Exactly. I think there are legitimate usages for this technology (eg voices for dynamic content, or when the original voice actor is dead or not available to voice again his/her characters). But everything should be done with the consent of the voice actors, and not in an attempt to replace the work that could be done by a voice actor in the first place.

It probably won’t happen, since money leads the way :/.

I love Dark Souls, but Sekiro was very frustrating.

The main issues I have with it is that (I) you have one playstyle (vs. the dozens weapons in Dark Souls), meaning that if you don’t like it, you are stuck, and (II) after a while, you only fight bosses (finding your way to reach a boss was part of the fun in Dark Souls, and this has been dropped after the first half of the game I would say).

The game is also much more difficult, because the parrying system allows your enemies to heal after a while. You have to be very aggressive and master all the patterns, otherwise they heal.

It took me around 50 hours to complete, among which I was stuck 15-20 hours on the final boss. It’s not a bad game, but if the gameplay does not match with your playstyle, it can almost be impossible to complete.

What’s a bit disturbing, is that I loved Sekiro at first. It was very fun for the first 10 hours I would say. I could totally imagine people love Sekiro for those first hours, and gave up before it becomes « annoying » (since we know most people do not complete their games).

It’s more complicated. Apple allows it, but apply a lot of fees so that it is really expensive (and probably not viable). If I remember correctly, you can propose your own store but you have to pay a fee for every download on the store (even for free apps).

I could be interested in Overcooked :).

I think it’s much more difficult to find people to follow. I personally struggle a lot, and will likely either gave up the micro-blogging system or try another platform. It was great on Twitter before Musk bought it, but since I left, I have yet to find an alternative.

I tried to replace Twitter by Mastodon but, in the end, I just left Twitter and don’t use Mastodon at all. The main reason I think is because the « onboarding » is painful. I never succeeded to find interesting people to follow. I faced many ghost accounts from people posting once a month or stopped a few years ago.

If you don’t find people by yourself, no one is going to see your posts and so, you won’t be able to find new people to follow by posting.

I don’t like what Twitter became, but the base principle of the algorithm (before it became X with the paid subscriptions) was working great for me. I was constantly adding new people to the mix, and removing inactive ones every month.

If I struggled this much with Mastodon, I am not surprised many people create an account and leave a few days / weeks later.

I still remember the first time I played it. I was still living with my parents, and they left for a few days. I started the game in the evening, and couldn’t stop until I reach the end of it … in the morning. It’s very uncommon for me to do so (even at the time), but it was so … captivating. I could not stop and go to sleep 😅.

Fair point. I am not interested at all, but I can understand ;).

And then, they will blame the studio when the game fails :/. There is no point to force a studio specialized in single-player games to develop a multiplayer one. And using an existing IP for that is not very effective imo (it reminds me a lot when, during PS360 era, all single player games had an uninteresting multiplayer mode solely to justify the online membership, like Fable 2 or Mass Effect 3). It’s exactly like the last Crash game no one cared about.

It feels like they are buying lottery tickets, hoping a winning ticket will cover all their expenses.

It’s sad, but I think the only way to preserve video games is through piracy and emulation. The companies do not care, states do not care, and most people do not care until it’s too late (and the games are seen as consumables by most people, which imo explains why they are « happy » to buy the same games again and again).

Clair Obscure reminds me a lot Lost Odyssey with its dynamic turn-based gameplay with QTE to alter the outcome. The plot is also quite interesting. Perfect Dark also surprised me. It seems to have Mirror Edge vibes with a bit more infiltration / action phases.

I started a long journey for discovering Dragon Quest (only played to 9 and completed 11). I already finished DQ1 (very nice, simple but interesting nevertheless), and I am now playing DQ2 (and I love it :D).

It’s normal to be skeptical no worries ;). Pokémon TCG is really a thing of its own, and managed by a separate entity within the Pokemon Company.

I could be wrong, but if it was the case, I am wondering why they did not already do it with their new TCG app that was released last year.

I don’t think so. The TCG online has no micro-transactions. You have to buy real packs to get digital packs in the game.

I believe this new game will just be advertisement for the TCG by itself, without the F2P stuff we are used to in other games. Giving people this app for free, and expect to convert some of them into TCG players who will buy real packs.

I loved Lost Odyssey at the time but, at the same time, it’s probably one of worst JRPG I have ever played when you only consider the beginning. The game is so slow to start, and sometimes a bit too difficult (especially because it does not let you grind, which is very annoying at the beginning because you have not many options).

Besides that, It has a lot to share, with a touching story, very interesting reflections about immortality and harsh/intense moments. The gameplay is good as well, proposing its own mechanics and bosses that forces you to use them.

It’s not easy to recommend because it’s one of those games where you have to play many hours to get in.

As long as it remains an option among others, I don’t see any issue with the subscription model. I play video games for 20+ years, and I can say it’s impossible for me at this point to play once again to most of the games I played in the past. A subscription model is the cheapest way to play most games if you do not play it more than once (which is the case for most games, at least for myself).

Even in the rare case where I would like to play again a game I did not buy at the time, between discounts, remake / remaster (or even emulation), and even if I have to buy it 5 years after its release, it will still be worth it compared to the dozens of games I had not bought.

I am much more concerned about DLCs, season pass, bugged games on release and so on. Releasing incomplete or imperfect games (and this also count for BG3) implies that one day, using a physical copy of nowadays in 20 years will be a subpar experience because you won’t have access to any of this content by legal means (assuming Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo shutting down their online services for old generations, which has already happened and will likely happen again in the future). Retrogaming for games released nowadays is kind doomed if you do not follow the piracy route (which is probably the only secure way to keep track of both DLCs and patches in the long run).

I kinda agree. Back in the days, I was waiting for new games. Now, there are dozens of games waiting for me every time I complete one. It seems to be impossible to play everything nowadays even if you only do that. It’s not a big issue for us of course (we just have to accept we cannot play everything, and choose wisely how to use our playing time), but I can see this being an issue for the industry.

I just bought it a few weeks ago, and started playing it again few days ago. As good as I remember so far :).

I had the chance to play it at the time, and since I hadn’t played SM64 yet, this game was even more impressive to me :). I wouldn’t change anything to it, mixing up 3D platformer with mini-games and a moveset that evolved through out the game, combined with an amazing OST and funny dialogs … it was perfect <3.

Only played the original and 0. 0 was pretty good imo, but it was not really what I expected. The plot focus more about AIs than time travel, so that’s another thing to take into account depending on your tastes.