Moar ports. This generation is the worst.

[kupomogli]

So another port was announced today, it's like every other week a port of a previous generation game gets announced.

There's two arguments that could be made. The first argument "but, not everyone got these games when they released, you're just gatekeeping, etc, etc, etc." Where the second argument and in the case of this latest port "everyone currently 29 and older has had the opportunity to play this game if they've wanted to."

There's no gate keeping. Everyone who hasn't played these games, myself included for some games have the opportunity to emulate and purchase these games through third party means. There's nothing coming from ports but stopping or slowing the production of brand new games. Now people will argue that releasing ports and remasters doesn't stop production of other games because they have other teams working on it. Well, please tell me why Playstation has had nothing but ports and remasters aside from a very few games this entire generation if these remasters don't slow down production of other games? We're four years in this current generation and Naughty Dog hasn't even made an announcement of a new game despite having TWO DIFFERENT TEAMS Over four years for one team and seven for the other team as we haven't received anything new from Naughty Dog.since The Last of Us 2 in June of 2020 and Uncharted The Lost Legacy in 2017.

These people act like some indie development team skeleton crew is releasing these remasters when the teams themselves are likely closer to half the size or more of the original games themselves. If these ports and remasters were so easy to make and didn't hinder other games,

It's getting to the point, that in the past 12 months alone, we've seen more rematers announced than all other generations combined and people are constantly bitching about how there's a huge lack of variety unless you want to play indie games for the AA market which practically is non existent at this point and the AA market.

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Anyways, I know I just broke off into a completely different topic altogether so you can skip this or read on if you want to hear about the developer Sting. The above section is the topic in question though.

The latest remaster is also incredibly ironic. It's a Playstation Vita exclusive, releasing on the Switch, that is actually a game about a Playstation character. If you've ever played the Neptunia series, which is a trash Compile Heart series, it's in a world called Gameindustri where each of the characters reference different consoles and different publishers.

Now the game that's releasing on Switch I've purchased simply because the game is from Sting. If you're an RPG fan, look into games developed by Sting. This is one of the absolute best developers that used to make their own games but typically develops games for other third parties. I bought this game because while Compile Heart is trash, atleast Sting was doing the gameplay so there's a pretty reasonable expectation of this being a great game.

With Sting being co developers, they are basically the ones developing the gameplay and storyline is from the developers. But these are the developers who released Dokapon Kingdom,, Gungnir, Knights in the Nightmare, Yggdra Union, Riviera the Promised Land, and Evolution on Dreamcast if anyone remembers that.

However, as a gameplay development studio, they've also developed the gameplay for the Utawarerumono Mask of Truth and Mask of Deception. Apparently the only good Generations of Chaos game, the rest were made by Compile Heart/Idea Factory, same company basically, sadly this is the only one in the series that some people say didn't suck but also the only one in the series that didn't get a physical release, digital only on the PSP.

Hyperdevotion Black Noire, the game being ported over to Switch is a sting release.

So my favorite dungeon crawler of all time is also developed by Sting. Dungeon Travelers 2. I bought it after watching the trailers which were pretty G rated. Knowing it was developed by Sting, the trailers showing the different class upgrades from Warrior to Paladin or Berserker, and then the advance classes being Valkyrie, Samurai, and Dark Lord(a berserker upgrade.) On the game itself there's so much build depth for your party it is an amazing dungeon crawler. The problem with the game is it's kind of like an adult game, like adult adult, almost. If you can get past that the gameplay again, amazing, best first person dungeon crawler RPG imo.

Now, I used to shit on Mary Skelter before ever playing it like I do with most Compile Heart and Idea Factory games because everyone of their games that I've played is a bad game, pretty trash, development is so bad. And I've played quite a few because for whatever reason a lot of them interested me. One specifically appeared like they were going for a Phantasy Star Online type game, expect it was more like a POS Online developed by Tamsoft.

After buying Mary Skelter 3 because it includes the manga of the series on disc and cart(would be best on Switch if you ask me, you probably don't want to read all that crap on TV.) And it also includes the story of the first game and second game as well. So anyways, reason why I bring this game up is because it's the first Compile Heart game that is a great game, infact, I'm surprised by how great it is. Gameplay. The storyline is complete trash, but gameplay is great. Again, the reason I bring it up, is just how similar in some designs it is to Dungeon Travelers 2 that it kind of feels to me like, maybe Sting developed this game or people from Sting were hired on by Compile Heart, because this game feels like Dungeon Travelers 2 and Sting was an uncredited developer. Because this is a great game. If you like dungeon crawler RPGs, this is a great game, and it's long as hell, it's kind of absurd how long the game is. It's so long that I stopped playing at some point. I'll eventually try to get back to it but yeah.

[Aussie2B]

I really fail to see how the existence of these ports offends you. There is no zero-sum game going on here. This isn't the days when Nintendo would limit publishers to five releases a year. A publisher can release as many games as they please, within their own financial and manpower limitations. If you don't like ports, don't buy them. Vote with your wallet and support the kinds of games you do want and don't support the ones you don't want. There are probably more games being released this generation than any prior, and there are certainly more brand-new games coming out than I could ever possibly keep up with.

Just because somebody is old enough that they could've experienced a game's original release doesn't mean they did. They may have never heard of it back then, they may have not had the money for it when it was available prior, they may not be able to afford current inflated secondhand prices, they may (and should) prefer to buy a legal release over pirating and emulating, etc. You already came up with the proper response to your post yourself: "You're just gatekeeping."

