Xbox Game Pass Players Are 'Heading For New Zealand' To Play Redfall Early

"Keep in mind that Microsoft also advises changing regions can potentially lock you out of changing to another one for a period"
that's if you change your actual account country not for just a region change on the Xbox

They killed the servers for it so this won’t work.

Where are the reviews? So close to launch.

They’ve nipped this in the bud. You just get an ‘incompatible build, please ensure your client is up to date’ error when trying to access the servers now. The joys of an always online game, eh?

I took a look out of curiosity as I am really waiting for the 60 FPS patch before playing.

While it's true you can start the game and get to the title screen you couldn't actually play.

I got an incompatible build error: please update pop up. No update available.

Not too fussed personally but this might annoy some folks.

@Chaudy dont think they are allowing reviews until after it comes out. Very sketchy

@Chaudy that is typical of bethesda games. The review embargo always ends day of release or 1 day prior.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/05/01/where-are-all-the-redfall-reviews/?sh=4e1ba21c119f

It is rumored to be 11pm eastern time tonight for Redfall. One review broke embargo giving it a 78. They called it unrevolutionary and more of the same from the typical arkane formula. I like arkane games so I guess this might be good news.

@themightyant bethesda is probably surprised how much more of a microscope is on every decision they make now that they are 1st party. It's a curious situation how they are basically independent but exclusive. It doesn't really seem like Microsoft is trying to change anything about them which might be a good and bad thing.

Nothing like going out of your way for early access to a game that tells you right on the cover it's still in beta even with late access.

This game never really interested me much, but I'm hoping the lessons learned from this launch can be used as a sacrifice to apply improvements to Starfield's launch.

@themightyant Forspoken has met its match, lol.

@themightyant It was Noisy Pixel that gave the game a 4/10 with the header blood suckingly painful, so yeah doesn't look good. The 78% Review from CoG mentioned how difficult it was for single players which all of these reviewers would be doing (surely) so that alone would maybe ruin their experience. This is going to get a mixed reaction so I'd say a metacritic between 65-70.

@UltimateOtaku91 knew it was coming in hot when they delayed the 60fps mode. Of course it follows a trend of games being broken a launch so why not another.

@NEStalgia Honestly, this is pretty troubling. Arkane is a developer I respect, but don't really like. They have historically made quality games that just don't appeal to me. So, if this game really is coming in as rough as we suspect it is, then I do have to kind of pause and just blame MS for rushing it out the door. Which would appear that not a single thing was learned from Infinite. Oh, bother.

Also, thinking about it, the last time Arkane worked on a multiplayer game was Young Blood, and it was in fact terribad.

Incompatible build (sigh)
This article is not valid unfortunately

I think the warning signs are there for this game with no reviews I Hope I'm wrong though

@Chaudy They should be up now. Supposed to be up at 11 am eastern.

Bearing in mind Star Wars was getting reviews of 9 when it’s a hot mess all over the board I expect most will give redfall 8/9 with players around a 7, bar the usual pro pro biased Xbox fans

@Romans12 ACG mistakenly put up the review for a few minutes on YouTube. It was entitled "worst game of 2022" OUCH
I'm still curious to try it out though

This isn't going to review well by the looks of things from the reviews that went up then got taken down ...seems it suffers the usual problem for solo players...was clearly built for co op.....then give us damn couch co op...I dont want to play with strangers online..prefer to play with the missus on couch ...anyway will still give it a go solo

@SplooshDmg Not that I don’t agree with you because I feel the exact same way one this topic. However wasn’t Youngblood consider bad because of its story not so much it’s gameplay? If I recall the two sisters acted more like meatheads and rubbed people the wrong way. But I didn’t play it, so…

@mousieone No. Young Blood was just flat out not good. The story was weak, the leveling system was weird and didn't belong, the AI was poor, the stealth element was janky. It was just a really poor mishmash of things that seemed like Machine Games and Arkane both decided they were tired of fooling with and just released it to make it go away. Which kinda seems like what this also is.

Some reviews leaked and it seems this is the worst game that Arkane has ever released :sighs:

So frustrating that Xbox can’t seem to get a W these days…

@StylesT If she has an Xbox or streaming sub you can play couch coop online with her. If she doesn't, then you're a bad person.

@SplooshDmg If you don't normally play Arkane games I think you have a rose tinted view of their output. Arkane games historically are Bethesda games in the truest sense of the word. Dishonored 2 was.....a mess....and that's putting it politely.....and in many ways still kind of is.

It's a shame, people talk about "organic growth" with studios that are closely aligned with Sony and all that for Sony acquisitions. The good and bad is that Bethesda is EXTREMELY organic growth for MS. They both have the same philosophy of shipping completely broken games at random times and taking 15-20 years for players to mod them to make them playable.

I don't really blame MS for this one, really. This is normal for both MS and Bethesda so it's hard to blame one or the other. If there was no MS, this game probably would have launched a year ago with a ton of mtx and day 1 DLC and been a mirror of Fallout 76. Deathloop was uncommonly polished for Arkane. But it's also a small environment pseudo-roguelike that helped cut down on the bugs, not an ambitious online open world thingie. IMO this game was just biting off (heh heh) waaaay more than anyone that's ever played an Arkane game knows they can handle. IDK why they did this, but we know they did this long before the buyout.

For MS the problem is Bethesda really was a great purchase for them for the kind of content their sort of nerd enthusiast market craves, but it was also the wrong buyout for them because they needed purchases to up their polish and quality and....Bethesda ranks somewhere near last place for doing that, it instead reinforces MS's problems as a publisher. That's where ABK was supposed to come in, hyper-polished terrible games for the masses. Rather than totally broken weird and awesome games for ubernerds.

This game, though.....IDK....it always seemed.....wayward....from the first reveal, and I've never really really seen this as anything other than a B-side, not a major title. It kind of seems overmarketed for what it is....kind of like Forspoken, but without the Sony designer image to bolster it.

On the up-side, I think this game was always going to be a train-wreck and I think we're starting to see very clearly why Bethesda needed a sugar daddy, fast, before bethesda closed up and Elder Scrolls became a Chinese gatcha game on mobile.

@somnambulance That's..........a unique point of view.... Of Forspoken the only positive thing I have to say of it, is that I'm far, far more willing to accept that as a mainline FF attempt than whatever that Dante of War monstrosity they're pawning off as 16 is. I'd be ok with Forspoken as a bad mainline FF, it's at least an ARPG, even if a poor one. I can't accept that God of DMCBorne thingy as anything but a spinoff.

@mousieone Hipster Bethesda shipped incomplete games before it was cool!

@NEStalgia You sold me at Chinese gacha game on mobile. Kids, don't do drugs.

@NEStalgia pretty sure GameFreak holds that title.

@SplooshDmg I see well that makes sense.

Let's hope this game is good, but the review embargo is yikes.

