Since the start of the PS4/Xone generation, everything has been… diminishing graphically. Red Dead 2 on the base PS4 doesn’t look a generation behind Silent Hill 2 on the PS5 Pro in its quality mode (at 30fps), for example. Halo 5 on the Xbox One still holds up as well. The biggest leaps have been in TV tech (4K, HDR, 120hz and VRR becoming widely available) in conjunction with the consoles offering the tech bells and whistles which take advantage of the aforementioned tv tech.
On a personal note one of the most head scratching and egregious untruths repeated online is about Elden Ring, i.e. people claiming its best version is the PS4 version running on the PS5 in order to get a locked 60fps. How about no? Play the game on the Series X on a VRR capable 120hz display and I guarantee you that performance mode is going to be pretty much smooth across the board.
That’s just one small example why for me, ‘upgraded consoles’ are so totally pointless this gen.
You got to give credit to Xbox Team when they couldn’t optimize old games because stuff like this happens. The fact they had to see it manually and not AI tells you the commitment.
The lazy dev hysteria is taking over on many PS fanboy hangouts, from PushSquare to IGN and social media.
As far as I’m aware, Sony aren’t paying these developers to go back and create Pro patches for games they’ve already made, so blaming the devs for not having much time to create it / test it feels shitty - in reality they’re lucky they’re getting any Pro upgrades at all outside first party.
It’s the same people that criticised the Series S as causing more work for developers without additional recompense, but that’s exactly what Sony are doing now to developers and suddenly they’re no longer on the devs’ side.
Fucking hypocrites as usual lol…
As I said earlier, they should be criticising Sony for not having a Pro certification process - make it that to say your game is Pro-enhanced you have to pass a testing process by PlayStation themselves.
Sony’s games are usually first and foremost about the story/characters that the respective studio wants to tell. I get it that the story and conclusion will be the same for every player but that’s what they’re meant to be and personally, I prefer this setup over choice and consequences because majority of the time, the consequences don’t exactly exist, do nothing or get forgotten in the sequel because developers wanted to go a certain way which may not be the way most people played the game.
I get a game like say Baldur’s Gate 3 where there’s a billion different decisions, paths, choices, etc. to make and play out to where no two people will have the same exact playthrough but that’s not what Sony’s RPG’s are which are more like AC Origins where there’s RPG elements but it’s not a hardcore RPG with choices and consequences. It’s scripted and choreographed to where everyone will have the same experience with the story and characters.
My point is that I don’t know why anyone would look or expect a Baldur’s Gate 3 style RPG in Sony’s action RPG games when we all know that’s not what they are or meant to be.
Choices and consequences are great and all but I don’t want every RPG (or every game in general) to be like that. First, im not going to replay these games just to see what other choices/decisions do in the game when I can just YouTube it all instead and second, I prefer games to be a one and done, tell me the story that you wrote and want to tell with excellent gameplay and combat so I enjoy playing it while im getting the story they want to tell me along the way.
Again, I think that those who have the same issues as you do aren’t having issues with the games themselves but are more in the camp of expecting choices and consequences when their games don’t do that. In other words, I see this as a “you” and others issue as opposed to the games themselves because you’re expecting one thing out of their games despite the fact that they never tell you that there are choices and consequences because they know there aren’t any in the game because that’s not what the game is.
It’s like me with a game like Alan Wake 2. I found it slow and boring as fuck but that’s what the game is meant to be. It’s not on the game, it’s on me because I was expecting it to be more RE like and it’s simply not.
People are complaining about Sony’s games being “scripted” yet that’s what they’ve always been and have never said otherwise so I don’t know why you or anyone else playing a Sony type game would be expecting an Obsidian/Bethesda/Larian style RPG.
I agree with this part completely but there’s already so many studios that are doing RPG’s with choices and consequences and to be honest, I don’t want Sony’s games going down this route because that’s not what they’re meant to be and trying to force them to do something that they’re not equipped to do (like live service) is only going to backfire in my opinion.
I started playing Death Stranding on Series X and it looks gorgeous - simple in some ways in terms of lighting and effects but above all CRISP and SHARP.
