Remakes, remasters and rehashes

W3 was probably the game of that generation for me, I liked it a lot.

I have one real world friend who thinks W3 is the GOAT. I however have never played it.

I got pretty bored after a while. I don't think it helped that my armour looked totally ridiculous, which undermined a lot of the gravitas the story was going for.

"I once killed a wyvern twice my level, through liberal application of Quen and a lot of patience"

That's a euphemism I'm going to start using.

W3 is fine. I think I've managed to get about 30 hours in on a couple of platforms until the map is just a splurge of icons, I forget what I'm supposed to be doing and it all seems a bit pointless. It's fine. The trees are nice, and it's always windy.

I really liked it. Initially it feels like a fairly standard open-world RPG with rather clunky combat, but it soon becomes apparent that the writing is where it shines. The world feels beaten-down and lived-in, and there are little stories everywhere you look. It's nice to get something that's based around Eastern European myths and legends, rather than the more generic Tolkien rip-offs we usually get, it has a unique feel to it. The quests are well-written, choices are meaningful, Geralt is a grumpy twat and things often go in surprising (and dark) directions.

In many ways it's the opposite of something like Skyrim, which is expansive but sometimes feels a bit copy-and-pasted and generic. Every corner of The Witcher 3 has been carefully hand-crafted, and it all adds up to something quite special.

I played through the main game (not a small undertaking) and started the first DLC but never got more than a couple of hours into it. I can't remember how to play the game at all any more, or what I was supposed to be doing. Not sure I want to replay it all, but we'll see.

Blood & Wine, the second DLC, is basically a full game in its own right. Brand new map, new story, new characters. Might be worth playing through just that, once the new upgrade drops.

I picked up the GOTY edition for next to nothing in a GOG sale a while back, so I'll definitely check out how badly my PC runs it.

Blood and Wine ended my Geralt's story so fucking perfectly, nothing ground breaking or new just Spoiler - click to showretiring in the new dlc region with Yennifer after all of that shit with Ciri, the Wild Hunt, the reaper dude in Heart of Stone, the Vampire shit in Blood and Wine…Geralt gets to rest, at the time it felt like finally closing a particularly hefty book that ended really well

The trees are nice, and it's always windy.

Hmmm… Might be worth another go after all…

I've yet to complete Witcher 3, but the 10 hours I put in it, I really enjoyed. I think it was around my first son was born so I just stopped. I think it's like £5 for the game with the DLC so I'm thinking of jumping in myself when the update is here. Also on a side note. The campaign card base game Thronebreaker was brilliant if anyone is into strategy card games with the level of Witcher characters, story and writing.

You spent at least 7/10 hours on Gwent didn't you

Yes. Good news is the Gwent that's in the Witcher 3 is a completely different game to Gwent that I played for years after. I'll have zero interest in messing around with it this time around.

I'm not sure which Gwent I dislike more, the card came or the actual place. It's slow, doesn't contain a lot of interesting tactical choices and seems a bit pointless… and the card game is bad too… tip your waitress, the fish is great, I'll be here all night etc.

The new Resident Evil 4 remake is worth it just for this promo video alone.

That is amazing.

They're making a whole series of them..!?

Yeah, I'm surprised no-one here noticed until now. They did the same for RE Village, but with puppets…

I regret to inform everyone that the incels are at it again.

https://www.thegamer.com/resident-evil-4-remake-woke-review-bombing/

The internet was such a bad idea, wasn't it.

Is this that guy who basically said it was awful because they took out all the times you could see up Ashley's skirt?

These people are cretins.

References to "newvegas2" have appeared in the SteamDB package history for Fallout 4. 🤔

Bumping this because in light of the last two games I've played, Trails 1st and Metal Gear Solid Delta which are both remakes respectively, also relevant is that I finished the OG version of Resident Evil 4 a few days ago, more on that later.