@Chaudy
Seem about three reviews not sure about the reviewers though. But not great and average mediocre game really going by those reviews.
And very bad review.
Another game for game pass game if you get me and such a shame for Arkane.
This will not do Xbox brand any good at all.

@Dezzy70 Is there anybody that thought this actually looked like a major release of any kind though? I mean just knowing it's Arkane kind of tells us what kind of release it would be. Even with non-stop relentless full-scale Sony exclusivity marketing behind it Deathloop crashed and burned. Seems like anyone trying to make this a big game is coming from the desperation of Xbox having literally nothing else for a year (though I'd easily pay $10 each for 7 games like Pentiment than pay $70 for pretty much any of Sony or Nintendo's games.)

@somnambulance That's the thing, 16 looks more like Stranger of Paradise 2 than anything to do with an FF game, and every time they tell us they'll show us I'm wrong, they just show more things that convince me I'm right.

My take on 16 is they saw the success of GoW and Soulsborne and just decided to copy that for success, use the FF name for marketing and sales potential, and throw in some homages for good measure. I think I would be truly happier if they just called Forspoken FFXVI and called the DMC thing "SoP2." or just a totally new series. It honestly looks to have more in common with Nier than FF. I think that would have been a better brand for the game design. FF since 13 seems to be stuck in a loop of just looking over their shoulder at what's trending and trying to make an "FF version" of that to the point the series doesn't mean much anymore, it's just a collection of random games united by a marketing strategy. 16 looks like a decent game, but it looks like a decent hack and slash linear action game, not a big RPG of any sort, and there's a reason why i've always preordered FF and RPG games and never preordered a single hack and slash action game ever.

I'm pretty concerned about how difficult solo play is based on the early reviews. A concerning theme. I really hope the game has difficulty options or it could be dead in the water with the majority of SP causal gamepass players.

@Romans12 I think it is 11pm EST as they are still not up online

@NEStalgia
It’s just a shame really as the Xbox I once new seems to have almost gone.
I mean ok I also have PS5 and Switch which is really where my AAA gaming is for me now.
Perhaps i had to high expectations for my series x and Xbox at the start of this generation.
Currently I sure the Xbox one generation was better for me personally.

@Dezzy70 MS needs to buy high-profile 3rd party exclusives just as Sony does. That approach is far faster, cheaper, and arguably more effective. MS will lose $3+ billion to ABK if the deal falls through; take $1 billion and lock down 3 party exclusives for the next 2-4 years.

It is your first party studios versus the rest of the industry. They will out-produce you every time. Sure, you might buy a dud, but there is far less risk, and the title can be disavowed. The approach is more agile.

Sony is pulling an "Elliot Spitzer" while MS insists on trying to marry a Kennedy.

@NEStalgia I am trying to understand this FF thing and just don’t get it? Are you wanting a 2001 style turn based JRPG or what are you looking for? Gigantic open world with not much in it?

@UltimateOtaku91 The difficulty complaint is a tough one to take a reviewer's word on; I have to experience it myself.

I play everything on the hardest difficulty. The only point I will pull up at is "permadeath" on a game I've never played before. These reviewers play tend to play on easy or normal to blow through the game. They want to complete the game as quickly as possible for a deadlines (major sites) or to for clicks (YouTubers).

That would severely hamper the experience for me. I imagine their skills (reaction time, precision, strategy, problem solving) and patience/tolerance diminish due to this choice. One recent example is Wo Long and the complaints about the difficulty of the first boss.

Even if a game is mediocre, putting it on a low difficult would make it feel even worse.

@NEStalgia Redfall could very well be the next Forspoken but with 4 terribly written cringeworthy characters instead of 1.

@theduckofdeath
I think Microsoft’s strategy is to buy as many big studios as possible, pull out the hardware market as there is not much profit if any in the hardware market.
Then once out of the hardware market sign Sony and Nintendo up to game pass, either could based or download not sure.

Damn that ACG review was savage.

Bethesda have had late reviews for a long time, maybe going back to Doom 2016. I hope I'm wrong but I suspect this game might be coming in very hot! If it needs lots of work, I'd worry it gets completely forgotten about. Next couple of months has zelda, street fighter 6, diablo 4, FF16 and we have already had some amazing games this year (including HI-FI rush as a kick-ass 1st party xbox release). I'm skipping good games I want to play as there is so many already this year. If your games bang average, broken or both I'm probably not playing it.

@theduckofdeath The problem is it's only cheaper for Sony because buying out Xbox's small market share is chump change. For MS to buy third parties they'd have to buy out all of Sony's market share. That costs so much money for nothing in return it's cheaper to just buy the companies than keep doing that.

That's the problem of the imbalanced market. Sony can only justify their strategy of buying major exclusives because they're a near monopoly. Anyone else can't effectively use that same strategy.

@FatalBubbles An RPG it doesn't need to be turn based, like I said, I'd accept Forspoken which is at least an ARPG for real, as mainline FF more than what they're showing as FF16 which STILL has failed to show any aspects of being an RPG despite them saying someday they will.

That said, while I'm not insisting the series needs to be turn based in any way, I don't believe that, it needs to be an RPG, it doesn't need to be turn based specifically, but I also don't understand the notion that turn based RPGs are somehow "antiquated" games and somehow "action" is automatically "modern." Action games existed BEFORE turn based games. As an overall game design turn based is a NEWER design than action based games. Nor is it automatically "older/worse" it's simply one genre versus another genre. That's like saying first person shooters are obsolete because third person shooters exist now. They're not, just a different genre.

I don't believe FF must be turn-based for it's battle system, but I don't understand this notion that turn-based is somehow obsolete while action is modern. Sales trends may show that action outsells turn based....but that was as true in the 80's as it is today.

@UltimateOtaku91 I've read the Noisy Pixel review. It's horrible (the review not the game).

@Darylb88 pretty much the only reviewer I still trust. What review?

@Fenbops Just going on the launch trailer, I definitely agree with that. Both this and Forspoken sound like they're written as CW specials that air somewhere between Dawson's Creek and Gilmore Girls.

The new Zealand trick works now. Just got a client update.

@NEStalgia I think the turn based games were restricted by the times when they came out, a fleshed out open world RPG action game wasn’t doable back then, or at least I can’t think of any. I don’t dislike turn based JRPGs at all, some of my fondest memories are those but I think they do feel restrictive and dated now.

I’m not sure why Final Fantasy has to be tied to any certain thing though. Games evolve as time passes, so I think there is no “Final Fantasy” model they have to adhere to. They’ve had so many different settings, characters types, etc. If they were all sequels I could understand the desire for them to be samey but they’ve almost always had a different cast and story. Just my $0.02.

@NEStalgia Yes, I agree it will be much more costly and harder to sell to the dev/publisher for Xbox. The thing is, the longer they wait, the harder it becomes. We are 2+ years into the gen already. Buying a studio looks more attractive to MS than shelling out for exclusivity. I even wonder if MS would have to outbid Sony just to ensure multi-platform status, as a cheaper strategy.

