A PS4 Thread: Because You Had to Play "Knack"

Witcher is very good at explaining in baby-language how to do stuff and what you're meant to do next, but there's a LOT and as I'm not very well versed in the vernacular of new third-person gaming, it's still a lot of info for me to understand

Witcher is how

wow how did i flub that post

not even going to try again

Witcher is how

― ciderpress, Monday, October 21, 2019 2:48 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

You're how

lol

At first I thought cider was going to say that tackling a complex game like Witcher might be a decent trial-by-fire method to get used to nu-games

i was gonna say something about how it's a game where the gameplay is secondary to the writing and world building and so you can kinda just make your way through with basic tactics and occasional weapon/armor upgrades if you don't feel like learning the alchemy systems

you can get through most tough encounters just by abusing the shield rune plus hit and run tactics iirc

that's good to know.
I'm trying to help an old lady find a frying pan right now. V silly.

I was told Dark Souls is for pros only. Perhaps Red Dead would have been a better indoctrination, but oh well I'm on this one for now.

Are there any good PS4 games that are similar to Earthbound/Chrono Trigger, in that they've got a lot of offbeat humour going on, as well as a cool story and puzzles?

Witcher 3 made me sigh after an hour and try something else. Maybe I'll go back, but it was a lot to grasp and tbh to work that hard to understand something I'd like to be paid.

xp you could try Dragon Quest XI if you want a traditional turn based rpg like those

Dark Souls was hard but wasn't that bad, imo. You'll likely need help, like I did, but there's enough going on that I can (in theory) imagine going back to it at some point and trying it a different way.

xp - not fussed if it's turn-based or not (not 100% sure what that means, but I can guess it's down to the battle style), more the weirdness and humour of those kinds of games that I like. A lot of PS4 RPG-ish games look very serious and masculine - big dudes with swords or guns killing aliens or dragons or soldiers, which is cool and everything but it's quite po-faced a lot of the time and doesn't break the fourth wall too much

turn-based meaning you choose commands from a menu rather than controlling the character directly. like the games you mentioned

oh yeah. i guess i find all that stuff to be the most tedious parts of those games. i love everything else

but yeah dragon quest xi is probably the best answer to your question, it very much maintains the style of those 90s JRPGs

i'll think on whether there's an action RPG alternative, blanking on one right now

I take back my prior comments on Control running great on the original PS4

It's not every scene that kills it, but by mid-game my console is trying its best to keep up. Might work better on the installed version when not reading from disc? In any case, yikes. Still very fun, though.

and this is after the patch?

presumably

I need to sort out what's going on with my PS4, because it's refusing to apply the 7.00 system update because the download is corrupted regardless of how I download it. It appears to have patched Control, though. I'll double check.

honestly couldn't be bothered to fix anything because it was the end of my vacation and I just wanted to play games and not give a shit about anything else

Turn-based RPG recommendation: Persona 5, but this time I'd definitely advise waiting because the expansion is coming sometime next year.

Action RPG a la Witcher 3 (which I still think is terrifically overrated and unfun but hey dog latin if you're digging it who am I to rain on yer parade?): Horizon Zero Dawn (stars inquisitive female character).

HZD AKA the one where a cave girl fights robot dinosaurs.

i still haven't played the new DQ but that seems like a perfect recommendation for dog latin, as far as kind of old school ideas on a new platform. persona 5, too! more of an updated take but perfectly graspable and v stylish

Noob question: Can I save games to my PS4 so I don't need to swap discs whne I want to play a new game? Is it recommended on a 500GB?

yes you can! in fact, i'm not even sure how you save to anywhere except the ps4 (there's probably a USB stick option but i've never messed with it)

also, not sure if you know, but you don't need to buy discs (unless you want to) - you can buy games directly from the store and download them.
installing games to the hard drive also makes them run faster (?? i'm assuming this is true)

buy games directly from the ^online ps4^ store and download them, if that wasn't clear

the answer is actually the worst of both worlds i think, most big games automatically install to the hard drive because running it directly off the disc is too slow, but the disc acts as DRM so you still need it in.

oh dang, that blows - i am glad to have zero discs

the alternative is buying the games digitally from the PS store, obviously the downside there is you can't get the same type of discounts/sales as buying a disc copy at retail

btw, the "just buy games online and download them" strategy won't work as well if you're the kind of person who likes to have 30+ games accessible at any point. for me, i usually have 2-3 games i'm working on at any given moment, another handful for certain situations, and then the rest of them are ones that i've deleted to save space on my hard drive but can be re-downloaded at any point if i want to play them.

it's never created a situation for me, but not for everyone

I think my greatest axe to grind was that newest Final Fantasy game, which I probably spent more time installing than playing because I couldn't get into it.

