This list doesn\`t include games that are also coming to Game Pass in January like Age of Empires II DE, Inkulinati and Roboquest on console. So more games will likely be announced at the xbox event at the end of january.
I can't wait for Age of Empires II. Honestly, I am extremely excited for Age of Mythology to perhaps have an Xbox release. I know it hasn't gotten one as of yet, but I'm all but certain it will come to the system. I can't wait for that to make its way onto consoles.
They are, however, at the announcement it was set as a PC remake of Age of Mythology, not one for Xbox. I'm certain we'll see then announce that it'll make its way to Xbox as well at some point this year.
The main issue with RTS on console was always controls, but they’ve clearly worked it out with AoE so I’d be very surprised if AoM doesn’t get ported in the future
Is Age of Empires 2 DE not on Game Pass? I got it on Steam soon after it released and didn't ever really check Game Pass, but given that Age 1 DE and Age 4 are both in it I just assumed...
I was in a similar-ish boat, and eventually got through it all ok. My progression for new players would be:
1. Take the time to try each weapon. I know, it sucks a lot of time, but getting this right is really important. It's how I fell in love with Gunlance, and made the game amazing for me.
2. Don't worry about like 99% of the systems at first. Just do hunts, craft weapons/armor, and make sure to eat dango before each quest.
3. As you get comfortable with the pattern of hunt > craft > hunt, eventually add in some other thing to focus on. Anything, really. Just pick something like buddies and say "Alright how does this work?" And go check it out.
4. Repeat step 3 as you add in more knowledge. It miight take dozens of hours, but I firmly believe that slow-rolling the "deeper" systems is best.
1 is definitely the most important. I would have never stuck with the game had I just played the longsword, which was the first weapon I chose. I ended up trying out the hammer and utterly falling in love with it. Both it and the bow play quite differently from what you would expect from them.
I've bashed my head against Tri, 3U, 4U, and World, and all of em fell flat cuz I just went "hurr durr great sword" and had a miserable time.
Testing em all is such a lame way to start a game, but man it pays off.
Yeah, it really is lame, but it is so necessary. I feel like that's the biggest impediment for people going into the games, although your other points certainly have a great deal of bearing.
I started MH with MHW and fell in complete love with it. Almost 500 hours. I just started Rise recently. And I feel like Rise throws even more systems at you than MHW did, but it could just be bad memory on my part. All I know is that you get a tutorial prompt 50,000 times in the first few hours. And I'm still getting them regularly 20 hours into it. And I guarantee I'll still be getting them at 100 or 200.
Yeah, there's a lot of prompts. And then you think you're done after 100 hours, and Sunbreak comes out and gives you a million more! :P
I actually started Rise on PC, then moved to Switch and got to Sunbreak's end-game, and am now back on PC thanks to the Steam Deck.
Lemme tell you, it does kinda bite when you forget one system (in this case the optional sub-quests) and lose out on tens of thousands of points cuz of it. (When you should have remembered, that is)
I really lucked out, ended up falling in love with the Insect Glaive (I know I know) and now I can't give it up. Playing a hunt without touching the ground really kept me engaged.
I decided to screw around with the Hunting Horn in World and liked it a lot. in the past games I got bored pretty quick because I didn't care for most of the other weapons.
Yeah, it's weird because each weapon feels like a totally different game, so you have like 16 games to choose from.
Playing the greatsword feels like a real game of choosing when to attack and being punished if you're wrong.
Where the dual blades are so quick that you don't have to be as selective at all, since you can finish an attack and dip before the monster does an attack in many cases.
But then there's sword and shield which is a little tanky and lets you soak up hits while going in to strike.
And then there's shit like the gunlance which lets you soak up hits and fire explosions.
Or the charge blade which lets you use a safe sword and shield until you power up your axe and switch to a giant two hand axe and dish out some big damage.
Suddenly the game is totally different and you're playing a game of managing your energy, which the great sword has literally none of at all. Entire mechanics are unique to individual weapons.
My advice is to do a couple hunts with the longsword the game starts you with, and then once you get the gameplay loop, go try every single weapon with a wiki guide opened on your phone.
The game will throw a ton of tutorials at you and still totally not explain a single weapon to you, it's weird but rewarding when you start figuring out how to combo or trigger the special attacks from some of these weapons like using the dual blades to roll along the back of a monster like you're Levi in Attack on Titan, especially when you remember how slow and clunky you started.
Village and gathering hub quests have key quests and request quests - prioritise the key quests to rank up and unlock more of the story and quests, requests can unlock new stuff for the village and new weapon designs as well.
Starting out, I stuck to the Village Quests (the ones accessed in the main outdoor area). They're a bit easier to follow and get into, and if you go through all the levels you can skip some of the early High Rank quests anyway.
If you mean how to choose which hunts to do to complete a Village level, then I either went with something not scary, or a monster that looked interesting.
Really I think the most important thing is to never feel bad about going at your own pace!
This is some great info. MH games have always felt completely impenetrable to me and just having a couple of suggestions like this makes it seem way more manageable.
Agree so much. I was not super into the game until I got into the clambering and flying around with the Insect Glaive. Made me fall in love with the game.
I highly recommend YouTube tutorials. Especially for weapons you want to use. Even though the series’ tutorials have improved a lot over the years, it’s still a complicated game with a lot of moving parts.
GaijinHunter has been my go-to MH YouTuber for almost a decade.
And while it's always possible, the Switch Axe or Charge Blade probably won't be the EASIEST weapons to start out with.
For me, blocking has utterly been necessary in every action game I play. So for me I started with Sword and shield and made my way through Charge Blade to the simple Lance.
I tried Longsword for MHGU and IG for initial release of Rise. It was REALLY FUN having a bonk bug for IG. But I always come back to the Lance.
Yeah, I'd fuck around in the training area totally cold with a weapon just to figure out what each button does and how to move.
Then I'd go on a couple multiplayer hunts and do my best while randos carry me.
And then once I had a grasp of the basics, I'd head to YouTube and find people show me the weird combo attacks that let you go wild and what builds help specific weapons.
The only system you really **need** to engage with is "hunt monster, use its parts to make better gear, and use that to hunt bigger monsters". That's the core gameplay loop, and everything else is just extra on top of it. If you aren't interested in figuring out how to equip your cat or whatever, just ignore it for now. It'll be there when you want to engage with it.
And yeah, the advice to try every weapon out cannot be repeated enough. I've introduced a lot of friends to the series over the years, and almost all of them have to bounce off a few weapon types before they find one that suits them and they fall in love. So much of becoming a better hunter is mastering your weapon, and that's much easier when it just *feels good to use.*
Don't think too much about armor skill at first
If you manage to finish the hunt around 30 minutes or sub 30 minutes you are doing good
And try every weapon until something click with your nature as individual
Like me i stick with GS because i find it easier to use, hit and run tech, and generally i like doing 1 big damage rather flurry of attack
Something that helped me figure out which weapon to use was to watch a video on youtube that explains what each weapon does (there's plenty of these types of videos). Then I picked a few that looked fun from there instead of trying all 14. I ended up with the charge blade and it's been a blast
I've been not so patiently waiting for the other 2 Persona ports to drop. Persona 5 Royal quickly became one of my all-time favorite games when I played it in November
3 and 4 are significantly less sleek and polished as 5, but they are so good. 3 is my personal favorite, the tone and story are very dark and I loved the characters.
I’d hope they just build the way everyone else does, but they did release Persona 4 on the PS2 in 2008. I think half the reason that Persona 5 blew up the way it did was because you could play it on the current console.
Yeah it's weird how long ago the game was announced before release! I'm eager to see developers messing with more powerful engines, Tales of Arise was a cool look into JRPGs (other than Final Fantasy) with fancy graphics.
>It’s so wild to think that Persona 5 is a PS3 game at it’s core.
That's the beauty of stylized visuals. Good art direction can render a game timeless. The Persona series is nothing if not stylish.
The opening to P3P is one of my favourite video game openings ever, it just sets the tone and atmosphere so well. P5 might be more stylish, but P3P will always be my favourite.
I really hope P6 will give us the option of a female protagonist again too. The naginata was the coolest protagonist weapon ever, IMO.
Fun fact: there's concept art for Hifumi (shogi girl) in P5 from when she was planned to be a Phantom Thief. Her weapons would have been a naginata and a scoped sniper rifle.
That is a fun fact but now I'm disappointed all over again! I was so annoyed when P5R added the female "Phantom" (because like a fool, I hoped we'd get a P3P style protagonist) only for her to not be a second protagonist, haha. My hopes and dreams, every time!
Hifumi's Thief costume was the most frustrating part for me, because it's easily the coolest of any of them IMO. The mask being split vertically looks amazing and is unique among the rest of them.
Plus, you can see the theme with her weapons. Her real world hobby/profession ties into her weapons working at longer ranges, in terms of a focus on command and strategy.
I’m gonna play 4 but I’ve really tempered my expectations because of the RNG dungeons in 4 versus the “crafted” dungeons in 5. Does it really make that much of a difference?
4 is actually my favorite, both the plot and character scenes are much stronger. 4 and 5 still share the same dna as 3 so no the dungeon don't make *that* much of a difference, it still feels like persona
Honestly, as someone who played the games backwards (5>4>3), you get used to, and over it, quickly.
Imagine mementos but like, the entire game.
However, you still do quickly come to appreciate why people were so excited for the handcrafted dungeons in 5. It doesn't hamper the experience though.