@Fenbops He posted his Redfall review early by mistake and had to take it down but the title was along the lines of "The worst game of 2023". It was pretty savage haha.

@Darylb88 oh man 🤣 I looked and there was no video I wondered what happened. Something to look forward to when he uploads it again.

My bad. New Zealand trick doesn't woke at all now. Since the client update, the game doesn't even start. It will tell you, youre too early. 🙄

@FatalBubbles two things

A) you asked @NEStalgia what they want? Are nuts? NES could write an entirely book on what NES wants in a forum and not be done.

B) Back then? Limited? Exactly what do mean? Morrowind era? That came out in 2002. I mean it’s not Japanese but it fits the rest of your qualities

@KaijuKaiser do you like Forspoken?

@IOI well other than halo and forza there's nothing really exclusive wise at the minute and redfall looks like it's not very good now either what is going on at Microsoft at the minute it's time to ship up or ship out I have both a ps5 and a series x and there's no reason for me use my xbox at the minute

@FatalBubbles It really is simply two totally different genres though. Action games are just that, it's about reflex timing and speed. Turn based games are a sort of tactical puzzle and resource management game. Just totally incompatible things, not a pale imitation of each other.

There are lots of action RPGs, but even there the systems are necessarily different from a pure action game. If you look at anything ranging from Ys and Tales, to Mass Effect and Fallout, to Diablo, the action is in service to the RPG systems, which are still the primary components. As a result the action doesn't feel the same as a pure action game, purely about combat timings.

Now, I like both turn based and action RPGs, both J and W RPGs, and I don't think it's unfair for a series to switch between both action type and turn based battle systems, as long as the battle system is all that's being swapped and not the total structure of the game or nature of RPG systems and design overall. Where 16 jumps the shark is it really leaves the RPG behind entirely (disclaimer: That we've seen so far, it could well be that they have done a poor job showing the RPG elements, but so far it seems about as much "RPG" as God of War which is to say "not in any way an RPG") and just becomes a pure action adventure game.

That's the thing with FF, it's nature has been to change the world, characters, battle system etc between entries, but until now it has always been unified by common elements and an overall roadtrip RPG design with the exception of 13, which is objectively not an RPG (DESPITE being turn based!) and 13 was panned across the board. 15 for it's flaws was a return to form as an actual RPG.

@KaijuKaiser I'm having a conversation with two people who are discussing this topic. The conversation is civil and productive. There's no room for randoms to barge into the conversation and declare people to be trolls while having a dialogue you're not even involved in about a video game, because you disagree with them. Nor is my above comment different than what I've ALREADY said on Push at least thrice. It's simply the observation that Forspoken for all its warts has more structurally in common with the FF series than anything we have seen from XVI which absolutely has more in common with SoP or Nier (again, from what we've seen.)

I've said before how Nintendo designs games uniquely that they design the game based on the gameplay without any brand attached to it, then decide which brand the game design fits and make it an entry in that series. If Square were to do the same, I very much feel Forspoken's game design (flawed as the game is), fits the FF brand gameplay tradition and would have deserved that branding more than what they're calling XVI which very much fits the SoP (spinoff) or Nier gameplay design much more appropriately than FF.

@Fenbops Saying anything negative about FF16 in front of Kaiju is like walking into a Berkely campus and declaring your hatred of socialism.

@theduckofdeath It's a catch 22 though. For a big exclusive, what does Sony have to shell out to buy out Xbox's share. The cost of 25% copies at wholesale price at MOST, minus the costs of having to develop the Xbox version at all. Not much money at that scale.

For MS to buy exclusivity they'd have to buy out 75% of copies at minimum. That's not just loss leading, it's throwing money down a hole to basically give away 3 copies for every one they sell. Nobody would ever sign off on that when for a token more money they can just buy the studio, own the assets, and get an actual return on what they spent money on rather than what amounts to incredibly expensive marketing.

I agree that from appearances, if MS did the same trick Sony does it would benefit the platform, but I think for the people allocating budget they're lookin at that divide and nobody in their right mind would basically pay the full expenses of a game two-fold making sale of the game not just a total loss, but a massive loss making back pennies on the dollar. I just don't see the third party trick viable for anyone BUT Sony while the market is any more than a 60/40 split.

@NEStalgia I sort of see what you mean, what RPG elements are you wanting to see that you haven’t? It will 100% have a skill tree, summons, etc. It’s definitely an action heavy game, no doubt about it.

@mousieone I was just curious, it looks like a FF game to me with action combat. I think there were 9 entries prior to PS2, I don’t think those could have been anything but turn based with what the PS1 could do. Once the 360/PS2 came around, they could do some more stuff, like you see them start to transition with 10 and most certainly 12. So to me, anything prior to that second gen of consoles they were kind of stuck IMO.

@NEStalgia I was putting him through my new ‘Forspoken’ test 🤣 oh, well you’re not alone in thinking FF16 doesn’t look all that good, it even has QTE’s which other games are crucified for. I’m not sold on it, I don’t like the new direction they’ve taken, the only thing I really like so far is the English voice work. Stellar stuff as a Brit.

@FatalBubbles it looks like Square Enix game to me. Sure, I’ll give you that. However, it doesn’t look a Final Fantasy game.

Open World games might have been limited prior to PS2 But action? No. The Mana series was action based. It’s also Co-op. It’s the first JRPG I played. They had an option back then to turn FF action based. But didn’t.

The issue is a lot of “charm” for many with FF with an FF game is taking a base level n00b party and turning them into your own god-slayer machine, playing mini games or side quest to further your own understanding of their dynamic, building something perfectly tailored through painstakingly micro management. It sounds boring to some but to another group it’s the pleasure of playing the game. If they wanted the action genre they’d opt for Bayo or DMC.

That said I do think this entry will be something of a good middle ground but, I can understand the hesitation.

@FatalBubbles What makes an RPG can be a pretty broad topic. A skill tree at this point is just bog standard for every genre. It may have started in RPGs, but now everything from God of War to Call of Duty has skill trees, or some system that emulates them. Maybe the easiest way to differentiate is to take the thing 16 is very visibly "inspired" by and frequently compared to: GoW (2018.) Nobody will say GoW is an RPG. It has skill trees. It has shops you buy things from. It has level ups. So what separates it from RPGs?

A few tentpoles in the genre:
Player autonomy. Sure Japanese RPGs have always been somewhat guided on rails compared to, say Bethesda RPGs, however, even classic FF4 had a lot of autonomy to use the map and travel at will between locations, with different events in different places at different times, not necessarily restricted.

