them were PSP ports.
  • so effectively FromSoft have only developed 1 Tenchu game.
• Tenchu games were mostly developed by Acquire at first, and then K2 LLC
  • Acquire hasn’t done anything with Tenchu IP since 2009, and has been collaborating with other devs, making games like Octopath Traveler and Akiba Beat
  • meanwhile K2 LLC has been acquired by CAPCOM

I think it’s unlikely that we will get a another Tenchu entry with gameplay similar to older ones anymore.

If you want games with similar gameplay to Tenchu, then maybe you should watch Acquire’s outputs. They developed games like Kamiwaza and Shinobido that have stealth mechanics.

Edit: updated for readability

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu

image

The image is a screenshot of my AC from Armored Core 6. It’s a reverse jointed AC, with the frame painted in purple and green similar to Evangelion’s Unit 01, while the weapons are painted in red, black, and gold

Here’s my current build:

• Unit
  • Right arm: DF-GA-08 HU-BEN Gatling Gun
  • Left arm: Vvc-770LB Laser Blade
  • Right shoulder: Vvc-70VPM (vertical) Plasma Missile Launcher
  • Left shoulder: BML-G1/PO3VTC-08 Vertical Missile Launcher
• Frame
  • Head: VP-44S
  • Core: EL-TC-10 FIRMEZA
  • Arms: AC-2000 TOOL ARM
  • Legs: RC-2000 SPRING CHICKEN Reverse Joint
• Inner
  • Booster: FLUEGEL/21Z
  • FCS: FCS-G2/P05
  • Generator: AG-E-013 YABA
• Expansion
  • Pulse Armor

Here’s the Share ID on Playstation: ECE34S7T1VW2

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

Journey still looks pretty pretty.

Not sure whether it’s still enjoyable to play, since probably not many people are playing it these days.

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

Oh wow, if it’s still possible to meet with online players, then I might want to replay the game again.

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

There’s this video that rates how close are the Bruce Lee-based fighting characters to Bruce Lee himself

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

• How’s the battery life though? If it only lasts for like 3 - 4 hours, then it’s quite a bummer
• Can the PS5 still output to the TV while using this?

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

I’m wondering if Kojima’s name would be erased from the box / intro screen? I think Konami did something like that for MGS V.

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

Yes, that’s also true.

Konami did scrube Kojima’s name from the box

People were joking that the devs decided to shows Kojima’s name like in every 15 mins of the game as a retaliation

sub_, 9 miesięcy temu

• I stopped playing Time Warpers, it’s an idle FPS game. The game is fun, but sadly there’s not enough interesting progressions to get me thru 500 levels. Most important for me, is that I’ve managed to play the game comfortably with a left-handed trackball (Kensington Expert placed on left hand side), since I’ve shifted from right handed mouse couple of months ago. I rarely play FPS, but the game was easy and comfortable enough that I can enjoy the experience with a trackball.- Armored Core 6. The first AC game for me. While I do enjoy the battles, the mech movement can be a bit slippery, I’ve just switched to reverse joint legs, maybe it will feel better. The story is interesting, but I kinda wish the character banters are more like in Ace Combat 7, bit livelier, with character portraits. I’m enjoying the game very much

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

With game size becoming very huge, I sometimes hope that digital storefronts or devs would give us an option to download the game / assets depending on the configuration that we want to play under.

I still don’t own a 4K monitor and have a relatively slow download speed, it’d be great if customers could choose a 1080p option to save time and space.

I remember vaguely about smart download system, announced during Xbox’s stage show, a couple of years ago, but I can’t remember whether it’s for deciding between Xbox Series S and X, or it’s for something else.

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

Probably no chance, it’s a fan game.

I doubt it’s easy to get the license for everything, including the likeness, voices, music, etc.

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

Yeah, I could see that for kids or just like in that screenshot, as macro pad.

Even the SN30 Pro was bit too small and uncomfortable for me, and I don’t even have big hands. The 8BitDo Pro 2 on the other hand, is a solid and affordable controller.

I like what 8BitDo has been doing over the years, good quality products under affordable price range, and sometimes quirky / out of the box designs. I do wish they’d make more PS5 compatible controllers, because PS5 is definitely lacking affordable 3rd party controllers.

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

Wait, there’s a split screen on Baldur’s Gate III? Normally I’d expect split screen games are for games with shorter gameplay loop, e.g. FPS, racing.

It’s kinda interesting that there’s a split screen couch co-op for a long sprawling RPG. Also doesn’t that make all the UIs and texts even more busy / cramped?

I just read that some people are trying out split screen. on steam deck, that’s wild.

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

I dunno, I normally use my bash script + ffmpeg to convert batch flacs to mp3s

<span style="color:#323232;">#!/bin/bash
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">cd "${1}"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">for subdir in *; do
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    cd "${subdir}"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    for input in *.flac; do
</span><span style="color:#323232;">        echo ${input%.*}
</span><span style="color:#323232;">        ffmpeg -i "${input}" -ab 320k  -map_metadata 0 -id3v2_version 3 "${input%.*}.mp3" && rm "${input}"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    done
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    cd ..
</span><span style="color:#323232;">done
</span>

Then i’d just run my script.sh [directory that contains flac]you might want to remove && rm “${input}” if you don’t want it to delete your flac files automatically.

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

it’s a complex issue, and it will probably end up dirty, since it’s business in the end.

I could understand why people would avoid buying Hogwarts Legacy, because how much the IP is tied to transphobic JK Rowling. But the devs on the other hand, they mostly don’t get the say on which IP to work on. I personally avoid games like that, because the same person has enough followers to keep spouting hate which could and have translated to real world bigotry and violence. And the game serves as marketing for people to follow JK Rowling.