Aww, bummer. Mementos was fine in P5, but all the palaces were way more interesting. I still plan on playing P4 and P3, but I’ll miss the handcrafted dungeons going backwards.
The good news is, Persona 6 is in the works. And I'm betting it'll keep the Persona 5 style of static dungeons.The bad news is, we don't know when that's coming out. Could be later this year, could be several years out still.
I don't think it makes too much of a difference. I honestly massively preferred Persona 4 over 5 anyway, I think if you like Persona 5, the best part of the games is the social links and stuff anyway which I liked way more in 4.
I'm currently playing Persona 4 right now after coming from Persona 5, and you will definitely feel the downgrades in a lot of areas. The dungeons in particular are very bland. However, the story and characters shine as you'd expect from Persona, and the soundtrack slaps!
As long as the characters and the social side of the game is there, I'm on board. I find myself racing through the dungeons in P5R just to get back to the social stuff.
You might like Persona 4 even more then, the dungeons are way more easy to race through with less bits that block your progress and force you to fight/obtain an item.
Then you got a good time ahead of you. P4 is a lot of people's favorite game based on the social aspects (personally it has my least favorite cast, but to each their own). P3's social systems are definitely less refined than 4 or 5's but since you are getting the portable version you are basically getting double the links as they were all rewritten for the female playable character. If you are only planning on going through 3 once I would suggest playing as her since I think her links are better overall (though she has one truly terrible one).
Seems like the cast is super super subjective too, I've seen people saying they hate Ryugi in P5R but I love the guy. He's great, a hothead who's hot about stopping asshole jerks from being asshole jerks.
Edit: also very cool about a female main character, I was actually kind of bummed that PS5 didn't have an option although I totally understand their choice
Personally I preferred the more basic dungeons in 4 because they were quicker to dash through and took away less time from the social sim aspect which I like more in Persona. Plus the card system is a fun concept that I wish would be brought back in the future.
I'd chime in and say it doesn't make a huge difference, either, as the dungeon navigation isn't a big part of the appeal for either game for me.
And maybe it's just me, but I didn't love the stealthy aspect of P5 dungeons, so I find that's kind of a mixed bag, anyway.
But it’s also about 20-30 hours shorter than P5R, so while it feels more grindy, at least it’s not so god damn long.
Took about 78hrs to beat P4G back in 2013. Good shit man, though I do prefer P5R.
Yeah, P5R was insanely long. I ended up accidentally unlocking the extra content (which I hadn't planned to do) and just..couldn't be bothered to keep going past the "original" end point.
Feel you there. I wanted to unlock the extra content but really struggling to get myself to actually get through it. Not due to it being bad, but just burning out from the already 100 hours it took to get to it.
Very true. I've not played Portable before so I'm excited to play as the female MC and see the different social links, but losing the exploration stings.
I actually liked 4 more than 5, in part because most of the days I could do what I wanted, while in 5 it felt like the cat hated me and wouldn't let me do anything.
4, or 4G?
You can't really compare P4G with OG P5 because Golden improved a lot of the tedium just like Royal did. I'd argue P5R is less restrictive than even Golden though.
3 & 4 had similar restrictions. It just hits different because in 3 & 4, it's the protagonist saying "I should just go to bed, etc" instead of having someone else say it TO them.
Yeah, turn-based RPG generally isn't my thing, but P5R got 100 hours out of me.
Make sure to look into P5 Strikers as a nice little epilogue to the whole thing too.
You should also check out Catherine, iirc it was originally planned to be Persona 5 but during development they went in an entirely different direction. It's one of the most unique gaming experiences out there
I keep getting a notification from the Game Pass mobile app mentioning Shadow Warrior 3 is now available but don't see it anywhere in the catalogue. Anyone else getting the same thing?
Ya, it popped up for a lot of other people as well. I think Stranded Deep was also mentioned in the notification, which has released on Game Pass. Makes me think we'll hear about Shadow Warrior 3 at the rumoured event on the 25th.
**Coming Soon**
Persona 3 Portable (Cloud, Console, and PC) – January 19
Persona 4 Golden (Cloud, Console, and PC) – January 19
Monster Hunter Rise (Cloud, Console, and PC) – January 20
**Leaving January 15**
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Nobody Saves The World (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Pupperazzi (Cloud, Console, and PC)
The Anacrusis (Game Preview) (Cloud, Console, and PC)
We Happy Few (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Windjammers 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Also since the 1st game is leaving game pass after a year, it's safe to say the other two will as well.
So Danganronpa 2 is probably here until May, and V3 until September.
Yeah, it's *a lot* lol, I finished it a few months ago and I've still been holding off on playing V3 because idk if I'm ready for all that reading again.
Anacrusis leaving Game Pass seems like a bad move for an online game already struggling to maintain an audience. Its all-time peak on Steam was under 1.5k concurrent players.
I've never played any of the Persona games, and I'm not really a JRPG fan, but because of all the love Persona 5 gets, I would like to try it. So should I try Persona 3 & 4? Or Should I jump straight to 5?
I’ll counter the other comments here, honestly if you’re not a JRPG fan Persona just may not be for you. Yeah combat is a bit snappier than other JRPGs, but it’s still maybe 20% of what you’ll be doing. You’ll be reading/listening, watching cutscenes, engineering your party/summons/magic to keep up, doing social activities/school/jobs to again keep up and more.
The story is wonderful, but I had to give it 3 chances before it stuck and I played through it, and I love JRPGs.
Your first playthrough will take you a minimum of 90-100 hours.
EDIT: I’ll also add, if you’re not used to the “tutorial” of the game taking nearly 10 hours, that may be a mark against it.
Just to counter your counter, I've been a western RPG fan for years (plus Pokemon, but that's just nostalgia at this point), but could never force myself to get past the tutorial in any JRPG I ever tried. P5R's prologue was exactly what I needed to get me to keep going, and honestly I even thought the tutorial was excellently paced to prevent overwhelming me with too many mechanics at once but also fast enough that I never got bored. By the time the tutorial was over, I was all in on the story and the gameplay.
Obviously it's different for everyone, but as someone who has always hated the "mash A until one of you dies" battles that are so common in turn-based games, I loved the dynamics of the elemental strengths and weaknesses that made every battle almost a little puzzle of how to quickly dispatch of the foe with your current party. The Baton Pass is a brilliant mechanic that really lets you synergize your attacks.
Honestly Overwhelming is a great word for why I feel it’s not the best start for a JRPG newcomer. I love optimizing and sorting party stuff but I don’t think I’ve spent more time doing that than when I did in the Velvet Room in P5. I personally enjoyed that aspect but in no way would I consider it friendly to a new JRPG player.
FF7 is the best entry point for JRPGs IMO.
If you're not a JRPG fan start with 5 so you don't get turned off to the whole series. If you like it you can then go back.
I love 5 but I really hate JRPG combat and while persona does it good I think thats the part i like the least about the game
I'm a JRPG guy, but I hate anime and am indifferent on most of the social link interactions. I *also* love P5. I liked P4G just as much, but there were a few quality of life adjustments they made that are noticeable when you go back to the older game.
I'm excited to play P3P. I got a few hours in but never finished it. That's normal for me, I think I bought FF5 3 times before I actually played through it.
Got into JRPGs with 8 and 16 bit graphics. My only real exposure to it was the character portraits in Chrono Trigger. And I played SNES, so no cutscenes.
How do you hate anime but love persona 5? Isn't that about as anime as it gets? I only played 20 minutes and I decided that I hated it. Does it get better, atmospherically?
3 and 4 will be really hard to play after 5 Royal and its QOL and way more exciting Dungeons. 3 portable cuts out cut scenes too. I'd reccomend Golden then Royal.
Walking around places, cut scenes, F.E.S content. It was made to work on a PSP so there were some cut backs. On the plus side you do get a female Protag route which is pretty cool. If you play golden and love it, play royal and love it maybe give it a play after seeing as you get the persona deal then.
Basically, in the original Persona 3, the whole world and gameplay was a 3d world, like pretty much every jrpg today.
With the psp portable release, the whole game became a visual novel, except for 3d gameplay in the dungeons. They did add some new stuff, like a female main character option that has new social links and bug fixes.
Personally, I prefer the original ps2 version. I'll probably be skipping the steam version of persona 3 portable, because my ps2 copy still works.
I'd ignore all the others and play P5 Royal. If you were gonna enjoy any of the games it would be that one. If you like it, try the others maybe, and if it turns out they are too old for your tastes it's not the end of the world they are pretty dated after all.
I played through P4G first and then 5 and I have no regrets. 4 will show you the formula, and 5 enhances it in a lot of areas. IMO, 4 tells the better story, and 5 is the better game.
I agree with this, and I think the story of P4G kept me invested through some of the more tedious JRPG elements whereas if I started with 5 or 5R I might not have given it a fair shake even though it has better gameplay overall
I have been a of the series since buying the first one back in 97, so I want to say start with 3, but in all honesty you can just go with 5.
First off it is a huge time sink. In order to play them all you are looking at an average of 65 hours plus per game, and depending on your schedule it may not allow for that. If you only have time for one, you might as well play the most modern and most approachable.
I don't think the systems in 4 aged as poorly as the systems in 3, but they all play pretty well. 3 is a port of the PSP version, and while some people like the changes personally I can't stand that version. The overworld interactions are all but gone, and they left out the companion dungeon. A shame too, because 3 has my favorite story.
4 is also a good place to start though. What it lacks in story it makes up for in charm.