Base camps, RPGs by nature of that autonomy, even classic FF, tend to have you push a little farther, set up base camp to settle into a particular area, operate out of that area as a new home base uintil that area becomes familiar and homelike for a time, before you reluctantly push on and leave that new familiar area at your own time after working on solving the local problems. It puts when to work on the local issues or press on in player hands. Wehther classic FF through FFXV, or Morrowind, Skyrim, Witcher, basically any RPG is designed around that aspect, and lacking that aspect is a huge part of what people didn't like in 13.

CHARACTER progression vs PLAYER progression. In an RPG the more your caracter acts, the stronger they get, the more enemies defeated, the more gold and XP earned the more equipment and goods they buy the more levels they gain the more skills unlocked the more powerful the CHARACTER gets where previously insurmountable enemies are now pushovers, and impossible enemies now become manageable. In an action game character progression is minimal, player player is expected to simply be faster and more accurate as opposed to managing a character that becomes ever more powerful. Some action games will have health bar increases and the like, but not a total change in the power level of the character in relation to the world, just unlocking new moves and the like.

Questing. An RPG by nature is bound by the "every day tasks" the sense of being a part of the world around the player (the actual titular ROLE PLAYING) aspect. Performing quests of needed local activities that inegrates the player into the world they're inhabiting by interacting with the world and it's needs as opposed to simply following the main story as a singular narrative mixed with little more than "slay bonus monster, collect the 10 things" type filler quests that don't really integrate the player into the living world and allow role playing.

Economy and resouce management. A huge part of RPGs is managing the economy, methods of earning currency, and a thriving system in which to exchange that currency where the goods and resources purchased matter in relation to character progression and combat ability, where what resources one has need to be managed. There's very much a strategy/tactical meta game underlying RPGs, both action and turn based, where action games focus much more on player skill and a very thin currency at best (see God of War) where you can buy relatively meaningless items, or items that are simply expected for all players to purchase by certain points, etc, rather than a more careful resource management metagame, all of which goes back to RPG's roots as pen and paper tabletop games.

There's quite a bit more, but the main part is theres a totally different design philosophy behind the scenes in how the systems of an RPG and an action adventure are meant to play out, and tacking relatively superficial or mere gating of moves behind skill trees doesn't convert an action adventure into an RPG.

And again the disclaimer that maybe 16 does lean more into that than they have given any indication of, we don't know for sure yet, however if it does, they have not to date shown it despite continuously promising it.

@NEStalgia I'm really not taking a dig at anybody, I just want to say that up front. The fact that you have to write an actual essay about the difference between action titles and actual RPGs is pretty telling that RPGs are an endangered species in 2023.

I pure plain and simple do not like action games. It's your character progression vs player progression example. I do not care about player progression in games. I want to fiddle with items and equipment and level up until I can comfortably beat whatever it is before me. I'm not going to git gud by practicing dodging. I hate dodging. I'm going to go craft some bigger better item with all the bits and bobs laying around and go nuke the boss. Sure, I can turn on auto dodge in FFXVI, but I don't want to, because what's the point if you just turn it into a literal spam fest because you're basically unstoppable because the game is too easy to be a threat? The masses just understand that action is fun. Too much action to me is anti-fun. I don't like action, I like thinking. I play RPGs because I like thinking, not action. Just because a game has a skill system and a plot, make it an RPG it does not.

@themightyant I never understand with people want to know the review scores for gamepass games, just play it yourself and form your own opinion.
I'm very excited for this game and have tried to avoid clips of gameplay, as I want to explore myself.
What I have seen looks beautiful, but I keep hearing that the graphics don't look good from people online and in forums.
I believe all these 'hot takes from influencers' ruin the game before people try it out for themselves.
Anyway I'm old, so I'll go back to shouting at the clouds.

@NEStalgia @mousieone I see where you’re coming from. You aren’t really a fan of action RPG, GoW for example. Or perhaps you just don’t even consider an ARPG an RPG.

Im not really tied down a specific definition of RPG, appreciate your take on it though. I do agree that an ARPG lacks the building up from nothing character you spoke of.

I think for me an RPG is just having a character you build up, whether from nothing or semi formidable. Picking skills and such that want to have that character use. Outside of that I’m open to a broad scope of activities.

Unfortunately I think the intricate details you mentioned are probably a thing of the past because people don’t have the patience/interest in all of that anymore so devs shy away from it. People want that instant gratification so resource management, slower progression are going the way of the dinosaur.

Thanks for the back and forth and providing your opinions.

@SplooshDmg I think RPGs are quite alive and well, there's absolutely no shortage of RPGs being made that are good and proper RPGs to date, but I think they do have potential danger of becoming a "generic noun" without a definition if essays like that aren't written to keep people aware of what is what.

Just off the top of my head, and not separating J from W RPGs, and not separating the battle systems between turn based, action, and grid/strategyRPG, but excluding MMOs as a separate thing:

Yakuza/Like a Dragon, Witcher, Starfield/TES/Fallout, Pillars of Eternity/Avowed, Fire Emblem, SMT/Persona/SH, Cyberpunk, Diablo, Ys, Legend of Heroes/TCS, Mario + Rabbids (!), Baldur's Gate, Tales of, Octopath, SaGa, Disgaia, Star Ocean (if it continues), One Piece (the new game), and I know I'm missing more than a few, both W and J....that's just the top of my head list.

(Special mention Fable, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, which I assume will be proper RPGs but we don't yet know.)

(Extra special mention Assassin's Creed, the astounding case of the action adventure platformer that ended up becoming an actual legit W-ARPG, though marred by it's live service aspects.)

Plenty of genuine new RPGs around. Including one of the biggest action adventure franchises that decided to become an RPG, and one of the biggest J-APRG series that decided to go turn based.....yet weirdly Square has decided to abandon RPG design in the series that put JPRGs on the map....)

But, yes, exactly, it's just wholly different genres, and even action RPGs despite having mashy buttons with timed actions are still in service of character progression over player progression unlike action games. Plus the actual role playing. Role playing means living within the world, not following a 3rd person narrative. It can have both, but it needs to have the former. You use actions at strategic times but it's the character progression that makes it strong. Two totally different genres for two totally different player preferences, and it's not a matter of old vs new, it's a matter of one group of player interests vs another. And I don't buy having to change with the times. Street Fighter and a ton of other fast action games buried FF1-9 under it's sales charts for a reason too in the 80's and 90's. FF is the biggest RPG series. Square invented from whole cloth that it's supposed to be one of the biggest selling series period. It never has been, because RPGs never have been. That's not its place in the market.

The masses always saw action as "fun" and it was always more popular than RPG systems. Why are we treating that differently now with 16? That was true on the NES and C64, too. RPG systems were newer and suited for home gaming, action game first and drew the big money in the coin op arcade with flashy graphics. Action being bigger money isn't new, that's how it's always been!

@FatalBubbles I wouldn’t say I’m not a fan. I just understand where someone may come from. Me personally I find it weirds something like Outer Worlds is considered an RPG but something like LAD Isshi isn’t. Or Xenoblade Chronicles 1 an RPG. Again I understand where people come from.

