I Am Already Not Excited For The Next Console Cycle

It has been four years since the release of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series. I’ve been console gaming since my early youth, starting with the original PlayStation. By the time of the PlayStation 2, I had learned to expect consoles to iterate and evolve, and that the next horizon would happen sometime later on.

However, I wouldn’t ever think about the following console. I loved my PlayStation 3 and knew a PlayStation 4 would follow, but it was never more than a reality I did not think about.

Yet, during this console cycle, at only four short years in, I am noticing and thinking of the next cycle. And I am constantly dreading the reality.

I suppose it was Astro Bot that helped my eyes crack open. Celebrating everything Sony has accomplished through the PlayStation brand (with the noticeable exception of Square Enix properties) truly reminded me how much these cycles have given us. I enjoyed Astro Bot, although admittedly not to the GOTY sentiment I see from other fans and publications, but remembering the previous PlayStations' lives did show me how much the PlayStation 5 has not had much of a life after all.

There has been a focus on remastering classics from the PlayStation 3, and pointless remasters of PlayStation 4 games which occasionally are barely five years old. The live-service games came and went, leaving no lasting impressions or sometimes even a first impression, such as Foamstars of the disastrous launch of Concord.

To shift gears and discuss Microsoft and the Xbox Series of consoles, we are still waiting on the promised games such as the Perfect Dark reboot and the next chapter for Halo. The rut has yet to end, and the console has become little else but a “Game Pass machine”.

I was content with the PlayStation 1, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, and every Nintendo handheld I’ve ever owned. While I did know to expect a horizon, I was still able to love living in the moment. I can’t do that with the PlayStation 5 or the Xbox Series, as even though I do find them stronger versions of their previous console interactions, that is all they feel like. I turn on my PS5 or my Series X and feel like I’m still playing my PS4 or Xbox One but with better user interfaces.

There have been console exclusives I’ve loved, as I heavily enjoyed Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. But when it comes to console exclusives I truly only think of the ones from Nintendo as of late. And with their next console already teased, I actually do see myself excited as long as it’s little more than a more impressive Nintendo Switch.

Which is a funny contrast, and there is instead a growing fear from me for both Sony and Microsoft in how their consoles don’t feel like anything but an upgrade. Xbox’s limbo for the past decade has made things feel like they are moving sideways instead of forward, their momentum is completely stagnant. I can’t be excited anymore as I stopped expecting a comeback, and I even stopped subbing to Gamepass. I’d rather just play my back catalog instead of pretending I’m hyped.

For PlayStation, it’s the growing discomfort in their comfort zone. I may enjoy Spider-Man 2 more than Astro Bot, but the refreshing genre contrast of Astro Bot is still what I would prefer to see more of. PlayStation has enough third-person sandbox story games, as good as they may be. I feel this is a major reason for the disgust I and many others had for the announcement of the PlayStation 5 Pro. When all the games look the same anyway, due to playing the same anyway, what’s the selling point that they will now be a few pixels sharper? Variety is a better spice than 8K and 120 FPS.

I can think hard about the Nintendo Switch, but I lose my train of thought with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. They lack the identity that the Switch so easily earned, and after four years on the market with no drop in price, it’s hard not to worry.

Realistically, both companies have plenty of time to learn, but it’s more than fair to say I’ve waited long enough. If this console cycle feels stagnant and samey, it worries me this is a rut too hard to move out of.

I trust Nintendo to innovate even if the next console is little more than Nintendo Switch 2. I don’t currently trust the PlayStation 6 to be anything but a PlayStation 5 Pro. I worry that Xbox doesn’t even try to do anything besides revamp the Series until it sells or they give up.

There are great games right now, and plenty of places to play them. But I worry the next console cycle will feel like nothing. Not even an upgrade. Only time will tell.

Prediction: The PlayStation 5 Pro Is Doomed To Fail

As you may know, today (September 10th, 2024), Mark Cerny of Sony Playstation revealed the Pro line for the PS5 family of systems. At only around 10 minutes of video, this was a short but informative video on the enhancements promised by the system.