Personally, ports, remasters, and remakes of old games are my favorite thing about this generation. I've been able to buy legal, official copies of games that are ridiculously expensive in their original forms (like the Sparkster games, the Felix the Cat games, Trip World, etc.), and there have also been plenty of games getting their first ever official English localizations (Seiken Densetsu 3, Radical Dreamers, Live A Live, Front Mission 2, etc.). If anybody thinks I should be denied the opportunity to buy things I enjoy, they can kindly shove off. There are tons of games that don't interest me in the slightest, but that doesn't mean I would wish them out of existence and take them away from the people who do like them.

[Steve W]

I think we're going to get more ports of older games. They spend millions of dollars to make games like Concord or Unknown 9: The Awakening, then ruin it all by hiring "sensitivity consultation firms" to politicize everything and alienate the audience that doesn't want somebody else's politics crammed down their throats. They lose a fortune on all these types of games, so the safest bet is re-releasing older games (and then try to change things in subtle ways, like make female characters ugly because of the "male gaze", et cetera) that are guaranteed money makers.

[kupomogli]

I really fail to see how the existence of these ports offends you. There is no zero-sum game going on here. This isn't the days when Nintendo would limit publishers to five releases a year. A publisher can release as many games as they please, within their own financial and manpower limitations. If you don't like ports, don't buy them. Vote with your wallet and support the kinds of games you do want and don't support the ones you don't want. There are probably more games being released this generation than any prior, and there are certainly more brand-new games coming out than I could ever possibly keep up with.

I don't give a shit about the whole gatekeeping bullshit that people like to claim, I want to actually play some new shit and these ports are stopping new games from being developed.

We're probably going to go the ENTIRE generation without seeing one new Naughty Dog game because again, ports and the cancelled The Last of Us multiplayer.

Another great example is NIS. Aside from Disgaea 6 and Disgaea 7, they haven't developed anything new for a long time. Everything they've released has been ports. I can already play this, people in general can emulate or play these games somehow. Just because everyone else hasn't played these games, they still have the opportunity to play these games.

It's not about not buying anything, I definitely won't buy anything I have no interested in, it's about actually having some shit to play outside of indie games from a large amount of developers and publishers. But instead, no, new games? Fuck that shit, we're just going to release old shit because we're creatively bankrupt and modern gaming is the garbage fire of gaming.

Anyways, done with the rant. While I'm waiting for Ys 10 I guess I'll play this Romancing SaGa 2 remake, a remake, because again creatively bankrupt developers.

[Gentlegamer]

But instead, no, new games? Fuck that shit, we're just going to release old shit because we're creatively bankrupt and modern gaming is the garbage fire of gaming.

This is the reason, not ports.

New games now take 10 years and 500mm dollars to make, only to flop spectacularly because they are made by DEI commissars instead of real game devs.

[kupomogli]

There are only two reasons I want to see a remaster.

When the game is functionally different, the game might be the same title, the game might even be the same game by design, but when the game itself is then completely different that we're getting a brand new game. Whether this is Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Crisis Core Final Fantasy 7, Tactics Ogre Reborn, or Theatrhythm Final Bar Line, these are games that in some form have the same content, but are brand new games.

If Crisis Core only received a graphical update then that's one thing, but it didn't, the combat in its entirety was reworked and it's a significantly different and a better experience than the original release. Because of this new combat system and the way boss skills work now, hard mode is an actual viable way of playing the game from a brand new game and it is the best way to play the game.

Tactics Ogre Reborn is just the PSP version of the game with some spell enhancements and a filter that removes all the pixelation. However, once again, it's the gameplay that is completely reworked that it is a completely different game. From enemy balance to the entire combat system itself. This is a game that reworks Tactics Ogre again, and instead of the terrible PSP version, we get the modern day 10/10 TRPG and I would say is the best TRPG of all time except Brigandine The Legend of Forsena and Grand Edition still exist, Runersia is an 8/10.

Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is based on an arcade game, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy All-Star Carnival, which is based on the original DS releases of the same series. Theatrhythm brings the advance button input mechanics to consoles and adds a new meta game that feels very much like making a Dissidia Opera Omnia build to have your characters perform better in combat despite it all being automated due to it being a rythm game.

And then finally, the last games that should be remastered.

Fighting games. Capcom Fighting Game Collection 1, 2, MVC, etc. I have no problem with these games being remastered because they bring one important feature that has never existed. This feature does exist on emulation but you either have to go out of your way to look for people and only the most hardcore players are going to go this avenue to play these games.

That important aspect is online play. Fighting games pretty much live and die on their multiplayer. If you can't play these games against someone else, often times the games grow tiresome very quickly. There are some fighting games that are a great single player experience, but even those great single player fighting games are significantly better and are infinitely replayable with multiplayer.

With a new remaster or remake of a fighting game, such as Dissidia 012 with Crisis Core's graphics and a new online lobby, the vast majority of people who aren't just die hard fighting game fans will be playing, other people will actually stand a chance and not be frustrated that they're fighting the same four people over and over and over again that don't do anything but play this once game through emulation on PC.

These are the only times remasters are worth it this generation, others we're just less games because developers would rather just give us games from decades ago that we've already had the opportunity to play.

And one last thing "vote with your wallet." I've been voting with my wallet by not buying into a lot of garbage modern day sales tactics or releases. I don't ever buy digital games. But voting with your wallet isn't going to change anything when the vast majority of people don't do the same. I've never bought a microtransaction, I don't buy all of these ports and remasters, I don't buy digital games, I don't buy season passes, I don't buy battle passes, I don't $100 deluxe editions that offer meaningless digital bullshit, etc. The only thing I do, is I pay for the peasant PS+ so I can play online. It's pretty much robbery, but I do pay for this, and that's it.

