Topic: The PlayStation Fan Thread

@Grumblevolcano Again with the word parsing for predictions? Don't go full Cobalt. Just don't.

@Dezzy Sitting through hours of bland gaming to get to "the good part" reminds me of FFXIII Only worse. The areas were varied and there were decent characters. That bodes well for Sekiro though!

@EvilLucario I'd be curious your thoughts if you ever play Darksiders 3. It's nowhere near as hard as Bloodborne (on normal difficulty) but it's pretty darn similar to Soulsborne, just more action-y and aggressive. I'm really liking it so far. I feel more compelled to push forward. Though the mobs that prevent you from dodging right as they're coming at you from behind the camera are cheap and annoying.

@Ralizah I've been poking at Nier over time. I tried to do all the sidequests I could before continuing with the main story. Finally felt I couldn't get to the remaining ones, so I continued, went down the sinkhole, and had my first, well, really second, major WTF moment in the game. I assumed the story was complete propaganda and lies...and then there's that.... Now I really have zero idea what's going on again. Though I'm frustrated that during the entire dialogue they make you fight a boss battle, so you miss most of it.

Now I'm back to floundering with some sidequests that I can get to the areas, but can't find the target object. Still, fantastic game, I'm loving it, in between some TES:O and Knack 2 (yes, I do love that game), I haven't even gotten back to Monster Hunter and Starlink. And now Smash is coming......

@NEStalgia

@NEStalgia Don't worry too much about sidequests, as the majority of them can be completed in your second playthrough.

I assume you're still in your first playthrough, right?

@Octane I'm thinking Sony will have a larger exclusives presence at The Game Awards to essentially make up for no PSX 2018 if PS5 is earlier than late 2020, so stuff like Death Stranding and Ghost of Tsushima segments with a release date of summer 2019. Wii U 2016 comes to mind for PS4 2019 if PS5 is something like early 2020.

@Grumblevolcano Wii U 2016 was absolutely barren. It was essentially like waiting a full year for Zelda... I wish the Wii U had its own Days Gone, Death Stranding, Ghost, Dreams, etc. in its last years.

2016 was pretty dreadful for the Wii U, although I was so invested in what the 3DS was getting that it didn't bother me too much.

Only stand-out releases for me that year were Twilight Princess HD and Tokyo Mirage Sessions. I abandoned the former until earlier this year, and I've only sunk 20 or so hours into the latter.

Death Stranding is the only immediate PS4 exclusive that's even halfway of interest to me in 2019, and that's based more on the reputation of its creator than anything. Days Gone looks dreadfully generic, Dreams is... not my jam, and there's a bunch of other stuff that I'm struggling to even remember the names of.

Difference is that the PS4 has universally strong third-party support, so taking an off-year from good first-party releases doesn't hurt them like it hurts Nintendo.

@Ralizah I'd argue that 2019 looks like one of its strongest years in terms of first party output, assuming we get both Ghost and Death Stranding.

@Octane I meant in terms of structure, Nintendo put all of their 2016 games and DLC except Color Splash in the first half of the year. Don't think it'll be that extreme but the idea of a faster 1st party pace earlier in the year so games don't get buried by the PS5 makes sense.

@Grumblevolcano Considering their first big game is Days Gone, which is coming in April, I actually think the heavy hitters will come out in summer or fall. I don't think they're releasing a big game in May, a month after Days Gone. Maybe early June, but they usually avoid summer. Who knows, maybe they'll have a game in October or November for a change. It's hard to say since they don't disclose release dates until a few months before the games comes out.

@Ralizah Yeah, still the first one. Though if the second one is 9S I'd rather do more of the game with 2B than 9S, I think. She's a much more interesting character, and kind of the iconic face of the game.

@Grumblevolcano Wasn't WiiU 2016 basically "Please Understand" and effectively omitting the product from all advertising unless you're searching for it? Though it had TMS#FE....releasing one of the greatest RPGs ever made makes up for anything.

