Topic: Looking for recommendations

@Yousef- Thank you for your time and attention to the query. 😄 I figured this was a topic you felt passionate about.

But to give you some more info you asked about — No, I don’t have access to PS2 titles. (Well, I have a PS2 stored up somewhere but not hooked up and I don’t have the cables to even hook it up to my TV even if I wanted)
I have a PS3 hooked up still, but haven’t turned it on in a couple years and would prefer not to have to. 😛

And yes, I do remember that P5 Strikers was a sequel and it was only about 2 years ago that I completed P5, so I should be okay in remembering most things. I also completed the P5 Rhythm game, Dancing in Starlight I think it’s called. It also had a very shallow light narrative thread to the original game, as I recall.

And it’s good to know the Dynasty Warriors series is a group of standalones. That helps.

But I will await your final analysis of what might be the best Musou game to start with. If it’s helpful — I don’t have much interest in anime. I dabble in it from time to time, and Persona is one of the few anime-styled series that I have kept playing. From a setting perspective, I would probably be more interested in the more realistic war or history settings. But I’m open to whatever. If the best game is a One Piece game and the plot isn’t hard to understand, I suppose I could consider it. But it would definitely be taking a large step out of my comfort zone. 😅

Edit: And no worries about taking your time, get your tea and lunch, definitely. I have quite a bit of work today so I probably won’t be on Push Square for several more hours anyway.

@colonelkilgore Yeah, I think I saw that Berserk game on a list somewhere, but know very little about it. That does sound interesting from a thematic standpoint.

@Th3solution hugely appreciated the elaboration as it will help me better decipher the most suitable entries of you, as lot of what you wrote immediately shoots a number of games I would’ve preferred not to recommend anyways so they’re supplementary.

To further dispel more stuff and maintain absolute transparency, here’s some other minor points to keep in mind:

• 1- you will not require a ps3, hence why I left it out. There’s Dynasty Warriors 7, which is actually on Steam too if you can believe it, but I will elaborate some minor issues with that game.
• 2- I will also shoot off something else; whether or not you have a switch does not matter. As the Zelda/FE musous act as supplementary material not too asimilar to Strikers (which I have no issues recommending now that you played the original. Also has an exclusive adult party member not present in OG5, so there’s a juicy story there)
• 3- while it’s a shame you cannot access the ps2 titles in any way, I will still be transparent about that not being the end of the world.
• 4- I cannot recommend One Piece in good faith. It displays all the worst in musous and is more likely to scare you off rather than pull you in. (This will be expanded upon later)
• 5- anime style games not being your thing is an incredibly helpful remark that you made and it be incredibly helpful in soothing my future post as I would not prefer to recommend those anyways.

This last section is completely isolate from both this post and my future post so it’s gonna only mentioned here.

• 6- this list bit is a bit bizarre to leave here, as I normally don’t do content warnings as I find them pointless but if you absolutely do not know anything about berserk, brace yourself for gore, nudity, all kinds of abuse, all kinds of assault, trauma + ptsd, war, tons of blood, possible body defigurement…………….. or, not. Depends on how much of it gets toned down in the game but berserk absolutely makes other M-rated games look like wholesome power of friendship stories by comparison…. A remark that’s ironic of me to make because for all of berserk’s intensity, it DOES incorporate power of friendship. Part of why it’s so beautiful, really. It still has a heart beneath the madness.

@Yousef- I should have mentioned to begin with that I do not currently have a Switch. I know a lot of the really esteemed musou’s are on that platform. Unfortunately, I’ve remained a ‘one ecosystem’ player. I don’t even play on PC; I’m limited to PS4 and PS5. So that probably narrows down my options a lot.

Oh and as it relates to Berserk and the maturity, I’m not opposed to some violence and edginess, but I’m not a fan of gratuitous violence, gore, and mature content just the sake of shock value. I’ve enjoyed plenty of mainstream M-rated fare, but I do draw a line on some things if they cross over into too much depravity. I mean, for me, The Last of Us 2, Doom, the RE franchise… those are ok.

@Th3solution the point about berserk and probably needed some citation, mainly the fact that I think so much of it is toned down and doesn’t strictly match the manga. I have not seen body disfigurement or anything mental like that so it’s like a pretty bloody game with some toned down suggestive themes compared to the source material. Going by Omega Force’s track record anyways.

I have researched it a bit and noticed some red flags, mainly the price to content ratio and a smaller roster similar to pirate warriors. Trust me, a smaller roster is a bigger issue in musous than they are in other franchises.

