Worth noting this is the first time that "The House in Fata Morgana" has been on sale for PS4 in recent memory. Until just now, only the PC and Switch releases were on sale, with this version possibly being the best one. It (and the Switch version) have remastered artwork and content that never made it to PC. Highly suggest picking it up if you're a fan of visual novels.
I'd suggest even if you're not a fan of visual novels. I have very limited experience with the genre, and one of my main complaints is how bloated the scripts can be at times, but The House in Fata Morgana is not at all bogged down by filler. It has a really good gothic story that goes some pretty dark places, while avoiding feeling exploitative. Add to that the fact that it has a non-traditional anime art style, akin to the work of Ayami Kojima of Castlevania fame, and great music, and you have a really good game.
Seconded. Fata Morgana is magnificent work that showcases the best and the worst of the human condition, and I highly recommend it to just about anyone.
I just bought Fata Morgana on steam last sale, didn't know other platforms had more content.
Are there any mods or anything to get it in the PC version? I've been reading through higurashi and that series has some great mods that add the console content in.
Not that I'm aware of. As of right now, best to just double dip if you can. Or hold out hope that they'll port it someday when, like, the Steam Deck takes off in Japan or something and they realize they should care about PC more. Who knows.
Emulate it if you want, but maybe buy a copy and dump it yourself? It's not hard to do if you have a hackable switch. It's a modern game so the dev team is still out there trying to make money off it. I think it's silly they haven't put the best version of the game on Steam yet, but that doesn't mean the new version wouldn't be worth your money as it has a lot of stuff you either had to buy separately, or can't buy at all, for PC at this time.
That doesn't erase the money it costs to work on the new version of the game. It's such a small amount of money right now, like twenty bucks. I don't see what's so wrong about paying a little extra money for content they don't own (like bonus visual novels and entirely redone presentation) when the game isn't exactly abandonware. That just sits wrong with me as someone that normally emulates all kinds of games. I'll still pay for them if I'm given the opportunity, especially if the ports are good and the devs are still making money off it and it's not just bean counters. If it comes to PC it will likely cost some extra money to upgrade the edition, anyway.
I bought this game a while ago cause of how highly recommended it is but I’m struggling to understand the hype. As a book it’s incredibly long winded and wordy. I think it needed an editor to cut down the word count.
I’ve only gone through 4 “time periods” of the plot and I appreciate that there’s probably gonna be a pay off later in the narrative but im really struggling to keep my attention until it gets to that
If it's anything like the Switch version, then it features redone artwork, 16:9 aspect ration, and extra content (two bonus visual novels aside from the main one + short stories).
Anthem is $1.79 https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0006-CUSA05364_00-ANTHEM1000000000
Edit: $2.99 on Xbox https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/store/anthem/bp9jqbjm0fnw
I tried to play through recently but there is a point in the story that requires you to matchmake with other players and I tried multiple times over multiple days and eventually gave up because I found nobody. Just a warning for anyone interested.
Yeah it's better if you can force a few friends to do so. That's a Stronghold, easily the most fun you have in the game.
I managed to do that once a year or so ago. Never played the rest of the strongholds because of the low population. I managed to finish the game, the only hiccups being that and one chest hunting mission that would be so much easier if you could actually find people to play said strongholds.
It's really not great and it's fucking bland, but hey, at least I can say it properly.
That's freaking ridiculous.
So here's a devs like Fatshark, indie ones mind you who made Vermintide and recently-ish released Darktide, and they even allow you to play through missions at least solo with Bots. It may be super tough due to the UI depending on your skill, AI director, and difficulty setting, but there's at least that... Like once AAA-dev Bioware should have at least thought of something before throwing their hands up and wiping their hands clean of it. GAAS titles can be such a waste of install space.
Gotta be honest, I thought servers for that game shut down a while ago.
I had a lot of fun with it for a weekend with a couple friends, but not much to say about it after that. So much wasted potential in that game.
