Topic: The PlayStation Fan Thread

Square Enix have generally made quite good action-based battle systems so I'm staying fairly optimistic.
Kingdom Hearts, Crisis Core and FF15 have all been variations of that similar approach. All pretty damn good imo.
As long as it's action with RPG elements, like in all of those 3 games, I think it'll work just fine.

The main thing Squenix really suck at nowadays is storytelling. They haven't told a good story for well over a decade in any of their JRPGs. Luckily FF7 already has a story.

Those DQXI screens look wonderful.

That city looks suprisingly big, too. Based on the DQ games I've played so far (IV, V, and working through VIII), none of the cities have been that big, but you can enter every building in them. I wonder if this will be like that, or if the seemingly larger size just means it'll be more like the Tales games I've played, where the cities are big, but you only have access to a small portion of them.

@RR529

Yeah that's always bugged me about the Dragon Quest games I've played. I think an RPG need at least 1 massive town or small city for the sake of variety.
Witcher 3 did it perfectly. 1 big city and then lots of small villages. Gives a nice range of settings and you can stick to a particular setting for a longer period. Like do an hour exploring the wilderness and then an hour in the city.
When they're much smaller, you can't do that.

I haven't played any DQ games yet ( I own the 7th on 3DS but haven't touched it), but those screens make me want to dive into them.

11 looks like just a current gen version of 8 to me.

I have never played any of the Mass Effect games, mostly because science fiction isn't my favourite genre, be it a book, a film (except '2001: A Space Odyssey' and the original 'Alien') or a game.

I was reading some of the previews out of curiosity, and it doesn't seem to be receiving an abundance of positivity:

The first few hours of Andromeda are a gruesome trudge through the most trite bilge of the previous three games, smeared out in a setting that’s horribly familiar, burdened with some outstandingly awful writing, buried beneath a UI that appears to have been designed to infuriate in every possible way.

I had gone in assuming this would be more BioWare pleasure. So far – and let’s be clear, there’s lots of room and time for it to pick up and turn things around – the first few hours have been just awful.

That's from Rock Paper Shotgun: - https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/03/14/mass-effect-andro...

Are there any fans of the series on here?

@Peek-a-boo Honestly the series has been going down hill since the second game and they have lost a few lead writers and there was drama with that. I got suckered into 2 and then 3 hoping it would fix 2 but I'm going to wait for reviews for this one. Honestly I doubt that I'll get it

The series honestly is just standard bioware, grand sweeping story and engaging characters for the first game with hit or miss game mechanics and then the story gets muddled and new characters step in (for better or worse...usually worse) to take the spotlight with cameos and fanservice for fan favorites for subsequent games. And now they love stuffing plot points into DLC and comic/books so you have to live on the wikis or buy all the extra crap. At this point I will always suggest the first game in a bioware series but after that you are on your own.

The only fully satisfying Mass Effect game, for me, was the original. Great RPG. The sequels did very little to improve the gameplay, instead streamlining the RPG aspects and making it more of a corridor shooter. Still, that preview is remarkably negative.

Kotaku's impression seems more positive, for whatever that's worth.

Can we talk about the elephant in the room, though?

Let's put aside the fact that this person looks like she'd lecture me about "mansplaining." What's going on with her hair? Where's the shading? Did they design her hair in MS Paint?

@Ralizah It looks like the result of an RNG-system creating a character in an avatar creator from a 10-year old game...

@Ralizah Wow I thought I was alone in the world. Everyone I know swears by 2 and 3. I had the same issue with Dragon Age. Inquisition isn't bad but the strategy is gone from the series. Granted I play on PC which gives you the top down tactical view on Origins.

EDIT: Sigh, really you have an issue with mansplaining being pointed out? It is a real thing you know. Anyway, I agree with you on the analysis on the ME series.

I'm one of the few that loved all three games. I guess for the story more than the gameplay since I remember next to nothing of them

My main fear of Andromeda is just that there's no way they can make the stakes feel higher than the reaper threat. Those things were eery and crept me out enough that I was sucked into all three games quickly. Anything less than a galaxy destroying threat just doesn't seem like I'd Be as invested now

@Ryu_Niiyama Mass Effect 1 had its faults, like the wonky combat and the fact that every planet you explored was the same dusty wasteland with a facility to break into, but it felt like a proper sci-fi RPG. Mass Effect 2 improved the gunplay and absolutely nothing else. The wide open areas in the original are replaced with hallways (with requisite chest high walls, if I remember correctly). Planet exploration, a good idea executed with mixed results, was replaced with resource scanning, a bad idea that was never any fun. Bye bye to weapon customization. Bye bye to the need for any level of strategy when playing the game.

Was too disgusted to play ME3.

I'm glad I never picked up DA:I. It seems to be Bioware's Skyward Sword: gaming publications were in love with it when it first came out, but before long, everyone just started to admit it kind of sucked.

I guess whatever talent at Bioware was responsible for their earlier classics just kind of disappeared last gen.

And with reference to the term "mansplain," it's not so much that I don't believe what it refers to exists. It's that the term itself is a bit loaded and imprecise. Allow me to explain my reasoning:

Is the phenomenon of some people talking down to others when those other people know just as much, if not more about the subject than they do, a thing? Sure. Have I seen passively sexist men condescendingly talk down to the women they know in this manner? Sure. I've also seen women do it to men, and men do it to other men. It's not an exclusively male phenomenon, and women aren't always the targets of it.