But as I said @NEStalgia I’d in novel writing mode, so you’re in for a few posts .

@NEStalgia That is what kills me with the CMA ruling. They call out fears that MS could strengthen their alleged 60-70% hold on an unproven $1 billion cloud market. Meanwhile Sony has the same or worse controlling share of a 50-year old $200 billion dollar console market. The CMA says and does nothing to remedy that. They would have blocked the ABK on console concerns if they thought MS would profit greater from taking CoD exclusive.

The market is Sony and MS with no room for anyone else. I'm interested in reading the points MS makes in their UK appeal. The outcome will likely remain unfavorable, and that means something needs to change.

@FatalBubbles I think you misunderstand a little, I'm also a fan of Action-RPG. Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls, Diablo, Jade Empire, Ys, Tales of are all Action RPGs which I love.

But GoW isn't an ARPG. It's not an RPG at all. It's just an action game, or action adventure game. Which is a wholly different thing than an ARPG, and throwing a skill tree and item shop in there doesn't make it automatically an ARPG, that's just a completely different game design. (And SSM doesn't call it an RPG, of course, either.)

A grayer area would be Horizion. It's not an RPG, and Guerilla doesn't call it an RPG, either. But it does borrow enough WRPG game designs that I would not necessarily argue if someone said it was an RPG. It has more in common with RPGs than what we've seen of 16, IMO, and that's a concerning element of 16, while I wouldn't be wholly uncomfortable calling Horizon a WRPG, though it technically is not, and the dev makes no claims it is trying to be one.

I do think you're somewhat right about people's lack of attention span and instant gratification though, that's absolutely what's central to all this. Though it's not necessarily new, RPGs were always a lower sales genre than the flashy action games, so in many ways it's really just continuing as it always has. Not so much JRPGs, but I think we've seen a lot of high profile WPRGs head actually MORE into the slow progression route recently (Assassin's Creed, Cyberpunk, Starfield, Avowed....) one interesting and unexpected thing is it seems like that kind of slow progression fanbase actually seems to be Xbox oriented more than PS that's more that instant gratification crowd, as someone pointed out AC actually sells best on XB, and Cyberpunk was MS marketing rights, along with Bethesda and Obsidian being part of MS now.

The PS market, the much bigger market, seems more infatuated with the fast and flashy and less interested in deeper, slower systems, except for the "weeb" market that is very much Nin/PS based. Although, with Persona breaking out into XB and Yakuza seemingly doing well on XB, it does seem like the "slower, depth based" fanbase has interestingly moved toward XB. It's carved a niche, a small niche, but a loyal niche that knows what they want, perhaps.

Not going to leave an overly in-depth comment about something I have not played yet. Never had any real interest in the game. Looks alright. Seems to be a typical co-op game with players Vs monsters (vampires) nothing I have read really changes any formula. I will give it a go but if it wasn't on gamepass I wouldn't even entertain the idea of getting it.

You know FF16 is going to be great when it's talked about more on article about an xbox exclusive.

@NEStalgia I'll admit I'm being a bit hyperbolic. I just see danger in one of the biggest JRPG franchises abandoning it's RPG credentials to become a full blown action title, then printing money and giving others ideas. I'd prefer that didn't happen, because I don't care what anyone else likes. Lol

@UltimateOtaku91 I mean, we've gotta talk about something interesting. Redfall clearly isn't.

@Dezzy70 @NEStalgia @SplooshDmg

🤣🤣🤣 Redfall

https://twitter.com/Meowingtons01/status/1653038081371525120?s=20

@Fenbops Lmao I seriously just sent this to a buddy of mine. This here is just the tip of this iceberg. I told someone the other day "If they didn't have time to finish the performance mode, hopefully they ran out of time to finish plenty of other things too!" 🥴

@SplooshDmg how long was it delayed for? What have they been doing? I’ve seen a clip from the ACG review and he says it’s FULL of bugs, that one is probably nothing compared to others, funny though. Xbox and their studios need to sort their sh*t out, wow.

@Fenbops Yeah, I saw quite a few videos of stuff floating around, and it looks like it's in pretty rough shape. I think the thing is, Redfall probably started development well after Starfield, so I don't think it has cooked for nearly long enough. I think this is also a case like Rocksteady with Suicide Squad. A studio that has no business making an online co-op looter got put on a co-op looter, had no idea what they were doing, and just lit a bunch of money on fire. It's a move ripped right out of the EA playbook 2019 edition. This is Anthem with vampires and hipsters.

@Fenbops

@SplooshDmg Yeah I do have that same worry. Otoh, I'm not sure what devs making RPGs didn't already know action games make more money? Meanwhile ubi went further down the rpg hole, Microsoft bought every wrpg dev that's around and then bought marketing to the one they didn't. Yakuza went from a RPG and went all the way down the turn based hole and got celebrated... And persona is all time high. So we might be taking squares identity crisis too literally.

My personal feeling is being the incest cousin of Sony they probably jointly decided to make "a Sony game". And "a Sony game" means over the shoulder action adventure, a moody one. And it sells great with the market for for Sony games which is what they wanted. At the moment, Microsoft is far more RPG aligned then Sony, other than the weeb games market (which is us, but still..)

@Fenbops OMG it's so Bethesda it hurts! 🤣

@NEStalgia Perhaps you're right. I've really determined the only Yakuza I love is LAD. The combat in the others is just... Meh. I tried so hard to play Judgment, but LAD ruined me and now all Yakuza should be turn based. It's like the reverse of the FFXVI effect. I'm okay with that, and it's not hypocritical because I'm self-aware of the bias and just don't care.

I absolutely think Sony lent a pretty hefty hand in the development; they've basically said as much. I don't think anything about FFXVI looks bad, if anything is looks way too good to be a Square Enix game, because Square Enix is mostly a trash fire. They need all the help they can get.

At the moment Microsoft is also pretty dumpster fire aligned. If Redfall is in as bad of shape as we think it is, and this game scores in the 60's... Then... Well... I just don't know. I seriously think this month has been worse for the Xbox brand than the Xbone unveiling.

If all these rumours about Redfall turn out to be true then this will be one of the worst few last weeks the Xbox brand has ever seen.

In the space of just a few weeks they've had a major acquisition blocked. Which could result in them paying $3 billion to Activision without gaining anything.

They would have a huge triple A title, (their first since Halo Infinite in 2021) be critically panned.

They've reported a slump in sales of hardware and decreased revenue.

Their big new game pass indie game (last case of benedict fox) is not sitting well with majority of the players.

@KaijuKaiser Considering the last year and a half of Game Pass has been filled with new indies, I think people are getting tired of those. There's a shortage of AAA's over here, not indies. However, Ravenlok looks good. Cococucumber is a rock solid developer. Echo generation was awesome and was a huge step up from their prior game, Riverbond.