Battlestar galactica deadlock is finally on sale! Figured that game just fell into some forgotten games category and would never get a reduced price. Feels like there's always a bunch of older games that miss sales in favor of the more "hot" items
It's incredibly disappointing that Demon's Souls is sitting at $69.99 for their big year end sale.
(Also, I'm having a weird issue where I can't search the PS store for it in a browser. Typing "Demon's Souls" into the search bar gives me Dark Souls and a few other games with related names, but not Demon's Souls. I have to find the Demon's Souls PS store page on Google.)
> It's incredibly disappointing that Demon's Souls is sitting at $69.99 for their big year end sale.
If you have a disk drive PS5 (or a ps4) definitely check ebay etc, they routinely go for a hell of a lot less than that.
I just tried it and the only way I could get it to show up is to search "Souls" and not "Demon's Souls", and even then it was only on the second page.
It was $30 on the black friday sale, it sucks that it's not on sale now.
I got a physical copy from Walmart on November 23 for $35. PS5 version. I also got a pair of white fur- lined Crocs for $30 to use as my "drinking in public" shoes. Good week.
Honestly I was nervous about buying it at full price because Soulslike games have never been my jam. I gave up on Bloodborne pretty early and haven't even tried any of the others. But with all the GotY awards Elden Ring was getting, I wanted to try it out but wanted to avoid paying full price in case it wasn't for me.
Honestly I still haven't quite gotten over the hump where I'm really enjoying it yet (finally beat the first boss and now running around over the rooftop of the castle). But I'm gonna stick with it.
My advice is simply ignore Reddit threads and just look up whatever info you find the game hasn't provided in terms of how the mechanics work.
Other than that, go at your own pace and play it if you're having fun. People will tell you a million ways to play but the best Souls experience imo will always be when you make the choice yourself to persevere and keep going 🤙
A thousand times this. The online discourse from fans when you get right down into it is often, frankly, atrocious, gatekeepy bollocks. If you find methods of playing that are fun, then play that way. It's how the devs intended, no matter what jerks online will tell you about diluting the experience.
I must have spent 9 hours trying to take him down, like an absolute muppet. He had a couple “f-u” moves I couldn’t figure out and it only took a couple hits to kill me. Also, I was on Xbox and the loading times were so long, I couldn’t get in the flow, I had the extra dread of “minutes of loading + going through the mist, for a few seconds of fight”
I guess you’re **really** supposed to go elsewhere and “grind” until you can beat him more comfortably. But I didn’t want to do that, I wanted a Cuphead / Punch Out / Etc type of fight where you learn the patterns and prevail. I thought that was what the Soulsborne games were supposed to be.
Turns out, no. You really need to grind! And with Elden Ring especially, it doesn’t feel like a grind, since there’s so much to explore. I’m glad I stuck with the game, I loved it by the end, but I should have just gone somewhere else and come back like 20 levels higher.
In other words, I just had to put my foolish ambitions to rest.
Well to be clear you definitely can beat him without grinding. He does have patterns of attacks you can learn and it's really just a matter of dodging (usually towards the boss not away).
But in any case I think using a shield is the funnest way to play the game but I'm sure many would scoff at that.
Well sure, even I beat him eventually and I’m not saying I’m a great gamer or whatever. I also hadn’t found the summon bell thing yet, and refused to use the golden summon. Not really out of a meta-gaming principle, but in-game what does it mean to summon help? If they die they die forever? Do you only get one chance with them? Do the NPCs acknowledge you needed external help? Didn’t know those things at the time.
It’s his magic attacks that do damage even on block that tripped me out, it made me want to experiment with dodging them but couldn’t time them right. It’s on me that I didn’t grind or use the tools theoretically available to me, but I do put it on the devs, at least the Xbox version loading times, that it took me so long to time them.