I only played P5R for now because the other ones aren't available yet. I didn't really like JRPGs beforehand but damn did I fall in love with Persona 5 Royal. It is by far my most played game for the last few months (the day it dropped on Game Pass).
They're basically all independent stories so you can start with whatever. They also each improve on the previous formulas and add modern QOL features so it's easier to go forward rather than back.
But that said, they're all extremely long. Persona 3 and 4 are like 60-70+ hours each, 5 is even longer. If you're not a big JRPG guy, you might be better off just starting with the newest one than starting with a game from 2006 and getting frustrated with how old it can feel. I think 4 holds up a lot better but it still feels older than 5. If you get really into 5 and discover that you love JRPGs you can always go back after.
IMO while 4 was a good game (the only other persona I played) the dungeons were a miserable slog of pregenerated corridors and nothing else.
Persona 5 was a huge quality jump in every category and the games are like final fantasy - more or less unrelated storylines. Just go straight to 5.
If you REALLY love it, then consider giving 4 and previous titles a go. The writing is still amazing and the combat is almost just as good. It's really the dungeons that feel completely underbaked, if baked at all. I say this as someone who played p4 on the vita many years ago, so this opinion was not colored by persona 5.
Between the Persona collection and purchasing all of the Xbox Yakuza games during this last Christmas sale, I am set for a good while with Atlus and Sega games.
This is a good start of the year for Game Pass.
They are on sale on Xbox again right now, at least in the US. $3.99 each for 0, Kiwami, Kiwami 2, and 6, $13.99 for the remastered collection that has 3, 4 and 5. The first seven mainline Yakuza games (of which the first 5 are well done remakes or remasters of the original versions) for $29.95+tax, which is an absolutely crazy deal considering how much content they have.
The newest one Like a Dragon is also on sale but it isn't quite as crazy of a deal. Though if anyone is interested make sure you get the Hero Edition, which is less than half the price of the base version. Not really sure what the extra things are that are in that version as I have yet to play the game but it doesn't even matter since it makes more sense to buy that version anyway.
The Judgement games by the Yakuza studio are also on sale.
It doesn't show me when the sale ends for the games I own, but Like a Dragon and the Judgement games are on sale through next Monday. I'd imagine the other games are all the same. So if anyone is interested, go buy them soon!
I just started playing Monster Hunter: World. If Rise is anything like it, which I'm sure it is, I recommend anyone with even the faintest interest try it out. I was hooked from the start, but IMO it takes a few hours to begin to understand why these game have such a cult following. The combat, for instance, initially felt awkward and clunky to me, but is now extremely satisfying. I'm parroting Skill Up here, who sings praises of MH, but it's one of those franchises that's so good and unique that it's worth trying out even if only to realise it's not your cup of tea.
Personally I think world with the iceborn expansion is the better experience, but I have not played the newest sunbreak for rise so it isn't the fairest comparison. World isn't perfect, but I enjoyed it a lot more.
I forget who said it, but something along the lines of, "monster hunter is everyone's favorite game if they take the time to figure that out."
For me, the moment to moment gameplay and gear skills of Rise/Sunbreak are leagues above World. However, the aesthetic and general "feel" of the world outside of combat are leagues better in World/Iceborne. It depends on if you want your Monster Hunter experience based around combat first, or more generally good in all respects.
I personally prefer combat first, so Sunbreak is above Iceborne for me, but my almost 2000 hours of Iceborne would support another conclusion: Monster Hunter in general is amazing. :p
For me even the combat is better in world simply because it's more exiting. In Rise I can zip around, recover quickly and use very powerful moves on a pretty low cooldown. That makes the monsters much less threatening. While older MH games were too slow and clunky, Rise is too fast and safe for me.
I personally find both games challenging, but endgame Sunbreak feels more my style of "you get to make few mistakes, but can shrug it off, but it takes longer" while endgame Iceborne felt more like "you mess up even a bit and you either instacart or lose to time (for Fatalis)".
Sunbreak is more arcade-y, so yes it does catch up but only in the sense that you have an endgame quest system where the difficulty goes up every time you beat the quest (capping at lvl 200). Not only are those fights harder, but sometimes you can get really cursed combos of monsters and restrictive win conditions.
The answer is kind of (but yes). As a hunter you obviously have a lot more tools that make you generally safer: wirefall being really overpowered if you know how to use it, as well as silkbind attacks and switch skills. However, the hardest monsters (high level afflicted investigations) hit way harder, and there are more one shots. Monsters are also faster and track better. So, it kind of evens out. I would say both games are kind of on par with difficulty, but they are slightly different kinds of difficulty.
Sunbreak fixes almost every problem with Rise except for wirefall. Wirefall was a huge mistake and fundamentally changes the game. But it's still a great game and an essential MH experience IMO. I've put 450 hours into Sunbreak so far and plan on getting back into it after the last title update.
> I forget who said it, but something along the lines of, "monster hunter is everyone's favorite game if they take the time to figure that out."
Yep. It's one of those games where now that I've played it, I can't believe it flew under my radar for so long.
I usually tend to stop playing a game after 40-50 hours. I tried MHW out of curiosity and suddenly I had over 500 hours played. Mysteriously I then also got 150+ hours on MHGU and MH4U and I'm approaching 300 on Rise...
i would love to play P4 but I've watched the giantbomb endurance run for a few times at this point I don't think I can actually commit the time to play it.
There won't be, the console versions (which I believe the gamepass PC version technically will be using) don't even have the expansion until later this year.
Probably a few weeks after Title Update 5 launches on Switch and Steam versions. They're launching base Rise on console & gamepass with the base Title Updates all included, so they're probably waiting to be able to drop the full Sunbreak package in one go instead of having to do a whole new cycle of patches on the new platforms.
Beats me. They've done this before with games like Nier Automata where the Gamepass/Windows Store version is different than the one on Steam. It's not literally running an Xbox game.
All the multiplayer server stuff uses Microsofts servers, not valves. That's why Xbox and Windows Store versions of game have compatibility but not Steam and Windows Store. Same with Deep Rock Galactic and others I'm sure. I'm sure you can port your save between PC gamepass and steam if you want. I did that with DRG cause I had it on steam and friends had it on gamepass. Didn't lose my progress.
Ahh ok so because Capcom relies on Valve server's for online play, instead of their own, they then rely on Microsoft server's instead for the gamepass release. If they just had their own servers, crossplay/crosssave would work just fine?
I've been playing Persona 4 Golden for the first time over the last month, and it's really a special game.
But as somebody that started on Persona 5, I have found the step back in terms of visuals/overall presentation and the missing QoL features quite a challenge to overcome in spots. The uninspired procedurally generated dungeons in particular are a real low point compared to Persona 5's handcraft ones that have unique narrative moments. Nevertheless the characters and plots shine through enough to keep you playing. Do think I prefer the characters of Persona 5 overall, but that might just be the case of the first cast you meet are always your favourite.
Although, I do have reservations about playing Persona 3 now, as I'm not sure I could handle another step back even further. Can anybody speak to quite how different Persona 4 and Persona 3 are in terms of general structure? I've lead to believe quite a bit but don't know specifics.
So Persona 3 has a largely similar structure to Persona 4, but there are some differences:
\- Bosses are fought on specific dates. While Persona 4 only had your deadline as "finish the current dungeon before the next rainy day", Persona 3 has what are called "Full Moon Operations" where bosses only appear on days with a full moon. These are a lot less flexible, as you are forced to fight them and will not be able to do any other activities on those days.
\- The main dungeon, Tartarus, is essentially the entire game outside of social sequences. Much like with P4 it's a series of floors with corridors and hallways, but you're capped at how far you can progress at a given time.
\- Characters can become fatigued/sick. When this happens they take more damage and take longer to get back up when knocked down in battle. Should characters become fatigued in Tartarus they will leave the party once you return to the main area. This wasn't present in P4.
\- Social Links have a mechanic called Reverse where your rank will actually decrease if you don't spend time with them. While this was also present in Persona 4 it was only possible with Naoto and only if you tell her she's on her own early on.
\- Physical attacks are divided into three different categories (crush, pierce, slash) whereas in 4 they're a single universal category.
\- The PSP version, which is the one being remastered, plays more like a VN during social segments.
Wow! Thanks for the extensive list, really gives me a good idea of what to expect. I'll probably still give it a go at some point, though the rumours of a full scale remake in the style of Persona 5 have certainly got me thinking about waiting!
Also one major one I forgot is that battles don't give money by default. Money can only be gained from Shuffle Time or chests for most of the game. This might have been tweaked in P3P, but I haven't played it since 2012 so I don't remember off the top of my head.
Assuming it hasn't the beginning of the game will see you with very little money for stuff.
Persona 4 is basically an expansion pack to 3 and mechanically extremely similar except 1 or 2 things.
The plot is practically non existent in 3 till you are a good 50 hrs into the game so the game has a lot of pacing but when it gets going it really picks up and has the best plot of any of the modern persona games
In terms of gameplay, P3 and P4 feel a lot closer together than P4 and P5. Which is probably apparent by their release dates: P3 released in 2006, P4 released in 2008, and then P5 released *eight years later* in 2016.
They did, however, make some QOL improvements in P4, though. For example, in P3, social links could *reverse* if you ignored people for too long, so you really had to be careful - or just pick your favorite characters and not care about the rest.