@Ralizah Tsushima is the one to watch for. Death Stranding has as much interest to me as PS6 rumors right now. I'll believe it when I see what it even is, but Kojima's name turns me off immediately. It could surprise me though. Nothing else this year really interests me. Days Gone and TLoU2....2 zombie exclusives in a year, and Death Stranding which is sort of...I don't know...evil spirit shadow things that are zombie-ish maybe or no? Plus an exclusive RE remake. That's a heckuva lot of zombies for a zombie console with no E3 presence.

Personally the pacing feels as bad as Switch year 2 after the year full of blockbusters in 2018. IMO they shoved everything out the door in 2018 to take thunder from the Switch and 1X and keep the focus on them, which was effective, but pulled a Wii year 6 and were left with little remaining except some b-sides for the gap to the next machine. Shemue 3 maybe this year, though we're not even sure it's an exclusive (not being on XBox would be weird beyond imagining, and the producer already said he wants to do it and is in conversations etc.) They were probably counting on FFVII-R.

@Octane 2018 GoW, SotC, Spiderman, Detroit, Yakuza, NNK2. 2017 Yakuza, more parts of KH remaster, HZD, Gravity Rush 2, Nioh, Ys, Bersaria, Nier (later went multiplat), P5, and more. 2019 Tsushima and big buget but underexposed Kojima game, plus TLoU 2 and maybe Senmue 3. Is Days Gone really worth mentioning?

Yeah it's a pretty weak year Coupled with the no PSX and no E3 feels like the infamous Reggie "we're in a period of transition" moment when you know the company isn't going to participate anymore until they sell you something new Except Reggie showed up with an E3 presentation to tell us.

@Octane I couldn't disagree more. Most of those games you mentioned look very unappealing.

But that's OK. I'm glad they look good to you. I'll content myself with Resident Evil 2 and PS+ releases in 2019 on PS4/Vita as I'm enjoying a slew of exciting first-party releases on Switch next year (if we do indeed get Fire Emblem, Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Luigi's Mansion, Yoshi's Crafted World, etc. next year). A surprise Pikmin reveal would put 2019 over the edge for me.

I may or may not get Death Stranding. I need to know what it actually plays like first. All we've gotten is footage of Norman Reedus walking around and weird cinematic trailers that don't clear anything up.

@NEStalgia Tsushima looks like it could be fun, but my interest level will depend on what degree of freedom we're given. The art direction is certainly impressive, though.

Death Stranding... again, I'm intrigued, but I don't know if it's going to be a good GAME yet. So far it's just a bunch of pretentious and artsy trailers that tell me nothing about what it plays like.

@Ralizah Don't forget that PS+ games for PS3 and Vita ends in March (last batch is in February).

@NEStalgia That's 2017 and 2018. Third party exclusives don't really count IMO. I don't see Yakuza as a Sony game.

Days Gone will be fine I think. If they can deliver a polished experience, it will be a good 7 or 8. The Last of Us is absolutely massive though. If that releases next year as well, there's no contest. It's Sony's RDR2.

I'll likely pick up TLOU Part II when it's $10 and end up regretting my decision to spend any amount of money on it, based on my history with the first game.

@Grumblevolcano Honestly, I'm OK with them ending Vita support. I have a massive library of PS+ games for Vita. Hopefully that means we consistently get bigger IGC releases for PS4.

@Ralizah Well, I was kinda talking from a general point of view. I think Days Gone will sell better tham Detroit and SOTC for example. I don't think it will be a better game, but that's not what I was trying to say.

I'll probably get Luigi's Mansion. Pokemon really depends on what direction they go in. Yoshi is a €40 game to me, but knowing Nintendo it's going to be €60, so I'll wait. Not into FE unfortunately. Animal Crossing is weird, I played it on the GCN and Wii, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to go through all of it again. It's a commitment. And they're all kinda the same to me.

