I thought it was pretty hilarious that they kept hyping up the Valhalla gameplay trailer at the bottom of the screen.... only for it to be like 75 seconds of fast-cut in-game cinematics, maybe? I didn't get much out of it except "oh cool, it's Stonehenge"
Anyway, I'm a pretty big fan of Origins & Odyssey (and most other games in the series), so I'm sure I will love Valhalla. Also it's cool that more people will get to play Yakuza. None of the other games shown look like stuff I'd be interested in.
Coincidentally, I just started playing this a few days ago. PROTIP: You can rotate the camera with the d-pad. I think it is also inverted tho. Drives me bananas. I don't know if I will finish this game, just because of the controls.
I just watched this now, after spending the work day reading people's (mostly negative) hot takes. Knowing what I was getting into ahead of time really made a difference. I understood 10% of it, but what I did understand was pretty intriguing. And the guys' jokes kept me awake during the audio segment, lol.
My main concern is that third parties are not going to take advantage of all this tech. They want their stuff to also run on PCs and Xboxes, so how many are going to tweak the code to truly optimize the PS5 version?
Secondary concern - backwards compatibility. A lot of people seem to think that it's only going to work on "most" of the top 100 games at launch. But what I gathered from Cerny is that he was referring to a boost/enhanced mode? He said something about AMD building the PS4 logic into the chip, so why wouldn't most PS4 games automatically work on PS5? Why would they ask AMD to do all that research and only have <100 games working at launch? But then, there wasn't any explicit mention of boost mode anywhere else. In any case we can all agree that the messaging on this is pretty confusing. (All I actually want is to play my PS4 backlog with faster load times. Don't even care about better graphics/framerate. I still play on a 1080p monitor.)
Well, I am going to buy a PS5 regardless. Xbox is irrelevant to me because I have literally never touched an Xbox, and I don't like playing on PC much. I just hope the price is good. Canadian exchange rate is total shit right now. Even $399 USD is almost $600.
PS it would be great if they supported remote play with Vita. A girl can dream.
The SNES Lion King was one of the few games I owned as a kid. I seriously beat the game at least 50 times. It's kind of funny hearing people on podcasts talk about how difficult the game was. I guess I just memorized patterns and mastered it. Will be interesting to see if I can still beat the game now. (fuck the hyena caves tho, I definitely don't remember the correct sequence)
I just have to let this out because it's been bothering me for weeks, and it's not just directed at Giant Bomb. Stop mentioning the XP Booster every time you talk about AC Odyssey!!!!! I was especially annoyed when Austin (Waypoint) suggested that Ubi might have given the booster to reviewers without telling them so they would give higher scores. WTF? Don't say that shit without proof. I am so glad Rorie pointed out that Ubisoft does NOT shove its existence into your face. Polygon and Jim Sterling publicized the booster so much that it's all anyone can think about as soon as they hit a "level gate". They probably got more people to buy the booster just by telling them it exists. And congratulations, people buying it means that Ubi will put it in future games.
I admit I haven't played Odyssey myself yet, but I have read 100+ pages of discussion at ResetEra, and many people actually complain about being overleveled without even touching the booster. You just have to branch out and explore other islands (which seems to be the point of the game) instead of trying to mainline the story. Also, accept all the non-timed contracts that are like "kill X number of soldiers" because you'll complete them without thinking about it and they reward tons of XP.
Obviously Ubi could've avoided this "controversy" by not including the booster at all, and also not including the lame randomly generated timed quests. (When Ben was complaining in a previous ep, it seemed like he was trying to level up by doing those random quests, which is not ideal!)
And I'm really glad Ben owned up to the hypocrisy of him complaining that Odyssey "doesn't respect his time" and then turning around and praising RDR2. From what I've heard, Odyssey is very video-gamey and doing basic actions (like looting) is super fast, whereas RDR2 is very sim-y and doing basic actions is super slow. I don't personally care about immersion or realism, so I hope it isn't something that is copied by future open world games.
I would've stood there and watched that mofo drown, and enjoyed every second of it. So disappointed that Brad mercy-killed him. I won't be able to do it myself because this game is DEFINITELY not for me.
I don't know if I want to play this. I'm a huge fan of Yakuza, but I have zero background in FotNS beyond "you are already dead" memes, and I'm just not feeling the art style. I really dislike Ken's exaggerated gigantic muscles and tiny head, and he's the main character!! (Although, I just remembered there's a free Kiryu skin right now) Plus, the game screaming the name of the finishing moves at me every single time is already getting annoying just from watching the QL. I suspect I'd feel better about it with Japanese voice acting. I think I'll wait for a deep discount, or it could become a PS Plus game, considering several Yakuzas have been Plus games already.
Me reading this review was like "thatsmyfetish.gif"
Great well-written review as usual, and I can't disagree with his criticisms. I haven't played it yet, just basing it on what I've seen & heard. But I think it just boils down to a matter of taste. I loved Origins, but barely did any side quests, because I just wanted something fun and easy to do while I had GB videos or podcasts running on the side. I love AC for the beautiful historical areas, the climbing/traversal, and a near-endless number of ?'s to uncover. Kassandra being a lady (like me), along with the dialogue options, and me already being interested in Greek mythology, will probably make me pay more attention to the story and do more side quests. Also, I really liked Black Flag, so I'm looking forward to sailing around again.
It's kind of a shame that RDR2 is coming out so soon after this. It will suck up all the attention and maybe make some people try to beat this game faster than they want to. (I'm not going to play RDR2, I have zero interest in Westerns.. or anything Rockstar does, really)
Kiryu is heavily implied to have slept with hostesses in several games (if you engage with that side content). Doesn't make sense for him to be a "virgin". Although it's funny to imagine that he took those girls to love hotels and just .. talked the whole time.
And, considering the ending of Yakuza 2/Kiwami 2,
I'd be surprised if he didn't ever sleep with Sayama. I'm STILL upset at how they wrote her out of the series.
Anyway, I loved this game a lot, which is not a shock since I love the whole series. I'm really interested in Project Judge and the next Yakuza game. Not sure about Fist of the North Star.. I just don't like the art style.
peffy's comments