The big elephant in the room, and the likely talking point no matter how interested (or not) a potential customer may be, is the price point of $699.99. Making this a steep $200 increase from the base model. To cut to the point, whatever negatives I also have with the information provided, there was nothing the PS5 Pro could have done right to justify such a sharp asking price. Considering the wide range of taxes from state to state, this console could easily set you back around $1000, and I doubt taxes in other countries will be too different from this final price. It gets worse when considering that the vertical stand is not included with the Pro, despite how there is a stand included with the base PS5, and how collectors of physical disc games will need to shell out an additional $80 as the required disc tray is also not included.

This screams of corporate greed from a company assuming they can get away with it. Sony’s PlayStation brand earned a lot of goodwill in the past console cycle thanks to the underperformance of both their competitors (The Xbox One and the WiiU), and I fear this mask is starting to crack. A showing of ego, gained by a company deciding the general public now loves them to the point they can do no wrong. I can only imagine, and even assume, that between this and the shutdown of Concord, more than a few PlayStation fans are asking a few questions about their brand loyalty.

But let’s forget speculation, and discuss my other problems with the PS5 Pro. For starters, as profound as it may have sounded from Cerny that developers wish to show how great their games truly look while keeping the framerate the way players want, I feel this also shows a hand. Gamers have started to push back on games going for graphics over writing and/or gameplay, and to openly admit that gamers want FPS over graphics in a professional video from Sony feels like a statement they should have proofread.

I cannot speak for developers, but I honestly doubt the statement is even entirely true. I’m sure developers want their games to be good, absolutely, but graphical fidelity has always been a talking point from publishers and CEOs instead of anything I earnestly heard from a developer. A small issue, true, but a statement that pricked my ears regardless.

As for that fidelity, let’s be frank and say YouTube is the wrong place to do side-by-side comparisons. As an uploader to the platform myself, YouTube’s bitrate compresses image quality so much that true 4K does not exist on the site. Vimeo would have showcased the details far better, but YouTube is the platform more people watch, and I don’t blame Sony for YouTube’s poor render qualities. That said, the side-by-sides looked no different to me.

I have gamed on both a 4K TV and a non-4K TV with my PS5, and I can tell the difference. Even with YouTube’s compression, the only difference I saw was that the Pro version tended to be zoomed in slightly more, which is an odd choice to do for a true side-by-side. As for the framerate discussion, sadly, both videos still looked the same to me. If there is a difference, it’s in the single digits, something I’m sure I would feel but not see.

This type of console is more the more tech-savvy individual, something I somewhat am, as evident by the fact I’m an owner of Sony’s PS VR2, an expensive headset I enjoy so much I have worked it into my exercise regiment. I understand that with high-end tech, feeling can be far more important than seeing

But frankly, even before I knew the price, I was not impressed. These looked like the same old games the PS5 ran very well already. I understood the need for a PS4 pro, as the PS4 was underutilized in terms of slow load times and abysmal download speeds, but I’ve owned a PS5 for a year and have had no issues of the sort. There is no need for the Pro version of the PS5, and at 700 dollars, I only see a flop.

Gamescom's 2024 Opener Felt Surprisingly Dull

Before we start this discussion, I’d like to just give a quick apology for the likelihood of spelling errors or inconsistencies this go around. I am on my own here but strive for professionalism, which means I typically reread these blog posts multiple times before I finish them, but I need to be timely today so the chance of spelling goofs is much higher than normal. I will also be speaking off the cuff for many of the game trailers, as one does, so expect an easy breezy attitude.

Gamescom happens every year, hosted by none other than Geoff Keighley, an industry man so well known that spellcheck was able to correctly identify his surname. For what it’s worth, I’ve liked Geoff for a while now. I noted back at my tenure freelancing for DualShockers that he is capable of being too commercial-focused, but, his love for video games is genuine and he can let it shine brightly.

Gamescom’s 2024 opener didn’t feel too commercial thankfully, it more so just happened to showcase games I overwhelmingly didn’t find myself caring about.

Let’s just get one thing out of the way; I’ve already stated my worries about Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, so I won’t replay that record this evening for you. We can also start with positives just for the sake of argument:

I’m excited for the Mafia series to come back, but then again, the trailer was nothing more than a teaser, and I have become far too cynical to be fully excited when that happens. I also think it’s great that Genshin Impact is coming to Xbox platforms, as while my time with Honkai Star Rail has still been short, I can tell there’s fun and quality from Hoyoverse, so allowing even more players to try their games out is welcome. It’s fun to hear about Secret Level, assuming it does live up to the hype of a full series that looks exactly like a modern video game cutscene.