Compare to like, Immortals of Aveum or something, that has ray tracing! and UE5 features! and crazy effects going off everywhere! wow! but the screen looks like a blurry, smeared mess. I don’t like the way things are going.
I think my biggest issue with Ghost of Tsushima is they make it sound at the start like it’ll be your actions, whether you take the samurai or stealth approach, that will decide Jin’s fate and whether he’ll be a Lord who led a guerilla campaign with honour or a man without honour who poisons enemies with zero regard for the consequences or how that’ll impact those around him.
If you’re going to take all the decisions away from me, be up front about it and make clear I’ve got fuck all say in it - I’d been trying to play honourably and didn’t follow the poison side quests further so it was a complete shock and completely at odds with how the character was portrayed.
It’s either piss poor storytelling or it’s taking agency away from me - either way it was jarring and felt like Sucker Punch didn’t understand honour / duty based societies - a samurai being stealthy and using his advantage would be fine, but to commit such acts as the Ghost did (particularly that one) would be seen as bringing dishonour to the whole nation and lead to huge issues with or without the Mongols gone.
It’s just such a cop out - they had the story they wanted to tell, yes, but either set it somewhere where honour (and a willingness to die before dishonour) is less important or give me signs that my character is a sociopath so I’m not ashamed of his behaviour and agreeing with others than he deserves death…
At the very least, I was hoping for a redemption arc (even if it was in a Ghost 2) - instead it ends horribly, there’s no redeeming him in a country where honour comes before all else and I’m too disgusted by his behaviour to want to play him without some way of becoming a better person again.
It’s similar in approach to a few other stories they’ve done too - they often push individuals over the common good (maybe a US thing?! I know humans are selfish but it feels like their devs just don’t understand societies where there’s a feeling of sacrificing for others?) particularly in Ghost and The Last of Us, Spider Man comes the closest to feeling more relatable but that’s more based on the comic’s narrative…
Give me choice or just make a movie if it and I’ll watch that instead - feels a bit pointless playing it given I’ve no input on it…
Okay but it’s not that your choices would matter, it’s simply how Jin will be judged when the time comes based on if you took more of a samurai or stealth approach but it doesn’t actually change anything during your playthrough. Your Uncle and others react throughout the game based on how you’re playing but outside of the decision you make towards the end, playing either way doesn’t truly affect anything.
When I played through the game, I never felt like I had to make choices or anything. I played the way that I wanted. It’s not like say Obsidian with Avowed that showcased a gameplay trailer with a choice and consequence. There was nothing like this ever shown in Tsushima because it’s not what the game is and a cut scene early on doesn’t change that.
However, I understand your point of view where you feel misled and whatnot but after a few hours, you probably should have known that what you were expecting wasn’t in the game and that it was more about how everyone would see Jin afterwards as opposed to during the game.
The Last of Us makes sense though because if I was Joel, I wouldn’t sacrifice Ellie either because there’s no guarantee that her sacrifice would change anything for the better plus he obviously sees Ellie as a daughter type so I can understand the game going in that direction.
Overall, I would say that you should either A) don’t play Sony’s games as they don’t seem to be for you or B) do more research before playing them so you know exactly what the game is and don’t feel like you’re being misled if/when you do actually play them.
I enjoyed GoT, but my only real complaint is that they relied too heavily on the “Hey, let’s follow these tracks to the bad guys” game mechanic. Every time it happened I would groan and say “again?!”.
The structure of most Sony games are why I don’t like many of the modern first party output. Story is absolutely subjective, but there are no arguments to be made that plenty of Sony’s game design ethos are still stuck in the 90s.
I never said that Sony’s games don’t have issues because they do but expecting choice and consequences in a Sony game is like me expecting Alan Wake 2 to be more action based like Resident Evil. It’s not on the game. It’s on the person not researching the game enough to know exactly what it is as opposed to what they want or expect it to be.
Lol the thing is Ghost was sold as being an open world game more like AC or RPGs rather than the usual Sony fayre - and I didn’t want too many spoilers.
It was just incredibly annoying after devoting so long to the game after it had seemingly offered options prior to and after that - there’s the final showdown fate decision, decisions on how you attack places etc where it felt like a game that was respecting your decisions - and as you say, conversations in it appeared to change based on what you did.
