Random

[garrlker]

Probably bought it with all of that banner money

[Jack]

Happy new year!

[KHg8m3r]

Anyone else pick up a copy of Legends Arceus? The core gameplay loop hasn't been this fun in a long time

[Shonumi]

Between Sw&Sh and BD/SP, I'm kinda burnt out on giving Game Freak the benefit of the doubt, which is a shame because apparently people like Legends Arceus for good reasons. I just can't right now, not with so many other games to finish, not the least of which includes New Pokemon Snap. I'll probably check it out later, some time within this decade. Maybe before the inevitable price jump in second-hand copies when kids start getting nostalgic for their childhood Switch games (same thing happened recently to everything up until the 3DS era over the past year for Nintendo handhelds, it'll happen in the future no doubt).

For now, all I'll say is... oof, those graphics. Like, I can deal with not having shiny, sparkly polygons in 4K with ray-tracing and HDR. I still actively enjoy the PS1 and N64 games with blurry textures and models about as detailed as origami, and that ever present fog. However, I can't stand the overall art style/direction here. It's... bland. And flat. I have played a bit of Legends Arceus through TwitchPlaysPokemon, and I can't say I'm impressed. You can have a strong art direction without making a game look dull. Graphics aren't everything, but they count for something.

[KHg8m3r]

The beginning (hand-holding and explaining what a Pokemon is gets a little annoying) is a little rough, but the rest of the story is great and deals with more mature topics than previous games in the series.

But yeah the graphics can be rough, especially on the far out draw-distance objects, the grass and water tiling effects are painful at distance. The close-in shots and the main city look pretty good overall, and the battles (if you're not looking at far away objects) look great in the various lighting conditions (dusk/dawn are particularly good). You can feel that they had a hard deadline to meet and had to make choices about where they were going to put their effort. Game Freak should have addressed that issue when SW&SH were criticized for graphics issues by getting more staff or something to prevent that from happening again.

[DrHouse64]

I was in the same spirit, after Sw&Sh and D&P, I kinda lost hopes for Pkmn series. Plus the very first Legends Arceus trailer gave me a very, very bad first impression, I didn't plan to buy it at first. But, after reading reviews and viewing live streams, I changed my mind, and now I have fun playing it. It's still just a "okay" game like other Pkmn games, but at least this time it's -different-.

[Shonumi]

Speaking on new games, Horizon Forbidden West launches in a few days. I've been waiting a loooong time for this one. Really excited to play this based on the videos I've watched. Seems like it's improved on the original, which I considered a masterpiece at the time.

This game seems to be an absolute juggernaut in terms of graphic fidelity of the PS5. I'll be enjoying it on the base PS4 though, and probably again on PC when it eventually releases there (it will, it must!). Even though there's a lot of stuff downgraded to run on the original PS4, seems like Guerilla did a great job optimizing performance and quality. It looks better than the original. Friday can't come soon enough

[KHg8m3r]

I know preorders are bad, but I love steelbooks. Plus I have Monday off, so it'll be a good weekend with Forbidden West.

[Shonumi]

I remember, when I first bought HZD, I played it like 6 hours straight, with only a brief lunch break. I hadn't done that kind of marathon gaming since I was a kid (although the same thing happened when I got BotW later). I can definitely see that happening again this weekend. Multiple times even.

[MayImilae]

My steelbook of Forbidden West is on the way! But I'll only be getting to it after I finish Pokemon Legends. I'm really adoring the new direction pokemon is going. Sword and Shield was by far my favourite pokemon game, and that is quickly being replaced by Legends. It's reeaaally fun! It's not perfect, obviously, but just the mechanics of catching em all has dramatically improved. Comparing Legends to Ultra Moon is just, holy fudge the contrast. That game was so terribly boring for me. But Sword and Shield and now Legends are fantastic!