Yeah really unique gameplay. I've never played anything like it, where every level playthrough is never the same twice. And you'll be dying....alot. And no saving your level progress. It's a real ballbreaker. It takes a real commitment to sit down & play it, because you'll likely play for 90 minutes, only to fail at the boss. Learn from your mistakes. Rinse & repeat. I still haven't made it past the first level after owning it for months.

That said....I think it's outstanding. Great story, unique idea, and it really takes advantage of the force feedback controller. I'd wait until black friday in November, then scoop it up for cheap.

PS Love the Rogue Trooper logo!

As much as I would love to play Returnal, it's sounding like Demon's Souls all over for me. I'll play it, die, play, die, then 2 hours later, haven't really progressed at all. I'm a decent gamer, been playing most of my life, and love a challenge, but there's times where you need to have something to show for 2 hours of life invested lol.

Yeah, I will never understand why people consider trial and error games difficult or challenging. They feel like they just boil down to how much time you are willing to waste. For me The Last of us Two on the harder difficulties was amazing. Sure I died countless times but you would also get in the groove and just go on long runs of John Wick like perfection where you just destroyed entire sections. Then I would die a thousand times. When you actually have to die to figure out what to do, I am out. I just don't have time for games with shitty save progression.

Agreed. It's demoralizing when you die after 2 hours invested. Do I want to waste time & take a beating today? 99% of the time the answer is nah. Which is why I haven't played it that much. It's still a great game though IMO. Perhaps pick it up when it's like $20

that's probably when I'll get it lol

Returnal is still around $40 secondhand right now, which was what I paid for Demon's Souls secondhand new. I spent probably 20 hrs or more on that game and only beat the first boss. Like Darscot mentioned, lots of trial and error, and almost getting there, then dying, etc. It wasn't difficult in a sense that it was challenging, more like, one or two shot kills, then all over again.

To contrast, in GoW the Valkyrie battles are hard as hell, but they were FUN! and they were beatable once you learned how to read each Valkyrie and their attack patterns. Difficult but doable.

Different types of games for all types of people. Just like pinball machines

I don't really consider it wasted time if I enjoyed it. I enjoy getting better at stuff and 'figuring' it out. The difficulty makes games like Demon's Souls and Returnal rewarding and fun for some of us and annoying for others.

I mean, this is the essence of soulslikes, just every enemy needs to be figured out

Absolutely! If you love it, that's awesome. Different strokes for different folks

Hades release on PS4/PS5 is tomorrow if you haven't played (IMO) the best rouge-like out there (since we're talking about Returnal/Demon's Souls). I've sunk many hours into the Switch version but I'm tempted to re-buy it for the PS5 for the up-res to 4K and 60 FPS. A must buy-buy-buy if you haven't played it yet, and maybe if you want to upgrade to better performance.

I would be buying it for PS5 if I didn’t have a Series S already and it will be on Gamepass. I have about 50 hours on PC and Switch. Such a great game. Too bad no cross save tho on Xbox or ps5.

It's funny, jumping into the Demon's Souls remake after playing the original many times, it's like it looks how I remember it, even though the visuals are way better now.

I'm loving it, though am I correct in my impression that there's not much integration of the new controller features in this game? It's not like I'm blown away by the controller experience that's hyped as a ps5 feature.

Have you played Astro's Playroom?

I played it for a few minutes to see the effects. I think the possibilities are interesting. I'm just saying Demon's Souls doesn't seem to have much of that going on, or maybe I'm just not noticing it. I read it does something when shooting arrows, which is something I almost never do.

Yeah, gotcha. Astro's playroom definitely shows the potential of the Dual Sense, which was why I asked, but I agree. The only effects that I felt during my short play of Demon's Souls was the shield, and sometimes when using magic.

I'm looking forward to further integration of the Dual Sense with future games. I bet GoW and Horizon will make good use of it.

I was super excited for the new functionality the first time I got to try it out. That being said, historically developers tend to not do much with it. Vibration seems to get filtered out as you play a game. The first time you feel it you are like wow, then it kinda becomes background noise. The resistance has the most potential for things like braking in racing games that you could feel brakes getting soft and mushy. Things like sprinting that it can get harder and harder to do as you get more physically tired. When it just repetitive without much change pulling a trigger, or drawing a bow I think it would get filtered out like vibration.

The biggest factor for me when I got the details of the new PS5 controller was that Microsoft didn't do anything to counter it. That was like the one thing that they have had that all the Xbox hardcore hang their hat on, they have the better controller. I personally didn't find them that different. Sony threw the gauntlet down and Microsoft just went oh well I guess we lost that too.