@SplooshDmg Honestly Yakuza is one of my top favorite series, both with the action and turn based systems, but both systems in that series get a little too redundant with the equivalent of random encounters..... The heart of the series is everything but the battles, I haven't played more than the intro of judgement but it seems familiar enough to the kiwami 2 battles that I get the gist. Majima Everywhere in kiwami 1 is the epitome of repetitive annoying though. Of course it's an update to a PS2 game.

Yeah this month has been brutal for Xbox though I don't think it's as bad as x1 still. That was a dramatic fall from grace from being the top of the industry to being out of the competition. Due to services they didn't fall that low and they really only feel off the couch this time instead of falling from a skyscraper.

@KaijuKaiser Another instance we can agree on something 👍

TBH Game pass is more indie aligned in general than ps, that's kind of it's main draw right now, so fortunately I think the Xbox market is already in that that mindset.

@NEStalgia I dunno. The fall from grace was pretty hard. However, we've basically just watched a corporation appear to get it's crap together, only to watch them just come completely unraveled again in real time. It's like Microsoft just decided to relapse back into total inadequacy. I think it really might be time for a new head of Xbox.

@SplooshDmg I'm sure Phil's got this. He'll tweet tomorrow about how great the Horizon Burning Shores DLC is and it'll all be water under the bridge.

IDK that it's time for someone new in the role, mainly because I don't think they have anyone that can do better. Who are they going to put up there? Sarah? Is it time for Call of Booty? The same people failing now?

I mean, this game was never going to be good. They bought it with Bethesda, even if they gave it another 2 years does anyone think it would have been good? It's the most generic group coop looter shooter ever invented, and it seemed bad from the reveal years ago, and that was all CGI. They should have shoved it out the door 2 years ago and been done with it at this rate even if it didn't boot. A lot of MS's problem is bad timing. The image was they had their ship in order for Series launch. The reality is they were barely entering the market from being missing entirely a generation at that point, no matter what they weren't ready for the console war until 2027 and they KNEW that, and this whole gen is about stringing people along on smoke and mirrors till they're ready, except the ABK mirror cracked and we saw the smoke machines behind it. We weren't supposed to see that.

Imagine the alternate timeline, Jim stayed home eating paint chips, we didn't spend a year fretting over CoD, the merger went through, Diablo 4 launched on Game Pass, CoD on GP, some Spyro news, this game drops in the background to be forgotten, numbers are trending up....... it's a very different timeline, and one they didn't believe wasn't going to have happened by now.

Instead we get a year of "Microsoft is trying to monopolize all of gaming while circling the drain with sinking sales", this game pretends to be a huge release, the first in ages, and the biggest thing on GP is still Sony's sloppy seconds from MS owned studios. I kind of have to feel bad for them ,because a lot of this isn't strictly their fault. ABK was too ambitious of a plan in a lot of ways, but regardless it was their plan that went in weird directions, altered by politics, and dragged everything down with it, and while everyone was stuck with hardware shortages, somehow Sony pulled out magic inventory from nowhere and just saturated the market while MS was down for the count....It's almost like the stall tactics were planned for exactly that to happen... because right after that they stopped trying to stall, boasted of their strength, and CMA magically stopped looking at Sony (openly.)

Much as I can't feel bad for a corporation as powerful as MS, in terms of the XB leadership and direction I really can't help but feel bad for them. It's a bad case of everything going wrong and them having little ability to correct that. Vs Matrick's "Land Ho! Full speed ahead!" strategy. The optics of bad games (Halo aside) comes from the fact they bought a bunch of companies that were failing including their failing content. While the world accuses them of monopolizing. I mean even ABK is borderline failing. Without King they'd be in trouble.

Though it makes me LOL at all the "Sony should buy Square" talk. Yes, because "doing a Microsoft" is their best strategy, lol.

@NEStalgia I dunno, man. I really don't. Heads should have rolled after Infinite. If this game was really that bad when they acquired it, it should have just been quietly cancelled and shifted Arkane back to something they knew how to do. It's not that weird to cancel a game after internal tests show it's just awful, and this was clearly awful from conception. The idea of making Bethesda 1st party was to fund it and support it to release premier titles for Xbox. However, Ghostwire seems lackluster for Xbox hardware, and this is just a mess beyond belief.

I think it comes right back around to the fact that MS has absolutely no idea what they're doing. Jim and Herman come off as really weird dudes, but hey, I'm a weird dude too. I can't really judge them. At least if anything they'll ship Spiderman 2 this fall, and not 'Spoodermanz let us patch it for a year and then it might be enjoyable'. I'm not making a single apology for Xbox at this point. If Starfield isn't great, I'm out for good. I'll go be a freaking pony and prance and neigh about sad fathers and movies disguised as games.

@SplooshDmg Catch-22. I'm not saying they did the right things, but I'm also not sure they did the wrong things. They DO need new content. If not for Game Pass then for Xbox itself. And they had choices like try to make this game SOMETHING to release, or cut it and have NOTHING to release in that time frame. That includes having something to show at E3 2 years ago. 3 years ago. Whenever we heard about it, to get Series going, knowing the payload was a steaming pile.

This isn't a good look, but if they canceled and had less to show for the past 2 years that would be a bad look too. I think we can assume they tried to take the middle road and remove the terrible gaas '76 thing it was supposed to be and try to save it, but, I don't think we can say if shipping it or cancelling it would be the better overall move. Just some crummy setups they had to work with.

In fairness, Ghostwire seems fine on Xbox to me (performance mode.) Which is surprising because Tango doesn't have a good history with technical things. Sure it runs better on PS, and was designed for PS, but if I didn't know that I wouldn't think too poorly on Ghostwire on XB, seems "normal." Technically nothing really wrong with the game IMO at least in performance mode other than it looks softer than on PS if you side by side compare. Res mode supposedly has ugly drops though. It might be a case of a game that should have just targeted 60 and left the 30/RT modes on the editing floor.

On thing...it won't be popular, that I'll say about PS is...other than Guerilla, their studios all churn out the SAME game. And then we look at FFXVI which is heavily assisted by them and it seems like a game that's ALSO built from the same pipeline with the same direction. They're efficient at cranking things out and polishing them I think because they've pretty much built an assembly line devoid of creativity cranking out instant-hit DIY craft kit in a box products. It's rare they deviate from their polished assembly line formula. Though I wonder what those GaaS games will be like. MS doesn't even have a pipeline they just have 100 disparate studios doing whatever interests them, most of them started before they even owned them.

The former is the hollywood box office progrma that's been running since the 80's Every movie is the same movie with younger actors and somehow breaks box office records anyway. IDK, the masses like it and it doesn't interest me in the slightest. MS needs to do better, but I don't really want them to become the same assembly line, either. As it is, Horizon's the only game from Sony's studios (that we know about) that even interests me these days, and it's the only one not built from the create-a-bear kit. I like plenty of things about PS, but their 1st party games aren't really one of them these days (short of horizon and GT which honestly in VR has removed any interest I ever had in Forza.)