I'm lying about the remasters, I do buy some, but outside of the ones which could be argued as remakes how much the gameplay has changed, it's generally compilations, few actual remasters. DMC5 with the Vergil content and load times that aren't excessive was my reason for that one, DmC Devil May Cry with the Vergil content, the new Vergil Bloody Palace, and all of the changes to make the game play more like the original style system. DmC Definitive is so much of a change that it's much more than just a remaster. It's also my favorite game in the series so despite all the hate so having these changes, the new hardcore mode which doubles the speed of the enemy AI so they perform their actions twice as often, all of the other content, it was an easy buy with the amount of changes that make it a functionally different and more complete experience. DMC4 Special Edition with Trish, Lady, and Vergil as playable characters through the main story and Bloody Palace. Again, this huge content with completely new ways to actually play the games, much more than just a simple remaster.

[Gentlegamer]

I bought Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster and DragonQuest I-III on Switch. As well as Super Mario RPG, Metroid Prime Remastered, New Super Mario Bros. Deluxe.

Also, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Splatoon 2, and Bayonetta 2, all of which are ports from Wii-U. And several others that are ports from Wii, Wii-U, GBA, etc. All physical Switch, btw.

I think improved versions of games from depreciated systems should always be welcome.

What is BS is Sony doing a remaster of Horizon Zero Dawn from PS4, Spider-Man, etc. That is really just selling the game again, which in itself is fine, but insinuating games from PS4 need a "remaster" is absurd. I guess "remaster" in this context means selling the games patched to take advantage of the greater capacity of PS5 (or PC).

[kupomogli]

I bought Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster and DragonQuest I-III on Switch. As well as Super Mario RPG, Metroid Prime Remastered, New Super Mario Bros. Deluxe.

Also, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Splatoon 2, and Bayonetta 2, all of which are ports from Wii-U. And several others that are ports from Wii, Wii-U, GBA, etc. All physical Switch, btw.

I think improved versions of games from depreciated systems should always be welcome.

What is BS is Sony doing a remaster of Horizon Zero Dawn from PS4, Spider-Man, etc. That is really just selling the game again, which in itself is fine, but insinuating games from PS4 need a "remaster" is absurd. I guess "remaster" in this context means selling the games patched to take advantage of the greater capacity of PS5 (or PC).

I completely agree that Splatoon 2 is just a port despite never being on the Wii U, as is Super Mario Maker 2...and Super Smash Bros Ultimate..... and Splatoon 3(really they're all just glorified expansions or patches that Nintendo sells people for $60.)

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This next section you can read, not read, a lot of it is a rant about how Nintendo fucks up with the Wii U with how they release it and people who bought the console are the ones that screwed while Nintendo abandons it asap. It's basically, skip to the next section.

At the beginning of last generation, I was fine with the remasters. I wasn't pissed off about them, fine. Even when Nintendo started doing it. It was fine, I mean, granted it pisses me off that I buy a Wii U and then Nintendo abandons it after three years and except for shovelware and BotW that released in the fourth year at Switch launch. And now, hey, here's every single Nintendo game we released on the Wii U that you already bought except for Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. That irritates me, but I was fine with it. It's understandable that a system that sold 10 million units has all of the games ported over because no one even had the opportunity except just a handful of people. I completely understand that. Everybody did have the opportunity because they could have bought a Wii U, but I do understand from Nintendo's point of view, even though these games sold an insane amount despite the 10 million unit sales of Wii U, the console didn't really sell and they didn't really get the chance to sell it to a wide audience. That's fair, even if it does annoy me because Nintendo just abandoned the console. I mean it's their own fault it sold poorly w hen the game launched with Nintendo World and practically nothing else Nintendo. This was Nintendo just thinking people would jump on the Wii U just because. They're the ones that screwed themselves and instead they decide screw everyone that bought the console by just pretty much immediately dropping support to the bare minimum until they could get another console out asap. Nintendo fucks up and the gamers that purchase their games are the ones that are penalized for it.
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But last generation I wasn't too big on ports releasing, even early to mid Switch, but in the past few years, the amount of ports have are ridiculous. My complaints for all these ports is that the last two years there's more ports that have released than EVERY CONSOLE GENERATION COMBINED, maybe even one year. It's fucking ridiculous. We're getting no games in comparison to every other generation and we are seeing more ports for the games that we are getting than ever before.

Again. There are games, I'm not arguing that there are no games. There are always games. And there are likely more games now than any past generation because of the indie scene. However, there are almost no third parties, there are almost no AA games, there are almost only indie games and how often these games are rehashing the same popular mechanics over and over and over and over and over and over. The quality of the vast, vast, VAST MAJORITY of indie games now days I would say is RPG Maker-esque, these games are almost a dime a dozen and a lot of these indie games, aren't really that great and buying them physical you're paying out the ass especially if Limited Run Game gets the distribution rights to them. Too many of indie games you're paying a premium even if it's not from LRG, it's slightly less, but a premium nonetheless, and it's just a decent game that's it, decent, playable. There are amazing indie games, but these are also few and far between. For every Hollow Knight, Salt and Sanctuary, Darkest Dungeon, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, etc, etc, etc, there are 100 or more games that get 7-8/10 reviews that just again, playable, decent. Normally one of the better games float to the top, but generally there are great games that don't.

So for indie games that generally don't rise to a really great quality, if you really want to find these games, you're either watching bullshit reviews that praise and rate the game based on dollar value instead of how good these games actually are. Dollar value, the fact that they bought these or received them for free and they're $20 or $30 on the eshop, should not be a reason to rate the game better. I don't give a shit if a game is $1 or a game is $60, the game should be compared to all other games. The rating system shouldn't be scaled down because the developers are living out of cardboxes in an alley way. It is giving a bias for shittier games, just because they're indie.