I don't know much, but I thought the Dual Sense was the first of its kind (adaptive triggers and haptic feedback). I'm primarily a console gamer, but the only controller feature that was new in recent memory was rumble, and that was like 20 yrs ago lol.

I really like how they implemented it in Miles Morales, and I think moving forward, at least for first party games or exclusives, they will make tons of use for it, just to set themselves (Sony/PS5) apart from PC and Microsoft).

The dual sense was the first with those haptic or resistant triggers. The rumble is more advanced you can literally send a music file to the controller and it will just vibrate out the song. So you can make things feel exactly like they sound. It is super easy to do things like make ever individual car vibrate the engine rumble. Its super powerful but it's up to the devs to do something with it.

The effects are subtle in Demons souls but nothing to showcase. Returnal and Ratchet and Clank utilize the dualsense features well. I will say I picked up a Series S recently and the Xbox controller feels like a toy compared to the dualsense. I also find the Xbox controller uncomfortable after an hour or so.

Finished up Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart. All in all, it was very good. Incredible looking game and I liked the story and new characters a lot. It was ultimately a bit short but chasing platinum should pad that a bit. For comparison the PS4 RnC clocked in at about 11 hours for me to complete the story. This game was 7 hours. While appreciate the shortness due to my backlog, I was left wanting a bit more.

On to FFVII Remake

I finished it very quickly as well. Going through it again now to fully collect everything. Honestly though while the RAC series is one of my favorites, I can't play this game very long without getting motion sick. Getting old sucks...

I don't have much time in my day so I've been enjoying Ratchet for the last few weeks and it's all I play now. It's absolutely amazing and makes me glad I bought a PS5. Game of the summer for me. Literally.

Damn. Too bad it's so short. At full retail @ $70, you'd think it would have a bit more playtime than that! Not that dollars equate to game length, but to a certain degree, you'd expect a little bit longer playthrough.

I don’t know how long it took me to get through R&C but I had no issue with its length. I did get all the Bolts the first time through. It felt for me to be just right. It was an amazing experience. I still have a couple of weapons to upgrade and max out so it will get another play through.

Downloaded Hades for PS5 yesterday. Well there went my entire day! I know this game has been out for awhile on different systems, but it's all new to me. It's a dungeon-crawler rogue-like game with a great Greek god story where you are trying to escape hell. And you will fail....alot. But this is intentional. It's how the story reveals itself & how you progressively improve your skills with each death.

Very unique. Really draws you right in. Easy to learn mechanics. Great story. It really checks all the boxes. Highly recommended & only $25

Hades is one of my all-time favorites. The voice acting, story, artwork, play mechanics, and rinse/repeat nature of the game are all done expertly. 10/10 for sure!

Five nights at freddys security breech is coming out sometime. That’s a cool and fun franchise.

I've never been into dungeon crawlers before. Probably my only experience with them is old school Gauntlet, which isn't saying much. But they are certainly lots of fun. Now I'm gonna have to check out the remastered edition of Diablo 2 when that comes out next month.

I'm sure its more/less semantics ("dungeon crawler") but Diablo and Hades are very much different games. Probably the only thing similar is the isometric view point. The combat, the RPG mechanics, the loot etc, makes both games quite different from each other imo. If you haven't played any of the Diablo games yet, don't be disappointed if you were expecting a Hades-like experience!

Playing Hades again on gamepass. I have been playing since early access so a lot of the early game is a bit different now with added assets and VO. They have added so much and it is such an incredible game. All time great and happy more people are getting to experience it. Hades and Dead Cells are two games I can see playing for years to come. They are my go to games if I only have 30 min or an hour to play.

I get that criticism but I am still very happy with it. I wasn’t sad that it was short bc I felt ripped off, I was sad there wasn’t more because I loved it so much

I just received my PS5 this week! First game I bought was Ratchet and Clank. Are there any games you recommend in particular?

Note I see mention of Hades - Great game. I have it on my Nintendo Switch, and enjoy the handheld format of that gametype.

Just picked up Returnal NIB second hand for $35! Installed it last night but it needed a good 1.5 hrs to update? Seemed like a long time. Haven't had a minute to dig into it yet, but I'll make sure to have a decent chunk of time before I start. Maybe I'll end up throwing it out the window from what I hear haha

If you look back a few posts, we had given suggestions to another Pinsider.

Depends on what you like. Did you have a PS4? etc.

Quick ones: Demon's Souls (if you like Dark Souls), Spiderman Remastered/Miles Morales, God of War.

If you haven't played it Ghost of Tsushima the Directors Cut drops today. Even if you have lots of new content so worth a second play.