Then there are companies with sexual harassments incidents. In that case, spreading the words and making enough noise so that some legal investigations or actions are taken, should be the way. Then there’s crunch and overwork issues, helping them to spread the word about union, not to cross the picket lines, etc.

There are many of those issues, because we didn’t address them earlier in the past few decades. But shedding the light on them and you feeling frustrated are good things, it means that we’re progressing, we’re identifying, feeling guilty, and trying to address them.

I’d say, be more conscious when purchasing games, maybe if you really really want to play Baldur’s Gate 3, then only buy it when there’s a steep discount? Nowadays I play a lot more indies and retro games, and probably would only buy a full price games once or twice a year. There’s large number of other good games out there, don’t be pressured to be FOMO, wait until there’s steep discount. And after waiting for awhile, sometimes you realize that you could just ignore the problematic game altogether.

Also, just because they are indies, don’t mean that they can’t be piece of shit. Main dev of Ion Fury is homophobic, Jonathan Blow of the Witness is misogynistic POS, Kovarex from Factorio dismissing statutory rape as SJW term

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

Sadly indies are not insular to those issues, here are recent examples:

• Ion Fury’s dev being straight up homophobic
• Jonathan Blow of The Witness and Braid being absolute misogynist, also antivaxx
• Kovarex of Factorio straight up dismissing statutory rape as ‘new SJW term’

The thing is that, there’s always a right wing crowd swarming those communities that they’d downplay, gaslight, and of course play a part in the gaming → far right neo nazi pipeline

I’d say do it in case per case basis

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

I’m finally at Disc 4 of Final Fantasy 8 Remastered. Tried playing this game several times, but never finished it. I decided to use all the QoL options (combat boost, 3x speed, no-encounter) to avoid being frustrated by the gameplay (junctioning, drawing, etc), and I’ve been enjoying the story, even post Disc 3 twist.

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

There was a strong dislike of JRPGs and Japanese games in the 2000s.

---

Development struggles

From what I heard is, during the shift to HD development in early PS3 360 era, many western devs switched to use Unreal engine, while Japanese devs were sticking to their in house engines. But, in house engines were not cheap nor easy to build / maintain, so they struggled to recoup their expenses.

One of their strategies is to make their games more appealing to the west, but they were kinda doing it from the lens of what they think American games are appealing, so we get games that weren’t universally loved, like

• Quantum Theory: Koei’s Gears of War-kinda clone
• DmC: kinda split the fanbase
• PS3 era Silent Hill games
• Neverdead: WTF
• Yakuza games: they were marketed as if they were GTAs

Inafune was partially right, although hyperbolic, saying that Japanese games are dead. They were definitely struggling to find an identity.

---

Squeenix’s outputs

Then there’s Square Enix during PS3 era that published these games, many were received poorly

• FF13: convoluted story, L’cie, Fa’lcie
• NieR: reviewers stuck at fishing minigame, and the whole gameplay was just boring
• Star Ocean Last Hope International: Lymle, kay
• Front Mission Evolved

It didn’t help when we got bangers like Mass Effect trilogy, Skyrim, Fallout 3. So Square definitely disliked the JRPG term. However if you were to ask smaller Japanese devs at the time, e.g. ATLUS or Nihon Falcom, they’d probably prefer the term, because their ‘niche’ games (at the time), sold quite well while Square struggled.

---

Not a really descriptive term anymore

But you’re right, JRPG is non-descriptive when it comes to reviews. I’d prefer that reviewers have a small box that lists out the mechanics of the game, e.g. turn-based, random loot drops, predesignated character, linear dungeons, etc. But even nowadays reviewers are recommending games like Jedi Survivor, while the game is still a broken mess, which made me wonder what’s the point of reviews anymore?

It’s great when the devs like the term, but it barely helps anyone when reviewers use it. Not to mention the political tension when they use the term JRPG for games developed by Chinese or Korean devs.

Of course I haven’t mentioned that some reviewers were just racists fucks. Also it’s the period when Famitsu will just give any games 40/40 if the publishers bought enough advertisements from them, FF13 got 39/40, and Square was probably wondering why the games were not well received outside Japan

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

That’s bit harsh to say that all his great works are not his.

I do share the sentiment that Kojima’s writing has been in downhill for quite sometime and he really in need of a good editor. I actually think that his stories are more coherent or at least entertaining in his earlier works, e.g.

• Snatcher
• Policenauts
• MGS 1
• Some like MGS 2, but I think the boring oil rig setting broke me, and the constant chatter with ‘Colonel’ didn’t help
• MGS 3
• Peacewalker
• MGS Rising

What I actually like is his obsessive attention to details that barely matters when it comes to gameplay, e.g. melting ice cubes, aiming at enemy’s crotch to get dog tags, etc.

Kojima games started clicking for me when he introduced the ‘R&D system’ in Peacewalker, where it’s actually a RPG progression system but the rewards are absurd equipments. As the matter of fact, I like the ‘walking and R&D’ parts of Death Stranding a lot, but really dislike the enemy encounters and the story in that game.

And it’s okay, not every games are for everyone, I’m glad that someone is giving him blank cheques for his absurd ideas that are not the norms.

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

I think they haven’t decided on the official name yet, the trailer says it’s still a working title

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

I played The Forgotten City, and it’s a really good adventure game (with very minimal combat). I’d recommend you to try it out if you haven’t

sub_, 10 miesięcy temu

They should pause when showing item description and after the end credits, they should link to youtubers explaining what happened actually in the anime.