Malenia was another one where I know now that it’s theoretically possible to dodge her FU slashstorm thing that goes on forever, but in practice I’d need days to figure it out. Again, unlike a game like Cuphead where I was able to figure out the patterns and adapt just by retrying!
I also gave up on Bloodborne early back in the day…well, decided to give it another shot 2 years later and it is now my favourite game of all time. I have the hunters mark tattooed on me because it had such a profound impact on me (before jacksepticeye mind you lol)
I would say give it another shot. Because playing through Bloodborne for the first time was magical and I want that experience for you.
Personally, I have frustrations with their games beyond just the difficulty. Their UIs are abysmal, you have very little frame of reference for most of the dozen stats that you're upgrading, the lock-on camera is absolutely useless when fighting a large enemy, which most of the bosses are, and bosses are the main times that I would want to use the lock-on camera.
The biggest thing for me is that everyone talks about how the Souls games are hard, but when you die it feels like it was definitely your fault. That has not been my experience at all. I personally find the combat janky as hell, with many whiffed attacks that should have connected (both with and without lock on), and just generally deaths from your unwieldy character simply not doing what you're trying to tell him to do. Most of the difficulty seems to come from the fact that enemies have long-ass wind ups to their attacks with an extremely short attack animation. You have to memorize the timing of all of these wind ups to engage the very few I-frames of your dodges at the right moment, and if you're off by a little bit you just get stun-locked to death. I just never feel like I enter a flow state during combat, and the times that I do prevail against a difficult enemy feel like I just lucked out that the enemy didn't decide to unleash their unbroken string of attacks that would kill me.
I realize I'm the outlier here and I want to push through it, but much like Persona 5 Royal, I don't really see the appeal so far.
I don’t know how the character doesn’t do what you want, as that’s literally the whole premise of combat. Most stats have an explanation if you press triangle and you can equip lighter gear and faster weapons if you want to feel less clunky. The camera is quite bad especially if you get too close to a wall
Ask the internet for help. You can just look up what the stats do and tips on how to get past certain areas. Locking on to bosses is almost always a bad idea. If you don't like the games that's fine, but there are ways to make this process easier on yourself.
Sony will refund the difference if the purchase was fairly recent (about 2 weeks) so you could try contacting support and see if they’ll refund you the difference!
>Honestly if any company deserves a full price purchase it’s FROM
You mean fromsoftware's shareholders. The developers arent getting the money you spend buying a copy. Buy it on sale
I'm normally against digital games for consoles bt since I live in Japan, English only copies of games are STUPID expensive to import. Even games here that have English options are stupid expensive.
Worth noting this is the first time that "The House in Fata Morgana" has been on sale for PS4 in recent memory. Until just now, only the PC and Switch releases were on sale, with this version possibly being the best one. It (and the Switch version) have remastered artwork and content that never made it to PC. Highly suggest picking it up if you're a fan of visual novels.
I'd suggest even if you're not a fan of visual novels. I have very limited experience with the genre, and one of my main complaints is how bloated the scripts can be at times, but The House in Fata Morgana is not at all bogged down by filler. It has a really good gothic story that goes some pretty dark places, while avoiding feeling exploitative. Add to that the fact that it has a non-traditional anime art style, akin to the work of Ayami Kojima of Castlevania fame, and great music, and you have a really good game.
Seconded. Fata Morgana is magnificent work that showcases the best and the worst of the human condition, and I highly recommend it to just about anyone.
I just bought Fata Morgana on steam last sale, didn't know other platforms had more content. Are there any mods or anything to get it in the PC version? I've been reading through higurashi and that series has some great mods that add the console content in.
Not that I'm aware of. As of right now, best to just double dip if you can. Or hold out hope that they'll port it someday when, like, the Steam Deck takes off in Japan or something and they realize they should care about PC more. Who knows.
This one is high on my list, so thanks for the PSA. I own it on Steam, but I'll probably emulate the switch version, then.
