crispy4000

I'll be a contrarian here then. It's rare that individuals are highlighted for their particular contributions to a game outside of general categories in credits. It shouldn't matter if he individually made that grand thing about a game you liked. Longstanding staff getting laid off for cost cutting reasons denigrates the culture and morale of a studio. In general terms, its a bullshit thing to do, and decidedly not funny. The wrinkle here is his DEI complaint saying that factored into him losing his job. That's a more controversial topic. But I don't think it should distract from the basic idea that Activision, of all companies, shouldn't be laying off long time employees because they're more expensive to keep on the payroll.

I'm happy for people who didn't have PCs and Xbox's to play it. But this is still absolutely bonkers to me from a business perspective, for what it implies about future ports. They're struggling to gain ground with their hardware, and Games Pass subscriptions are plateauing on console. It makes no sense to take away more of the reasons why you might buy an Xbox.

That's exactly what happened at Bungie recently. And I don't think anyone found this funny: Bungie fans outraged as beloved Destiny composers and other veteran employees are put out of work | PC Gamer WWW.PCGAMER.COM Composers Michael Salvatori and Michael Sechrist were both let go in yesterday's layoffs, along with numerous other long-time staff. If their contributions are more visible to us, do we care more?

I’m more worried about denuvo and shit breaking games after I install them on a few PCs over my life.

FFXVI, got the last of my ability unlocks. So heading to the final battle or whatever is next.

That's one I was meaning to check it out. I'll have my own take later, but good to know! I'll link your summary it in the first post. For the record, I've been thinking of the ratings scale like this: **** - Will return to ***½ - Would like to return to *** - Could be fun to try again **½ - Functionally fun, not super enticing ** - Quite flawed or bland, with some redeemable qualities *½ - Semblance of fun, but very flawed * - Hot Garbage

The Steam/Epic sales got me a bit this time. After Steam wallet credit, I spent $30 between Nier Automata, Kingdom Hearts III PC and Skywalker Saga. Don't think those games will be getting much lower than that any time soon. Going to bite on the Humble Choice too eventually this month. @stepee was right about it.

Calculated my spending for 2023: $110 on Switch (2 games) $120 on PS5 (4 games) $136 on PC (195 games) Total: $366 I might do a little less this coming year, depending on sales. I'm starting to get to that point where most of the AAA games I'd possibly want from the past generation I own. Well, except Nintendo because their prices suck.

Steam sale is coming to a close soon. I might see what dlc is available for my games, but this could be the first biannual sale I pick up nothing since I started with it. The $12 in credit I’ve got isn’t quite enough to cover most of the SquareEnix games I’d want. Monster Boy & the Cursed Kingdom for $7.50 is tempting, but I’m thinking we’ll see that in a humble bundle or epic giveaway soonish. Guardians could have got me, but as we know, it’s being given away. Is Lego Skywalker Saga worth it? Ahead of picking up Nier Automata or FFXV the next sale? That’s the choice as I see it.

Yeah, it’s surprisingly good. Can definitely see the budget limitations, but I’d love for more remakes of 2D games that play loose with it.

I played much more Switch this year than PS5, plus had a kid, so I probably don’t compare at all. PS5 is played after the rest of the family is asleep, when I’m not too tired myself.

I'll want to finish a bunch of the games I started (or continued with) last year. FFXVI. Tinykin. Castle of Illusion remake. Mario & Rabbids 1. Maybe Luigi's Mansion 2 if I can be bothered to bring the 3DS back out. Going to be a FF heavy start to the year though, especially since I want to make it through FF7 Crisis Core and Intergrade before Rebirth.

I looked a bit more into it, they're using a 2d skeletal animation program then running it through a pixel art filter they developed. Never seen a game that moves quite like it. It's absolutely bonkers.

I really did try to wrap this one up before the end of the year, but probably have another 10 or so hours left. I’m of a different mindset than many of you all about 16, but I’ll say that FF7R was a much more vibrant game in spite of similar flaws in its side quest design. That’s the thing I really hope they reconsider going forward. I don’t want quest markers in Final Fantasy games. It hasn’t dampened my excitement for Rebirth at all. First game I’ve pre-ordered in a decade, for the free DLC for Remake.

I got new speaker setup after slumming it with the sound from my TV, so I have been using that consistently. A Sprout100 and two Elac 6.2 speakers gifted by a parent. I didn't fully appreciate how big a sound upgrade can be before this. Even playing a chiptune game like Blossom Tales the other day, it's made a massive difference.

It's an odd one to me. The side-quests aren't necessarily low effort. They're fully voice acted, often involve minor characters that play a larger role in the main story, fill out the world lore, etc. You only get a couple given out at a time, for the most part. But in totality, I think they bore because the environments aren't that interesting to explore in depth, especially outside of towns. It's not the kind of game where I feel the desire to revisit the pathways I've already walked on for bonus content. Open world games have that advantage where you can take different routes and whatnot. The critical path isn't always amazing, but the highs stand out much more than the lows to me. If you stick mainly to that, and maybe the hunts and '+' marked quests that give tangible upgrades, you should be fine. And I rarely say that about RPGs as a completitionist.

On FFXVI, I'm just about to fire it up again tonight. Nearing the end I think? I got what seemed like the last big sidequest dump.

My only experience with Tales is emulating Phantasia and playing Symphonia on the Gamecube. They're both not bad, I like the light puzzle focus in dungeons Symphonia took.

Glad to hear you've come around to FFXVI then.

They cut the FPS to 30 though. Sounds like the best way to play is modded PS2, which I haven't bothered to touch hearing about the persistent input lag issue in PCSX2.

More than likely I'll just catch up on some of the FF's I missed first. (X and XII most notably)

I've disagreed with both of you about JRPGs before, so I'm at odds with who I should believe. Also wondering about Tales of Abyss. I heard that was another 'good' one? But it's lacking modern ports.

If enjoyed Symphonia (decently enough), should I go to Vesperia or Arise next?

It’s pretty common for Epic to give away stuff from 2 years ago that’s made the rounds on PS+ and Games Pass. I’m not complaining though. I’d take a free copy from Epic over a subscription locked PS+ Essential version. Or time limited access on Games Pass/PS+ Extra. Its one of the best things about EGS giveaways. Many of the games you’d lose access to on console, you now own. Plus PC versions like GotG are preferred.

I’m considering it for Kingdom Hearts III. Console versions have bad framerates, and I don’t think it’s getting cheaper than this if I was to wait for a Steam port that may never come.