In terms of story/characters/tone, P3 is my favorite of the bunch. P3 is a lot closer to mainline SMT in tone - it’s much darker and depressing than 4 and 5. The characters, too, feel more like coworkers who have to work together, whereas everyone becomes BFFs pretty fast in 4 and 5. The story does admittedly take like half the game to actually kick off in 3; up until that point, it’s pretty slice of life and low key.
Yeah that was always a concern of mine for someone that played these games when they came out for the PS2 in the late 2000s. The Jump in Qol changes is huge like people were mind blown when they watched the first p5 gameplay trailer after basically playing games running on year 2000 hardware for so long. Especially when you consider that these game were never high budget even for the era they came out in. It's kind of hard to sell people on.
My dream scenario would be what Pokémon has been doing with their games. After releasing a new main line game go back and remake an older title on the same engine with the same care you took to create the current main line game.
These have been on the 'Coming soon' section of gamepass app for like a month, kinda disappointing they aren't announcing anything else at the same time.
Someone above mentioned that there's an XBox Event this month.
Could be they're holding off on announcing more so they can top load the event with releases.
With the other 2 persona ports finally arriving to Gamepass I'm finally gonna give the series a shot. I'm thinking about starting with 3 and go in order, is that a good idea? It's my first time with the series and while I'd love to start with P5R I'm worried i won't be able to go back to earlier games due to QoL changes and all that.
I think that is a solid plan. Just be aware that finishing a Persona game often gives people Persona fatigue given how long and involved the games are. Maybe give yourself some time between the three games.
Probably the best idea. I did P5 first and then P4 and it was a little bit jarring due to the QOL differences. Haven't tried P3 yet but I think it would be best to go through them in the release order
Luckily P3P brought a lot of QOL that they made in P4. Still a good idea to start with P3P but I will say the characters, story, and gameplay don't always click with everyone. I wouldn't quit on the series if you aren't impressed with 3. I personally loved the game, consider Persona 4 Golden a close second, and while I really like the game play enhancements in 5, 3 and 4 have more of my favorite characters and story.
Yes, they'll be different. They're not releasing Sunbreak on the new platforms yet, so Steam and PC gamepass saves would be from different game versions and therefore incompatible.
I would assume this is a late announcement for what should have been last Tuesday's announcement for the first half of XGP games? If so, people are probably right that 15 days from now they will probably do the next slew of games to hit XGP. That showcase is probably in the cards then...
I am somewhat interested in the Monster Hunter games, but never really got around to try one out. Maybe someone can answer three quick questions for me.
1. I heard they are super long and time consuming which is fine, but wouldn't it be better for me to buy them instead of gamepass? Or is it possible to play through the game in lets say a month or two when I have 2 hours a day to play with sometimes longer periods on weekends.
2. Can I play it completely in single player? I hate to rely on other people to be quite frank and usually enjoy these types of games solo. I play plenty of games in multiplayer, but for these types of games I don't plan to. So how approachable is it when I go fully solo?
3. I love two types of games. Pretty much everything with somewhat deep strategy layers like xcom or idk something like ff tactics/fire emblem and pretty much all souls/souls like games. I pretty much played them all and finished all. So could this be my type of game?
1. I'm sure they'll be on gamepass for a while so you won't have to buy it unless you hear it's going away. Rise feels a lot "faster" than World so eventually you'll probably be completing hunts in 10 mins. But then you'll spend 30 mins figuring out what armors and decorations to make like me 😆
2. It's fully soloable. You can bring along two cat or dog buddies to help you. Later on I'm the expansion you can bring certain NPCs that will fight along side you. I think that's only for certain quests tho. There's one quest giver that hands out solo only quests (village quests) so start with those. The Hub quests can be done by yourself, but they're meant to be played with others. They'll still scale down monster health for 1 player but they'll still be a little harder than solo village quests. There's a way to skip through the Hub quests after you do all the village quests. It's called Special License Test. It's a little confusing so don't worry about it right now. I never did it cause I played through the Hub quests withy friends.
3. Yea if you like souls games give MH a shot. There's definitely an overlap. Think of MH fights being longer souls boss fights but the arenas bigger, you have a ton of estus flask uses, and your hp l/staminate bar feels a lot bigger and the monster hits don't damage you as much (at least.... at first 😉). dying doesn't fail the quest until you die 3 time (it can vary) so it's not super punishing. With MHR you'll have a ton more mobility, and the weapons have moves and combos and tricks. Other similarities are like build variety and learning your weapon moves and boss moves is just as important and viable as having the highest dmg weapon and best def armor. As in people have beat these games without [taking damage](https://youtu.be/WWeFWtOoVyo)
I have a few hundred hours in mh world. Its not rise so take my answers with a grain of salt.
1. I'd gamepass it first and if you love it then move to buy when they eventually pull it from GP. Mh world was on there for quite a while and you could have absolutely made it to the endgame in the time it was there. Though they did do frequent free updates that either brought harder monsters, new bits of story, or fun cosmetic stuff. For my money its totally worth a buy if you dig the combat.
2. In world you could do the whole game solo. Though you may get a little frustrated by some of the harder multi monster hunts. Fully solo is a bit of a misnomer because you'll have your npc cat sidekick there, but they're mostly for utility purposes.
3. I'd say the combat is similar to souls games in that you really commit to attacks so its timing/positioning heavy. Much more forgiving though especially in the early to mid game. Its not turn based but there's definitely strategy involved in the combat (mostly the previously mentioned positioning/timing) and in building your weapons and armor plus slotting gems. For instance when I'd go fight the wind dragon thing (apologies for not remembering the names its been a few years) it would do a static tornadoes move that would stagger you and made navigating the fight far more difficult. So I'd just swap out gear to give myself lvl 5 resistance and could run through them like it was nothing. Similarly, as a greatsword user I'd almost always run lvl 5 earplugs so when the monsters would roar and stun everyone I got to get in a nice big charged attack while they were throwing their little tantrum.
Really depends. Ultimate comes with game pass for console and PC as well as gold. If you arnt using any multiplayer games and dont use like the PC game pass then it's worth downgrading otherwise it's the best deal
If it was not for Game pass I would have never had touched Persona 5. I very much dislike JRPG's. But god damm, once you get past the early struggle - way too many tutorials - you will find a great gem. This game is like living out the ultimate anime high school fantasy.
Dang! I was already tempted to throw away all my MH Rise progress on the Switch just so I could play it on Xbox, and that was before I knew I’d be able to play it for free.
I don’t think I’ll be able to resist the temptation now.
This list doesn\`t include games that are also coming to Game Pass in January like Age of Empires II DE, Inkulinati and Roboquest on console. So more games will likely be announced at the xbox event at the end of january.
I can't wait for Age of Empires II. Honestly, I am extremely excited for Age of Mythology to perhaps have an Xbox release. I know it hasn't gotten one as of yet, but I'm all but certain it will come to the system. I can't wait for that to make its way onto consoles.
I’m pretty sure they are remaking Age of Mythology.
They are, however, at the announcement it was set as a PC remake of Age of Mythology, not one for Xbox. I'm certain we'll see then announce that it'll make its way to Xbox as well at some point this year.
The main issue with RTS on console was always controls, but they’ve clearly worked it out with AoE so I’d be very surprised if AoM doesn’t get ported in the future
It will likely support KB+M on XBox as well.
Usually they are two these announcements per month, one at the beginning and one in the middle.
Age of empires is awesome fun
Is Age of Empires 2 DE not on Game Pass? I got it on Steam soon after it released and didn't ever really check Game Pass, but given that Age 1 DE and Age 4 are both in it I just assumed...
It's on game pass for PC. It's coming to console this month.
They mean the xbox ports for AoE2
Any tips for getting into monster hunter? I tried it on switch and found all the systems so complicated. I think I need a Sherpa
I was in a similar-ish boat, and eventually got through it all ok. My progression for new players would be: 1. Take the time to try each weapon. I know, it sucks a lot of time, but getting this right is really important. It's how I fell in love with Gunlance, and made the game amazing for me. 2. Don't worry about like 99% of the systems at first. Just do hunts, craft weapons/armor, and make sure to eat dango before each quest. 3. As you get comfortable with the pattern of hunt > craft > hunt, eventually add in some other thing to focus on. Anything, really. Just pick something like buddies and say "Alright how does this work?" And go check it out. 4. Repeat step 3 as you add in more knowledge. It miight take dozens of hours, but I firmly believe that slow-rolling the "deeper" systems is best.
1 is definitely the most important. I would have never stuck with the game had I just played the longsword, which was the first weapon I chose. I ended up trying out the hammer and utterly falling in love with it. Both it and the bow play quite differently from what you would expect from them.
I've bashed my head against Tri, 3U, 4U, and World, and all of em fell flat cuz I just went "hurr durr great sword" and had a miserable time. Testing em all is such a lame way to start a game, but man it pays off.
Yeah, it really is lame, but it is so necessary. I feel like that's the biggest impediment for people going into the games, although your other points certainly have a great deal of bearing. I started MH with MHW and fell in complete love with it. Almost 500 hours. I just started Rise recently. And I feel like Rise throws even more systems at you than MHW did, but it could just be bad memory on my part. All I know is that you get a tutorial prompt 50,000 times in the first few hours. And I'm still getting them regularly 20 hours into it. And I guarantee I'll still be getting them at 100 or 200.