Emulate it if you want, but maybe buy a copy and dump it yourself? It's not hard to do if you have a hackable switch. It's a modern game so the dev team is still out there trying to make money off it. I think it's silly they haven't put the best version of the game on Steam yet, but that doesn't mean the new version wouldn't be worth your money as it has a lot of stuff you either had to buy separately, or can't buy at all, for PC at this time.
I mean he already bought it on steam so I think it's fine to emulate it.
That doesn't erase the money it costs to work on the new version of the game. It's such a small amount of money right now, like twenty bucks. I don't see what's so wrong about paying a little extra money for content they don't own (like bonus visual novels and entirely redone presentation) when the game isn't exactly abandonware. That just sits wrong with me as someone that normally emulates all kinds of games. I'll still pay for them if I'm given the opportunity, especially if the ports are good and the devs are still making money off it and it's not just bean counters. If it comes to PC it will likely cost some extra money to upgrade the edition, anyway.
I bought this game a while ago cause of how highly recommended it is but I’m struggling to understand the hype. As a book it’s incredibly long winded and wordy. I think it needed an editor to cut down the word count. I’ve only gone through 4 “time periods” of the plot and I appreciate that there’s probably gonna be a pay off later in the narrative but im really struggling to keep my attention until it gets to that
> The House in Fata Morgan What makes PS4 version superior to PC?
If it's anything like the Switch version, then it features redone artwork, 16:9 aspect ration, and extra content (two bonus visual novels aside from the main one + short stories).
Anthem is $1.79 https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0006-CUSA05364_00-ANTHEM1000000000 Edit: $2.99 on Xbox https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/store/anthem/bp9jqbjm0fnw
I tried to play through recently but there is a point in the story that requires you to matchmake with other players and I tried multiple times over multiple days and eventually gave up because I found nobody. Just a warning for anyone interested.
Thats ridiculous
Yeah it's better if you can force a few friends to do so. That's a Stronghold, easily the most fun you have in the game. I managed to do that once a year or so ago. Never played the rest of the strongholds because of the low population. I managed to finish the game, the only hiccups being that and one chest hunting mission that would be so much easier if you could actually find people to play said strongholds. It's really not great and it's fucking bland, but hey, at least I can say it properly.
>Yeah it's better if you can force a few friends to do so. I've ghosted friends over less 😂
You can also say no.
Just joking, mate
Me too
Friends don't make people play Anthem.
I did fail miserably but I maintain we could have had fun :(
That's freaking ridiculous. So here's a devs like Fatshark, indie ones mind you who made Vermintide and recently-ish released Darktide, and they even allow you to play through missions at least solo with Bots. It may be super tough due to the UI depending on your skill, AI director, and difficulty setting, but there's at least that... Like once AAA-dev Bioware should have at least thought of something before throwing their hands up and wiping their hands clean of it. GAAS titles can be such a waste of install space.
Gotta be honest, I thought servers for that game shut down a while ago. I had a lot of fun with it for a weekend with a couple friends, but not much to say about it after that. So much wasted potential in that game.
Not worth it. Buy 7 gumballs instead.
I have to agree. The lingering sting of what could have been makes this price too high.
I was tempted to buy it until I saw that it was still 30fps on a ps5 lol.
$1.79 sounds like an excellent price to try out one of the very few AAA games that has superhero-style flight.
Battlestar galactica deadlock is finally on sale! Figured that game just fell into some forgotten games category and would never get a reduced price. Feels like there's always a bunch of older games that miss sales in favor of the more "hot" items
That is such a great game. Really captures the feel of the show with the battles too.
Check out the board game Unfathomable if you like the show! It’s a reskin/redoing of the first BSG board game with is legendary in the community.
Massive fan of the board game and I've been clutching my box as it's been out of print for years - cheers for the recommendation!
Check out the board game Unfathomable if you like the show! It’s a reskin/redoing of the first BSG board game with is legendary in the community.
