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This Week in Games - The Final Countdown


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b-dragon



Joined: 21 Apr 2021
Posts: 496
PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 11:10 am Reply with quote
Man...Soul Hackers. I played it, and despite being an SMT fan, I don't remember it ever really coming together for me. Nemissa was definitely the best part though.
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Battle Cossack



Joined: 14 Oct 2009
Posts: 87
Location: Bay Area, CA
PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 11:21 am Reply with quote
I too really wished I enjoyed Soul Hackers more than I actually did. That said, I'd definitely give a Switch version a try.
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Hoppy800



Joined: 09 Aug 2013
Posts: 3331
PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 11:33 am Reply with quote
Considering how bad the slippery slope has become with Sony, it will be eventually be a miracle that your standard military FPSes or uncensored Resident Evil will be on Playstation. How the mighty have fallen, they don't even have Front Mission games anymore (Nintendo has them) and they already starting to lose Gundam games.
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Bvick00



Joined: 17 Jan 2022
Posts: 53
Location: Goa, India
PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 12:38 pm Reply with quote
The whole Martha is Dead situation is kinda dumb af - The supposed cut out scene in question is grotesque and disturbing, but that's the whole point of it being there in a horror game for meant for adults. And I hate that both Sony and Steam treat us adults as if we are dumba** kids! Especially Steam with their inconsistent policy on anime eroge/fanservice games. Both Sony and Steam were cool back in the day, but I hate how they have regressed in regards to censorship in their games in just these few years.

Soul Hackers..... surprisingly I don't know about this particular Megami Tensei spinoff even though I know about the Devil Children spinoff games that were for the GBC and GBA years ago. Might check it out
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 4590
Location: New York
PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 12:50 pm Reply with quote
This week has been kind of a bummer, hasn’t it? Unfair censorship standards, and the continue arguments of product preservation vs companies disinclined to preserve material but not offering legal alternatives. Sonic being the film franchise that can is one of the few pieces of good news.

Also next week, the Steam Deck (aka the Gabe Gear) is out, and I wonder how, if in any way it will affect how people view Steam as a store.
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Naotomato



Joined: 22 Aug 2014
Posts: 67
PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 2:00 pm Reply with quote
Bvick00 wrote:
Soul Hackers..... surprisingly I don't know about this particular Megami Tensei spinoff even though I know about the Devil Children spinoff games that were for the GBC and GBA years ago. Might check it out


It's a ride trust me.

For the dev situation, that's not only with small companies but any IP that isn't popular in general. Compare Advance Wars reboot camp marketing to ANY other Nintendo IP marketing. Nobody even knows that it has a physical copy; the news places don't report it nor care. It only shows up in directs. No merch, no commercials, no ads really to promote the game and get it to sell/notice. It's like the situation with Neo all over again. If it's not popular, nobody will care or even bother, and sadly that can be the same for indie companies. Word of mouth and marketing is a thing (which is how Stardew valley became popular.)
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Gem-Bug



Joined: 10 Nov 2018
Posts: 1304
PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 4:20 pm Reply with quote
Been meaning to play Soul Hackers for years now; I've had the excellent OST on rotation for just as long. It is peak late-90's cyberpunk, despite us not getting it until the 2010's.
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blahmoomoo



Joined: 27 Jan 2020
Posts: 499
PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 4:25 pm Reply with quote
I don't know, I saw the demo of Martha Is Dead where one of the (interactive!) grotesque scenes is shown, and it really is a step beyond anything else I have seen in a game. I would say Sony making them exclude scenes like that is more status quo for them than a shift in policy. Granted, Sony could have told them so sooner, but I think that could be a separate problem: the rumored cost of getting platform approval on consoles could have made the developers wait until they could try to get final approval in one go.

(I also recall that the scene in the demo didn't really need to be there and it felt like them pushing the envelope just so they could, as there are far more reasonable metaphors to use. But that's a separate discussion.)
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3447
PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 4:57 pm Reply with quote
Content policed by store front is nothing new, recall the infamous hot coffee scene. I'd say if anything things are far better nowadays, while online storefront are regulated they're a lot more open than any brick and mortar store ever was. Not a day goes by without an explicit pornographic game being release on steam for example.

Storefront also do this to protect themselves, this type of horror game see very low sales number but could cause politician in some territory to ask for much more stringent restriction, look at Australia and Germany for example. It's juts not worth the massive headache for them. The game could also be release in the edited form on the store front but point the customer to an un-edited version they could download on the dev website.
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AiddonValentine



Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 2338
PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 5:52 pm Reply with quote
-Martha is Dead: Yeah, this is getting into arbitrary BS territory with Sony and it's clear they're cherry-picking titles from smaller names that can't fight back. Shame on them.

-Clocks: For CAPCOM, it's probably RE8 DLC. For Atlus, probably a port of the 3DS Soul Hackers remake.