I mean I haven't found much to like about MS first party games......but I can't say there's more than one series I really care about on Sony's 1st party games either. At this point first party gaming just sucks across the board to me. Aside Nintendo but with their pricing and performance I'm kind of more scrutinizing with them too these days.

@NEStalgia I think quietly canceling the game and having nothing until Starfield would have been a better look than shoving this clown out on stage. Instead of crickets, we now have something to throw tomatoes at.

Tango doesn't have a good history with tech things, but that's the point of being first party and having access to the actual hardware engineers and getting the most of the hardware. Ghostwire is technically a 1st party game performing like a 3rd party game, and it just shouldn't be. I'd like Xbox at some point to show us they can actually offer us some of these performance targets they've been pitching to us for years now.

Sony 1st party aside, you know I'm not a huge fan, but I respect that the games are at least well put together. There's just tons and tons of content available on PS that isn't on Xbox. It'd be hard to browse the PS store and just not find something to buy. Before I hawked my XSX I was constantly browsing the store and finding absolutely nothing to buy. It's why I just went back to PC. Good luck getting on Steam and not finding a billion things to want to buy.

MS has just screwed this up beyond measure. The problem isn't Redfall itself, the problem is they are proving that their worst critics are absolutely right about them. They don't learn, they don't listen... it's just shove it out there, close your eyes and ears, and eventually people might forget about it. At least if Sony is going to sell you a repetitious cinematic slog for $69.99 you can count on some consistency. MS raised the price ten bucks, lowered the FPS by 30, then slashed about 30 points off the metacritic score. But hey, it's on Game Pass! Woo Wee!

@SplooshDmg Maybe. I can't say you're wrong, but I can't say you're right either. 50/50 depending on business factors we can't know.

Ghostwire is a PS5 timed exclusive designed for the PS5 ported at a later date to Xbox which probably wasn't even a priority until the latter stages of development, because Sony was paying the bills, on a game that was even delayed on PS5 at least once.

That's kind of the rut I'm talking about for MS though, we're judging their output based on things that really never even involved them until the final rounds of development made by dying companies from before they bought them. Realistically there wasn't much else they could do. The REAL problem is Series X couldn't really begin until 2025 based on their pipeline at the soonest and MS knew that, and everything else was necessary smoke and mirrors to get to that point. They knew the studios they bought and what was in their pipeline, and when real new "first party games" would begin, they knew that wasn't until way after the consoles launched.

The reality is: Not one actual Microsoft first party game has actually released since Halo: Infinite, excluding Pentiment and maybe Hi-Fi Rush. Not one. And they knew that. Fable, FM8, Avowed, Contraband, Perfect Dark, Everdeveloped those are the first party MS games and they're probably years away. And they knew that in 2020. Bethesda's queue, really including Starfield has been to clear out the steaming pile they've had going for the past 6 years to get to new stuff.

Which is why the rush for ABK to begin with. That's the awkward place they've been in, they started acquiring things in like 2018, Bethesda they announced they were buying the day they put the consoles up for preorder, they didn't even own it for 6 months or a year after the consoles launched. IDK what people expected. When XSXS launched Microsoft had Gears, Halo, Forza, and basically nothing else, anything else they had was a new acquisition or not even a complete acquisition. What did anyone expect? When I watched that 2020 showcase my mind said "Coming Holiday 2026" splashed over ever trailer I saw. I was a WiiU owner. I was a PS4 owner (we're STILL waiting for the rest of FF7R from E3 2014)....I know how this works.

So I'm not disappointed by MS's games right now. This is exactly what I expected. It's what anyone really should have expected that knew enough about the situation. What I am disappointed in though is that the whole ABK thing took away their momentum on the one thing they DID have which is features and services and a showcase on a platform being about more than a handful of AAA concept games. To me thats' where MS really failed. Nobody should have expected big Sony style AAA games that put MS on the map before 2025. IT was never going to happen. But Xbox was about the product, the services, features, the reason why buying third party games elsewhere is a bad idea, and that's where they've dropped the ball over and over in the past year. It's strength is being mostly a Steambox without Steam. But they lost sight of that too.

But I do agree about the optics. In this case, what's worse, throw the bad broken game out like this and take the L or cancel it and have yet MORE silence with nothing happening. I honestly don't know which is worse. I know this looks really bad today, but going until September without ANY unique content.... IDK that that looks better in August. Honestly Phil got blamed for talking oto much, but in the past year with ABK phil stopped talking about anything at all except playstation. That's a problem. I know corporate probably told him to STFU, but he really needed to be out there reminding people that theyhave big plans even if he's just blowing smoke up their rear ends, I think not doing that really hurt image and momentum, and yeah, I do agree something like htis doesn't help. This was aLwas a B-side and should ave been left by the doorstep in a basket rather than hyped as a big release.

OTOH, again, we look at Ghostwire, Deathloop, etc, etc....even Sony can't manage to sale anything really. Only the same exact game in different skins again and again. If they ever try to sell anything else even "prestige" Sony can't sell it. It's a miracle Horizon took off, really.

LOL, I do agree about MS raising the price though. Again, I see WHY they did it. If Sony, ABK, Rockstar, and Ubi are doing it, MS games automatically look inferior if they're cheaper, so they had to keep the value up AND push people to GP by value. But the optics couldn't be worse than releasing pure junk right after doing that.

IDK, I do kind of feel bad for them. When I look at where they are and what their path has been I just don't see how they could have done anything differently, they're still digging out from Matricks' damage and in a business that it takes 6 years to make a product, and they were already 2 years out from old products, turn around time from purchase to useful product is no less t han 8-10 years....even buying your way to the top can't work in this market..... And then the governments won't even let them do it. I do kind of feel bad, digging out from last gen is a nightmare. Nintendo had an easier time after wiiu because they had their mountain of studios and IPs. MS didn't even have that, it was no different than Google trying to walk in.

But I do think the catastrophically failed by taking their eyes off hyping what they DO have due to the ABK merger. They lost a lot of what was going for them in that process.

But hey, EU is watching this thinking "If this is the biggest player in cloud's best, they can do whatever"

@NEStalgia Eh, at this point, I don't care. So, long as the keep the auteurs on the payroll and making gems like Pentiment and Psychonauts 2, I'm sure to keep buying stuff from them. I'm surely leaving Game Pass once my sub is up next year, so at that point I'll be out of the clutches of MS and over to Steam full time and I'll just buy the games worth buying.

At this point, I've seriously just been playing my Switch more than anything, since AAA gaming in 2023 is otherwise borked. I've found a need for portability and Metroid Prime Remastered and Fire Emblem: Engage are both just lovely. I've never been a huge Zelda fan, but maybe I'll let the fomo take over and just buy TOTK anyway. Might do a voucher and get Zelda and Pikmin 4. I never played Pikmin 3, but I loved the first two in ye olde days. Isn't that crazy? We can comfortably order two new games from Nintendo and think nothing of it, because the risk factor is pretty stinkin low. What've we gotta do to get a Golden Sun reboot?