There's so much fucking wrong the game industry now days for fucking everything. It's hard to fucking like new video games now days. Video games is basically the only entertainment I really love and modern gaming is ruining gaming for me. Half of the time I'm getting pissed off because I play a game that looks interesting, that gets highly rated, and then I hate the game for whatever reason. I don't want to have to watch, 18 hours of a fucking playthrough to find that the first few of hours of the game are great but then the game is massively padded all through to a 50 hour fucking experience or whatever. Everything about fucking gaming is worse now.

It's so fucking ridiculous that there are ports out the ass for developers to actually release good fucking shit. That gaming has gotten to the point that so many modern conventions and most developers are so creatively bankkrupt that they can't possibly make a good game now because they now have no fucking clue what a good game is, because they've been listening to fucking idiots all this time that want open world, want procedure, or want this, or want that, and developers just want to cast this wide as shit net, indie developers included, to get as many people interested in their shitty game as possible and instead, it's just a fucking bad experience on average.

[kupomogli]

I meant to edit my post and I accidentally quoted myself.

On top of all that, modern games don't drop in price as much as they did. You can't wait a year for the games to drop to $20 and in most of these case, they don't ever drop so no matter how long you wait you're just going to be paying more. On top of having such a worse experience than every other generation of gaming, I'm also paying, more than I've ever paid before for video games. I didn't grow up and buy my own games during the NES and SNES, but PS1, GBA all the way up to PS4 you could just wait. Wait a year and buy pretty everything that you were interested outside of Nintendo games new for $20. You haven't been able to do that in the last four years. We're not only paying more than we've ever paid before, we're getting a shittier experience than we've ever paid before.

Unless you're a Nintendo shill and only buy Nintendo games, then congratulations, nothing at all feels different, you're used to paying out the ass for Nintendo games.

Honestly, maybe I might just do that. Maybe I may just become a Nintendo shill who only buys Nintendo games from now on or listen to IGN and Metacritic bullshit about the 88 or higher, best games of the year, and just be a fucking a casual fuck from now on and just don't buy anything except the highest rated most popular shit that obviously I'm also interest and just ignore literally everything else. And then other than that just play past generation of games. I guess it's sort of that time that I should just quit modern gaming altogether outside of the 10 or less must play games per year(granted most of these I'll hate so I'll probably ignore just ignore the open world garbage.) Just focus on playing past generations that didn't suck more than anything else.

[kupomogli]

And the ports continue, although I will be buying Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil 2 Gold Edition if everything is on disc. Resident Evil 2's extras are just a bunch of fluff, free patches that are more like challenge modes with kind of a little bit of extra content. These had you use four extra characters to get from one part of the city to the other and had a slight bit of added storyline, like how the mayor's daughter did escape the zombies and got to the chief of police.

Resident Evil 7 was a great game and it had a really great DLC starring Chris Redfield. This DLC was a completely action oriented experience but it was great and it was fully playable in VR. It's likely not going to be playable in VR on the PS5, even on the PSVR2, but the entire game will likely and hopefully be on disc so that even if unplayable in VR again, it's on disc. It's a bit bullshit that the PS4 RE7 Gold edition didn't include it on disc though.

Resident Evil 3 remaster I'm going to completely ignore, nothing was added, the DLC is fluff, it's not even worth it even if everything is on disc. My vision is so bad that the resolution increase wouldn't be noticeable even if it was 8k so that does nothing for me and the game already runs at 60fps anyways. I might even skip RE2 remaster because again, the side stories were novelty fluff challenge modes, do I want to buy them again just for that? But I will buy RE7 Gold if everything is on disc.

[Gameguy]

I think we're going to get more ports of older games. They spend millions of dollars to make games like Concord or Unknown 9: The Awakening, then ruin it all by hiring "sensitivity consultation firms" to politicize everything and alienate the audience that doesn't want somebody else's politics crammed down their throats. They lose a fortune on all these types of games, so the safest bet is re-releasing older games (and then try to change things in subtle ways, like make female characters ugly because of the "male gaze", et cetera) that are guaranteed money makers.

It can't be that bad.

I don't give a shit about the whole gatekeeping bullshit that people like to claim, I want to actually play some new shit and these ports are stopping new games from being developed.

Bingo! This is the problem with all the remakes, remasters, and re-releases constantly coming out. It takes away resources that would otherwise be used to create entirely new games. I like compilations of older games, those used to come out often with collections of older console and arcade titles. I still like seeing those happening, same with translations of games previously unreleased in North America, but I don't want those to be the only games coming out. If someone buys a current generation console, they want new current games made for it, not just games they probably played in some form years ago. I don't mind re-releases of games that originally came out on consoles few people bought, like the Wii U or PSP/PSP Vita, but otherwise common games that came out on the PS3 or PS4 don't need a re-release or a remaster. Like Until Dawn already being "improved" for the PS5.

When the game is functionally different, the game might be the same title, the game might even be the same game by design, but when the game itself is then completely different that we're getting a brand new game. Whether this is Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Crisis Core Final Fantasy 7, Tactics Ogre Reborn, or Theatrhythm Final Bar Line, these are games that in some form have the same content, but are brand new games.

Add Silent Hill 2 to that list, it's apparently good and numerous things were changed from the original including puzzles and various locations. Someone who bought the game with the intention of crapping on it ended up actually liking it quite a bit, and I generally share this person's taste in games. The main criticism is with performance issues, which apparently can be fixed on the PC version with editing some files.

And one last thing "vote with your wallet." I've been voting with my wallet by not buying into a lot of garbage modern day sales tactics or releases. I don't ever buy digital games. But voting with your wallet isn't going to change anything when the vast majority of people don't do the same. I've never bought a microtransaction, I don't buy all of these ports and remasters, I don't buy digital games, I don't buy season passes, I don't buy battle passes, I don't $100 deluxe editions that offer meaningless digital bullshit, etc. The only thing I do, is I pay for the peasant PS+ so I can play online. It's pretty much robbery, but I do pay for this, and that's it.