This is the first 'remake' I've played that is basically 99% the same, some QOL here and there, they added MGS5 crouch walking and rejigged some controls but this is MGS3 for better or worse, some reviews have called this out and some reviews have said it was the right call and so far I have to say I'm in the former camp. I actually think it's kinda' crazy to say that it's okay that it wasn't changed, for a remake.

I think back to a few days ago when I played a demo of 'Trails 1st' which is a remake of Trails in the Sky: FC, which changes basically everything and has a visual upgrade that is more than an UE facelift (tbf it wasn't originally a PS2 game). They completely overhauled combat and it's both fun and feels similar to Cold Steel's combat but a bit snappier.

I think back to Resident Evil 4 Remake, which most people seem to be quite down on these days imo based ON the things it changed but it also changed quite a lot so it was its own thing, a lot of people seem down on theg ame now for changing the pristine formula of the OG where you could headshot/kneeshot and melee your way out of trouble, Leon was also more precise. Story wise the Ashley changes alone were huge albeit not one most RE4 players will care about, but it's there.

MGS Delta is so similar that it's basically the game I loved, it prob wont fall lower than a 7/10, but despite knee jerk reacting to people saying it's a pointless remake, it kinda…is? While also being so close to the best game of all time I'm still having a blast seeing everything look so pretty.

Fucking hell, Trails 1st is a tedious slog.

If the intent is to convince me to buy the game, don't make me sit through thirty minutes of horseshit before I get to any of the actual mechanics.

Endless conversations with characters I don't care about, tutorial screens of information I'm simply not going to retain for when I'll need it hours later, twee music, a rubbish script (made even worse by an awful English dub, which can thankfully be switched to Japanese). Two battle systems, for some fucking reason.

I've not been this annoyed by a demo this quickly in a long time.

Ah man

I don't remember the intro being that long, but I was playing the OG in in my head and marvelling at how much they've stuck to it whilst being super different. As for tutorials, I kinda already knew all this stuff from the last few games, it might seem like a lot but it really isn't. I'll just say the real time combat is for either quickly killing weak enemies or for stunning stronger ones so you can enter turn based with advantage.

Big disagree on music here though, Trails (and Ys) can stand up there with the best of them IMO ('them' being Final Fantasy, Xeno-series, some others that escape my mind atm) the main theme IS pretty twee though, very much because Liberl is the country (as opposed to Erebonia which you'd have been in during Cold Steel) and the first game didn't get into the shonen flavour yet which arguably isn't a thing in the series until SC, the next game. I think Falcom's OSTs are pretty popular, which isn't me trying to put you in the minority rather than me trying to at least say it isn't strictly my bias here…

As for characters…all I can say is Estelle is my favourite female JRPG protagonist probably, and not strictly because of her growth over the entire series, but her personality in this game too, part of that is actually down to her writing which is slightly altered in this to be less punchy but still good enough (In the OG she screams 'Why is my present a boy?!?!' instead of what she says here for instance). I'm not sure what characters you hated but did you like Scherazard at least? I just want more Adults in JRPGs who like to get pissed PLEASE, like Sara.

I'm not sure if I can get you back from the sounds of things TBH, because the demo is basically the whole game, Estelle and Joshua meeting new people as they tour through Liberl in the search for answers. I'm surprised you didn't enjoy combat though, I thought it was their snappiest yet.

I'm not sure what characters you hated

Don't hate any of em (yet), I just don't care about any of em (yet). The game's given me nothing to go on, despite all this dialogue dumping exposition.

I'm surprised you didn't enjoy combat though, I thought it was their snappiest yet.

I just couldn't get used to having to select the enemy before you select the attack. The number of times I wasted a turn because I expected there to be a "confirmation" was killing me. I suspect it's because of the Persona/Metaphor-style attack-type-per-button interface, so I was expecting it to work with the same flow.

The whole structure is just so outdated. It works/worked with sprites and text-only dialogue in a way that grinds everything to a crawl when you're waiting for it in full 3D animation with voice acting.

Maybe it gets better after the tutorial section, but I don't think I can take another minute of this stuff.