Xbox & Bethesda Showcase

[Zetetic]

I suspect 10 planets will be very detailed, another ~40 will be somewhat sketched-in, and the other 950+ will be auto-rendered nothing-domes with random loot and the Starfield equivalent of mudcrabs randomly spawning all over the shop.

Which would make it more fleshed out than Skyrim in many ways, and perhaps as decent a basis for modding.

[Zetetic]

I've heard Deathloop being a bit of a disappointment to the real Arkane heads across the podcasts as well.  I guess making really good games in quite a niche genre isn't much of a way to keep the lights on.

So they decided to make a ... quite good game in a slightly more niche genre instead?

[Thursday]

I expect Starfield will be good, and I'll get a lot of enjoyment out of it, but I also a get a lot of Fallout 4 crossed with No Man's Sky vibes from it, it's going to have issues that Bethesda games typically have. It's going to make you do a lot of shooting even though it's shooting isn't very good.

[Zetetic]

Quite interested in Pentiment given how much Josh Sawyer seems to adore the period and has (to the best of my understanding) steered away from explicit depictions of it in the past.

(And probably for the best that it looks like it's going to be well away from Darklands in design.)

[Bently Sheds]

I expect Starfield will be good, and I'll get a lot of enjoyment out of it, but I also a get a lot of Fallout 4 crossed with No Man's Sky vibes from it, it's going to have issues that Bethesda games typically have. It's going to make you do a lot of shooting even though it's shooting isn't very good.

As soon as they showed the hand laser mining iron from the landscape and the expensive leather jacket bloke saying "Guess what? You can even fly into space!!" I just rolled my eyes. It's No Man's Fucking Sky with grittier graphics and a story, mate. Bin done. I just hope Hello Games see the customisable space craft and sneak that update out before Starfield releases.

[Fry]

I managed about 15 hours of Fallout 4 and can't say Starfield looks much better tbh.

[Mobius]

Skyrim crossed with No Mans Sky, with more depth and proper missions and stuff sounds pretty good to me. I like NMS but everything in it is surface level.

[FalknerHinton]

The latter. If they're successful it's possible the next big Atlus games could come to the system, and it will also show that Xbox is a viable platform for Japanese games which have previously been confined to Playstation and Nintendo systems.

No way, that's brilliant news, thanks! Now I can spend another 300+ hours of my life pretending to be a magic Japanese schoolchild. Yes, I am aware that this says a lot about me. Shush now.

[bgmnts]

Yeah from eurogamer:

Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal will hit Xbox One, Series X/S, and PC, and will be available on Game Pass.

The launch begins with Persona 5 Royal on 21st October 2022, with the other games following in 2023.

[Pink Gregory]

Years ago I would have been quite interested, but I am entirely sure that I haven't the time in my life for a Persona.  A couple of Yakuzas a year is about my limit, and those are action games.

Wondering if I might get round to Danganronpa.  On the Switch maybe.

[Thursday]

Only played original P5 not royal, so it being on gamepass is tempting, but yeah time is a bigger issue than money really.

Similar issue with P3Portable as I was curious to play through that with the female protagonist option, but then that's easily been possible for a while with roms.

Had also been hoping for some kind of definitive version that combines FES and P3P, but I guess that's never happening as there'd been a few issues with it.

Playing a 100 hour game again for the 10% of new content is an issue. Will see how I feel when they come out.

[oggyraiding]

Royal is a great game, and feels distinct enough from vanilla to be potentially worth the time investment, but my main gripe is they didn't fix the shit pacing. I don't think I've played a game that goes back and forth from compelling and enjoyable, to boring shit, quite so violently. Morgana, I appreciate I had a 30 second conversation about the current palace this afternoon, but this does not mean I should go straight to bed instead of doing something actually fun or useful in the evening.

[Zetetic]

Quite interested in Pentiment given how much Josh Sawyer seems to adore the period and has (to the best of my understanding) steered away from explicit depictions of it in the past.

(And probably for the best that it looks like it's going to be well away from Darklands in design.)

Josh says "Pentiment plays much more like Night in the Woods, Oxenfree, or Mutazione with light RPG elements and a branching narrative."

[The Crumb]

Starfield looked a bit depressing to me. Totally nuts and bolts fine (except the godawful weapon designs), but the dullest possible vision of life in space.

[Thursday]

Royal is a great game, and feels distinct enough from vanilla to be potentially worth the time investment, but my main gripe is they didn't fix the shit pacing. I don't think I've played a game that goes back and forth from compelling and enjoyable, to boring shit, quite so violently. Morgana, I appreciate I had a 30 second conversation about the current palace this afternoon, but this does not mean I should go straight to bed instead of doing something actually fun or useful in the evening.

The thing is this kind of mechanic was always there in the other games, it's just your character would internally decide what to do rather than some arsehole cat.

It's a bit annoying either way though, as it's essentially a kind of level-gaiting stopping you from being able to boost certain stats too quickly until they've decided it's okay.

[Dickie_Anders]

Persona 5 seemed quite good when you actually got to play it. But you spend so long watching the mind-numbingly bad cutscenes that it just didn't seem worth it. Think I quit before I got to the second dungeon

Do the earlier ones let you play a bit more or are they all this bad?

[oggyraiding]

The "new" style Personas of 3, 4, and 5 are all pretty similar in that you've probably got at least 50% of your time in cutscenes, though that can change if you're doing more grinding in dungeons than levelling up social links and the like. The ones before that don't have the life sim mechanics so might be more up your street.

[Dickie_Anders]

I actually quite liked the parts where you could freely go about the city/school and choose to do different things. I didn't mind the cutscenes there, because I had some agency, and I liked how you could open up different paths in the game's story. It's just the long long stretches where all I'm doing is pressing x through dialogue that wore me down

[Thursday]

5 is probably the worse for it, but it'll be the same for all of them. Sounds like it's not for you.