Exactly, this really doesn't work when most people either aren't aware of a problem existing or don't care enough to fix a problem. It's like saying if you're unhappy with things in your current political system then don't vote or discuss an issue or even protest, just avoid participating in your local politics entirely and stay at home. That's not how things change for the better. You need to bring attention to an issue and hopefully convince other people to agree with you.

I don't pay for any of those things either, I've basically avoided modern consoles and modern gaming for years.

I bought Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster and DragonQuest I-III on Switch. As well as Super Mario RPG, Metroid Prime Remastered, New Super Mario Bros. Deluxe.

Also, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Splatoon 2, and Bayonetta 2, all of which are ports from Wii-U. And several others that are ports from Wii, Wii-U, GBA, etc. All physical Switch, btw.

I think improved versions of games from depreciated systems should always be welcome.

What is BS is Sony doing a remaster of Horizon Zero Dawn from PS4, Spider-Man, etc. That is really just selling the game again, which in itself is fine, but insinuating games from PS4 need a "remaster" is absurd. I guess "remaster" in this context means selling the games patched to take advantage of the greater capacity of PS5 (or PC).

I basically already said the same thing above, but you said it first so I'm giving you credit for that. I feel the same way with remasters or re-releases.

I meant to edit my post and I accidentally quoted myself.

On top of all that, modern games don't drop in price as much as they did. You can't wait a year for the games to drop to $20 and in most of these case, they don't ever drop so no matter how long you wait you're just going to be paying more. On top of having such a worse experience than every other generation of gaming, I'm also paying, more than I've ever paid before for video games. I didn't grow up and buy my own games during the NES and SNES, but PS1, GBA all the way up to PS4 you could just wait. Wait a year and buy pretty everything that you were interested outside of Nintendo games new for $20. You haven't been able to do that in the last four years. We're not only paying more than we've ever paid before, we're getting a shittier experience than we've ever paid before.

Unless you're a Nintendo shill and only buy Nintendo games, then congratulations, nothing at all feels different, you're used to paying out the ass for Nintendo games.

Honestly, maybe I might just do that. Maybe I may just become a Nintendo shill who only buys Nintendo games from now on or listen to IGN and Metacritic bullshit about the 88 or higher, best games of the year, and just be a fucking a casual fuck from now on and just don't buy anything except the highest rated most popular shit that obviously I'm also interest and just ignore literally everything else. And then other than that just play past generation of games. I guess it's sort of that time that I should just quit modern gaming altogether outside of the 10 or less must play games per year(granted most of these I'll hate so I'll probably ignore just ignore the open world garbage.) Just focus on playing past generations that didn't suck more than anything else.

Modern pricing really is terrible, like you said games rarely feel like they drop in price. Either pay full price or pirate. I just don't bother with modern games right now.

It's also very hard to find new games that appeal to me for the reasons you've mentioned. You need to dig for interesting titles. I've basically just come across some names by chance from a few youtube people who mentioned them by chance, with most being recent adventure titles made by indie companies. Mostly PC or multiplatform games, but no physical releases that I'm aware of.

What's strange is that modern video games would still have it easier than modern movies. With games, people would still be happy with new sequels to existing franchises. With modern movies, people are burned out on remakes but also burned out on sequels, instead wanting entirely new content. I really have no interest in watching any new film that's even a sequel to an existing property. Game companies can still make successful sequels with existing properties, but choose not to and instead make remakes or remasters instead.

[Gentlegamer]

I agree that prior gen ports, remasters, remakes should be complimentary to new games, not the entire release catalogue.

The giant problem is that (outside of Nintendo), the major publishers only want huge AAA releases (presumably to be platforms for further DLC and MTX), requiring colossal budgets and even bigger marketing budgets, which then makes them severely risk-averse, and keeps them making the same games over and over (effectively). So even when the "new" games come out, they are really just more of the same with a different coat of paint.

It's at the point were it takes min 5 years for development, so you end up with at most one entry in a series once per gen.

There's been no new Elder Scrolls since 2011, no new Fallout since 2015, no new GTA since 2013. It even took Nintendo six years to release the next Zelda game after BotW (which is sorta kinda DLC or expansion tier).

Those may not be series that appeal to you, but they are sort of barometers for AAA development in general.

[kupomogli]

I agree that prior gen ports, remasters, remakes should be complimentary to new games, not the entire release catalogue.

The giant problem is that (outside of Nintendo), the major publishers only want huge AAA releases (presumably to be platforms for further DLC and MTX), requiring colossal budgets and even bigger marketing budgets, which then makes them severely risk-averse, and keeps them making the same games over and over (effectively). So even when the "new" games come out, they are really just more of the same with a different coat of paint.

It's at the point were it takes min 5 years for development, so you end up with at most one entry in a series once per gen.

There's been no new Elder Scrolls since 2011, no new Fallout since 2015, no new GTA since 2013. It even took Nintendo six years to release the next Zelda game after BotW (which is sorta kinda DLC or expansion tier).

Those may not be series that appeal to you, but they are sort of barometers for AAA development in general.

Yeah. These games have stupid budget budgets that grow by the year. And while The Elder Scrolls team can point at Starfield, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76 at the very least. Rockstar has just been pushing GTA Online since 2013 so even when GTA6 releases next year, that'll be 12 years between sequels when there were three games on the PS2, two games on the PS3/360 and three games on PSP/DS.

I actually didn't care for BotW, I don't really care about this "modern open world" but I haven't bought and I'm interested in The Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom. It's back to classic style Zelda which is really the best time. Classic Zelda games are "open" when it comes to classic standards, but this sort of open environment is your traditional adventure, where you're stuck into linear areas that have a little bit of freedom, so you finish whatever solution required in order to proceed.

