@ezio899: Oof, yeah that sucks. I played the first one for less than 300 hours, so I wasn't too attached to my stuff.
That said, keep in mind that it's inevitable for live service games to stop being updated eventually, in favor of another game or a sequel.
If I can offer a tip, it would be to go into this kind of game expecting to lose everything eventually. You'll focus more on playing for fun, and if you're not actively having fun, you'll play something else instead of grinding for things that will disappear one day anyway.
Hmm. I wonder how this game is gonna be received. I'll probably check it out for myself anyway, should be fun to mess around with for a bit. Love me some theorycrafting once in a while.
@u233: Not to be a party pooper, but... Nintendo hasn't really proven that they are still capable of making brand new good games for a few years now. It's not as grim as Xbox, but unless the devs at Nintendo have been severely holding back for the past 5 years in preparation for their next console (and I really hope this is the case), my opinion of the big N is pretty much at an all-time low.
As for Gabe... Steam is a good platform, but it's just a platform for other people's games. Valve isn't a game developer anymore.
@Slannmage: It's wild that a decade has passed without a new DKC or Mario Kart game. I'm also with you on Smash Ultimate; while I consider it a new game, it really doesn't feel like one. SSB, Melee, Brawl and Smash 4 all had a very different aesthetic, but Smash Ultimate just felt like a new wave of DLC for Smash 4.
I know making an HD game with the most characters and stages ever takes longer than making Melee did, but why do I still love all the previous Smash games just as much, if not more? Was Smash Ultimate worth 10 years without a game that feels new? I would say no.
Honestly, I would really not mind if they experimented with smaller, more frequent releases that cost less to make but still have a clear vision put into them. Smash Ultimate did have a vision ("everyone is here"), which is just enough to qualify as its own game, but where do you go from there? I don't want them to just add to Smash Ultimate indefinitely or worse: re-release the game again for Switch 2 and call it a day.
I would also add Zelda to the list of disappointments, because Tears was, simply put, not worth 7+ years without a new Zelda. Maybe if there had been a brand new 2D Zelda between Breath and Tears, it wouldn't have been so bad, but that hasn't happened. Just a lot of nothing.
I have my own letdowns as well, such as Fire Emblem jumping the shark with Engage, going full wacky mode to the point where I consider that game a filler spin-off game just like the musou games, so to me we haven't had a new Fire Emblem since 2019, which is by far the longest gap there has ever been between games. It already was the longest gap even if you do count Engage, but I don't.
I think if I had to give any praise to the Switch, it would be that it's a good console for people who missed out on Nintendo consoles and handhelds growing up. The problem is I had every Nintendo console and handheld from SNES and GBC onwards. If I want to play old stuff, I don't need the Switch for that.
This is a good outcome if you want these devs to be managed properly. Xbox (among others) is where studios and IPs go to die, there's no avoiding it. It's where you go as a developer when you just want to cash out your reputation or be paid big money to work on flops.
Anyway, if you care about games, follow the people actually making games. Not the corporations trying to profit off of other people's talent based on their previous work, while having zero clue what makes a good game, chasing trends and trying to please the shareholders who are also clueless.
I'm always happy to see gamers fight back against bad practices, but I'm not really sure how having to make a Sony account to play a multiplayer Sony game is that bad. I think the main issue is that some countries aren't allowed to create a PSN account for some reason, so it region locks the game on PC which is indeed bad. Plus the fact that Helldivers 2 worked just fine without linking accounts. It was just a PR disaster waiting to happen. But let's be honest... when people are interested in a game, they usually make an account for it if they have to.
We'll see if there will be any uproar this time. Maybe no one will care because the main draw of Ghost of Tsushima is the single-player. But this made me wonder... what if Sony had created their own proprietary launcher for Helldivers 2 and their other games, instead of using Steam? Either everyone interested in HD2 would have been fine with the account requirement, or no one would have bought Helldivers 2 on PC. What if Nintendo were to start selling their games on PC through their own store? Would we see a big uproar over that? Somehow I don't think so.
So maybe the problem stems from the fact that if you buy a game on Steam, you shouldn't need to make any additional accounts to play it, because Steam is already handling the DRM. If we all agree that this is bad, then I think Valve is partially at fault for enabling this practice. Years ago, Valve could have said "if any additional account is needed to play your game, we will not accept it on Steam." But they didn't, and so here we are.
The dated gameplay and often ugly 3D environments make this a 6 for me, but it does have a more engaging plot than Unicorn Overlord, decent spritework and a good soundtrack, so I can kinda understand the score matching that game.
People are mad about the localization, and while I can agree with the more egregious examples, aside from those few lines I found it to be fine. The characters have fitting personalities for how they look, act and sound like. The same people complained about the 3DS Fire Emblem localizations when I enjoyed those as well, so maybe it's just a taste thing.
The army battles are indeed horrendous, and I wish the game was more polished. From the UI to the loading screens all the time, the game feels sloppily made.
I would normally like "gimmicks" in boss battles, but them being literally called gimmicks in the UI feels too gamey, and as you said, they are very hit or miss. The one for Mellore's boss being a coin toss whack-a-mole type deal was just frustrating.
Also this is a big pet peeve of mine, but I hate how much the game is crammed with Kickstarter backer names and portraits. Takes me out of the game every time. I know the original Suikoden games had army battle segments (and they were bad then, too), but in this game it feels like they exist just so they could show a quirky log of Kickstarter backers "dying heroically in battle" on the right side of the screen. It's all so tacky, and it feels like you're playing a cheap crowdfunded game that cares more about making the backers feel represented in-game than making an immersive world for the player. It didn't have to feel like that. Sea of Stars had its own flaws, but at least they isolated the backer narcissism to a single island, so that the rest of the game could be free of it.
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