-eShop: Oh, there were signs this was coming soon. At least they gave us ample warning, but it still sucks. I have no the first party stuff will eventually be remade/ported and even a lot of third party stuff like the Dragon Quest remakes and the Ace Attorney series, but it still sucks. The Virtual Console in particular is going to be such a huge loss. It was never profitable, but it was still so cool and now we have no idea how much stuff might be ported, like all the Squaresoft stuff. And that's not even getting into other titles still on the Wii U like Nintendoland or Xenoblade X. Regardless, I can some eShop business to take care of
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Guile



Joined: 18 Jun 2013
Posts: 595
PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 9:39 pm Reply with quote
Sony's censorship starting to affect western games rather than just Japanese games is interesting. Especially for something involving violence rather than sex for a change, although perhaps the fact it was being done to a woman is a factor in it as well.

I have not picked up a PS5 yet and I'm unsure if I ever will at this rate. Most of the Sony exclusives are American games I don't have much interest in. I'm comfortable with just a Switch and PC right now. It'd sad to see because I've been a fan of Playstation since the beginning. They've fallen so far from their roots.
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Yu Ominae



Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Posts: 71
PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 10:47 pm Reply with quote
I know of the sequel for Soul Hackers and that was SH: Intruder. That was only in mobile phones if you live in Japan in 2007.

Someone did a translation of it and posted it on YT. Sadly, the guy suffered a breakdown and got rid of them.
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Zalis116
Moderator


Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 6900
Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Sat Feb 19, 2022 4:21 am Reply with quote
Quote:
(Also, please consider supporting alternative storefronts for buying PC games like itch.io or publisher stores. Not only do they allow more content than Steam, but they also give a bigger cut back to the developers. It's a win for everyone!)


No no, this is heresy. Heresy, I say! Also blasphemy and apostasy! Steam is the ultimate, greatest, most tremendous, most perfect service that anyone's ever seen ever in their lives! Steam is utterly unimpeachable, perfect, and infallible; it can only be failed by impudent infidel developers that don't prostrate themselves enough before its Thanos-esque inevitabilty. If only there were other stores, such as -- shot in the dark here -- Epic*, that paid more to developers, and competed in the free market with Steam by having content Steam didn't have, instead of selling the same games while vainly trying to overcome Steam's entrenched advantages of institutional inertia and fanatical userbase devotion.

But no, "going to a different website" and "installing an additional launcher on their overpowered high-end rigs" is just far too much to ask of PC gamers who adhere to the Gabe Newell Cult of Personality. And thus, some amount of censorship and small-developer hardship are just tragic but necessary sacrifices to ensure the eternal success and domination of the magnificent and insatiable Lord GabeN. Praise be upon him! Worship Lord GabeN at the church of your choice!

*spoiler[Granted, Epic definitely has/had their share of store/website issues and things that could be improved. But I can't fault them for their overall strategy, as simply selling the same games as Steam while trying to compete solely with site/store features and "we pay the devs a bit more" would've been tantamount to surrender, given that Steam would've had the same features, along with "incumbency bias" being very much on their side. ]
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BlueAlf



Joined: 02 Jan 2017
Posts: 1548
PostPosted: Sat Feb 19, 2022 8:18 am Reply with quote
Honestly, I'm not sure if it'll just be a re-release of the old Soul Hackers.
So curious. [/u]
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 4590
Location: New York
PostPosted: Sat Feb 19, 2022 10:02 am Reply with quote
Zalis116 wrote:
No no, this is heresy. Heresy, I say! Also blasphemy and apostasy! Steam is the ultimate, greatest, most tremendous, most perfect service that anyone's ever seen ever in their lives! Steam is utterly unimpeachable, perfect, and infallible; it can only be failed by impudent infidel developers that don't prostrate themselves enough before its Thanos-esque inevitabilty. If only there were other stores, such as -- shot in the dark here -- Epic*, that paid more to developers, and competed in the free market with Steam by having content Steam didn't have, instead of selling the same games while vainly trying to overcome Steam's entrenched advantages of institutional inertia and fanatical userbase devotion.

But no, "going to a different website" and "installing an additional launcher on their overpowered high-end rigs" is just far too much to ask of PC gamers who adhere to the Gabe Newell Cult of Personality. And thus, some amount of censorship and small-developer hardship are just tragic but necessary sacrifices to ensure the eternal success and domination of the magnificent and insatiable Lord GabeN. Praise be upon him! Worship Lord GabeN at the church of your choice!

*spoiler[Granted, Epic definitely has/had their share of store/website issues and things that could be improved. But I can't fault them for their overall strategy, as simply selling the same games as Steam while trying to compete solely with site/store features and "we pay the devs a bit more" would've been tantamount to surrender, given that Steam would've had the same features, along with "incumbency bias" being very much on their side. ]


This is exactly why I bought up the Steam Deck/Gabe Gear coming out next week. It’s essentially the same goal as an iPad/iPhone, power and convenience designed to place you fully on that ecosystem. And with people locked on that ecosystem, the word of the owners quickly becomes the de facto law. How many websites abandoned adult material when Apple began enforcing strict “no adult material” standards? Same thing here.
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