That in itself is another issue about modern gaming. The modern day open world. Ghost of Tsushima, etc. Get on your horse or run in x direction for 5-10 or 20 minutes, once you get to the location you can finally start playing, and while you finally get to play after wasting around 20 minutes of your time, Ghost of Tsushima is like a poor man's Nioh mixed with watered down Arkham Asylum combat. Enemy has shield? Where each different enemy type has a specific action you're required to counter. I liked Arkham Asylum as it really works for Batman, but it's all gotten very lazy the more and more that you see this same combat used/ And after you clear out the one camp of enemies that took you 20 minutes to get to, you unlock a single unlock, whether it's a health flask that uses the Souls mechanics which are used in every single game released now days, whether it's one new piece of equipment, with it's extra health, etc. It's all just very lazy and very padded. Ghost of Tushima is literally a Ubisoft game. I don't understand how people can't see it. It's some of the laziest video game design, and as you said, same game, different coat of paint.

The biggest thing I hate about modern gaming is that the new games, and I've already stated this above, all try to be this catch all where they try to develop a game that has aspects of so many different games all in one. A big net to catch as many fish as possible. Instead of anything really great, at least in my opinion, we get something that's a bloated mess that doesn't do anything really well. But apparently the average gamer likes it.

It's like the average gamer wants to just play games. It just has to have content and it doesn't feel like it even matters what kind of content anymore as long as it's playable. When calling my mom and speaking to her one day, told her the same thing as what I typed in the above paragraph one day about how all games feel like they want to cast the widest net possible to get the most sales and it generally feels this way on so many games, including a lot of indies with how you almost never see indie games anymore that don't have some sort of bonfire/flash, procedural, or card system in it anymore. I told her that most video gaming now days feels like every game is developed to get as many people as possible to buy into them and feels your reward is little else than a participation trophy.

[kupomogli]

What's worse than a port, LRG reselling you the same game already released on the console for an absurd price because they're using Xbox not getting a physical release as an excuse. Additionally, people are praising the Switch port of Kiwami, a game at one time that released on the PS3. What's sad is that yes, the PS3 ran at 30fps, but the Switch version has a 30fps cap which it struggles to maintain. Yet let's praise not only the Switch for a port, but a port that doesn't even run as well as a game that was released on hardware two generations ago.

I also find Kiwami to be worse than the original Yakuza. It's a poor implementation of the additional stances when they just throw extra enemies in many of the battles that the stances themselves aren't really designed around, so it just ends up like feeling like a poor man's Yakuza 0 rather than the game that started it all. Remaking the game and rebalancing the Dragon of Dojima combat system and allowing you to use the Yakuza 0 Dragon of Dojima from the start while having to gain all of the skills as you progress just like the original game would have been more enjoyable, because even on Yakuza Kiwami, the Dragon of Dojima stance is so weak that it's unusable most of the game until you are to build it up. Even Yakuza 0 Dragon of Dojima style was weak because you have to invest so much time and money into making it more powerful that when you finally get to actually use it you're done with most of the games content and have beaten the game 20 hours ago. So the fact that Kiwami's Dragon of Dojima still sucks, it's just a poor experience only made that much worse now that it struggles to even play on the Switch.

Or Sega going through LRG to sell the complete edition of Valkyria Chronicles 4, so instead of paying a reasonable price 37 years after release with all DLC, we can get f'd over and pay for the game and the fluff DLC for $40 more than the standard version of the game costs to buy brand new this very day.

[Gameguy]

That in itself is another issue about modern gaming. The modern day open world. Ghost of Tsushima, etc. Get on your horse or run in x direction for 5-10 or 20 minutes, once you get to the location you can finally start playing, and while you finally get to play after wasting around 20 minutes of your time, Ghost of Tsushima is like a poor man's Nioh mixed with watered down Arkham Asylum combat. Enemy has shield? Where each different enemy type has a specific action you're required to counter. I liked Arkham Asylum as it really works for Batman, but it's all gotten very lazy the more and more that you see this same combat used/ And after you clear out the one camp of enemies that took you 20 minutes to get to, you unlock a single unlock, whether it's a health flask that uses the Souls mechanics which are used in every single game released now days, whether it's one new piece of equipment, with it's extra health, etc. It's all just very lazy and very padded. Ghost of Tushima is literally a Ubisoft game. I don't understand how people can't see it. It's some of the laziest video game design, and as you said, same game, different coat of paint.

Developers want to advertise their games as being bigger than anything made before, but they still contain around the same amount of playable content. The content is just spread further and further apart to both advertise a larger play area, and pad/waste your time with extra hours of unnecessary gameplay. Games used to be fun at around 8-12 hours, now games need to be 80-200 hours. Plus developers just license engines instead of designing their own ones now, so games tend to all feel the same with minor differences.

Also add skill trees to mechanics that I really dislike. Even action games are treated as RPGs where you need to mess with settings in separate menus for hours of adjustments.

It's like the average gamer wants to just play games. It just has to have content and it doesn't feel like it even matters what kind of content anymore as long as it's playable.

Replace "gamer" with "streamer" and you've got the answer to why it's happening. People just want easy to play through content to stream, while making fun of the content they're playing. So many games include streaming modes that disable licensed music for this reason, it's just made for streaming on Twitch or youtube. Just push your way through the game while talking and answering a live chat.

[Gentlegamer]

Twitch delenda est

[Aussie2B]

these ports are stopping new games from being developed.

They're not. Reread what you quoted, if you even read it the first time.

