What are the 30 year old plus gamers playing?
- Thread starter rixx
- Start date
Soldato
That's quite a list, I think this year has seen me playing more games than any other for a while.
My completed in 2024 list:
- Elden Ring
- Persona 3 Reload
- Granblue Fantasy: Relink
- Unicorn Overlord
- Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth
- Rise of the Ronin
- Stellar Blade
- Dragons Dogma 2
- Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance
- Metaphor: Refantazio
- Star Wars Outlaws
- Sekiro (re-play on PC such a good game)
So quite a few JRPG games there. I like western releases as well but they have to be good games and there aren't that many coming out lately.
Notably absent from your list is Unicorn Overlord which I recommend trying out if you have a PS5 or a Switch, it's not on PC sadly. The game is pretty unique and a fresh style compared to a lot of games I've played.
Associate
I haven't finished a game fully in ages until now. Just beat Space Marine 2. Finally finished GTA5 story mode and now onto Borderlands 3. And replaying Doom Eternal which was the last game I completed till now.
It's been a very strong year for JRPGs and Korean developers. What did you make of Rise of the Ronin ? Worth a punt on sale, or just a "poor man's" Ghost of Tsushima ?
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Soldato
I got Persona 4 Golden in the latest Humble Choice.
Can someone please explain what that game is and whether I should play it?
Can someone please explain what that game is and whether I should play it?
It''s a great game, imo ... especially if you're into JRPGs. It has a modern setting, quite dark in tone ... but is also part social simulator. All the Persona games have the last part ... some love it, some don't. Art direction is superb, as with all the Persona games, and a killer soundtrack.
Soldato
I looked at some short videos and couldn't quite get my head around what is going on. The thing is the user rating on steam is off the charts. People seem to love it, I just couldn't understand what it was.
Soldato
The Persona franchise is pretty long running, each game is not connected to others (except the odd easter egg) so you can play them in any order you feel like.
There are 3 with PC releases, in order:
- Persona 3 Reload (P3R)
- Persona 4 Golden (P4G)
- Persona 5 Royal (P5R)
I'd say P3R is more or less "Persona 4.5" in terms of how it sits between P4G and P5R overall for me.
P3R is possibly the best intro to the series because it's relatively short at 40-50 hours compared with P5R which is easily a 100+ hour game at this point.
I think I'd say play P3R or P5R first if you can, and if you like them, then P4G would be worth a go.
As for what Persona is, all the games have the same sort of theme, which is a sort of hybrid slice of life sim / dating sim (though this isn't a huge part of the games) / visual novel / turn based dungeon crawler RPG.
I won't delve into details but I'd say if that sounds interesting, try and get P3R or P5R to play first, at last check P3R was on Game Pass so a potential easy route to try it out.
Soldato
Many people will draw similarities between them and for obvious reason, but in terms of actual story they are pretty different.
Tsushima deals with the Mongol invasion where Ronin is more about westernisation and how the shogunate handles it.
Visual fidelity wise no contest at all, Tsushima wins this hands down.
Combat difficulty wise I'll give the win to Ronin. Tsushima is relatively easy once you get a few upgrades and the enemies don't vary much, but there are some very challenging fights in Ronin that are more soulsy in terms of having to learn how to beat them with retries.
Both games suffer from the illusion of choice aspect, there is essentially one story in each game and choices you make don't impact the overall story arcs at all basically, which is a shame, as I think there was scope in Ronin to do more with this and have at least 2-3 different endings possible.
Combat feels quite similar to Wu Long but the actual story and characters is a lot more interesting, and I think it's overall a pretty fun game.
If you see Ronin cheap I'd say worth a shot for sure, especially if you like these types of games
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Soldato
Is the story self contained in each game or do I need to play the earlier games to understand what is going on?
Associate
I still play Candy Crush to pass the time.I know, it's so old-school, but I can't stop.
Soldato
No as I said in the first sentence you quoted you're good, each game is self contained they're just thematically connected.
Soldato
Sorry, I was replying while on a cross country coach at the time.
Soldato
no worries you're good, if you try it out at some point let us know how you get on
Associate
Another shout-out for Beyond All Reason. For those of us who are old and remember playing Total Annhilation 20 years ago. And it's free!
Soldato
This week, I have mostly been playing Stalker 2, Wukong, RoboCop and Forza Horizon 5 Deluxe Edition
Associate
Oh, I've played it but not beaten it yet. Great game. Thanks for the recommendation though!
I'm waiting for Stellar Blade and Rise of Ronin to come to PC. I tried Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on PS5 but I quit and sold my copy as the performance mode (IMO) wasn't acceptable and I don't play at 30FPS in fast paced games anymore (except Bloodborne!), so I'll dive back in on PC. As a huge FF fan, it was a painful decision, but I'm more patient now as an older gamer!
Soldato
Probably a good idea, I expect that Stellar Blade will appear before FF7 does though.
To expand on this, it's also worth noting that each of the games have fairly lengthy intros that aren't necessarily representative of the entire experience. You don't have a lot of agency until the story set up sections are done, which ranges between 3-6 hours off the top of my head. After that point you'll have a lot more choice in what to do and how to go about your day outside of the odd story specific date.
If you're on the fence during those periods it's absolutely worth pushing through imo.
Metaphor: ReFantazio is also worth a look if you enjoy them, same company/dev team and similar playstyle, but with a more traditional medieval type fantasy setting, fantastic game with heaps of charm.
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