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

No idea what the prices will be, but there's a PS sale hitting at the end of the month that I think for the first time includes Ghost of Tsushima, Miles Morales and The Last of Us Part II, which were maybe the last three big titles dropped before the PS5 was released. I'm totally down for all of those, though most likely would skip Miles for now, only because I never finished the first game.

virtua fighter 5 will be released as a ps+ game, available on june 1st

https://blog.playstation.com/2021/05/26/playstation-plus-games-for-june-operation-tango-virtua-fighter-5-ultimate-showdown-star-wars-squadrons/

I thought God of War nu-2 would be the one that could convince me to get a PS5, but now it looks like it not only got delayed to 2022, it'll be for PS4 as well as PS5. So that's even less incentive to upgrade any time soon.

2 years crossgen period is pretty normal, 2023 is when you'll get the first big ps5-only title

Yeah, but for huge flagship first-party titles? I guess even Nintendo did it with the Zelda games from Wii to Switch, still hard to get used to that idea. I don't feel like this happened with Mario or Halo.

They don't need any help selling ps5s right now though, GoW2 will probably be old news by the time supply comes close to exceeding demand

the first huge flagship first party game on ps4 but not ps3 was horizon zero dawn wasn't it? which came out 3.5 years after launch. bloodborne was earlier but that was still a bit more niche at the time.

I didn't realize till this week that PSPrices only aggregates price histories on the PS store, and not from retailers.

OTOH I didn't realize till 15 minutes ago that Deku Deals also lists PS4 games.

hello, i have a ps4 question but it is for sensitive eyes only, so it's on 77 in the what's happening thread

Sort of related, I just paid $40 for a big pile of PS4 games, many big name AAA, a handful of steelbooks. Maybe 20 of them? Where's the best place for me to sell them? I know I can flip them for more than I paid for them, and I know that a place like Gamestop would buy them all and I'd more than make my money back, but I was still hoping to get a good price rather than a lowball.

if you want the best ROI sell them individually on ebay. otherwise put them up on craigslist or facebook as a lot and hope someone else who has the time to resell them on ebay will bite. you probably won't get more than half of the ebay going rate for them, but it'd be a lot more than gamestop will give you.

All the Sony PS4 are dark and stressful and lonely. I appreciate the vibe, but I was on a serious hangover yesterday and I can't fucking play Bloodborne when I'm in that headspace. Like, even pretty indie games like Celeste are frantic and lonesome, and Journey is very beautiful and everything but it's also kind of sad and reflective.

I guess what I'm saying is I need something that's a bit jollier and escapist; something a bit more Nintendo, when I'm feeling broken and sorry for myself. I'd buy a secondhand Switch if I had a little more money, or maybe I could just dust down my SNES mini and replay Yoshi's Island or Chrono Trigger again.

I just find it strange that there's a dearth of these kinds of games on the PS4. I appreciate it's aimed more at an adult market than Nintendo, but adults like Earthbound, right? And sometimes we have dreadful hangovers too. What can I do?

Everybody’s Tennis is available in the store for PS4 iirc! Go get it! Incredibly addictive ime

There are fun multiplayer games too like Crash Team Racing and Overcooked

I agree with you in general though. For a long time Sony’s had the gritty/sophisicated console and that’s not always what you want

Ah yes I have Overcooked (super stressful but great fun) and Crash which I used to play a lot with my ex before we broke up. *Sigh*.

I don't have PS Now, but I'm considering it. I just really like (and miss) involving storylines with a bit of fun and magic to them - you know, like Chrono, Earthbound, LTTP and all that. I enjoyed Undertale as a kind of gritty parody of those kinds of games; but there was also an element of trying too hard while trying to be edgy. I can see there's a bunch of new-style JRPGs on PS4 invaribaly called things like Brave Crystal Dragon Team X VI or whatever, but they all look very teenage and anime; a bit spiky hair and short-skirts and tons of lore stemming back to previous games.

Tbf, the From games are all about stressful and lonely. I thought God of War was a blast, have you played that?

I'm playing "Wolfenstein: New Order" right now and it's stupid trashy fun, albeit with a latent and totally unearned tonal sadness to it.

Yeah God Of War was a fabulous game, and I guess a bit less lonely than many of those other kinds of games because you have a companion with you. Not exactly Final Fantasy VI.

I did get Nier Automata which seems like a lot of fun although it's a bit bullet-hellish in the one go round I had. Seems cool though

But yes there's a strange tonal sadness that seems to come with the vast majority of PS4 games. It's not really something I got from playing Nintendo games in the nineties. Super Metroid certainly did this, but not that many other games - they just gave me good feelings. Maybe it's just nostalgia talking though?

It's fine and everything, but it can feel very lonely and isolating if I already feel this way and need cheering up. A little humour, a little companionship, you know? I wonder why this is? Is it something to do with third or first person 3D? It's always you, a sullen loner figure out on your own... Even Witcher 3 with its world full of characters deliberately makes you feel like an outcast. I guess RDR2 is less like this - there's a cast of allies and you're able to walk around and say hi to people.