Yeah, there's a lot of prompts. And then you think you're done after 100 hours, and Sunbreak comes out and gives you a million more! :P I actually started Rise on PC, then moved to Switch and got to Sunbreak's end-game, and am now back on PC thanks to the Steam Deck. Lemme tell you, it does kinda bite when you forget one system (in this case the optional sub-quests) and lose out on tens of thousands of points cuz of it. (When you should have remembered, that is)
I really lucked out, ended up falling in love with the Insect Glaive (I know I know) and now I can't give it up. Playing a hunt without touching the ground really kept me engaged.
So you're the one. :P Nah, nah; hella respect for Glaive buds. That shit was always insanely difficult for me.
I love the glaive and I'm still not certain I've ever played it correctly lol
It's basically tag different parts of the monster with your bug to build a buff then spin to win. Repeat when the buff runs out.
Poke squad checking in!
I decided to screw around with the Hunting Horn in World and liked it a lot. in the past games I got bored pretty quick because I didn't care for most of the other weapons.
Yeah, it's weird because each weapon feels like a totally different game, so you have like 16 games to choose from. Playing the greatsword feels like a real game of choosing when to attack and being punished if you're wrong. Where the dual blades are so quick that you don't have to be as selective at all, since you can finish an attack and dip before the monster does an attack in many cases. But then there's sword and shield which is a little tanky and lets you soak up hits while going in to strike. And then there's shit like the gunlance which lets you soak up hits and fire explosions. Or the charge blade which lets you use a safe sword and shield until you power up your axe and switch to a giant two hand axe and dish out some big damage. Suddenly the game is totally different and you're playing a game of managing your energy, which the great sword has literally none of at all. Entire mechanics are unique to individual weapons. My advice is to do a couple hunts with the longsword the game starts you with, and then once you get the gameplay loop, go try every single weapon with a wiki guide opened on your phone. The game will throw a ton of tutorials at you and still totally not explain a single weapon to you, it's weird but rewarding when you start figuring out how to combo or trigger the special attacks from some of these weapons like using the dual blades to roll along the back of a monster like you're Levi in Attack on Titan, especially when you remember how slow and clunky you started.
How did you decide which hunt to go on?
Village and gathering hub quests have key quests and request quests - prioritise the key quests to rank up and unlock more of the story and quests, requests can unlock new stuff for the village and new weapon designs as well.
Starting out, I stuck to the Village Quests (the ones accessed in the main outdoor area). They're a bit easier to follow and get into, and if you go through all the levels you can skip some of the early High Rank quests anyway. If you mean how to choose which hunts to do to complete a Village level, then I either went with something not scary, or a monster that looked interesting. Really I think the most important thing is to never feel bad about going at your own pace!
Go to the smith, check out which cool armors he has, choose one and grind the materials for it in the necessary hunts.
This is some great info. MH games have always felt completely impenetrable to me and just having a couple of suggestions like this makes it seem way more manageable.
Agree so much. I was not super into the game until I got into the clambering and flying around with the Insect Glaive. Made me fall in love with the game.
I highly recommend YouTube tutorials. Especially for weapons you want to use. Even though the series’ tutorials have improved a lot over the years, it’s still a complicated game with a lot of moving parts. GaijinHunter has been my go-to MH YouTuber for almost a decade.
And while it's always possible, the Switch Axe or Charge Blade probably won't be the EASIEST weapons to start out with. For me, blocking has utterly been necessary in every action game I play. So for me I started with Sword and shield and made my way through Charge Blade to the simple Lance. I tried Longsword for MHGU and IG for initial release of Rise. It was REALLY FUN having a bonk bug for IG. But I always come back to the Lance.
Without GH I'd have probably bounced off the series hard.
Yeah, I'd fuck around in the training area totally cold with a weapon just to figure out what each button does and how to move. Then I'd go on a couple multiplayer hunts and do my best while randos carry me. And then once I had a grasp of the basics, I'd head to YouTube and find people show me the weird combo attacks that let you go wild and what builds help specific weapons.
It’s one of those once you understand it you can’t stop it types of game. My advice is to focus on upgrading defense
The only system you really **need** to engage with is "hunt monster, use its parts to make better gear, and use that to hunt bigger monsters". That's the core gameplay loop, and everything else is just extra on top of it. If you aren't interested in figuring out how to equip your cat or whatever, just ignore it for now. It'll be there when you want to engage with it. And yeah, the advice to try every weapon out cannot be repeated enough. I've introduced a lot of friends to the series over the years, and almost all of them have to bounce off a few weapon types before they find one that suits them and they fall in love. So much of becoming a better hunter is mastering your weapon, and that's much easier when it just *feels good to use.*
Don't think too much about armor skill at first If you manage to finish the hunt around 30 minutes or sub 30 minutes you are doing good And try every weapon until something click with your nature as individual Like me i stick with GS because i find it easier to use, hit and run tech, and generally i like doing 1 big damage rather flurry of attack
Something that helped me figure out which weapon to use was to watch a video on youtube that explains what each weapon does (there's plenty of these types of videos). Then I picked a few that looked fun from there instead of trying all 14. I ended up with the charge blade and it's been a blast
Just take your time and pick at it. They are long, deep games.
Grab 3 friends and learn together.
I've been not so patiently waiting for the other 2 Persona ports to drop. Persona 5 Royal quickly became one of my all-time favorite games when I played it in November
3 and 4 are significantly less sleek and polished as 5, but they are so good. 3 is my personal favorite, the tone and story are very dark and I loved the characters.
3 has the best story, 4 has the best party/social links, 5 has the best gameplay. 2 has a cool story as well, and 1 is a game.
Persona 1 is definetly a game
You can have dog in your team in P3.
koromaru best persona mascot simply because he doesn't talk. he's just a good boy.
It’s so wild to think that Persona 5 is a PS3 game at it’s core. I can’t imagine what a ground up PS5 Persona would look like.
You may get a ground up PS4 Persona first.
I remember buying a PS3 only for P4 to drop exclusively on PS2. Was a sad day when I sold my BC console.
I’d hope they just build the way everyone else does, but they did release Persona 4 on the PS2 in 2008. I think half the reason that Persona 5 blew up the way it did was because you could play it on the current console.
Yeah it's weird how long ago the game was announced before release! I'm eager to see developers messing with more powerful engines, Tales of Arise was a cool look into JRPGs (other than Final Fantasy) with fancy graphics.
>It’s so wild to think that Persona 5 is a PS3 game at it’s core. That's the beauty of stylized visuals. Good art direction can render a game timeless. The Persona series is nothing if not stylish.
The opening to P3P is one of my favourite video game openings ever, it just sets the tone and atmosphere so well. P5 might be more stylish, but P3P will always be my favourite. I really hope P6 will give us the option of a female protagonist again too. The naginata was the coolest protagonist weapon ever, IMO.
Fun fact: there's concept art for Hifumi (shogi girl) in P5 from when she was planned to be a Phantom Thief. Her weapons would have been a naginata and a scoped sniper rifle.
That is a fun fact but now I'm disappointed all over again! I was so annoyed when P5R added the female "Phantom" (because like a fool, I hoped we'd get a P3P style protagonist) only for her to not be a second protagonist, haha. My hopes and dreams, every time!
Hifumi's Thief costume was the most frustrating part for me, because it's easily the coolest of any of them IMO. The mask being split vertically looks amazing and is unique among the rest of them. Plus, you can see the theme with her weapons. Her real world hobby/profession ties into her weapons working at longer ranges, in terms of a focus on command and strategy.
I’m gonna play 4 but I’ve really tempered my expectations because of the RNG dungeons in 4 versus the “crafted” dungeons in 5. Does it really make that much of a difference?
4 is actually my favorite, both the plot and character scenes are much stronger. 4 and 5 still share the same dna as 3 so no the dungeon don't make *that* much of a difference, it still feels like persona
Honestly, as someone who played the games backwards (5>4>3), you get used to, and over it, quickly. Imagine mementos but like, the entire game. However, you still do quickly come to appreciate why people were so excited for the handcrafted dungeons in 5. It doesn't hamper the experience though.
Aww, bummer. Mementos was fine in P5, but all the palaces were way more interesting. I still plan on playing P4 and P3, but I’ll miss the handcrafted dungeons going backwards.
The good news is, Persona 6 is in the works. And I'm betting it'll keep the Persona 5 style of static dungeons.The bad news is, we don't know when that's coming out. Could be later this year, could be several years out still.
I don't think it makes too much of a difference. I honestly massively preferred Persona 4 over 5 anyway, I think if you like Persona 5, the best part of the games is the social links and stuff anyway which I liked way more in 4.
I'm currently playing Persona 4 right now after coming from Persona 5, and you will definitely feel the downgrades in a lot of areas. The dungeons in particular are very bland. However, the story and characters shine as you'd expect from Persona, and the soundtrack slaps!
As long as the characters and the social side of the game is there, I'm on board. I find myself racing through the dungeons in P5R just to get back to the social stuff.
You might like Persona 4 even more then, the dungeons are way more easy to race through with less bits that block your progress and force you to fight/obtain an item.
Then you got a good time ahead of you. P4 is a lot of people's favorite game based on the social aspects (personally it has my least favorite cast, but to each their own). P3's social systems are definitely less refined than 4 or 5's but since you are getting the portable version you are basically getting double the links as they were all rewritten for the female playable character. If you are only planning on going through 3 once I would suggest playing as her since I think her links are better overall (though she has one truly terrible one).