For the other part of your message, thank you for the information. You’ve tremendously soothed our communication and smoothly narrowed down the choices to 3 very awesome games that my write-up will revolve around, as well as a few cliff notes on what a “bad” musou looks like. I think an anti-rec can help you understand the contrast better. But it will brief… mainly so the write-up would have a chance to come out as well. It’s likely going to be image heavy as well so I hope you have decent internet.

So much of what I wanna write truly cannot be narrowed down but the best part? None of it will require any background knowledge on your part. You will understand everything I have to say, as all the information will be conveyed clear as a whistle, with no room for guesswork.

I’ve actually already taken in account your “one ecosystem” lifestyle, but felt the extra questions would allow us to have truly no stones unturned. At least it’s good to ask as a formality. My rec write-up will already accommodate those single-system folks. I am a proud idort, but I would never give a side eye to those who aren’t And if people take issue with single-system users, they can tell me what, and I will explain to them very carefully why it simply cannot be.

@Yousef- Wow, I feel like I’m getting a full personalized concierge breakdown! I feel bad that you’re putting that much thought and effort into it. Do I owe you a finder’s fee when this is all said and done? 😂 Hopefully you take credit cards.

And yes, pictures should be fine - my internet is strong.

@Th3solution you do, I do.
And yes, I take my musous very seriously thank you very much.

@Yousef- (continued from backlog thread…) As far as the recommendation for a good first musou, you reminded me there that I forgot to mention that I do indeed have a functional PS Vita, and I even still use it from time to time. Every 3-4 months I turn it on when I get a hankering for portable gaming, but I don’t use it as much lately. The last thing I’ve been playing on it is the MGS remastered ports (from BluePoint! to bring things around full circle) but I haven’t even played that for a month or so. Since I got a PS Portal I have done my portable gaming on that.

Anyway, the point is — if there’s a good Musou experience on Vita then I could be open to that also. One issue might be that physical Vita games over here are extremely rare and even the second-hand stores don’t carry them anymore. But just mentioning that it’s an option. Sorry I forgot to mention that earlier. Hopefully that doesn’t completely change your extensive Musou treatise that you’re putting together, no doubt entitled: “A Scholastic and Empiric Analysis of the Optimal Musou Game to Start with for Novices to the Genre.” 😂

@Th3solution Ahh, fascinating!!
No, dear friend, do not despear, as this information impacts my future guide very microscopically (I love making up words that accidentally turn out to be real) and if it would, I would’ve likely brought it up already. I’m well acquainted with Koei’s portable outings (a fact I’m sure will come as zero surprise to you) and already taken in account games such as Dynasty Warriors: Next, the sole original musou game on vita, with the others being ports that are likely inferior to the existing ps3/ps4 versions and psp backwards compatible games, plenty, actually, if you’re speaking Japanese, that is. And likely not even available digitally cuz Koei might be both vitaphobic and digitalphobic. You would think that that’d be the opposite with the king of niche gaming, but alas.

Thank you for providing me with the information nonetheless. Do not fret as this will have minuscule negative impact. I’m very particular about my guides, I’ll have you know. I’ll give you nothing but the very best.

@Th3solution Alright this is gonna be… pretty out of pocket, but I need your help.
This is not a question, this is not a request, this is a cry for help. (And not necessarily to you specifically, anyone can join in)
Sell me on ME.
See, my biggest weakness are RPGs, fullstop. My bigger weakness? WRPGs. My even BIGGER weakness? Space operas…. I wish I was joking.
See yes, I’m definitely sounding pretty close-minded right now but believe you me, I wanna get into Mass Effect.
Now on my end, things are kinda interesting. Because I’ve access to a system that can play both the OG games and LEs and you might actually start to begin to understand everything…
(Start to begin…? What the heck did I write there?)
Now, don’t mistake me for some kinda purist. I bring up OGs not out of protest for LEs, matter of fact I’m literally playing the Ultimate edition of Gears of War 1 and it’s making me go “why not do the whole trilogy and judgement??? This is fantastic”, I mainly aim to acquire about the nature of the differences between the OGs and LEs. Yes, even graphics count as a difference. Don’t worry, I love graphics. I may come off as a gameplay snob, but I love graphics. I do have eyes after all, contrary to popular belief.

You can mention even the nerdiest differences too, like femshep customization, trust me, I’d be the first person to care. Women power go
I had this franchise at the back of my mind for 13 years and I need that to change. It helps that ME is a “finished” franchise. (Unless ME3LE adds a yellow explosion that’s a cliffhanger).

This came to my attention because of obviously me making the musou guide and do not fear, it’s still being worked on. In fact, it exited conceptual phase a few weeks ago and it’s now in full production. I even have screenshots to prove it’s still being worked on and can link the google doc script.

