Topic: The PlayStation Fan Thread

@Octane Can't say I'm surprised. Anthem looks incredibly generic, to the point where it comes off like a parody of your average Western AAA GaaS blockbuster.

EA acquisition is the kiss of death to any promising studio.

@Ralizah And it's unfortunate, because the original trailer looked pretty neat. The design of the suits is pretty neat. And it looks good in motion; flying around. Even the promotional artwork looks pretty sweet. Too bad there isn't an interesting game around it, and that's on top of the always-online live service nonsense.

I think this video sums it up rather well;

Metro Exodus seems to be the crown jewel this month.

Is it just me or is the last portion of kh1 boring and annoying. Bastion and eotw. I'm up to night on balls mtn trying to slog through it and having zero fun at all.

??? That was my favorite section of the game, with more creative puzzles, the best use of the game's platforming, and some really good boss fights. The big dudes can seem like damage sponges if you don't use the gravity spell on them, though, but...that goes for all the big enemies. The first KH really reaquires that you use magic a lot to get through it.

@WebHead Relatively speaking that isn't very hard.

Anthem is great fun with friends! It's already dropping in price too. Currently $50 on Newegg, wouldn't be surprised if it was $40 by April

Also Dirt Rally 2.0 is terrific! It's brutally difficult but rewarding at the same time. Like a racing "Dark souls" I guess.

Looks like Anthem is becoming the next Fallout 76.

And this is why I do not like these kind of games at least at launch.

If PS5 is only one sky i expect $399. Sony and customers are comfortable with that price and a global recession is looming.

@Grumblevolcano critically panned? Check. Woefully unfinished? Check. Redd likes it? Check. Yep, definitely fallout 76.

@CanisWolfred to be fair i never like boss battles in any game. Never did. I see them as frustrating annoyances to get over with to get back to fun. But, that's normal in any game.... This ones particularly boring like they're little reward for actually slogging through it. Just boring saney linear rooms with same dmg sponge battles. Bald mtn feels like ursula again which was annoying the first time. And i know there's like 8 more bosses back to back. No real adventuring or exploring, just boss combat with a boring combat system. Yeah, 8 do spam gravity (staff main choice in the beginning) but it didn't help for cheap bosses where you need to relentlessly heal.

I may abandon it and move to the next kh.... Though that's chain of memories.... That might be even more annoying....

@NEStalgia

Bosses need to be tough but fair for me to like them. So, for example, the bosses in Cuphead, character action game bosses, or late-game monsters in a MH game, where you have to learn to read their patterns and defeat them fair and square. Or the bosses in many Shin Megami Tensei games, which often force the player to go back to the drawing board and re-evaluate their whole approach to team-building. Etrian Odyssey bosses often have this quality to them as well.

They can be annoying in other types of games, though. Any sort of tactical RPG, for example. Boss fights are the worst part of both the Fire Emblem and Valkyria Chronicles series, because the systems in those games are designed around strategizing against and defeating groups of weaker enemies, so lone overpowered units just end up being a pain in the keister and feel borderline broken at times.

Psn credit is 7% of at Green Man Gaming. Not huge savings but its something.

Yeah, i tried chernabog again. I screamed more explatives at the screen than an HBO special. The camera sucks, his full screen attack is ohko, i can't tell where i am because his wings block the camera, and i finally got him to green and he killed me anyway. Screw that awful game, onto chain of memories.

@Ralizah Actually I'll agree there, although only to some extent in regards to tactical RPGs. Maximilian in Valkyria Chronicles 1 was pretty bad, but Fire Emblem bosses aren't really remarkable to be "boss status", if you get my drift. And the Batomys and Marmota were pretty fun encounters (but stressful as ****) since they took the boss concept and adapted it as best as it could to tactical RPGs without being just slightly stronger units like in Fire Emblem or nonsense sponges like Maximilian is.

Although in general tactical RPGs do have some lackluster bosses, I'd err on the side of underwhelming and not BS (except for some bosses).

Why don't the developers have some responsibility for bad games?
I can't imagine publishers control that much of it. They surely just give a kind of vague business plan that devs have to work with.

@Tsurii

Anthem and Crackdown 3 were both in development for 5 years. Really don't think you can blame unfairly tight schedules for these.

Of course it might have been down to the publisher, but I just don't like that people were flat-out excluding the possibility that they just have a bunch of really untalented developers. Unless you think basically every artist and every programmer is equally as smart/creative as every other (which is definitely not true), then it surely has to be taken into account.

@Dezzy Development length is always a tricky subject (just like development budget for that matter). Developers and publishers like to boast about these numbers; ''In development for X years!'', ''800 people worked on this game!'', ''It had a budget of $100 million!'', etc. But how many years of that was just pre-production? How many people worked on it on average during full production? How much of that money went straight into marketing and other non-development related costs? They're not going to tell you that. So when they say ''5 years'', you can bet that number is exaggerated for the press.

Anyway, I do think the publisher has a big influence on the development cycle. From limited budgets, to tight schedules and deadlines. Cutting corners wherever they can. I'm sure there's a lot of pressure to make a game look good, just because that's an easy selling point. They're probably forced to come up with a whole monetisation plan and the execution of it. Of course, bad management at the developer can make a difference as well. Talented people leaving to seek jobs elsewhere. And the general working atmosphere at these big companies can't be great either. With Activision firing people left and right for example, it has to have some effect on the morale of people working there; and all of that has a big effect on productivity as well.

It's more than likely a combination of a lot of factors, making it impossible to pinpoint it on one issue, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of that came directly, or indirectly, from the publisher they're working for.