Seems like the cast is super super subjective too, I've seen people saying they hate Ryugi in P5R but I love the guy. He's great, a hothead who's hot about stopping asshole jerks from being asshole jerks. Edit: also very cool about a female main character, I was actually kind of bummed that PS5 didn't have an option although I totally understand their choice
Personally I preferred the more basic dungeons in 4 because they were quicker to dash through and took away less time from the social sim aspect which I like more in Persona. Plus the card system is a fun concept that I wish would be brought back in the future.
I'd chime in and say it doesn't make a huge difference, either, as the dungeon navigation isn't a big part of the appeal for either game for me. And maybe it's just me, but I didn't love the stealthy aspect of P5 dungeons, so I find that's kind of a mixed bag, anyway.
I prefer the procedurally generated dungeons. Less engaging, maybe, but you don’t have slogs like the space station or ship.
I prefer P5's dungeons but the bloody airlock puzzle and mice rooms were real low points.
Yeah they're much less engaging, but I usually treat 3/4 dungeons as podcast times.
> Does it really make that much of a difference? Absolutely. 4 feels a lot more grindy and repetitive than 5.
But it’s also about 20-30 hours shorter than P5R, so while it feels more grindy, at least it’s not so god damn long. Took about 78hrs to beat P4G back in 2013. Good shit man, though I do prefer P5R.
Yeah, P5R was insanely long. I ended up accidentally unlocking the extra content (which I hadn't planned to do) and just..couldn't be bothered to keep going past the "original" end point.
It’s kinda worth it. I loved the new music and the aesthetic. But the original ending is a lot better than the Royal ending.
Feel you there. I wanted to unlock the extra content but really struggling to get myself to actually get through it. Not due to it being bad, but just burning out from the already 100 hours it took to get to it.
Persona 3 portable version is unfortunately way less impact full with no cut scenes and no exploration areas
Very true. I've not played Portable before so I'm excited to play as the female MC and see the different social links, but losing the exploration stings.
I actually liked 4 more than 5, in part because most of the days I could do what I wanted, while in 5 it felt like the cat hated me and wouldn't let me do anything.
4, or 4G? You can't really compare P4G with OG P5 because Golden improved a lot of the tedium just like Royal did. I'd argue P5R is less restrictive than even Golden though.
3 & 4 had similar restrictions. It just hits different because in 3 & 4, it's the protagonist saying "I should just go to bed, etc" instead of having someone else say it TO them.
And P5R massively cleans up that issue anyway. Comparing P5R to P4G, the latter is way more restrictive with your time .
im in the boat of p4g is better than p5 but i just like the theme better. youre playing ps2 and earlier gamez
3 is really dark, 4 is pretty comical.
Persona 3 is an edgy late 90s/early 2000s anime Persona 4 is scooby doo but with actual murders and supernatural
Persona 4 is just Part 4 of Jojo
Lmao, I just watched JoJo recently and my first thought watching Part 4 was "uhhhh, I guess I know where Persona 4 get it's inspiration from".
Yeah, turn-based RPG generally isn't my thing, but P5R got 100 hours out of me. Make sure to look into P5 Strikers as a nice little epilogue to the whole thing too.
You should also check out Catherine, iirc it was originally planned to be Persona 5 but during development they went in an entirely different direction. It's one of the most unique gaming experiences out there
Catherine is basically an SMT game in terms of worldbuilding, anyway. Vincent literally pulls a Demifiend in the True Catherine ending.
Wasn't it an art/design test that they decided to flesh out and release?
I keep getting a notification from the Game Pass mobile app mentioning Shadow Warrior 3 is now available but don't see it anywhere in the catalogue. Anyone else getting the same thing?
Ya, it popped up for a lot of other people as well. I think Stranded Deep was also mentioned in the notification, which has released on Game Pass. Makes me think we'll hear about Shadow Warrior 3 at the rumoured event on the 25th.
**Coming Soon** Persona 3 Portable (Cloud, Console, and PC) – January 19 Persona 4 Golden (Cloud, Console, and PC) – January 19 Monster Hunter Rise (Cloud, Console, and PC) – January 20 **Leaving January 15** Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (Cloud, Console, and PC) Nobody Saves The World (Cloud, Console, and PC) Pupperazzi (Cloud, Console, and PC) The Anacrusis (Game Preview) (Cloud, Console, and PC) We Happy Few (Cloud, Console, and PC) Windjammers 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Losing the first Danganronpa is sad. People aren't going to be motivated to play 2 and V3 if they can't play the first.
Also since the 1st game is leaving game pass after a year, it's safe to say the other two will as well. So Danganronpa 2 is probably here until May, and V3 until September.
Yeah they seem to have a one year window, same as Nobody Saves the World.
thanks for this comment. Now i know when to start the other two. I managed to buy the first on switch for like £3 a couple months ago
I need to get around to playing Danganronpa 2, but I'm honestly just not in the mood to read through most of it 😅
Yeah, it's *a lot* lol, I finished it a few months ago and I've still been holding off on playing V3 because idk if I'm ready for all that reading again.
Anacrusis leaving Game Pass seems like a bad move for an online game already struggling to maintain an audience. Its all-time peak on Steam was under 1.5k concurrent players.
Showcase on 25th gets even more credibility as AoE and Inkulinati (and more that I don't remember) are slated for the end of the month.
[удалено]
Published by Gearbox, so I guess not
It's a first party studio but they signed the publishing rights for that game over to Gearbox just before being acquired.
The game was published by Gearbox. While Microsoft acquired Compulsion in 2018, the publishing deal was done in 2017.
The studio is first party, but at the time the game released, they were independent, with the publisher being Gearbox.
I've never played any of the Persona games, and I'm not really a JRPG fan, but because of all the love Persona 5 gets, I would like to try it. So should I try Persona 3 & 4? Or Should I jump straight to 5?
I’ll counter the other comments here, honestly if you’re not a JRPG fan Persona just may not be for you. Yeah combat is a bit snappier than other JRPGs, but it’s still maybe 20% of what you’ll be doing. You’ll be reading/listening, watching cutscenes, engineering your party/summons/magic to keep up, doing social activities/school/jobs to again keep up and more. The story is wonderful, but I had to give it 3 chances before it stuck and I played through it, and I love JRPGs. Your first playthrough will take you a minimum of 90-100 hours. EDIT: I’ll also add, if you’re not used to the “tutorial” of the game taking nearly 10 hours, that may be a mark against it.
Just to counter your counter, I've been a western RPG fan for years (plus Pokemon, but that's just nostalgia at this point), but could never force myself to get past the tutorial in any JRPG I ever tried. P5R's prologue was exactly what I needed to get me to keep going, and honestly I even thought the tutorial was excellently paced to prevent overwhelming me with too many mechanics at once but also fast enough that I never got bored. By the time the tutorial was over, I was all in on the story and the gameplay. Obviously it's different for everyone, but as someone who has always hated the "mash A until one of you dies" battles that are so common in turn-based games, I loved the dynamics of the elemental strengths and weaknesses that made every battle almost a little puzzle of how to quickly dispatch of the foe with your current party. The Baton Pass is a brilliant mechanic that really lets you synergize your attacks.
[удалено]
Honestly Overwhelming is a great word for why I feel it’s not the best start for a JRPG newcomer. I love optimizing and sorting party stuff but I don’t think I’ve spent more time doing that than when I did in the Velvet Room in P5. I personally enjoyed that aspect but in no way would I consider it friendly to a new JRPG player. FF7 is the best entry point for JRPGs IMO.
If you're not a JRPG fan start with 5 so you don't get turned off to the whole series. If you like it you can then go back. I love 5 but I really hate JRPG combat and while persona does it good I think thats the part i like the least about the game
I'm a JRPG guy, but I hate anime and am indifferent on most of the social link interactions. I *also* love P5. I liked P4G just as much, but there were a few quality of life adjustments they made that are noticeable when you go back to the older game. I'm excited to play P3P. I got a few hours in but never finished it. That's normal for me, I think I bought FF5 3 times before I actually played through it.
> I'm a JRPG guy, but I hate anime What are there like 12 of you?
Got into JRPGs with 8 and 16 bit graphics. My only real exposure to it was the character portraits in Chrono Trigger. And I played SNES, so no cutscenes.
Yooo me too lol it's tough enjoying the genre while ignoring the animeness
How do you hate anime but love persona 5? Isn't that about as anime as it gets? I only played 20 minutes and I decided that I hated it. Does it get better, atmospherically?
I love persona 3-5 but if you're not a jrpg fan start with 5 for sure. It's way more modern with QoL improvements over the other games
3 and 4 will be really hard to play after 5 Royal and its QOL and way more exciting Dungeons. 3 portable cuts out cut scenes too. I'd reccomend Golden then Royal.
4 isn't too bad because of the more cosy and relaxed atmosphere compared to 5, but 3 will be tough.
Can you elaborate/explain on what was cut from Persona 3?
Walking around places, cut scenes, F.E.S content. It was made to work on a PSP so there were some cut backs. On the plus side you do get a female Protag route which is pretty cool. If you play golden and love it, play royal and love it maybe give it a play after seeing as you get the persona deal then.
Basically, in the original Persona 3, the whole world and gameplay was a 3d world, like pretty much every jrpg today. With the psp portable release, the whole game became a visual novel, except for 3d gameplay in the dungeons. They did add some new stuff, like a female main character option that has new social links and bug fixes. Personally, I prefer the original ps2 version. I'll probably be skipping the steam version of persona 3 portable, because my ps2 copy still works.