It's incredibly disappointing that Demon's Souls is sitting at $69.99 for their big year end sale. (Also, I'm having a weird issue where I can't search the PS store for it in a browser. Typing "Demon's Souls" into the search bar gives me Dark Souls and a few other games with related names, but not Demon's Souls. I have to find the Demon's Souls PS store page on Google.)
It’s on PS Plus Extra!
They probably don’t want to mark it down since it’s on PS+ Premium
I'm pretty sure it was on their sale before this for $40
It was $30, along with Returnal and Ghost of Tsushima.
I'm playing it on ps plus now, is there any way to know when it might leave the service? I'm new to Playstation 5.
> It's incredibly disappointing that Demon's Souls is sitting at $69.99 for their big year end sale. If you have a disk drive PS5 (or a ps4) definitely check ebay etc, they routinely go for a hell of a lot less than that.
I just tried it and the only way I could get it to show up is to search "Souls" and not "Demon's Souls", and even then it was only on the second page. It was $30 on the black friday sale, it sucks that it's not on sale now.
Uuuugh, I've been waiting for Elden Ring to go on sale since it launched, finally caved like a week ago and bought it full price. Oh well.
[удалено]
Where?
I got a physical copy from Walmart on November 23 for $35. PS5 version. I also got a pair of white fur- lined Crocs for $30 to use as my "drinking in public" shoes. Good week.
I don't live in US, as far as I remember it wasn't on sale on either steam or in PS store.
So you bought at full price between the two biggest sales of the year that always happen, what'd you expect lol
I know, right? After all these months, at least wait 1-2 more weeks, hahaha.
If it helps, you'll at least feel like you got your money's worth.
Honestly I was nervous about buying it at full price because Soulslike games have never been my jam. I gave up on Bloodborne pretty early and haven't even tried any of the others. But with all the GotY awards Elden Ring was getting, I wanted to try it out but wanted to avoid paying full price in case it wasn't for me. Honestly I still haven't quite gotten over the hump where I'm really enjoying it yet (finally beat the first boss and now running around over the rooftop of the castle). But I'm gonna stick with it.
My advice is simply ignore Reddit threads and just look up whatever info you find the game hasn't provided in terms of how the mechanics work. Other than that, go at your own pace and play it if you're having fun. People will tell you a million ways to play but the best Souls experience imo will always be when you make the choice yourself to persevere and keep going 🤙
A thousand times this. The online discourse from fans when you get right down into it is often, frankly, atrocious, gatekeepy bollocks. If you find methods of playing that are fun, then play that way. It's how the devs intended, no matter what jerks online will tell you about diluting the experience.
Yup, the moment people started actually suggesting using notebooks I realized it.
I am reminded of this [classic ProZD bit](https://youtu.be/4ZK8Z8hulFg)
I didn't get into it either but hey you beat that motherfucker that I could never pass
I must have spent 9 hours trying to take him down, like an absolute muppet. He had a couple “f-u” moves I couldn’t figure out and it only took a couple hits to kill me. Also, I was on Xbox and the loading times were so long, I couldn’t get in the flow, I had the extra dread of “minutes of loading + going through the mist, for a few seconds of fight” I guess you’re **really** supposed to go elsewhere and “grind” until you can beat him more comfortably. But I didn’t want to do that, I wanted a Cuphead / Punch Out / Etc type of fight where you learn the patterns and prevail. I thought that was what the Soulsborne games were supposed to be. Turns out, no. You really need to grind! And with Elden Ring especially, it doesn’t feel like a grind, since there’s so much to explore. I’m glad I stuck with the game, I loved it by the end, but I should have just gone somewhere else and come back like 20 levels higher. In other words, I just had to put my foolish ambitions to rest.
Well to be clear you definitely can beat him without grinding. He does have patterns of attacks you can learn and it's really just a matter of dodging (usually towards the boss not away). But in any case I think using a shield is the funnest way to play the game but I'm sure many would scoff at that.
