crispy4000

Kinda? They had things to criticize, but no cohesive argument about what a game's 'soul' is and why this lacks it. Which is what that criticism invites. It's still not a good sign. These reviews in general remind me of Yooka-Laylee's. Reviewers had a hard time pinpointing what made it worse than Banjo, so they often resorted to that line to get the point across. Or the even lazier criticism of 3d platformers never being that good to begin with.

The RPGamer one I read first basically said that its fine? … but had no soul.

Man the reviews on this have been so harsh. I'm not the biggest fan of this series, only having played a bit of the first. But still, I hope its still an enjoyable time.

The final battle gauntlet you unlock in the Gold Saucer is absurd. Definitely an endgame activity. And here I was thinking I'd 100% all the quests before the end.

Taking my sweet time sidequesting in Chapter 12. Deciding whether I want to do all the hard mode stuff in the Gold Saucer, but I'll do the chocobo racing questline as a minimum.

Devs and publishers would generally value PC and Switch ports ahead of Series consoles. Larger install bases, and there's still very much a culture of buying all the things there. Plus Microsoft is known to pay for ports to happen to sustain Games Pass. Perhaps that doesn't help the little guy as much now with the supposed low-balling, but the Segas of the world are probably loving it.

78 same as last time.

I'll buy 1-3 new games each year. Basically, the stuff I couldn't wait to play that likely wouldn't drop relatively fast after release. From there, it's a spiral of what I'm willing to pay vs what I have in my backlog. If it's easy enough to wait for a price cut from $70 to $40, how much easier would it be waiting to $30, $20, $10? $5 used to be my lower threshold, but few AAA games get there anymore outside of some crazy limited deals I look out for (ie: got Tales of Arise and Gears 5 for that). Being in Humble Choice has become my lower barometer, since that’s $12 or less. But there are some rare games I'd spring for at $20-30 around Black Friday. Stuff like Returnal and Jedi Survivor. I would say more Nintendo games, but they’re too stingy nowadays. Indie games I buy more of, but almost exclusively within bundles or with acquired credit.

Also ToTK and all the building shenanigans.

Lisa Definitive Edition and Industria on EGS next week

Pabst Blue Ribbon and e-cig skins next.

Depends, I’d say. There’s certainly genres I don’t have much experience with to properly judge, like sim racing, modern sports games, F2P multiplayer, card battlers, 4x strategy, etc. There is value in hearing about games from the perspective of someone who is more inundated in a particular genre than you. Even in genres I love like Metroidvanias, there’s some youtubers who are voracious consumers of them. I think this list is interesting, from someone who makes map guides for them, even though I disagree with some of it: https://www.demajen.co.uk/tierlist.html It gives me a general list of some ones to watch out for on sales or not ignore in my backlog.

In fairness, I think those left still do pull together good reviews. ‘Talent’ applies more to the on air personality end of things.

Plenty going back to good old Mecha Hitler in Wolfenstein 3D. But I'll post an obvious one from a game high on the list:

Did the same, but got another 4 games because why not for $3.