The Tuesday letters page suggests a partnership between Nintendo and Rockstar, as a reader is happy about the success of Dragon’s Dogma 2.
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A farewell to handhelds
Sad to know that the 3DS is going offline forever next week. It will probably end up being Nintendo’s last dedicated handheld and while they were right to make the change with the Switch, from a business perspective, I personally regret it.
Portable games were made differently than home console games and there’s now no reason for them to exist. Fire Emblem worked much better as a portable game, in my opinion, and we’d never have got things like Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Professor Layton, Ace Attorney, Theatrhythm, BoxBoy, Pushmo, and all those 2D Kirby games without them being on a handheld.
The 3DS might not have quite as many classics as the DS, because at that point portables were already going out of fashion, but in my opinion it’s a great console with a lot of very unique games. I’ll not only miss it but the whole concept of a console that is only played in the palm of your hand.
Tim Rogers
Before its time
Well, that sounds like a classic Xbox move: your customer support is famously poor, with people complaining about how difficult it is to get hold of a real person. The solution? Even more AI than there already is! Can’t wait to have my refund denied by Metal Mickey or to be told my subscription has run out even though it’s still got six months left on it.
I’m sure AI will be great in five years or so, and probably won’t destroy humanity, but it’s not ready yet. Games companies just can’t stop themselves introducing new tech before it’s ready and it always means people’s opinions get soured on it even when it does end up working properly, years down the line. It’s not been a luddite to say we should wait until it all works properly.
Bsoton
Bad omens
I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer but I will absolutely be surprised if the Silent Hill 2 remake turns out well. Those parts of dialogue from the age rating listing are so bad it’s almost amusing. Maybe it’ll be better in context, with the voice acting, but I have trouble imagining it.
The combat trailer looks terrible and the fact that we’ve seen so little of it is a huge red flag. All these age rating listings must mean it’s out in the next month or two so why haven’t we seen more of it yet? What’s the point in shadow dropping something like this? All those different Silent Hill projects and we’re still yet to get one that isn’t terrible.
Iceman
Show and tell
Over the weekend I finished Princess Peach: Showtime! and wanted to give it a shout out. After finishing the pretty tough (and my current game of the year) Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown I was just looking for a nice chill game that wouldn’t be too taxing and Showtime delivers on that. It really doesn’t offer much of a challenge at all, it’s true. I did find, however, that finding all the stars in each level could be tricky. It was only on the opening floor of levels that I was able to find all the stars in each level without trying.
After I found out that this was made by the same developer who made the two most recent Yoshi games, which I liked more than most, I was maybe expecting a bit more from Showtime, but I can’t deny that I had a good time with it.
The two best things about it for me were the bosses, which provided a bit more challenge and were really fun. The other thing was the music, which had some really good tracks. So, if you’re looking for a light-hearted game that looks lovely or a game for your kids, you could do much worse than Princess Peach: Showtime! Those cake decorating levels can get in the bin though!
Angry_Kurt (Twitter)
Now playing: Lost Judgment (Xbox), Marvel’s Midnight Suns (Steam Deck), and F1 23 (Xbox)
Conditional help
RE: Ishi. Don’t expect 60fps to be guaranteed even on the PS5 Pro.
It could be helpful when the GPU is the bottleneck, but most likely the main bottleneck will end up being the CPU.
Digital Foundry is already saying that if the base game on the basic PlayStation 5 can’t maintain 60fps and is limited to 30fps, then that likely indicates that the CPU will be the bottleneck and the Pro version only has a 10% increase on CPU clocks.
However, in games where it’s hovering between 45-60fps the GPU is the bottle neck, and it can help in those situations.
Kiran
Coming soon
While the world goes to hell in a hand basket I find there’s plenty of interesting stuff coming out, gaming and non-gaming, to keep me occupied.
