Yes.

If I have a choice I will always go physical over digital, namely games I plan to trade-back in or add to my return & play more pile.

Outdated? Hmm, games that are praised on graphics or having an openworld usually 'feel' extremely dated. When a game fails to function from something as basic as player inputs, and fun gameplay, that is dated.

As a result The Witcher III felt dated on release, and now it's only more noticable that the honeymoon period is over for even the most diehard fan. Has horrible input control and unresponsive movement, and a lot of that all inbetween. If you command Geralt to turn 360, the avatar will just shrug his shoulder one side. That's unresponsive controls and very, very outdated. Weighted controls is something from old Atari games that have not held up well. Don't feed me the "plays flawlessly on P.C." bull either I've played it on P.C. TW3 is an excellent game for what it aimed to achieve, an immersive world filled with well written quests. TW3 just isn't a smooth gameplay darling, cope.

The mentioned Dark Souls, Shovel Knight, Pac-Man (DX Champions is one of my favorite games ever) and OG Resident Evil 4 don't really feel outdated to me. Clunky, I could understand being phrased. Even Dragon's Dogma II is pretty clunky, as they do mechanics and design decisions different to the norm, throwing the player off familiarity. I'd call that process a learning curve. Monster Hunter has a steep learning curve and is the best gaming franchise around.

Now The Evil Within (the first one) did suffer a lot from input controls and being fairly unresponsive, so while I like the game, it is very outdated (mechanically similar flaws to TW3). I can't defend bad gameplay that is similar to how games use to be in retro times. Luckily the sequel TEW2 fixed a ton of the first games failings, mechanically. My main reason for loving TEW is just how much Tango understood Survival Horror and item placement/ limit pick-ups. TEW is poorly designed in many aspects, yet it is also brilliant in others for fans of the genre. Chapter 9 is one of my favorite acts in any video game ever as a result.

Possible, they haven't released a new entry in three years, with Arise overall being well received.

Remasters though. . I recall Tales of Symphonia getting a lot of heat for being a lazy, unstable port.

@davillain: I'm curious on Stellar Blade because I love 3D Hack n' Slasher Action games. Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry. Some of my favorite games of all time.

I will wait on Stellar Blade though, only because despite the backlash I'm having a ton of fun with Dragon's Dogma II. & because that hype topic is deadier than Game Spot I'll note it's not perfect yet quickly become one of my favorite games of all time. If you are a fan of Dragon's Dogma? you'll love the sequel, no question. If you didn't care for it? nothing to see here. Level design in the open world is so dense and clever, so much fun to explore, namely in the end-game.

I'm very excited for the expansion.

My only point is, that everyone has the right to spend their money for whatever they desire, but there's nothing wrong pointing out advice such as Litchie is saying. He might be right, some of us gamers have patience and some of us don't.

Preaching your own take as an absolute never sits right with me that's all. Namely when the logic behind it seems hypocritical, everyone who has posted here has been playing games they wanted day-one, I've read them post about games on the day of release as well and how they're fairing.

I'm all down for patience when need-be. But don't give me bullshit and act superior because you don't have a game to be excited for currently.

Dragon's Dogma II is a sequel I've been preaching for longer than the Bloodborne goons have on these forums. So to make a topic telling me not to play a game, one I'm having a lot of fun playing (knowing that I would) get out of here!

It's the equivalent of_

For relaxation currently it's DD2. Travelling/ exploring, the decent combat, and camping is a ton of fun.

Usually it's MH because I get a ton of the above with better combat and level design than any other ARPG franchise, all with drop-in drop-out four player coop.

Survival Horror games are pretty relaxing depending, yet while I enjoyed Alone in the Dark 2024 it was not exactly relaxing.

Finally a good puzzle game Tetris, Monster Strike, etc.

They'll possibly do away with the word play/ hidden roman numeral with the next game.

Seeing as it was only really a thing with the Ethan Winter saga (two games and five DLC expansions 'Banned Footage 1&2, Not a Hero, End of Zoe, Shadows of Rose')

& Capcom has officially stated to be done with the Winters story.

Kinda got my hands full with Dragon's Dogma II.

Always the best when gaining Augments, even the magic Vocations offer good ones for physical builds.

Still Warrior but I've bounced to get the last of the Fighter Vocations and making my way through Thief as well (Stamina Augment)

@davillain: Resident Evil 4 Remake? has music, maps, and alt costumes. Along with later tickets.

Devil May Cry V and even DMCIV had the same kind of microtransactions with Yellow, Blue and Red Orbs. I don't know why people are pretending that this is a sudden change for Itsunos Capcom games and are saying it's only just happened. & furthermore let's not pretend Capcom are selling Lootboxes, because they're not, you're buying items to skip steps of single-player games. If anything it's for people who don't like a challenge, or just want a game finished quicker.

Almost every Capcom game for the past decade (whether I'm happy with it or not) has some form of easy mode microtransaction/ add-on. Even MH after a year offers free baby-mode armor for those who don't like games and wants to blitz through the Low Rank Story. At least you got to see the credits, G-Rank however won't offer any handholding

I'm not going pretend that these games don't offer people to pay & cut corners. However some people want to skip games I guess to say "I beat it".

It's not creators intent to farm port crystals and ferrystones; explore the world and have fun is the DD2 that's the game I'm playing, heck I didn't even touch the pre-order pack because I want non of that casual shit. I waited over a decade for Dragon's Dogma 2 and am going to enjoy it.

Capcom did the research, and outside cosmetics the most downloaded 'mods' for majority the games they make are infinite items and section skips. So if anyone is to blame it's 'fans' putting this into Capcoms head. They're giving 'fans' what they want, and a quicker way of doing so.

I don't know about you, but I'm really surprised and shocked there's no one posting on the game if they like it or not.

If I've learned one thing from Game Spot Forums is 'fake' opinions are fairly common. If you are familiar with another sites meme-

"don't mess with gamers we don't even play video games"

I find that mentality to hold strong here.

Other than me it seems maybe two other users of this site had any intention of playing DD2. The rest are either too busy playing the game to use this site (maybe three users if lucky). The rest are probably watching a Vtuber or something and have no intent of playing the game, but will tell me why the microtransactions are awful and "gameplay is bad".