There were too many games that looked technically fine but were elbow-deep into a franchise I am not familiar with and seemed very comfortable marketing off that familiarity. That is no fault of theirs, but it left me cold. I was also briefly intrigued by the above Call Of Duty, but entirely for the secret agent aspects. I found myself uninterested once it became a shootout and motorcycle chase, but I can still say I understand why fans would be pumped. It still looked more interesting to me than the last decade of the franchise, and it’s likely something I’ll play around with when I resubscribe to Game Pass, which is more than I have said about Call Of Duty in a long while.

But I’m sorry to say the event itself started off sour for me. The Borderland 4 announcement is a victim of terrible timing due to the movie being a massive critical and commercial flop, but it can also be slammed for featuring no gameplay or even as much as a character reveal!

The trailer for Goat Simulator Remastered is quite funny until the title drops. There is no reason to remaster a game that looks like crap on purpose and runs perfectly well on modern hardware. Polishing the turd would ruin the joke, and anyone who wants to play Goat Simulator can already do so. Putting it on stage for a large crowd only made it feel shallow.

What on God’s green Earth was Masters Of Albion? Directed by Fable creator and Lionhead founder Peter Molyneux, this game is an apparent return caused by an alleged yearning to come back to the console space after developing for mobile. I’m nothing short of worried that the mobile phone game market tainted Molyneux’s design, however, as Masters Of Albion reeks of mobile phone gaming down to even having a hand as a cursor to drag the objects of characters. It lacked any wit or charm to keep my interest. Molyneux has enough spite against him on the web, so I see no need to begrudge him just because of the internet’s beef, but I do wonder why this game was allowed on the show floor. Perhaps it’s secretly a masterpiece, but time will have to tell us that, as my eyes sure didn’t seem to think it is.

I’m outright confused about what there is left to talk in-depth about. As I said in the positives, many trailers felt like I was left out of the loop, and sadly that’s just as much a negative. Many new IPs and franchise staples had trailers leaving me puzzled and empty. I don’t wish to attack these games without knowing anything about them, all I would like to say is how I was left knowing nothing about them. I was just as empty from Little Nightmares 3 and I was Reanimal. As empty from the Zenless Zone Zero update trailer as I was from Marvel Rivals’s and Warhammer’s. I’d go as far as to guess these may very well all be good games, but the marketing was so underwhelming, especially as I have been intrigued by previous Little Nightmare game trailers and Zenless update trailers.

For everything E3 did wrong, it was rare to be so bored by an E3 conference, yet this year’s Gamescom has started as dull as a rusted nail. The tempo is off drastically, and I hope the following days are of more interest to those in attendance. I do if this is the case, as I could not help by notice that the oversized crowd made hardly a peep during the show. Unless they were not properly miked, they were as disinterested as I was.

Video Game Villains: The Bosses Of Spyro The Dragon

I can thank the original Spyro the Dragon for showing my younger self what a video game can do. I’d played educational games on the PC, and Spyro wasn’t even my first PlayStation title, but it was the one that directly told me about breaking boundaries. Just to see what was on the other side. I hadn’t ever wondered what lay beyond the overworld before, I hadn’t realized I should be curious, that I should look for every advantage I may find. I just knew how to click on an object or how to jump.

Something Spyro also showed me was how, sometimes, a bad guy is just there to be an obstacle to overcome. I feel like I knew that even at the time, not that I could articulate this fact. Spyro The Dragon has some very minimalistic bosses who serve no purpose nor character other than being a guy Spyro beats up to get gems.

Youtuber Caddicarus went as far as to say they are some of the worst bosses in video game history. He was likely being hyperbolic for the sake of his style of video, but in my personal opinion, I have fought so many worse video game villains. I beat Immortals of Aveum if you want proof I’ve slugged through pointless bosses. I can’t help but agree with him for one character though, which would be the main villain of Spyro the Dragon; Gnasty Gnorc.