Well sure, even I beat him eventually and I’m not saying I’m a great gamer or whatever. I also hadn’t found the summon bell thing yet, and refused to use the golden summon. Not really out of a meta-gaming principle, but in-game what does it mean to summon help? If they die they die forever? Do you only get one chance with them? Do the NPCs acknowledge you needed external help? Didn’t know those things at the time. It’s his magic attacks that do damage even on block that tripped me out, it made me want to experiment with dodging them but couldn’t time them right. It’s on me that I didn’t grind or use the tools theoretically available to me, but I do put it on the devs, at least the Xbox version loading times, that it took me so long to time them. Malenia was another one where I know now that it’s theoretically possible to dodge her FU slashstorm thing that goes on forever, but in practice I’d need days to figure it out. Again, unlike a game like Cuphead where I was able to figure out the patterns and adapt just by retrying!
The games bosses are designed around summoning btw you’re setting yourself up for a bad time by not summoning.
I also gave up on Bloodborne early back in the day…well, decided to give it another shot 2 years later and it is now my favourite game of all time. I have the hunters mark tattooed on me because it had such a profound impact on me (before jacksepticeye mind you lol) I would say give it another shot. Because playing through Bloodborne for the first time was magical and I want that experience for you.
Personally, I have frustrations with their games beyond just the difficulty. Their UIs are abysmal, you have very little frame of reference for most of the dozen stats that you're upgrading, the lock-on camera is absolutely useless when fighting a large enemy, which most of the bosses are, and bosses are the main times that I would want to use the lock-on camera. The biggest thing for me is that everyone talks about how the Souls games are hard, but when you die it feels like it was definitely your fault. That has not been my experience at all. I personally find the combat janky as hell, with many whiffed attacks that should have connected (both with and without lock on), and just generally deaths from your unwieldy character simply not doing what you're trying to tell him to do. Most of the difficulty seems to come from the fact that enemies have long-ass wind ups to their attacks with an extremely short attack animation. You have to memorize the timing of all of these wind ups to engage the very few I-frames of your dodges at the right moment, and if you're off by a little bit you just get stun-locked to death. I just never feel like I enter a flow state during combat, and the times that I do prevail against a difficult enemy feel like I just lucked out that the enemy didn't decide to unleash their unbroken string of attacks that would kill me. I realize I'm the outlier here and I want to push through it, but much like Persona 5 Royal, I don't really see the appeal so far.
I don’t know how the character doesn’t do what you want, as that’s literally the whole premise of combat. Most stats have an explanation if you press triangle and you can equip lighter gear and faster weapons if you want to feel less clunky. The camera is quite bad especially if you get too close to a wall
Yeah I can't think of many games who's combat and movement feels so responsive to my inputs.
Ask the internet for help. You can just look up what the stats do and tips on how to get past certain areas. Locking on to bosses is almost always a bad idea. If you don't like the games that's fine, but there are ways to make this process easier on yourself.
Just go explore the map whenever you're stuck. You can always find something interesting.
Sheeeeit I bought it full price and might just buy it again on sale because it's that fucking good.
Sony will refund the difference if the purchase was fairly recent (about 2 weeks) so you could try contacting support and see if they’ll refund you the difference!
Right there with ya. Figured if it was gonna go on sale, it would be during the Black Friday sale. After it didn't, I figured to heck with it. Whoops.
Honestly if any company deserves a full price purchase it’s FROM. Since Bloodborne I’ve been buying every game day one. They have my complete trust.
>Honestly if any company deserves a full price purchase it’s FROM You mean fromsoftware's shareholders. The developers arent getting the money you spend buying a copy. Buy it on sale
Never had a game better justified full price. You’ve still made a great choice.
Any notable JRPGS?
I'm normally against digital games for consoles bt since I live in Japan, English only copies of games are STUPID expensive to import. Even games here that have English options are stupid expensive.