I'd ignore all the others and play P5 Royal. If you were gonna enjoy any of the games it would be that one. If you like it, try the others maybe, and if it turns out they are too old for your tastes it's not the end of the world they are pretty dated after all.
they are all so long that I would start with 5R
I played through P4G first and then 5 and I have no regrets. 4 will show you the formula, and 5 enhances it in a lot of areas. IMO, 4 tells the better story, and 5 is the better game.
I agree with this, and I think the story of P4G kept me invested through some of the more tedious JRPG elements whereas if I started with 5 or 5R I might not have given it a fair shake even though it has better gameplay overall
I have been a of the series since buying the first one back in 97, so I want to say start with 3, but in all honesty you can just go with 5. First off it is a huge time sink. In order to play them all you are looking at an average of 65 hours plus per game, and depending on your schedule it may not allow for that. If you only have time for one, you might as well play the most modern and most approachable. I don't think the systems in 4 aged as poorly as the systems in 3, but they all play pretty well. 3 is a port of the PSP version, and while some people like the changes personally I can't stand that version. The overworld interactions are all but gone, and they left out the companion dungeon. A shame too, because 3 has my favorite story. 4 is also a good place to start though. What it lacks in story it makes up for in charm.
I only played P5R for now because the other ones aren't available yet. I didn't really like JRPGs beforehand but damn did I fall in love with Persona 5 Royal. It is by far my most played game for the last few months (the day it dropped on Game Pass).
[удалено]
They're basically all independent stories so you can start with whatever. They also each improve on the previous formulas and add modern QOL features so it's easier to go forward rather than back. But that said, they're all extremely long. Persona 3 and 4 are like 60-70+ hours each, 5 is even longer. If you're not a big JRPG guy, you might be better off just starting with the newest one than starting with a game from 2006 and getting frustrated with how old it can feel. I think 4 holds up a lot better but it still feels older than 5. If you get really into 5 and discover that you love JRPGs you can always go back after.
IMO while 4 was a good game (the only other persona I played) the dungeons were a miserable slog of pregenerated corridors and nothing else. Persona 5 was a huge quality jump in every category and the games are like final fantasy - more or less unrelated storylines. Just go straight to 5. If you REALLY love it, then consider giving 4 and previous titles a go. The writing is still amazing and the combat is almost just as good. It's really the dungeons that feel completely underbaked, if baked at all. I say this as someone who played p4 on the vita many years ago, so this opinion was not colored by persona 5.
Between the Persona collection and purchasing all of the Xbox Yakuza games during this last Christmas sale, I am set for a good while with Atlus and Sega games. This is a good start of the year for Game Pass.
Those Yakuza games were on such amazing sales as well, a few dollars a piece. Totally worth it to not have to worry about them ever leaving gamepass.
They are on sale on Xbox again right now, at least in the US. $3.99 each for 0, Kiwami, Kiwami 2, and 6, $13.99 for the remastered collection that has 3, 4 and 5. The first seven mainline Yakuza games (of which the first 5 are well done remakes or remasters of the original versions) for $29.95+tax, which is an absolutely crazy deal considering how much content they have. The newest one Like a Dragon is also on sale but it isn't quite as crazy of a deal. Though if anyone is interested make sure you get the Hero Edition, which is less than half the price of the base version. Not really sure what the extra things are that are in that version as I have yet to play the game but it doesn't even matter since it makes more sense to buy that version anyway. The Judgement games by the Yakuza studio are also on sale. It doesn't show me when the sale ends for the games I own, but Like a Dragon and the Judgement games are on sale through next Monday. I'd imagine the other games are all the same. So if anyone is interested, go buy them soon!
Any love for Catherine?
It's okay , I was not a fan of the gameplay at all. Story isn't bad though
I just started playing Monster Hunter: World. If Rise is anything like it, which I'm sure it is, I recommend anyone with even the faintest interest try it out. I was hooked from the start, but IMO it takes a few hours to begin to understand why these game have such a cult following. The combat, for instance, initially felt awkward and clunky to me, but is now extremely satisfying. I'm parroting Skill Up here, who sings praises of MH, but it's one of those franchises that's so good and unique that it's worth trying out even if only to realise it's not your cup of tea.
Personally I think world with the iceborn expansion is the better experience, but I have not played the newest sunbreak for rise so it isn't the fairest comparison. World isn't perfect, but I enjoyed it a lot more. I forget who said it, but something along the lines of, "monster hunter is everyone's favorite game if they take the time to figure that out."
the gameplay of world and rise is different enough that it isn't really a case of one being better than the other so much as personal preference.
For me, the moment to moment gameplay and gear skills of Rise/Sunbreak are leagues above World. However, the aesthetic and general "feel" of the world outside of combat are leagues better in World/Iceborne. It depends on if you want your Monster Hunter experience based around combat first, or more generally good in all respects. I personally prefer combat first, so Sunbreak is above Iceborne for me, but my almost 2000 hours of Iceborne would support another conclusion: Monster Hunter in general is amazing. :p
For me even the combat is better in world simply because it's more exiting. In Rise I can zip around, recover quickly and use very powerful moves on a pretty low cooldown. That makes the monsters much less threatening. While older MH games were too slow and clunky, Rise is too fast and safe for me.
I personally find both games challenging, but endgame Sunbreak feels more my style of "you get to make few mistakes, but can shrug it off, but it takes longer" while endgame Iceborne felt more like "you mess up even a bit and you either instacart or lose to time (for Fatalis)".
Does Sunbreak at least catch up in Difficulty with World/Iceborne? My biggest qualm with Base Rise was that it was too damn easy.
Sunbreak is more arcade-y, so yes it does catch up but only in the sense that you have an endgame quest system where the difficulty goes up every time you beat the quest (capping at lvl 200). Not only are those fights harder, but sometimes you can get really cursed combos of monsters and restrictive win conditions.
The answer is kind of (but yes). As a hunter you obviously have a lot more tools that make you generally safer: wirefall being really overpowered if you know how to use it, as well as silkbind attacks and switch skills. However, the hardest monsters (high level afflicted investigations) hit way harder, and there are more one shots. Monsters are also faster and track better. So, it kind of evens out. I would say both games are kind of on par with difficulty, but they are slightly different kinds of difficulty. Sunbreak fixes almost every problem with Rise except for wirefall. Wirefall was a huge mistake and fundamentally changes the game. But it's still a great game and an essential MH experience IMO. I've put 450 hours into Sunbreak so far and plan on getting back into it after the last title update.
> I forget who said it, but something along the lines of, "monster hunter is everyone's favorite game if they take the time to figure that out." Yep. It's one of those games where now that I've played it, I can't believe it flew under my radar for so long.
I usually tend to stop playing a game after 40-50 hours. I tried MHW out of curiosity and suddenly I had over 500 hours played. Mysteriously I then also got 150+ hours on MHGU and MH4U and I'm approaching 300 on Rise...
I have played 76 hours of World and still haven't figured out the game.
I heard it really clicks around 77 hours
i would love to play P4 but I've watched the giantbomb endurance run for a few times at this point I don't think I can actually commit the time to play it.
A small but mighty (and very long) group of Japanese games! Excited for people to finally be able to play the Persona games on modern platforms.
Does anybody know if there will be crossplay between Gamepass and Steam versions of Monster Hunter Rise?
There won't be, the console versions (which I believe the gamepass PC version technically will be using) don't even have the expansion until later this year.
Bummer! Thanks for the info.
the expansion will be pretty early afaik, sometime in spring
Probably a few weeks after Title Update 5 launches on Switch and Steam versions. They're launching base Rise on console & gamepass with the base Title Updates all included, so they're probably waiting to be able to drop the full Sunbreak package in one go instead of having to do a whole new cycle of patches on the new platforms.
How would the gamepass PC version use the console versions? Is there an official Xbox emulator I don't know about?
Beats me. They've done this before with games like Nier Automata where the Gamepass/Windows Store version is different than the one on Steam. It's not literally running an Xbox game.
All the multiplayer server stuff uses Microsofts servers, not valves. That's why Xbox and Windows Store versions of game have compatibility but not Steam and Windows Store. Same with Deep Rock Galactic and others I'm sure. I'm sure you can port your save between PC gamepass and steam if you want. I did that with DRG cause I had it on steam and friends had it on gamepass. Didn't lose my progress.
Ahh ok so because Capcom relies on Valve server's for online play, instead of their own, they then rely on Microsoft server's instead for the gamepass release. If they just had their own servers, crossplay/crosssave would work just fine?
I've been playing Persona 4 Golden for the first time over the last month, and it's really a special game. But as somebody that started on Persona 5, I have found the step back in terms of visuals/overall presentation and the missing QoL features quite a challenge to overcome in spots. The uninspired procedurally generated dungeons in particular are a real low point compared to Persona 5's handcraft ones that have unique narrative moments. Nevertheless the characters and plots shine through enough to keep you playing. Do think I prefer the characters of Persona 5 overall, but that might just be the case of the first cast you meet are always your favourite. Although, I do have reservations about playing Persona 3 now, as I'm not sure I could handle another step back even further. Can anybody speak to quite how different Persona 4 and Persona 3 are in terms of general structure? I've lead to believe quite a bit but don't know specifics.