To begin with, the average port or remaster requires a tiny fraction of the time and budget of a brand-new game. There are a lot of them because they're relatively quick and cheap to make. They're not eating up the resources necessary to create a brand-new game. Even remakes can run the gamut, with some being quite low-budget (such as the 3D remake of Secret of Mana). If a company is refraining from making brand-new games, then they just don't want to take the risk. The cost to make games has grown exponentially, and it doesn't always pay off.

You bring up NIS. Well, outside of Disgaea, there don't have much that's sold gangbusters, so there's little incentive to keep making brand-new games if they're going to sell like htoL#NiQ, A Rose in the Twilight, Yomawari, Penny-Punching Princess, etc. I bought those games when they first came out, along with many others, so I did my part to encourage NIS to develop more new games. Did you? And for what it's worth, they are currently working on a new Phantom Brave. NISA, as a localizer, is bringing out new games too (like the aforementioned Ys games). But I'm very happy that they've been rereleasing a lot of older games as well. If you ask me, the best thing NIS/NISA has done this generation is release the second and third Marl Kingdom games in the West in English for the first time ever. Last I checked, Digital Press is a primarily retro-focused gaming site, so we are supposed to care about older games too, right?

Anyway, I don't know where you're looking, but I hear about tons of brand-new games coming out from all variety of developers, even outside of indies. It's on you if you can't find anything among those you want to play, and if you're not buying them, that just reinforces that it's not worth the risk to make them. And if you do buy loads of new games and refrain from buying ports and things are still not going in the direction you want, well, tough luck. If ports are successful, then that means lots of people like them, and their wants are worth catering to as well. The industry doesn't exist to serve your tastes alone.

[kupomogli]

I bought those games when they first came out, along with many others, so I did my part to encourage NIS to develop more new games. Did you?

Outside of tl;dr or whatever the roguelike is called and some of the Falcom games until I got burnt out on The Legend of Text Dumps, Ys10 should be in the mail right now, no, because much like Compile Heart and Idea Factory, NIS games are generally trash.

Surprisingly, NIS has created one of the best roguelikes of all time with ZHP Unlosing Ranger vs Darkdeath Evil Man as well as some of the best platformers of all time with the Prinny games. These games may have not sold well, but imo they're the best games they've released by far. I did also buy Disgaea 4 and 5 on the PS Vita, I think I may have sold one or both of them and I bought Disgaea 4+ on the PS4 and that's just to have one of the newest Disgaea games. I'm not a fan of the series, but they're mostly the same so atleast having one, I don't exactly need another game in the franchise. The only storyline that I liked out of the ones I've played was Disgaea 1, I didn't really even like the ZHP story, but gameplay was fantastic so the storyline to this one doesn't really matter, and that's why I only really need one Disgaea. If every single game is the same, I'm not going to buy every single game. Oh wait, there's a slight difference in this game that allows me to do this, well, it's one of the newer games so odds are there's very little difference on the rest.

The Disgaea series is like sports games, same exact gameplay for each one, it's usually some sort of grind and from the ones I've played, I haven't cared for the storylines aside from the original Disgaea. I bought Disgaea 4+ because it's one of the last versions before they went with the new 3D art and much like a Trails game, the gameplay is going to be one of the more updated variation of what's been the exact same game repeatedly in the series. All the Trails games are pretty much text dumps reusing a lot of content with what's a near identical combat system each game, amazing combat system, but after 87 games and 90% of the game is text dump bloat that is really non essential I'm not going to continue buying the games when they're just using the modern development style of "waste the players time means long game."

[kupomogli]

Yet another remaster was announced, Xenoblade Chronicles X is one of the last Wii U games that hasn't been ported to the Switch with the exception of the Wind Waker and Twilight Princess and the very rare game like Mario Party 8 which was a terrible game yet has received several better sequels on the Switch or Tank! Tank! Tank!, the tech demo launch title Nintendo Land. and all those shovelware games Nintendo pushed onto the Wii U in the last two years of its life like Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival that is hardly even a game.

Nintendo basically said fuck you to anyone who ever supported the Wii U, and all because of their failure to popularize the console with practically nothing but a tech demo to sell the console for months and the worst drip feed of worthwhile games we've seen outside of the Vita. Passing the loss of the failed console onto everyone who supported them, thanks Nintendo, if you're not screwing us by lying to us about never having an XL version of your handheld so that we buy into the original model only to announce thee XL literally a week later instead of a couple years after that quote, you're phoning it in within two years of the life of a console that you released while you push to have a new one released ASAP, the Switch was released four years after the Wii U, but that doesn't mean that we got four years out of the Wii U as a console with the last two years having almost no releases but shovelware from Nintendo themselves. Now with all the worthwhile games on the Switch, the Wii U and the entire library of anyone who owns the Wii U, is basically meaningless. Unless you've got someone like me who sees value using the Wii U as the ultimate Nintendo emulator because of the Wii U pad and the TV being true dual screen support for DS emulation, it is by far Nintendo's worst console. It has literally no identity of its own as it lost all of that when everything worthwhile no longer exists as an exclusive.

That's another reason I dislike ports and remasters, because they take away the identity of a past console. If there's no reason to ever own that past console because it now no longer has any exclusives at all, much like the PS5, Xbox Series X, Wii U, and Vita, the console is literally worthless, a meaningless piece of scrap not worth the plastic and electronics used to make it. Some ports are fine, not a big deal, but each and every port that's released takes a little piece away from the previous console and it adds nothing to the new consoles other than games we've already played before, no new experiences. Yes, there are millions of people that didn't have the opportunity to play those games, but most gamers now days that play these games have aged alongside the consoles. The average age of console gamers is apparently in the 30s, not the 20s like they were a decade ago. So all of these people have already had the opportunity to play these games. Not only does it take away from the history of past consoles, it adds games that others have already played, the people who have played these don't get anything out of the release if they're not interested in paying for another remaster. Again, not so bad when it's a few here and there, but when it's large quantity of the games released?