So to find out so late on it was a scam was annoying as feck - at least Spider Man I know it’s based on a certain story so can’t deviate much, but I like playing a “hero” character and at times it feels Sony games nowadays go too far into the “anti-hero” approach which they never used to.
Even a game where you played as a criminal (The Getaway) you were actually good - but in this never ending quest to be more like films they seem to be chasing the same trends.
I get frustrated by some TV and film now for similar clichés - not every protagonist needs to have a drink or drugs problem, be unfaithful or have done something unforgivable, where’s the bloody normal people who make rational choices in any of it anymore lol?
Hence why yes I’ll be giving most Sony games a wide berth in future - I’ve not played SM2 yet as they doubled down on least favourite part (the set pieces) and I’m really doubting I’ll play Yotei despite actually enjoying the gameplay of Ghost.
Who knows, maybe in Yotei as they won’t start with a samurai they’ll actually allow them to respond like a human rather than a sociopath - for example a defenceless young family I’d not judge at all for using poison but a battle-hardened samurai who’s been fighting and defeating hundreds at a time I do…
I don’t expect to have to look online at spoilers to find out a story is going to end up being shite after seeming like it’d be good lol
Edit: And the reviews wouldn’t help either - such a character flaw / jump would be highlighted heavily in Xbox reviews but all the Ghost reviews there’s crickets about what seems a glaringly obvious jarring moment
Flashbacks lol - the amount of times the tracks were too far apart (and not easy to see if you struggle a little) and I’d just be lost till it got pissy with me and told me to return to the area lol, I’d have to repeatedly try different ways till it didn’t get annoyed…
Yeah, it definitely sucks playing the game thinking your choices matter but in the end, don’t actually affect anything.
Sony’s games definitely are more anti-hero but for me, I don’t mind that because how many games can I play where im always the good guy? It does get boring after a while of always being the good guy/savior.
The main reason why games, movies and TV shows have a character who has issues is because that’s what makes it entertaining. If every character was a normal boring person, the shows would suck and no one would watch.
Spider Man 2 definitely has more set pieces to it but it’s still an excellent game for the most part. It’s simply more Spider Man.
I watched every trailer and the State of Play focused on Tsushima. I never once felt like the game was ever going to have any type of choice and consequence system to it. At most, your Uncle will either be happy or pissed off with Jin. lol
This is one of the few times we’re on the same page, lol. These are pretty straight forward narrative driven open world action games, it doesn’t need choice and consequence.
I’m more bothered by games that should have it (like western RPGs) but don’t do it well lol.
I like Nintendo’s motto when it comes to game development. Use old technology in new and optimized ways. I imagine if this was AAA platformers and publishers approach, we could’ve had obviously more powerful/fast hardware, but not by much, and more built upon last-gen, and I predict we would’ve been in a better state of game development.
I liked GoT, but what I understand from that criticism about lack of player agency in the form of interactive dynamic systems, it is true. Not that it’s necessary to make a good game, just that maybe relative to something like Far Cry, GoT is less dynamic.
See considering how much focus they put on how your uncle raised you, instilled in you a strict honour code and was hoping to adopt you and make you Lord of Tsushima then it very much felt like the right path and one a war criminal wouldn’t be birthed from.
If he’d started using poison straight after the beach it would have been less jarring - he’s traumatised and not thinking straight.
But at the point the entire might of Japan is on the island, his uncle and the Shogun’s people are watching and clearly things are going their way, he suddenly becomes a crazed killer who is blinded by rage.
I’ll give Sucker Punch their due for showing the consequences with poison used on civilians afterwards, but it was obvious to anyone with a brain it would destroy everything and completely fuck up his family, his country and their honour-bound society.
It felt to ne like they were completely forgetting how important honour was in that society, and all the marketing (and the simpering reviewers) highlighted how faithful and reverent it was.
Horseshit - it was just poor writing to give them the sad ending they wanted, because apparently happy endings (or at least not completely desolate ones) aren’t cool anymore (and pretty much banned in the Sony world lol)
