brian_

I played all of the Borderlands 3 campaign in a free weekend, having never finished 1 or even touched 2. This is the first time since then that I have ever thought about that game. I didn't particularly enjoy the game. I don't think it made my GOTY list. And I've never seen, let alone had, a discussion of Borderlands 3 where I could have used any knowledge of that game I might have had before all the info I had on it left my brain.

I just don't know where Microsoft expects new Game Pass users to come from. I would assume people that have an Xbox console have already made up their minds on Game Pass. I don't think anyone that just has a PS5 is going to pick up and Xbox just to play Call of Duy specifically on Game Pass. Is it just people that don't have a current gen console yet who seem content to just keep playing games there? Is it the PC market? Are they just hoping to cut into Steam's sales? I imagine PC is probably the one place where there is still some growth left for them.

@bigsocrates: I'm sure part of it is not growing up with an NES or SNES. I had a Genesis. I played all those 2D Mario games, and most NES and SNES stuff, for the first time on the Switch. For whatever reason, I just never got the feel for jumping on the enemies. There was probably a good 40% of the time where I'd jump on an enemy and hit a weird part of the hitbox and wind up dead instead. I also don't really find the visuals or audio as charming as other people do. Which may be in part because, again, I was a Genesis kid, but at the same time I did like the Kirby games of that era, so I don't think Genesis bias is entirely to blame.

If you're all looking for bad Mario takes, I actively dislike 1, 2, 3 & World. Not that I've played a whole lot of the rest of the series, but the only Mario games I seem to like are the ones the diverge from being Mario games. Mainly, Luigi's Mansion and those GBA RPGs. I don't know if that has any correlation to liking Voice of Cards.

I also thought Wet was fine.

Ha. That's great. Well, they're nailing the vibe then.

Man... That Future of Play trailer is like someone said "Let's just make a Toonami commercial".

@ll_exile_ll: I'm with you on the puzzles. I really like the feel and look of the combat though, despite it being rather simple and highly repetitive. I think, like the rest of the game, it achieves a merging of cinematic direction with high fidelity video games better than anything I've ever seen. The puzzles, however, are just boring switch puzzles, that offer no satisfaction in solving or even just lend themselves to the game visually or narratively.

Getting more into the business side of this thread in regard to Square leaving the smaller games business, I wonder if that's more telling of where their AAA business is at. My understanding is that some of these companies can afford to take risks and potential low investment losses on niche titles and smaller games because their big games would typically make up for it. Is Square's big stuff just not hitting big enough? Is the FF VII remake selling good? Obviously, It's FF VII. I'm sure it's selling. But it's also an expensive ass game that they're stretching out into multiple parts. And I'm sure they're sitting on an infinite money chess from the MMO, but like, what if Square screws itself over by overspending on another Final Fantasy thing again? If not with FF VII, then whatever the next Final Fantasy ends up being with a sole focus on big games.

@bisonhero: There are so many different types of tabletop games out there. Not all of them take place on graph paper. I'd maybe even argue that the game does take place on graph paper in the sense that it is moving your piece around on a grid of face down cards. And that turning over the cards is maybe the one part of the game that it does take from mechanics of card-based games. And that the "Voice of Cards" name probably also relates to that turning over cards in a tarot sort of way.

@bigsocrates: All horny aside, and I'm pretty sure I've had this conversation on this site before when the game came out, I think it's fine that sometimes cards are just a cool aesthetic. As someone who has a bit of what I can only describe as a "card fetish", sometimes cards just exist to be looked at. Sports card, for example, don't exist as a form of play. Similarly, I don't think a video game with cards in it has to link them to a form of play. If this game was just another rouge-like deck builder that came out in 2021, I'd find it far less interesting. I picked this one up because I love RPGs. Sure, there are a million other RPGs out there better than this one, but I've also never seen one with this atheistic and the way it uses it. Is it because it only appeals to five people on planet Earth? Probably. But it's not my fault that none of you people are able to admire true art! My card fetish isn't weird!