They did a pretty significant marketing push on Twitch for Crimson Desert, but in financial terms I don’t know if that is all that expensive, and certainly not in relation to 5 million copies sold.

Ninja Gaiden 2 is calling.

Have you played STALKER Anomaly? It has the looting and shooting without being an extraction shooter, but still scratches a similar itch.

My condolences.

CDPR gambled for the masses and won with Witcher 3. I agree with you and would prefer the combat to be more methodical, require more preparation and be more visceral. I wish you’d have to actually manually brew the correct potions and oils in preparation, and then see those have a huge impact on whether you win or lose the fight.

At the same time, the super lightweight combat they went with allowed the game to be so approachable by the causal market that it sold millions and millions of copies and singlehandedly catapulted CDPR into a AAA studio. So it’s hard to argue they made a mistake not catering to players like us.

Some games have started to crop up that straddle the line between Souls and CAG, The Nioh series and First Berserker: Khazan come to mind. I’ve also heard good things about AI Limit, it looks pretty fast and it doesn’t have stamina.

Also not a Soulslike but I assume you’ve played Ninja Gaiden?

It can be a little moon logic at times and might be frustrating to play without a guide, but yeah it’s great and quite funny.

It’s a very fun series, they play very differently from a lot of other games so look up some video footage first maybe, but I think they’re fun. The missions are somewhat sandboxy and can make you feel pretty clever when you figure out how to set up a nice sequence.

While I think Rise of the Ronin has the better combat, the presentation for the duels in Ghost is much better for sure. I loved the fight amongst the lanterns too, was probably the most memorable part of the game for me as well.

I played some Desperados last year and tbh they hold up pretty well apart from some graphics/UI stuff. I don’t think I ever played Robin Hood beyond the demo back in the day, but I played enough Commandos/Desperados to know it’s quality.

One final subject i wanted too touch on is that this game makes me wish for a Robin Hood game.

I don’t know if it’s your type of game but Robin Hood: Legend of Sherwood is a classic.

Rise of the Ronin is like Ghost but less cinematic and less graphically impressive but with better combat. I guess it depends on what you’re looking for exactly.

I don’t think I play enough retro games to warrant owning one of these, and if I was to buy a handheld it’d probably be a Steam Deck. But they are such nice objects I kinda want one anyway.

Great article as always, I love your content. I especially appreciated the developer interviews about the 8GB RAM limitations.

I could barely get through one playthrough of it to be honest. The first 20ish hours were alright but by the end of the 60h playthrough I had to actively force myself to finish it. I agree that the story is competent but nothing special, and the way it’s mono-serious and every line is delivered in the same dour, stoic monotone just wore me down over the playthrough. Plus the quest design is repetitive and pretty dull, as is the open world stuff. And the combat is fine but really not deep or varied enough to fuel such a long playtime.

While the world is gorgeous from a visual design perspective, I didn’t really get the alive sensation at all personally. That is something I felt in RDR2 for sure, but Ghost just felt like a bog standard Ubisoft open world to me.

But I seem to be in a minority feeling this way about Ghost so maybe I’m just getting old and cranky.

I’m with you. I thought it was alright but I never saw what everyone else seemed to see in the game. I do admire it for being both beautiful and immaculately optimised however.

First game I got or first one I bought for my own money? The first game I ever got and played was Super Mario Land for the GameBoy. I remember when the hype around Pokémon Red/Blue coming to Europe was building I was trying to calculate how many weeks of allowance I would need to save up to afford it, so that might have been the first one I actually purchased, I can’t remember for sure if I bought it myself or got it as a gift. Diablo 2 launched a year later and I know I bought that one as I vividly remember the car ride back from the store, so otherwise that might be it.

All of these were of course incredibly worth it. I would never have gotten into video games without that GameBoy and Super Mario Land I think, and Pokémon was a formative experience for me as I got to participate in the whole Pokémania phenomenon. And Diablo 2 is one of the games I have the most hours in over my childhood, it kept resurfacing over my school years as me and the other gamers in my school would randomly get the urge to start playing Diablo 2 again randomly almost yearly over the course of like 8 years after its release.

I have a feeling this will be to Owlcat was BG3 was to Larian.

I never played it but I watched the ChristopherOdd Let’s Play of it and enjoyed it. Fun little game for sure.

Combat looks so-so but the card based abilities sounds cool enough for a wishlist.

• Withering Rooms - 2.5D horror roguelike in a procedurally generated victorian manor. I’ve only heard great things and it looks phenomenal and unique.
• The Drifter - Australian point and click with beautiful pixel art, a supposedly amazing story and some stellar voice acting.
• Death Howl - turn based strategy meets deckbuilder meets Soulslike!? Looks beautiful and interesting.
• Radiolight - Horror walking simulator that looks inspired by Firewatch and Alan Wake. Looks interesting.
• Seance of Blake Manor - Was a huge hit last year, I’m keen to try it. Agatha Christie simulator in a mysterious manor sounds good to me.
• Murders on the Yangtze River - Chinese Ace Attorney but more serious and less silly is what I’ve heard it described as. I’m intrigued.