yyninja

@rorie said:

When it comes to pure rasterization, the AMD cards like the RX 6900 XT has the RTX 3080 beat dollar per frame. It's RT and DLSS that really makes the Nvidia cards shine. RT will never be "free", it will always hamper performance, it's the same with upping the resolution. I wish I can get 1080p frame rate in a 4k native resolution but that's not possible.

I think the newly announced cards won't matter to most gamers unless they plan on gaming on a 4K screen above 60 FPS with RT. Also the RTX 4080 12 GB is pretty slimy marketing considering it's a cut die compared to the 16 GB model. This is different from the RTX 3080 10 GB and RTX 3080 12 GB that are nearly the same die. The 12 GB model should be branded as the RTX 4070 TI instead.

IMO I also think the RTX 30 series is not a good buy right now. They are still ridiculously expensive and I'm predicting that there will be deals around Cyber Monday. I think people are forgetting that AMD is also launching their RDNA3 cards this year and they might again be better cost per frame vs Nvidia cards if you don't care about RT. I think DLSS is less of a strong argument because FSR is catching up rapidly and there is a faster adoption rate.

I like the game overall, it's a more serious take on the narrative choice adventure genre without the awkward writing of David Cage games. I also enjoyed how you play a range of characters instead of always being stuck playing teens or 20-somethings like in DONTNOD games.

Until Dawn and The Quarry are still probably my favorites in this genre, but Supermassive Games are kind of a one trick pony since they always do B-tier cheesy horror stories.

I actually thought the art direction was a brilliant idea. The limited number of animations means that dialog choices are more varied without the awkward pauses you see in Telltale Games. It also means faster development time since they don't need to adjust for lip syncing. I was surprised the numerous VO languages supported by the game.

I posted earlier how As Dusk Falls reminds me of a better looking Visual Novel, but it's an unfair comparison. There definitely are animations and moving elements in As Dusk Falls and it does a great job at telling the story without feeling like a PowerPoint presentation.

Story-wise I found Zoe's PTSD to be hit or miss. It depends on the choices made. I wish the game diverged where if you make the right choices, Zoe doesn't suffer from the nightmares or chronic anxiety, but I guess they had to give her a reason to be paranoid of the mysterious stranger following her.

Also I thought Vince's possible actions especially in Chapter 3 didn't really fit his character. He goes from middle-aged person with a dad-bod to action movie star climbing rooftops and fighting like he's Liam Neeson from Taken. On my second playthrough, I had him fail all possible actions which seem to better fit his character.

I wished the game did more with Joyce since she is never mentioned after the end of Book 1.

The multiplayer aspect is fun, but you really need to get a group of like-minded family/friends together. I tried to get a group of 5 friends to play but it was hard to sustain their interest for more than half an hour so we settled on playing Jackbox instead.

@noboners said:

Yeah... I think I was able to overlook the presentation due to how much I enjoyed the narrative. As Dusk Falls is basically a gussied up visual novel. I would say give it a shot at least until end of Chapter 2 to see if it hooks you in.

@efesell said:

For the most part it's okay, outside of Mitsuru casting Marin Karin randomly, but as @atheistpreacher mentioned the Reaper is infuriating to fight against. The boss has several phases with completely different moves and affinities, so sometimes your AI party members would either heal the boss or get their attacks nullified/repelled. I remember the only way I could beat it was to intentionally use Rush to skip a party member's turn when I knew their attacks wouldn't work against a particular phase.

Yep, P3P being playable outside of a PSP or emulator is big news. I think Persona 3 is heavily overlooked compared to P4 and P5. Another thing to note is that the games are no longer Playstation console exclusives.

Probably not going to happen because the female protagonist model is only rendered in Tartarus. I can see it maybe working for the male protagonist though.

While I don't share the same tastes as Jeff (I'm still disappointed at how he overlooked a vital mechanic and proceeded to shit on Outer Wilds), I have absolute respect of the impact Jeff has made in video games coverage.

Thank you Jeff for creating this website which provided thousands of hours of entertainment for me. For the last 10 years, I grew up on Giant Bomb. Hope the future remains bright whether or not you decide to stay in the games industry.

I think the timing (no pun intended) of having a countdown clock whilst announcing the founder of the site leaving is very poor.

@nodima

You make an excellent point. Basically Square Enix would have generated more money investing in 10 Year US Treasury Bonds (it was 4% at 2009 which was when they acquired the studios) than the profit earned from Crystal Dynamics and Eidos.

As hard as it sounds, those studios were too expensive (CD is located in San Francisco) and weren't profitable enough to keep in their portfolio. Guess Square Enix will now be doubling down on its JRPG roots. Final Fantasy will be their graphical showcase, Dragon Quest is the easy revenue generator and they also have all those 2D pixel remasters that cost very little to produce.

Highly recommend reading the original article as it brings more context to how the two bosses ran Moon Studios: https://venturebeat.com/2022/03/18/despite-its-beautiful-ori-games-moon-studio-is-called-an-oppressive-place-to-work/

My take is that this is different from other game studio controversies like at Activision Blizzard, EA and Team Bondi. Unlike those studios, the co-owners at Moon Studios seemed to genuinely care about making a good video game and not about maximizing profits or having a bro-like atmosphere.

I think where it all went wrong was the structure of Moon Studios being a fully remote international company. Moon Studios was one of the first studios that did this and it was way before COVID popularized remote work. It didn't help that the two co-owners liked to communicate through text and encouraged an open atmosphere where anyone can say anything which served as an excuse for them to talk shit and make inappropriate jokes. Then you read that the co-owners in person are really nice people and pleasant to be around, only to realize they turn into monsters once they are back on their keyboards.

But back to the OPs question, it's a yes. As terrible as the situation is, not everyone at Moon Studios is at fault. The people there spent a lot of hard hours working on the game and it would feel very shitty if no one got to experience their work.

I get the sentiment of the OP. Using guides rob the experience of learning from your mistakes since you are leveraging another person's experience instead of overcoming the challenges yourself.

Where I do find guides useful is when they explain how to obtain secret content like the Ultimate weapons in the Final Fantasy games or easily missable narrative cutscenes that the Trails series is infamous for.

With that said, I don't believe there is a right way to play a game. This includes using mods or cheat engine, why yuck other people's yum?