@Yousef- Hmmm… I think I can help —

Mass Effect is a series that most people feel holds up, and is probably one of the most influential WRPGs ever made. When the community here ranked PS3 games, ME2 landed at #6, which is incredibly impressive. ME3 fared worse at #80, but still respectable to be in the top 100 for a stacked generation like that.

So although it might be difficult to manufacture interest in the Sci Fi setting, if you can get past that you’ll find a really satisfying journey. Few games have made me as attached to my own in-game avatar as I was with my original Shepherd. And also, there are few games series (…actually none that I can think of except for Telltale’s The Walking Dead series…?) that have a continuity connection with your save file carrying over into the new game to this extent. And I suspect we likely won’t ever see closely linked games like this anymore where your choices affect subsequent events and encounters in the sequel games because that limits the potential audience of the sequels. Since game take 5+ years to make, and are so susceptible to commercial failure as a result, I just don’t think producers will greenlight large projects that depend upon a save transfer from the previous game.

Being a ‘PlayStation only’ gamer, I didn’t have an Xbox and so I didn’t have access to ME1 and so I started at ME2 on PS3. It did a fair job of doing the introduction for players, where during the opening recap montage of ME1 you were able to choose from the few binary story points that would carry over and affect the ME2 storyline. It was fine, but definitely not as good as playing ME1 and making those choices organically within the game. I eventually played ME1 by way of the Legendary Edition so I have experienced the whole trilogy now. (More on that later.)

Nevertheless, I found ME2 to be a fantastic ride and then really enjoyed ME3 as well. The real joy is not only in building and recruiting your team and molding your Shepherd, but also making romantic connections and friendships, all the while trying to save the universe. So if you enjoy the relationship aspects of RPGs like Persona then you’ll find a lot to like here.

The third person shooting gameplay is fine; it isn’t necessarily best in class and it does seem to get better as the series progresses, but when I played ME1 just two years ago I felt like it was still fun.

Story-wise, there’s a lot to like, if you can sift through the Sci Fi lore. Your mileage will vary there, but I feel like you don’t need to be Sci Fi geek to like the story, as it has plenty of individual and human elements to distract from the backdrop and the core interactions are interesting in their own right.

The small choices you make tend to affect relationships, but the large choices you make affect plot (and sometimes relationships). But as I mentioned, the large choices tend to be just binary and aren’t overly complex (for example ‘save this person or kill this person’) but there are enough of them that you do feel like you are altering the plot somewhat. Nevertheless, as it seems you’ve heard, there’s some controversy on the series’s ending in this regard. Personally, I was happy with how it all went down and consider this game enjoyable more for the ride rather than the destination, if you catch my drift. Also, some DLC for ME3 really helped make the ending supposedly much, much more satisfying and so I need to go back and play that.

As for the option of playing the games in their OG format versus playing the remastered Legendary Edition, I don’t think there’s any downside to just skipping the OG games and only experiencing it through the LE. The LE has all the DLC already included, which is fairly substantial, and it does have updated graphics and I think some improved control features too, especially for ME1. Like I say, I didn’t play ME1 except only through the LE, but people said that it benefitted the most from the remaster.

I played part of ME1 LE on PS4 and part on PS5 after I got one and it definitely performed better on PS5 with better frame rate (60 fps I think) and much better load times. Just overall the package for LE is really well done and there’s nice added things like a separate trophy list for the series as well as the trophy list for each individual game, and it has the singular launcher and feels more like one game with three separate chapters.

I don’t recall if there’s added options for character creation, but I don’t think so. The changes are mostly in vehicle handling, some of the shooting mechanics, and visual upgrade in lighting, textures, etc, and the frame rate like I mentioned if you’re playing on current gen.

So overall — I would strongly recommend you play the series, and play it through the very well done remastered Legendary Edition. It’s peak BioWare and an absolute master class in RPGs. It’s a game series you can play through once and be satisfied, or one that you might feel the need to replay every year so you can try different options. In fact, talking about it has me motivated to pick back up with my FemShep run that I started with ME1 two years ago. I want to follow her and the renegade playthrough I started, and experience the ME2 and ME3 DLC that I missed out on when I played back on PS3.

The recent announcement of The Old Country has stirred interest and I was wondering if I should consider making a go at the Mafia series. I’ve toyed with the thought before, but never seriously.

Through the recent discussions about GTA, my apathy toward the organized crime and urban setting is well documented, so I’ve never had any genuine interest in the Mafia games. But with the announcement of this new upcoming installment there was a lot of positivity about the series rumbling about. So it makes me reconsider if I’m missing out on something.

Barrier to entry is low for me, since: 1) I have all 3 Mafia games in my library already through PS+, and 2) HLTB indicates that these games (especially the first two) are actually quite short, by modern standards anyway. So it’s not like I would need to make any large financial or time investment. There’s a dearth of games in that 15-20 hour playtime sweet-spot, so that automatically moves the games up my backlog list.