Put disc in, it wants to install. I let it install. Then it immediately downloads a patch that's nearly the size of the entire game. Actually, thinking back, it might have just downloaded the entire game and the disc was useless.

The "day one patch" offenders for games released on discs are bad enough now that the downloaded version is superior

cool. what do i do to download? I haven't seen that option.

Also, are we sharing handles on here for multiplayer online purposes?

Many xps but I don't think you got any answers to this?

Wouldn't mind some recommendations of two-player or multi-player games that I can download and play with my S/O and housemate

I'd definitely look at Rocket League, Overcooked, and one or more of the Jackbox Party Packs (esp the one that includes Fibbage). But in all honesty if this was a key driver for you, you might have been better off with that Switch after all - couch multiplayer largely died out on other platforms when online play took off.

(Oh, also Nidhogg and maybe Towerfall Ascension, if you want competitive rather than co-op)

We had a lot of fun with Broforce too though it's hard to recommend because the performance is so bad on PS4 and I don't think it ever got fixed? But yeah 2d 16-bit style games shouldn't be seeing their frame rates drop to single figures on modern hardware)

Even on Switch I want to say many of their best multiplayer games are designed for online play. Thinking of stuff like Splatoon, though of course there is always Smash Brothers and Mario Kart, which are both also ideal for couch multiplayer. I don't think I've purchased a game for PS4 thus far that made me regret not having online access, though there are a few games in which said feature seems intriguing.

Overcooked ... I think we collectively played about 15 minutes of it as a family before we realized it was a really really bad idea.

Rcket League, Overcooked, and one or more of the Jackbox Party Packs

Towerfall Ascension, Broforce

yes to all of these, and also otm about couch multiplayer being garbage on ps4

haven't played Nidhogg! in fact i haven't even heard of it, i gotta check it out.

recently i was having a brodown with an old friend with a ps4, so we decided to get super-nostalgic and purchase the remastered tony hawk 2 so we could do multiplayer like we did a million times in the past. turns out the remastered game took out the split screen option so that the only way you can play with your friend is if they are in their own home, online.

there's plenty of couch multiplayer on ps4 especially if you include stuff like the entire fighting game genre or sports genre

thanks everyone!!

it's so sad that multiplayer couch style games aren't really a thing though.. I mean, that was half the fun of having a console back in the day, getting your mates round and playing rounds of Mortal Kombat or Mario Kart and stuff.. I get why you'd want to play online with loads of other people you've never met, but there's room for both right?

I think we collectively played about 15 minutes of it as a family before we realized it was a really really bad idea.

Hahaaa same here tbh but I assumed that just meant it was a bad idea for our family. I've enjoyed it more with peers, just a tricky one to play with your kids without finding yourself yelling at them.

i played overcooked with a friend who is a irl short order cook, and also exceptionally good at video games. i was kind of shocked at how poorly we performed as a team

it's so sad that multiplayer couch style games aren't really a thing though

Yeah definitely. Like, me and my son loved playing destiny together but to do it we needed to be in different rooms on different ps4s plugged into different tvs using headsets to communicate, it was pretty fucking dysfunctional really.

(ciderpress is right though, I was forgetting fighting and sport games, they still exist if you're into them).

I mean, that was half the fun of having a console back in the day, getting your mates round and playing rounds of Mortal Kombat or Mario Kart and stuff.. I get why you'd want to play online with loads of other people you've never met, but there's room for both right?

It's not an issue in my house, since my girls don't really play any of this shit, but I know plenty of parents of kids who do, and their kids apparently spend hours playing multiplayer games together online with friends as an activity seemingly preferable to interacting in real life, which is very much on generation trend (see also: less partying, drinking, drugs, sex, per studies). I wonder if any of it stems from the fact that in many cases these games make it, per the earlier comment, literally impossible to play together on the same screen, in the same room.

There's always LAN parties. :)

ciderpress otm. couch multiplayer is totally a thing.

every sports game
every fighting game
gt sport
minecraft
overcooked
but ESPECIALLY crash team racing

competitive competitive is a thing - cooperative, not so much. but i suppose that's always been true

tbh i may have a warped perspective because my coop partner doesn't like sports, fighting, or racing games.