@SplooshDmg Yep, basically that. It kinda doesn't matter what AAA games they make, I'll probably hate them. If it funds Pentiment and Psychonauts it's all worth it. That's the real goods the rest is just chum for the whales. I bought XB to be an easy Steam-like box so I'm good with their environment, but that's just it, I bought back into Xbox for the ecosystem/enviornment, not for "the excluuuuuuuusives"

On the other hand I basically stopped playing my Switch last year. I'll pick it up again a lot for Zelda and Pikmin of course, but I just can't see playing anything else on it if I could instead buy it in XB/PS and do remote play. Just more versatile than same price for a cruddy version of something that will be obsolete when Nintendo kills a server.

I don't think you played botw, right? Because that's totally different than Zelda from the SNES onward, it's much more like the first Zelda mixed with Skyrim and No Mans Sky. I expect the same from totk. You do have me half tempted over FE Engage though. Still not over my burnout on SRPGs though. 3DS+Switch has meant a LOT of SRPGs.

Right now I'm simultaneously doing No Man's Sky (VR), + P5R + Pentiment + maybe starting AI Som Nirvana + Ghostwire + Zelda in 2 weeks so.....basically none of it will ever be finished.

@NEStalgia I basically had barely played the Switch, so I pretty much have a stack of 1st party games a mile high. I basically don't buy any game on Switch I don't need to. But yeah, I finished BOTW years ago, I just didn't really love it, love it. I mean, it was fine, but I always go back to Zelda trying to find the magic, and mostly just find a satisfying adventure title. Which isn't really bad. TOTK looks neat enough, and I'm sure I'd finish it if I bought it. I mean, I've played literally every other Zelda from start to finish (except Skyward Sword), even the handheld ones.

I'm absolutely in love with FE: Engage. It's stupid in all the best ways. As you said yourself, no one makes waifus like Nintendo, and Engage has GOT waifus. Toothpaste Chan has even grown on me. The story is kinda plain jane, basic good dragon vs evil dragon nonsense. But it's perfectly serviceable and the gameplay is stellar. I just see it sort of as Fire Emblem's Greatest Hits Vol. 1. It's 100% a spinoff, and none of the liberties they've taken feel bad for what's just a fun detour.

I've been playing Atelier Sophie DX on Steam, and it's pretty good, considering it's a super low budget JRPG from 2015 with a slight glow up. I've just really fallen for Gust's games. They're just so... Quaint. They're truly everything I love about Japanese entertainment.

@SplooshDmg You weren't a WiiU owner right? For me, Switch has been kind of like PS5 has been for PS4 owners. I mean I really LOOOVED the Switch when it launched, but then it had years where all the Nintendo games were just repackages of games I'd already played on WiiU, and then they started digging into Wii. And then the new consoles launched and it felt like I was just paying more to get worse handheld versions of games I could otherwise get on PS (or XB.) Don't get me wrong, I like the switch and upgraded to Swoled, but in 2017 I thought it would be my favorite platform ever but when it became WiiU-2 but with rebuying the whole library it lost steam for me and became an occasional exclusives box. It would be different if remote play weren't good though. I thought for a while XB would become my favorite ever, but I think 3DS is going to remain my favorite machine of all time, which finally supplanted SNES.......unless Switch 2 is amazing, PSVR2 actually has the highest chances of besting it. Sure it's mostly indie titles, but, man, I sit down, put NMS on it, and j ust look out at real-sized actual planets as I sit in my real-sized actual space ship cockpit and.....nothing really beats pushing the real-sized actual throttle forward and seeing the flames of re-entry around real-sized actual you. 2D gaming just seems so.........bland..... For some reason gamers don't actualy want to sit in an actual space ship landing on actual planets all in lifesize, they just want to guide sad dads around a movie set at their own pace.

It's hard for me to imagine a silly FE, I just get into it expecting this dour, serious fantasy thing . Plus I really am burned out on the sloooooow grid based combat. I take like 5 minutes per move analyzing the map in detail. And still lose. I played 3 Houses and don't think I ever even made it to the time jump, I was burned out before I got that far just grinding the repeating side missions.

@NEStalgia I had a Wii U for a pretty short spell. So, I didn't play much of anything on the Wii U, which does make the Switch library a bit more compelling for me. I've still got Tokyo Mirage Session on the burner. But yeah, when it came to Nintendo, I always played the handheld stuff more than the console stuff. Lord, I haven't played Luigi's Mansion 3 yet...

I might get a PSVR2 eventually. I'm definitely interested. If modders get that thing working on PC, I'm 100% in. But really, I like my Switch, I like my PC, I like my PS5. I'd say PC is my favorite, but it really just boils down to what I want to play, when and where I want to play it.

Silly isn't really the word. I mean, it's still a serious plot with a bunch of nations fighting the Fell Dragon. The character designs really do just take some stuff from TMS FE. The characters have very... Idol kind of vibe to them. They aren't just typical high fantasy FE characters, but I absolutely love them.

Yeah, for WiiU owners, 2 or 3 prime years of Switch was nothing but, not even remasters, just re-releases of old games with minor enhancements for full price (or more than full price!) Not to say there's not a ton of actual exclusives, but it, kind of like XB recently, took a lot of wind out of the sales that never quite came back, though Switch kind of remains my "main" system for around half a year, just because I like playing outdoors when I can. If I do the iPad or GCloud though, might get to mix it up more. Did the Surface for a while but the battery life is just not really well suited for that kind of use.

You will freaking love TMS. I mean just absolutely love it, it's Persona but with idol waifus and just pure unfiltered raw cheese beginning to end. If it does not become your favorite game of all time, I'll eat my xbox. The Series S, not the X. Actually no, the One X, I have spares I'm not using.

I'm surprised to hear you might be in on PSVR2! That, honest to goodness might become my favorite ever. It's just....IDK....it spoils you. Even so-so games end up being so amazing. You know how I love yakuza but coming back to it after VR it feels......eh..... everything feels kind of eh after that. Though I like mixing it up because you can get too used to it and life size feels normal and not appreciate how cool it is if you don't give it breaks.

Doubt we'll see it on PC though. I know the guy who did the PSVR1 PC hack said it's ridiculously more complicated and would take a long long time. There will never be tons of games and certainly not big games, but it depends what you find. For you? Dyschronia because waifus in life size... But for me even if VR2 remains nothing but an NMS machine it's worth every penny. That's just such an experience to me. TBH it deflated my Starfield hype even though it's a completely different genre, the setting will just never be as good as in VR even if the engine is pretty dodgy. NMS VR has become for me what Genshin is for you Plus if there's ever a Genshin client for VR, I'm in.