To begin with, the average port or remaster requires a tiny fraction of the time and budget of a brand-new game. There are a lot of them because they're relatively quick and cheap to make. They're not eating up the resources necessary to create a brand-new game. Even remakes can run the gamut, with some being quite low-budget (such as the 3D remake of Secret of Mana). If a company is refraining from making brand-new games, then they just don't want to take the risk. The cost to make games has grown exponentially, and it doesn't always pay off.

So tell me then, how is it that Sony's studios haven't released anything this entire generation if it takes such a skeleton crew? Naughty Dog released three new games, a remastered collection of the PS3 Uncharted games, and TLOU remastered. So far after four years of the PS5, their TWO TEAMS have released The Last of Us Part 1 remastered, a graphical update of the exact same game, The Last of Us Part 2 remaster, and the remaster of the two Uncharted games on PS4. So four remasters with not a single new game. It's been seven years since the second team released a new game and five years since the first team released a new game. It's not really that much of a skeleton crew if it's been half a decade or more for two giant us teams to even show off a new game that's in development. The only one that has high resolution textures has been The Last of Us Part 1, all of the other games was that "simple remaster" that you're talking about.

Sucker Punch developed Infamous Second Son, used a lot of the same content to develop the expansion Infamous First Light, and Ghost of Tsushima. This generation they've onlly released a remaster for Ghost of Tsushima and in five years are going to have released their one and only PS5 non remaster. So last generation they've released two games if you don't count the expansion, this generation they'll have released one. Unless they can release another game within two years, that's it. One remaster, and one game. They'll probably release an expansion based on Ghost of Yotei, but they'll be in the same boat they are last gen with the release of First Light, except they'll be one full game down.

Sony Santa Monica has so far released one cross generation game on the PS5, God of War Ragnarok. So last generation there's been two games. God of War and God of War Ragnarok, this generation there's pretty much been one remaster since the game was in development for PS5 before they decided to push more resources into making it cross gen. Remember when Sony said that the game was only going to be on PS4 at one point. So yeah, it's a remaster, that's it, it's not a PS5 game. So in four years, Sony Santa Monica has made a single remaster and hasn't even announced a single PS5 game while PS4 has had two games and one remaster with God of War 3.

You see my point right, these games are just your "simple remasters." The one game that was more than a simple remaster was The Last of Us Part 1 which were only higher fidelity graphics than a simple resolution bump with all of the same textures and effects from last generation, yet these studios have nothing to show for it aside from these remasters.

Now here's another thing to point out. Nightdive Studios, the people who remastered Star Wars Dark Forces and System Shock with upgraded graphics have a team of 40 people as of 2022. In this year they developed two remasters so at this time they likely have more people working for them. But you remember when System Shock Enhanced Edition was in development hell for a long time? 40 people releasing two games a year though? That's not a skeleton crew, that's a lot of people working to get the games out. It's definitely a third party group that was working on these games, so these games didn't cause the delay of other titles, but the fact that it took a studio of 40 people such a long time to develop a remaster, it just goes to show it's not just a few people in their basement slapping a remaster to thagether in a few days because that's just how easy it is. You hear this shit all the fucking time that oh, remasters are just a few people, it doesn't take any resources, it's just a small fraction of how many people developed the original game.

Here's some more information. The original System Shock was developed by Looking Glass Studios in 1994. They had 120 employees as of 1999. That doesn't mean that's how many employees they had during the development of System Shock, but there are only three times the amount of employees in 1999 Nightdive Studios currently has now, and this is over 20 years after the fact. Hardware has gotten more powerful, advancement in technology has made software development easier, yet it's not that much of a substantial loss of employees from then to now and again, that's five years after the original System Shock was developed, a pretty big hit and System Shock 2 was an even bigger hit, so you likely say that the amount of employees grew after the success of the original System Shock within that five years that System Shock 2 launched in 1999, so the amount of employees may have even been 60 or 80, compared to the 40 in Nightdive Studios. It's really just speculation there, butt the fact is, it's not as simple as people are making these things out to be.

One more thing, you're an RPG fan. Have you not played any of the Pixel Remasters and have seen just how many developers worked on those games, and that's a lot more people than the original NES Final Fantasy, for just a "simple remaster." I might sound like a dick here but the amount of bullshit people are spewing out of their mouths without actually looking into it a little bit and just assuming that it's an old game so it takes no development resources and one person is just making the entire game on a weekend(I'm generalizing here but you get the idea.) It's far from what people actually think.

[kupomogli]

Last I checked, Digital Press is a primarily retro-focused gaming site, so we are supposed to care about older games too, right?

Which brings me to the point that I touched on in the previous post, yes, we're at Digital Press, where we can about older games. Older consoles are also part of older games, not wanting so many remasters to the point that a console completely loses its identity because it has nothing to show for it as I pointed out with the Wii U. What Nintendo did is pretty much shit entirely on their own legacy because of money. The showed they don't give a crap about the Wii U or any of the people who attempted to support it, so the console itself, has pretty much no identity of its own, just like the PS5, just like Xbox Series X, just like the Vita. Nothing but ports, or games you can play elsewhere.

I think that's far more important than being able to play all the older games on your newest shiniest console so developers can put forth less effort for more profit. Because not only does it take away from identity of the original console, the newer console have no identity of their own because they're getting ports instead of new games. There's literally no positive except you can pay more money to play an updated version of the same game, while the negatives are that you're removing part of the identity of that old console, you're not adding anything to the new console other than old game, to the point that people are bitching about how little there is on the newest generation of consoles compared to practically any other generation.