I only play 2 games, Grand Theft Auto and NCAA College Football. Does anyone know when they'll be releasing a new version???

The NCAA has been dropped from the title so it will be "EA Sports College Football" sadly you are in for a wait as it will not release till 23.

Pretty good showing today from Sony, even if stuff is a ways out. KotOR remake is intruiging.

I once played through the original Demon's Souls solo offline and found it to be quite manageable (especially compared to my failed solo Dark Souls attempt). That was several years ago and maybe I'm a much worse player now, but there have been some struggles on my first playthrough of the remake. Though I did make it through the Maneater boss solo on the remake, so I'll give myself some credit. Just a couple bosses to go.

Oh man! I played KotOR about a half dozen times during my college years. I LOVED that game!

I’m super excited for God of War, can’t wait to continue that story. The Uncharted Remasters don’t make any sense to me, curious how much they will charge for them, feels like a free patch is all they need.

I will say, as an avid Xbox fan through the years, I'm having more fun on the PS5 than with the Series X. Love the haptic feedback controllers, and the PS5 games are absolutely gorgeous (as is the Ghosts of Tsushima Director's Cut). Just picked up Sackboy to have fun with this weekend, and I've decided to get the COD on PS5 just because of the controller sounds and vibrations. I've never done that before on a cross-platform game.

It could be I'm changing teams...

COD on the PS5 with haptic feedback definitely brings the game to a whole new level.

It's cool to enjoy both, or all consoles. I never understood the fanboi-ism that some people have (not indicating you specifically). Like one, like the other, like both. It's all good. I want to get a series x for game pass, and I'm sure I'll enjoy the series x when I get one someday, but still enjoy the PS5 as well! There's room for both!

I just never warmed up to previous iterations of PS except for the Uncharted games, which were amazing. Wasn't a fan of the controllers, either. This console has changed my mind and I'm enjoying it more than the Xbox right now. Could change when Halo comes out.

But I agree with what you said. Love them both...just one more than the other depending on the week.

Oh...and still don't understand why there's no dolby atmos on the PS5.

I'm kind of in a 3rd spot, got a ps5 and series X, played Miles Morales and mainly played the series X for the game pass stuff. Recently though I've been playing through Age of Empires 3 remaster on game pass on pc, it's free and I never played it when it came out. I am going to play through Psychonauts when I'm done with AOE3, I played through the first level of Psychonauts and it's pretty good. Neither console has been very strong out of the gate, it's all back catalog/remastered stuff mainly carrying them.

I haven’t owned a console in decades but last year like many needed a distraction and I have always loved driving games (and pinball of course) I got a Fanatec CSL elite driving wheel, 3 peddles and their H pattern shifter on a Playseat challenge. I went the PC route because I couldn’t get a PS5. The PC’s graphic card was defective and a few days later I was able to get a PS5. I was playing on an 82” tv which I thought was pretty good, in the house I was staying at. When I returned home (and shipped the rig) I use a projector, not a tv. I’m now driving on close to a 15 foot diagonal image from fairly close. It covers almost my entire visual field (almost fills my glasses field of view) and is so immersive. I’ve thought of selling my TAF and using the money and floor space for a motion simulator rig for even more immersion, but I think I would miss the pinball. I like having the two things from my teenage years at arcades, in my house (pinball and racing).

Nice. Maneater and Firelurker are the hardest bosses to solo IMO. Maneater is probably a bit more dangerous b/c he can bop you off the bridge. Even if the bosses are a bit easy, Demon's Souls is still an amazing experience. I am almost done with Dark Souls Remastered and wow it has been incredible. I just wish it looked as good as Demon's Souls

Are you finding that there are enough players still to co-op on Dark Souls Remastered? Dark Souls at least gives some opportunities for NPC summons for some of the bosses, but once I got to Ornstein and Smough on my solo run, I figured it wasn't going to work out for me. It's so frustrating getting that far and hitting that wall. My Switch experience with Dark Souls remastered was that there weren't enough players, and I similarly hit an O&S wall.

I played on PC and never found an issue summoning help or being summoned until I reached the endgame. By then I didn't really need it. I think the only boss I actually got frustrated and resorted to summoning actual players for help was Quelaag. There is an NPC you can summon for O&S that really makes the fight pretty easy. If you can get a crystal weapon it helps a lot with them as well. I beat Dark Souls last night. Loved 95% of it. There were some annoying places and enemies, but it is an all time classic for sure. Will make my way through 2 and 3 as well.

So that Horizon Zero Dawn is pretty good

I'm not a big gamer, but that might be the best game I've ever played.