Completely unrelated. What do you think of Control? Seems something you may be interested into, but I have no idea TBH

@Octane Sony very much sells the 3rd party exclusives as exclusives. Because they are. If I want to play Yakuza on a console I need a Playstation. (Or a Japanese WiiU.....freaky...) I mean that's why they pay for exclusivity.

Rabbids, Octopath, and Bayonetta are third party but are considered Switch games.

I still don't get the popularity of TLoU. I know I'm biased because I don't do zombies so it's a non-game at all to me, but I can look at RE and see why it's so big even if it's not for me. TLoU...I just don't see it. Especially the sequel. The whole girl and surrogate father in the wilderness thing was a different take. But 2 just seems so.....and seriously does it even have zombies? We have yet to see them.

Detroit is hyper-niche so that's understandable. But if Days Gone outsells SOTC, I officially don't understand the PS user base. It's a worse Left 4 Dead without the cool stuff. That's the vibe I get from it. Or a worse TLoU.

@Octane I expect Days Gone will sell well. Open-world, zombies, biker bros... it's hyper-focused on what Western markets seem to take to. All they need to put the bow on top is create a battle royale multiplayer mode.

I... had completely forgotten that Control was a thing.
Looks up trailer
Eh. Third-person shooter where you play as a white woman who uses her psychic powers to throw couches at cloaked Marvel movie villains. Reminds me of dozens of Hollywood young adult fantasy films I see trailers for multiple times a year. It beats another Grizzled White Dude with a Tragic Past Committing Morally Ambiguous Acts game, though.

I like Pokemon, and I expect I'll probably pick up Let's Go after Christmas in addition to whatever the new game is later in the year. I like Luigi's Mansion games, although they're very 7/10 experiences for me. I get passing on Yoshi, and wasn't really hyped for it immediately, but it looks really solid, like Yoshi's Wooly World before it, and the visual presentation is stunning. I wasn't a huge fan of Animal Crossing on Wii or GC, but New Leaf was an amazing game that I poured hundreds of hours into, so I remain confident that they'll design another winner.

Far and away, the game I'm most looking forward to is Fire Emblem: Three Houses. The little we've seen looks fantastic, a proper evolution of the series on more powerful hardware. I can't even say it'll be too niche, considering how well Awakening and Fates sold.

@NEStalgia Detroit outsold SOTC, despite coming out a few months later. SOTC is incredibly niche unfortunately.

It depends on how well they do the survival elements in Days Gone, but I see it more as an open world survival game than anything else. And the zombies look kinda cool in hordes that can be up to a few hundred in size. I believe 500 was a small size horde. The last game I played with zombies was TLOU, so I don't mind it.

And yes, there were clickers in the PSX trailer from last year. So they're definitely in the game. The first game had a good mix of clickers and human encounters. Maybe even more human encounters than clickers. I don't do horror either, but I have no problem with TLOU. Resident Evil is a big nope for me though

Resident Evil 2 looks darn gorgeous. It's a pity I won't be able to play it at launch.

@Ralizah I agree on Luigi's Mansion. Never got the appeal of the second one. It looked so... video gamey? Visiting different mansions. I dunno, it's just weird. But I haven't bought a Switch game since Mario last year, and I have to buy something, right?

I really want them to put as much effort and polish into next year's Pokemon game as they do in Mario and Zelda. Let's Go looks incredibly shallow and cheap to me. But I have my doubts, GameFreak doesn't seem to be capable of making the game I want them to make. With every release they're straying further from my ideal Pokemon game.

The thing with Animal Crossing is that I only cared about fishing and bug catching. And missing a rare bug that is only available for two weeks in June just sucks. Nightmare fuel for me! Couldn't be bothered to wait another year, so I quit.

Control looks cool. It's a metroidvania, you're in a giant building in New York(?), weird experiments going on, they talked about rooms shifting. Seems like a pretty neat place to explore.