But then I went back to scan the old review of Maria 1 and it somewhat dissuaded me. I’m getting conflicting messages about the games. Some comments have been very reverential, speaking of the games like they are timeless classics, and yet there’s discourse out there about the games being janky, messy, buggy, and stale. Furthermore, opinions on which of the three is the best are all over the shop. Especially the second and third games seem to have a wide variance of critique. If I did play them I’d almost certainly just start with the first.

Anyway, does anyone feel strongly either way? I’m happy to entertain any nudges directing me one way or the other.

@Th3solution the original Mafia is great and the remaster was done expertly. Great story and characters, looks beautiful, plays pretty well and gives a lovely rendition of the period. I’d definitely recommend that you try that and then depending on your mileage… maybe try the others too.

@Th3solution @colonelkilgore

Mafia 3 would be an all time great, if Hangar 13 could design side quests better, or just up the overall quality of everything by 20%/cut out the busywork.

It's still really memorable for me though, and the soundtrack made me appreciate 60's music.

Weirdly, I played the Mafia 1 remake a few years ago, but nothing is sticking with me from that, and I don't know if I completed it or where I got up to :S

@colonelkilgore Thanks, colonel. I do think I’ll add it to the list. Most reviews and comments do seem positive about the first game and its remake/remaster. Push gave it a 7/10, which is a reasonable incentive when the game only asks for 15 hrs of my time. The second game’s remaster reviewed at 4/10 and I saw lots of negativity about it, but also many people saying it’s one of the top games of all time… so it’s a little confusing.

Would you consider the game(s) to be “GTA-lite”?

@Ravix Mafia 3 is the one I’m probably most interested in, thematically. If I’m not mistaken it’s 60’s and steeped in the tumultuous race relations at the time. Unfortunately it’s also the largest time investment, so I figured the first game would be a better trial of the series, but I don’t know.

@Th3solution play both for an hour (in fact, adjust this to 10 or 15 mins) see if any lure you in. If not, you've not invested much time and can either pass, or try at a later date in the same way.

@Th3solution 2 isn’t that bad really… I think that score came more from the fact that 1 was remade from the ground up, while 2 was barely a remaster. Still a decent game for sure.

As far as Mafia being GTA-lite… yes and no. I’d probably say the easiest description would be a linear GTA with a period setting. As while they have an open-world, there’s not a great deal to do apart from the main story. With GTA you can find your own fun for large parts of your playthrough if you’re not interested in moving forwards with the story.

@Ravix yeah I’m yet to play 3 but have heard it’s not a half bad game and probably better than the media reviews at its release. I will play it eventually… not gonna lie, I’m a little put off by how glitchy its trophies are. It has to be in the top three trophy lists since 2008.

@colonelkilgore

Mafia 1 OG is the most non-GTA game ever. For starters, it uses sim-racer controls. Rather than arcade controls. Think about how GTA IV moves away from arcade-style driving but instead of being realistic while still maintaining the arcade racer controls layout, AKA automatic shift, it uses manual instead. There’s nothing wrong with manual shift, but it can catch a lot of players offgaurd. Especially ones like me that are mostly familiar with the arcade racer layout and not the sim or simcade one.
The on-foot shooting controls are somewhat more similar to max Payne though. The thing about mafia 1 OG is that it was being developed prior to GTA III’s release, so it was more inspired by Driver on PS1.

Mafia 2 kinda departs everything aforementioned in favor of, frankly more generic controls. On-foot shooting feels like a poor-man’s call of duty. I would know since I’m a cod fan. And the driving physics are very uninteresting, and the story feels like a more boring and poorly executed version of much stronger crime dramas. It’s derivative without having its own flair. All the characters are charisma vacuums.

Mafia 3 has the best story in the series, but the mission structure is very repetitive. This isn’t me saying it feels repetitive, it’s actually quite literally has you executing the same “invasion + shootout” but a different place and tasked by a different guy with very little rhyme or reason or any story or cutscenes. You do this until you reach a story trigger then be reminded there’s a really interesting story there. The ending is really solid though.

Mafia 1RE is nothing like Mafia 1OG, it’s more like Mafia 3 but in a playable state and with the setting and story of Mafia 1OG. Storywise, I’ve no strong attachment to either version. But I do like how both have their own spin on it. Both are worth experiencing.

@Th3solution I can’t give you a super detailed explanation without confusing the hell out of you because there’s just too many details. But if you want the layman terms version; all 4 games are quite distinct, for better or for worse. I don’t need to tell you that every game being unique is not a negative on its own, but it should help better visualize the situation and the reason for so many discrepancies online. I hope that clears things up for you.