That's kind of a video game trope, though I think because Sony/PS4 sort of focuses on single-player games they play it up a bit more. The exclusives, at least. That said, I thought Ratchet and Clank was good silly fun.

i just bought R&C. There's nothing wrong with a bit of light relief. I haven't played Outer Worlds or No Man's Sky though - just thinking maybe they might tick the box? I have played Outer Wilds though and that's goofy but also still a bit isolatory

no man's sky is an intensely solitary game. even when you meet other beings, they only have the minimum of things programmed into them to make you feel like they're juuuust barely not a robot.

as josh mentioned, solitude is a video game trope. there's probably a good essay (or post) somewhere on why. i suspect that in the earlier days it had to do with practical limitations on memory, hardware, etc. but even now, it is much easier to make a game that revolves around solitude and isolation rather than one that has lots of realistic characters you can interact with in a realistic way.

Sure, but I rarely got that feeling from the nineties games really. I didn't play games for well over a decade till I got my PS4 and it's something I noticed almost immediately: Why do all these games give me a weird slightly downbeat vibe?

Like, all those top-down RPGs I used to play, you'd end up meeting (and often playing as) people who would help you or offer a feeling of companionship even though you're essentially on your own. Earthbound is often referenced as a game that plays on this psychology: You start as just a kid in his house with his mum and sister, then you slowly start to explore locations beyond your doorstep, eventually recruiting people to your party. Then at a cetain point in the game, just as things are going well, you get cut off from those people and it's genuinely heartbreaking.

I've even read articles where people talked about Earthbound helping them overcome their agoraphobia, whereas there's a directly agoraphobic vibe coming from most of these newer games: You're alone, the landscape hates you, most people hate you, there's danger and loneliness all around. I think Ico is the first time I perhaps experienced this strange feeling of isolation in a game, so maybe that's where the trope comes from?

tomb raider kinda started this eerie isolation vibe imo

games like doom had it too but that was more just sheer terror and panic

Right. And Doom is one of the first successful FPS games, so I wonder if it is something to do with a switch from 2D to 3D? But why would that be? And why have modern 2D platformers and RPGs like Celeste, Little Nightmares, Undertale, Inside etc inherited this vibe? Is it simply because it's deemed to be more 'adult' and highbrow, more anti-Nintendo?

that's definitely part of it, i think
also all these millenial developers are sad emokids

all of whom really love video games of course

by contrast i feel like developers of the '80s/'90s were largely technical nerds who somehow fell into a bizarre industry that didn't have solid prequisites

cuphead tho

Chicory: A Colorful Tale is (strangely) NOT on Switch but is on PS4, and is basically made of hugs. It does get into pretty heavy emotional territory, but it's intensely social (for a single-player game) not to mention charming.

dl, I haven't played it but my understanding is that final fantasy xv is a game about chilling with your buds

most jrpgs are, also yakuza games

Katamari!

There’s a handful of whimsical games that I am having difficulty remembering on the fly

dragon quest xi is very blue sky in games

I haven't played it (or owned a non-Nintendo console since the PS2 lol) but would Spider-Man count here?

I was playing Yooka-Laylee, the Rare tribute, recently, and it's bright and colourful, but I suppose depending on mood it might be either "I'm making new friends who will help me" or "Great, another fucker who wants something from me"

spider-man still has the eerie loneliness imo. even though it’s a bustling city 99% of your interactions with it are either bashing baddies or single-handedly attempting to overcome devious challenges set by often unseen ne’er-do-wells

I started Ratchet And Clank. It's wonderfully realised and quite good fun, although a bit like playing a Pixar also-ran; it's definitely a youngster's game. I feel like I'm being very hard to please here, but it feels like as soon as we start trying to appeal to people over the age of 7 in any way it's suddenly got to be all gritty and depressing ;-)

Maybe the Final Fantasy games or Dragon Quest could be the answer. I love FFVI on the SNES but never played any others

spider-man still has the eerie loneliness imo. even though it’s a bustling city 99% of your interactions with it are either bashing baddies or single-handedly attempting to overcome devious challenges set by often unseen ne’er-do-wells

I haven't played them yet, but don't the "Uncharted" games have well-written NPC buddies?

nah they are still mostly one lonely guy just jumping baout things

and murdering people. a lot of people

Immortals: Fenyx Rising is a good Zelda clone.
Super Lucky's Tale is a decent 3D platformer. Spyro Reignited is great. A Hat in Time is another decent one.
Wandersong is a simple 2D adventure/platformer with a plot.
Donut County is a short simple game with a plot.

I'll investigate those, cheers

I think "Sekiro" broke my controller. For sure the left stick drift is now bad enough that I've died a few times in Dark Souls 2 doing nothing but standing too close to a ledge or something. Can anyone recommend a good third party replacement for the wireless DualShock, or is there a reason to stick with the real-deal?

have you tried blowing some compressed air into the stick shaft or anything like that? drift can sometimes just be due to some dust/debris underneath the stick

I tried some method I found online, but despite compressed air being the most obvious solution I don't think I've done that yet, lol.

Cross Code on sale for $10 -- yay/nay?

I really liked the slice of it I played before it left Game Pass.

i have some gripes with the combat and difficulty curve but it is a full length JRPG with elaborate zelda puzzle dungeons and a lot of neat ideas, if that appeals to you

action-jrpg to be clear, not turn based