There’s a book called Vassal State by Angus Hanton, coming out on the 11th, about how Britain sold its soul to corporate America, that I think I’ll pick up. I was just about to order it from Amazon and thought hang on. I’ll get it from WHSmith, then wondered who owned WHSmith.
The Stellar Blade demo was a lot of fun. I’m going to ignore the tedious back-and-forth surrounding the game and if it reviews well will consider a purchase.
The Fallout TV show arrives on Amazon Prime the exact same day as the book that I expect will use Amazon as the prime example for its subject matter. It looks promising though and they’re dropping all episodes at once, I believe, so that’s a Sunday booked for me.
Harold Halibut arrives on the 16th which is an indie I’ve had my eye on for a while, so hopefully that turns out well.
Other things that have perked me up are Balatro selling over a million copies now and Hollow Knight: Silksong getting a wishlist page on the Xbox and PSN store. The Xbox one is new, not sure if the PSN one is. But maybe it’ll see the light of day soon.
Simundo
Dream team
I never really thought about why GTA 5 has never been on GTA 5. I guess you’re right and it’s that GTA Online wouldn’t be on there but I don’t think Red Dead Redemption 1 has its multiplayer options on Switch, so why should GTA?
With the new game coming up it doesn’t really matter but I’d love to see a collaboration between Rockstar and Nintendo in the future. GTA probably isn’t the right thing for it but maybe Nintendo could help them revive Space Station Silicon Valley or something.
Carver
Endless game
It was interesting to read the feature from Brian at the weekend, on how Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is both the best and worst game of the year. It perfectly summarised my own thoughts on the game and saves me writing a feature myself! The remake of Final Fantasy 7 has been the main driving force behind both my original PlayStation 4 purchase and the eventual upgrade to PlayStation 5, and so to say I’ve been waiting for this game is putting it mildly.
The feedback about finishing some parts of the game and then repeating them in another place was accurate; it almost made me not want to play the game from the beginning. Luckily, the parts that are done well are really good. I’ve enjoyed the character interactions, the main story line (I’m in Chapter 13 now and hope to finish tonight) and all the scripted events have been well done. However, the large open areas full of collectibles are not as good. The springs and towers could be removed from the game without losing anything, and maybe even the proto-relic and fiend fights might not be necessary.
I know mini-games were a big part of the original, but I do think there are too many of them in this game, which I have had to learn to deal with. I read a review that perfectly explained how to play this game: take your time, relax, and enjoy it. As soon as I did that, I managed to handle the (almost) endless intel tasks with only minor frustrations while really enjoying the actual story of the game.
I keep hearing this game called open world, but I strongly disagree. Everything happens in order, there are no opportunities to go off and do something different, it’s just some areas are more open/larger than others. This was a feature of Final Fantasy games from the early 90s, so this isn’t something new – the open areas have a few fights and eventually lead to the next key plot point of the story. It isn’t comparable to something like Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, nor do I think it ever should be.
Overall, I’ve really enjoyed it once I managed to ignore the frustrations of the world intel. I’ve actually left a few fights to come back to for when I’ve completed the game. Despite the take it slow approach I’ve avoided all spoilers for the ending and feel that I am struggling to keep doing so, which has led to me jumping on with the final missions.
I am a huge Final Fantasy 7 fan, so it's hard to tell how much of this enjoyment is nostalgia for characters I grew up with. Even the connections to Crisis Core are pretty much essential knowledge for following the main plot. It would be difficult to recommend this game to someone who has never played anything from Final Fantasy 7 before.
Adam W
Inbox also-rans
It’s not a game I have any real interest in (I played the original and didn’t like it much) but glad to hear that Dragon’s Dogma 2 is doing well, as it means more money for Capcom. I don’t want to jinx them but it’s been years since they’ve had a flop now. Now get a started on my Ghosts ‘N Goblins reboot!
Gannet
Apparently Nightdive’s next boomer shooter remaster is PO’ed from the 3DO. Now that is a deep cut. I’ve no idea how they’re going to make their money back on it but good on them.
Futterman
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