Actually, nowadays it’s very soloable: you can experience all of the story by yourself thanks to the Trust system. I only recently tried it, and control scheme wasn’t as bad as I expected (but you do need some patience). From what I gather you don’t really need to learn about macros and gear swapping mid fight in order to clear story content.

free trial players can be friend-requested and party-invited from non-trial players :)

I haven’t played Dawntrail yet, but I have to admit that I felt something was troubling the game even in earlier expansions: as I finished both ShB and EW I couldn’t help but be left with a state of “oh, tome grinding… again… in the same exact way as all the other expansions”. No one seemed to care, however, so I thought it was my problem. And it’s a big shame, because I expected differently from Dawntrail: from what I heard, it feels more like the character going on a vacation than anything, with really just the same gameplay loop.

Another thing I was expecting from Dawntrail, apart from big gameplay changes, is to redefine the story more significantly: FFXIV up to Endwalker was a great story, but sometimes I couldn’t help it but feel like I didn’t want to be so central to everything: it’s great when MMOs make you feel like “a hero from the sidelines” because there’s less immersion breaking (and FFXI did this succesfully, if I recall). I think writers really dug themselves in too deep of a hole:

From what I hear - reason I haven’t played it yet - is that Dawntrail is fram from such expectations. I agree that once you try FFXIV’s legacy controls you can’t go back. Same thing goes for gamepad optimization.

Sounds pretty similar to what happened to the PSVita. Sony tought that there was no reason to support a portable console anymore. Pretty funny, now that we have seen the absolute boom of the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck.

To be fair:

• it got a remaster; a remake is usually something that recreates the game from scratch.
• DMC1 did not age that well in terms of gameplay, imo, as much as DMC3 did; it’s a little stiffy! But it is true that it still plays much better than many PS2 games.

I second this. A second hand 64gb deck is probably under 300€ if you are a bit patient and search local online used markets, while a new nvidia shield pro is around 220€.

Pretty much supports most controllers OOB, is literally a console that you can play less demanding games on, has a high resell value if you don’t dig it!

Most PC games nowadays do not have physical releases.

I actually just bought a second hand Lift, waiting for it to arrive. My hands are medium sized and I always used a modest size mouse, the Logitech G305, with ease.

Check official specs on the Logitech website, not Amazon: that sometimes weights the whole package, sometimes it doesn’t. The Lift is supposed to be lighter and smaller than the MX!

It’s absurdtpo me how basically no racing game company realizes that one of the key points to have your game be fun is to have some kind of progress. Contemporary racing games literally just throw cars at you in hope to make it fun by constantly giving you new toys.

I get that this is a thing that sells to the masses who /want/ those shiny new toys, but man. Imagine if a big studio actually took the time to improve on the vintage NFS progression formula :(

aaah sorry my bad, I guess I misunderstood

I’m sorry but it is definitely nowhere as close as the kind of harassment women receive. They have to deal with insults based on their gender, sexual harassment, digital stalking outside of games, etc

Persona’s combat system, if tweaked correctly can be a tremendous strength: there’s a chance to have a great turn-based system in which elements play the role of the main “puzzle” to strategize over with both your demons and your party cast. I agree that Persona 5 had very little strategy in it, let’s hope for future entries to be better.

I wonder what kind of battle system the new Atlus JRPG will have

fyi: SMT and Persona based their combat system on weak points way earlier than P5. I’m not saying it is immune to criticism, but it’s a series standard by now

A good chunk of comments have spoilers, so if you read this first beware. I guess people like to brag about game knowledge more than they like having other people experiencing stuff.

The Final Fantasy series has many loved entries in which recurring characters, archetypes and items make a looping comeback. It is very fun to see how different those elements are handled in different entries. They just need to step back and realize not every FF needs to be a game that pushes its platform to its hardware limit. That may have worked well for them up to the PS2 era, but it’s not a thing anymore. You don’t need extreme ultra realistic eye twitching for your game to be grandiose.

To be fair, emulation and patching is even improving on late 90s to early 10s console games. Sure, you can’t evade hardware limitations, but having, for example, ps2 games not slowing down on a CRT with weird motion blur and giving you a big headache makes for an already much more compelling experience.

Right now square enix has a very loved cast: by giving us a strong narration they could keep things very interesting even if the storyline is not as grandiose as previous entries. Sadly being the WoL truly makes it feel like I am too much of a main character in a world in which I’d rather not be one, idk if that makes sense

fellers never heard of a mmorpg

Thank you! Pretty much everything suggested, I’ve added; I knew about CrossCode, yet completely forgot about it.

Thank you! Indeed, Trails in the Sky has been on my backlog for a while and for good reason, from what I hear. I remember looking at screenshots for the subsequent series like Trails of Cold Steel and generally it was a turnoff starting from the art/design direction.

In this regard, I think that Persona 5’s success in recent years is both a blessing and a curse: blessing, because it showed how JRPGs don’t have to be action oriented to be beautiful; curse because Atlus surely realized, already back with Persona 4, that the high school setting somehow seemed successful, thus somehow suggesting to the industry that it is a good model to follow.

Oh, I just looked at a wiki for the upcoming game (already out in JP) Trails Through Daybreak and it seems like the cast is at least balanced between teenagers and adults! I’m more than okay with this if written nicely and without creepy/disturbing tropes.

This! I mean, if we take a well-known and loved example, Goku is 18 by the time the first Dragon Ball series ends up, while being around 23 at the start of Dragon Ball Z. Also, I don’t think it’s bad to have a teenager as the main character once in a while, but we have to admit that it happens a little too often and in dubious way in japanese media in general. That’s because this whole thing sadly has a market, and it’s ever-expanding too, as @[email protected] said.

Fair question! After I grew up to around 21/22 years old, I felt like I had a harder time resonating with young teens in JRPGs: coming of age stories can be a bit… dull at times, it’s common in JRPGs to take someone quite immature and make them grow up as they save the world; more often than not there’s also either awkward/creepy tropes in many of those that make the game and the characters much less appealing or straight up uncomfortable to me.

I guess I would genuinely prefer to spend my time on media starring adults while still remaining in the genre of JRPGs.

Yeah, 3 is moody but I think that makes for more meaningful social links sometimes. Tbh they are all different enough and imo this is why they’re all decent

This. It even has a built-in CRT filter if you’re into that. You can definitely feel the inspiration from Silent Hill/Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Dead Space, and even some Evangelion in its artistic direction.

All the numbered personas are independent from each other. There are some games that are basically fan-servicey crossovers (Persona 4 Arena, Persona Q), so I recommend starting with either 3(Portable), 4(Golden) or 5(Royal). You can pick just one and go!

Depending on how you’re feeling:

• Persona 3 has an amazing moody vibe to it: I’m sadly afraid it’ll be a little toned down in the remake in favor of something more akin to P5. It can be grindy, but you can play it on easy if you can’t be bothered. Maybe it’s because it’s the first one I played, but I still deem it my absolute favorite of the tree.
• Persona 4 is something of an in-between, but a banger nonetheless. It’s a game in which the usually upbeat soundtrack is placed in direct contrast to a mysterious foggy countryside town.
• Persona 5 is, in terms of gameplay and fluidity, the absolute best. I highly suggest you NOT to start here simply because after you get used to the gameplay of P5, dealing with P3/P4 will be slightly harder imo; those are still highly relevant to play nonetheless: they all have very different stories, very different characters, some may be for you while others may be not. For me, P5’s story tried to be so grand that it failed in delivering the same “personal connection” that the player could feel with P3/P4. Or maybe I grew out of highschool settings by the time P5 came around, who knows.