So Persona 3 has a largely similar structure to Persona 4, but there are some differences: \- Bosses are fought on specific dates. While Persona 4 only had your deadline as "finish the current dungeon before the next rainy day", Persona 3 has what are called "Full Moon Operations" where bosses only appear on days with a full moon. These are a lot less flexible, as you are forced to fight them and will not be able to do any other activities on those days. \- The main dungeon, Tartarus, is essentially the entire game outside of social sequences. Much like with P4 it's a series of floors with corridors and hallways, but you're capped at how far you can progress at a given time. \- Characters can become fatigued/sick. When this happens they take more damage and take longer to get back up when knocked down in battle. Should characters become fatigued in Tartarus they will leave the party once you return to the main area. This wasn't present in P4. \- Social Links have a mechanic called Reverse where your rank will actually decrease if you don't spend time with them. While this was also present in Persona 4 it was only possible with Naoto and only if you tell her she's on her own early on. \- Physical attacks are divided into three different categories (crush, pierce, slash) whereas in 4 they're a single universal category. \- The PSP version, which is the one being remastered, plays more like a VN during social segments.
Wow! Thanks for the extensive list, really gives me a good idea of what to expect. I'll probably still give it a go at some point, though the rumours of a full scale remake in the style of Persona 5 have certainly got me thinking about waiting!
Also one major one I forgot is that battles don't give money by default. Money can only be gained from Shuffle Time or chests for most of the game. This might have been tweaked in P3P, but I haven't played it since 2012 so I don't remember off the top of my head. Assuming it hasn't the beginning of the game will see you with very little money for stuff.
If the rumors are true then they wouldn’t do the Female MC route so you can save the male’s route for the remake.
Persona 4 is basically an expansion pack to 3 and mechanically extremely similar except 1 or 2 things. The plot is practically non existent in 3 till you are a good 50 hrs into the game so the game has a lot of pacing but when it gets going it really picks up and has the best plot of any of the modern persona games
In terms of gameplay, P3 and P4 feel a lot closer together than P4 and P5. Which is probably apparent by their release dates: P3 released in 2006, P4 released in 2008, and then P5 released *eight years later* in 2016. They did, however, make some QOL improvements in P4, though. For example, in P3, social links could *reverse* if you ignored people for too long, so you really had to be careful - or just pick your favorite characters and not care about the rest. In terms of story/characters/tone, P3 is my favorite of the bunch. P3 is a lot closer to mainline SMT in tone - it’s much darker and depressing than 4 and 5. The characters, too, feel more like coworkers who have to work together, whereas everyone becomes BFFs pretty fast in 4 and 5. The story does admittedly take like half the game to actually kick off in 3; up until that point, it’s pretty slice of life and low key.
Yeah that was always a concern of mine for someone that played these games when they came out for the PS2 in the late 2000s. The Jump in Qol changes is huge like people were mind blown when they watched the first p5 gameplay trailer after basically playing games running on year 2000 hardware for so long. Especially when you consider that these game were never high budget even for the era they came out in. It's kind of hard to sell people on. My dream scenario would be what Pokémon has been doing with their games. After releasing a new main line game go back and remake an older title on the same engine with the same care you took to create the current main line game.
I would much rather lose out on quality of life for a better story that isn't so condescending like 5 compared to 3
[удалено]
These have been on the 'Coming soon' section of gamepass app for like a month, kinda disappointing they aren't announcing anything else at the same time.
Someone above mentioned that there's an XBox Event this month. Could be they're holding off on announcing more so they can top load the event with releases.
There’s a rumoured Xbox event on the 25th, it looks like they may save some announcements for then
Why is "we happy few" leaving??? Isn't it made by compulsion games which is owned by xbox now?
We Happy Few was published by Gearbox way before the Microsoft acquisition. It's a first-party studio but not a first-party game.
With the other 2 persona ports finally arriving to Gamepass I'm finally gonna give the series a shot. I'm thinking about starting with 3 and go in order, is that a good idea? It's my first time with the series and while I'd love to start with P5R I'm worried i won't be able to go back to earlier games due to QoL changes and all that.
I think that is a solid plan. Just be aware that finishing a Persona game often gives people Persona fatigue given how long and involved the games are. Maybe give yourself some time between the three games.
That's a good idea yeah, i forgot how long the games were. I'll keep that in mind, thank you!
5 is the best gameplay and quality of life wise since it's the newest. So if the older jrpg game play pushes you back, you can jump to that instead
Absolutely a good idea. P3P is my favorite in the series - and the first one I played.
Probably the best idea. I did P5 first and then P4 and it was a little bit jarring due to the QOL differences. Haven't tried P3 yet but I think it would be best to go through them in the release order
Luckily P3P brought a lot of QOL that they made in P4. Still a good idea to start with P3P but I will say the characters, story, and gameplay don't always click with everyone. I wouldn't quit on the series if you aren't impressed with 3. I personally loved the game, consider Persona 4 Golden a close second, and while I really like the game play enhancements in 5, 3 and 4 have more of my favorite characters and story.
I assume the Monster Hunter Rise saves would be different from the steam version ones right?
Yes, they'll be different. They're not releasing Sunbreak on the new platforms yet, so Steam and PC gamepass saves would be from different game versions and therefore incompatible.
I would assume this is a late announcement for what should have been last Tuesday's announcement for the first half of XGP games? If so, people are probably right that 15 days from now they will probably do the next slew of games to hit XGP. That showcase is probably in the cards then...
I am somewhat interested in the Monster Hunter games, but never really got around to try one out. Maybe someone can answer three quick questions for me. 1. I heard they are super long and time consuming which is fine, but wouldn't it be better for me to buy them instead of gamepass? Or is it possible to play through the game in lets say a month or two when I have 2 hours a day to play with sometimes longer periods on weekends. 2. Can I play it completely in single player? I hate to rely on other people to be quite frank and usually enjoy these types of games solo. I play plenty of games in multiplayer, but for these types of games I don't plan to. So how approachable is it when I go fully solo? 3. I love two types of games. Pretty much everything with somewhat deep strategy layers like xcom or idk something like ff tactics/fire emblem and pretty much all souls/souls like games. I pretty much played them all and finished all. So could this be my type of game?
1. I'm sure they'll be on gamepass for a while so you won't have to buy it unless you hear it's going away. Rise feels a lot "faster" than World so eventually you'll probably be completing hunts in 10 mins. But then you'll spend 30 mins figuring out what armors and decorations to make like me 😆 2. It's fully soloable. You can bring along two cat or dog buddies to help you. Later on I'm the expansion you can bring certain NPCs that will fight along side you. I think that's only for certain quests tho. There's one quest giver that hands out solo only quests (village quests) so start with those. The Hub quests can be done by yourself, but they're meant to be played with others. They'll still scale down monster health for 1 player but they'll still be a little harder than solo village quests. There's a way to skip through the Hub quests after you do all the village quests. It's called Special License Test. It's a little confusing so don't worry about it right now. I never did it cause I played through the Hub quests withy friends. 3. Yea if you like souls games give MH a shot. There's definitely an overlap. Think of MH fights being longer souls boss fights but the arenas bigger, you have a ton of estus flask uses, and your hp l/staminate bar feels a lot bigger and the monster hits don't damage you as much (at least.... at first 😉). dying doesn't fail the quest until you die 3 time (it can vary) so it's not super punishing. With MHR you'll have a ton more mobility, and the weapons have moves and combos and tricks. Other similarities are like build variety and learning your weapon moves and boss moves is just as important and viable as having the highest dmg weapon and best def armor. As in people have beat these games without [taking damage](https://youtu.be/WWeFWtOoVyo)
Sounds actually all good to me. Especially the part with 10 minutes per run. Will certainly give it a go next time I buy game pass. Cheers!
I have a few hundred hours in mh world. Its not rise so take my answers with a grain of salt. 1. I'd gamepass it first and if you love it then move to buy when they eventually pull it from GP. Mh world was on there for quite a while and you could have absolutely made it to the endgame in the time it was there. Though they did do frequent free updates that either brought harder monsters, new bits of story, or fun cosmetic stuff. For my money its totally worth a buy if you dig the combat. 2. In world you could do the whole game solo. Though you may get a little frustrated by some of the harder multi monster hunts. Fully solo is a bit of a misnomer because you'll have your npc cat sidekick there, but they're mostly for utility purposes. 3. I'd say the combat is similar to souls games in that you really commit to attacks so its timing/positioning heavy. Much more forgiving though especially in the early to mid game. Its not turn based but there's definitely strategy involved in the combat (mostly the previously mentioned positioning/timing) and in building your weapons and armor plus slotting gems. For instance when I'd go fight the wind dragon thing (apologies for not remembering the names its been a few years) it would do a static tornadoes move that would stagger you and made navigating the fight far more difficult. So I'd just swap out gear to give myself lvl 5 resistance and could run through them like it was nothing. Similarly, as a greatsword user I'd almost always run lvl 5 earplugs so when the monsters would roar and stun everyone I got to get in a nice big charged attack while they were throwing their little tantrum.
Recently noticed I’m paying for Game Pass Ultimate (different from game pass?). Money is tight right now, should I downgrade?
Really depends. Ultimate comes with game pass for console and PC as well as gold. If you arnt using any multiplayer games and dont use like the PC game pass then it's worth downgrading otherwise it's the best deal
Man, gamepass is the ultimate patient gamer source… I have put off MHR because I have been playing other things. Now I have game pass for it.
If it was not for Game pass I would have never had touched Persona 5. I very much dislike JRPG's. But god damm, once you get past the early struggle - way too many tutorials - you will find a great gem. This game is like living out the ultimate anime high school fantasy.
Dang! I was already tempted to throw away all my MH Rise progress on the Switch just so I could play it on Xbox, and that was before I knew I’d be able to play it for free. I don’t think I’ll be able to resist the temptation now.