@Octane The people in this game really are hideous. Check this guy out:

Look at those eyes. He looks like a dead fish.

@Ralizah Remember, friend, these are the games that really need the power for AAA graphics like this that Nintendo consoles aren't a great fit for. This is true next-gen! -EA </sarc>

I disagree slightly on ME1. It wasn't a great RPG. It was a gallant attempt at fusing an FPS and an RPG, but the execution fell fairly short, partly because it was released originally as an XBox (Zero?) exclusive and published by Microsoft Game Studios with a tight time table and severe limits on what the console could do. That was before the whole EA buyout of Bioware. It was a good game, with lots of potential, but a lot that really fell flat. I do agree though that 2 and 3 lost most of what made it have potential and became a linear corridor shooter. 2 was the worst of the bunch becoming an all out shooter with little freedom. 3 fixed a lot of the game but the way they overdid the whole reapers thing and changed them from what they were originally to be made me love and hate the game all at once. 1 was the best, but it doesn't get a pass for some terrible implementation and VERY limited environment variety. It's just a shame they couldn't build on that and instead had it turned into EA Shooting Gallery #8.

@NEStalgia ME Andromeda is probably pretty resource intensive, but their artists need to be fired. This is embarrassing for a AAA game from a big developer.

I do think it was a very good game, though. The writing, freedom, and decent customization options outweigh the negatives for me. Combat didn't entirely gel, but it never got too frustrating, either. Certainly it's better than anything that Bioware has released since (DA: Origins was decent, but I detest the combat in all versions of the game; the PC version is the best, but for some reason orders I would issue to ally units were never properly obeyed, leading to some incredibly frustrating battles. I eventually quit the game when I reached Orzammar, even though the writing, world-building, etc. were pretty decent).

What the HECK is going on with Andromeda's inventory system? That looks horrible. Yep that solidified it for me. Dragon Age Inquisition was my last Bioware game.

@Ralizah You didn't miss much on ME3. I only finished it out of principal because I bought the collectors edition. @NEStalgia Bioware never makes great games. They tend to make okay games with great characters and a ok to crap story. ME had great characters ok story and ok gameplay. ME2 started ruining even the characters, which is Bioware's bread and butter.

@Ralizah I don't tend to go into this sort of thing here because I just want to talk about games here and I'm VASTLY outnumbered. So I'm really not going to get into this too much beyond replying to your comment. I think you are misunderstanding what mansplaning is referring to. Anyone can be condescending to anyone; that is very, very true and not what mansplaning refers to. It refers to males (of any gender identity because now that is a thing) speaking from a point of arrogance (often with the use of patronizing or derogatory language peppered in to boot) due to the fact that the person they are speaking to is a female. Gender socialization adds a different layer because in general a man that is willing to mansplain to a woman wouldn't do so to a fellow man even if that man was obviously less knowledgeable on whatever the subject of the convo is. A woman (as in human female) on the other hand has to endure the insipid conversation no matter her own knowledge or familiarity with the subject because of the assumption that her sex somehow means that her knowledge/experience is invalid or impractical. I work in IT; I live this mess on a daily basis.

Back on topic, do ALL of the characters that are human have the sleepy eyes going on? How did they make the character models WORSE?

...Also I forgot I had Toukiden 2 preordered...so I guess that it will go next to Horizon until I finish Zelda. DQ looks fantastic...can't wait for the switch version.

I'm willing to give Mass Effect 1 some leeway. It was trying something new, and, while it didn't entirely succeed, I think it struck a better balance than something like Fallout 3. And exploration was fun, even if environmental diversity was non-existent. But yeah, the writing is my favorite aspect of that game.

I was hoping this would have good enough writing and exploration to redeem the focus on action, but I guess that's not the case...

We'll see. A heavily exploration-based Mass Effect with good environmental diversity might still be fun to play.

@Ryu_Niiyama I'll say my piece and leave it be as well.

I obviously can't speak to your experience on this matter, and I'll have to defer to it in terms of how much women tend to experience this sort of thing, but, from my perspective, at least, most of the people I know who behave in a manner like that with women tend to adopt similar-ish attitudes toward me and some other men as well. I guess the big difference, and perhaps this is what might lead to it being "mansplaining" as opposed to generic arrogant attitudes toward other human beings in general, is that the use of gendered dismissive language isn't really there.

Either way, regardless of the legitimacy of the term, I see it used so often as a cudgel to bludgeon people who have the gall to question someone online who happens to be female that I've soured to it. It gets particularly rich when you see female friends who remain ambiguous about their sex online get accused of "mansplaining."

I'll lay off the cracks about "mansplaining" in the future if it bothers you, though.

Oh my god, this is SO much worse than even that terrible HZD scene...

@Ralizah That got a chuckle out of me!

Bearing in mind that I have played nearly 12 hours of Horizon Zero Dawn so far, but what is this 'terrible scene' you speak of? I am completely floored by everything I see in the game, which is why I cannot recall anything out of the ordinary (yet).

@Peek-a-boo

This made the rounds across the internet before the game ever released and caused some people to worry about the quality of the game.