His introduction was the opener of this episode, and the reason I showcase a cutscene at the start of these blog posts is to try and condense the core reason I picked said villain in the first place. Maybe not their greatest moment, but certainly the moment it stuck with me how said character worked as a villain. Gnasty Gnorc’s intro isn’t an exception, but that’s only because, outside of the opening, there are zero cutscenes featuring him. And zero is also the number of cutscenes featuring any of the other bosses.

Gnasty comes in to state the reason Spyro has to run around and free the other dragons. That’s it. Literally it. He’s not deep and was never meant to be, he’s an object given a name. Heck, his backstory doesn’t technically exist, the dragons call him ugly, and “that tears is”, which means we’re only told there’s personal beef between Gnasty and the dragons but not even a shred of what the beef is. They do say in the interview that Gnasty learned a type of magic that turns gems into minions, so sure, that explains the beef; Gnasty steals the dragon’s gems and uses them to create an army of minions. The why is never answered, he could just be some punk-ass thief who thinks he’s bigger than that, and the dragons brushing him off could be evidence of the theory.

I’ve been snarky but haven’t explained why I agree with Caddicarrus for just Gnasty Gnorc. That’s because his fight sucks. It’s really bad, even as a kid I was surprised at how lackluster it is. He just stands up top shooting energy at you, then Spyro kills some bandits carrying keys, uses those keys to get to Gnasty’s level, then Gnasty runs away in this big loop until you attack him once, then runs through a chamber of lava where just one more hit kills him. On my first ever go around, I died quite a few times to misjudging the platforms at the end, but not to Gnasty himself. When I finally landed the last blow, kid me was surprised it was over. I had fully expected another phase.

Spyro bosses have three hit points, each and every one, until suddenly they don’t. That was a mind-screw as a kid, being smart enough to realize that if Doctor Shemp and Toasty needed three hits, I should expect Blowhard to also need three fire breaths. But then, Metalhead only had two cycles, followed by Jacques and then Gnasty as well. The bosses get weaker as you go along, such a strange concept when you say it out loud.

To be fair to the second half of the bosses, they reside in levels much harder to navigate. It’s the level Jacques resides that’s the real boss, with him just being the pushover you kill without thinking much about it. Yeah, just like Gnasty, he wasn’t a threat as a kid, but his stupid ass level gave me a headache! Still not a fan of it to this day.

So what are these bosses anyway? Well, Gnasty Gnorc is the leader of the Gnorcs, some invented fantasy creature for the Spyro universe that phonetically is a mishmash of Gnome and Orc. Toasty is a sheep on stilts wearing a brown coat and wielding a scythe with a jack-o-lantern for a head, which tells you just how hard some of the creature design goes in Spyro 1 (Toasty’s probably more iconic than Gnasty if I’m being real, maybe he should have been in Hero's Tale instead).

Back on track; Doctor Shemp is a large yellow/orange Gnorc wearing a metal apron and waving around a shaman stick. Not sure why he’s named after one of the stooges. Blowhard is a traditional long-bearded wizard but instead of a torso, he’s a tornado. Metalhead is a giant robot Gnorc and the only gimmick fight of the game; you have to destroy his little antennas instead of attacking him directly. You can even trick him into throwing minions into the antennas, it’s honestly my favorite boss, no competition. Jacques is just a jack-in-the-box come loose. Sure he’s got a creepy green face, sort of, but yeah weakest design and a low spot for the game overall.

There are no motives for these bosses, and heck, you don’t even have to fight them! Spyro The Dragon is a collectathon, and collectibles are required to go to further hub worlds, but it’s pretty easy to get the required amount of collectibles without stepping foot in every level from a world. A boss in Spyro 1 is nothing more than a special level, something where you step in and expect a challenge from a slightly harder foe than normal, and the level itself will even have other gems and dragons to collect that have nothing to do with the boss, even though all of the boss levels are named after the boss! The designs are too good to call them afterthoughts, work was clearly put into them and I find most of them to be fun enough for what they are, but to pretend these are traditional villains is a massive step.

And you know what? These kinds of bosses are rare in games now. Video games have evolved in the story department, heck even the following Spyro games had their stories directly explain the bosses and give them a greater purpose. I love well-written villains and games with great stories, but as I said earlier; Spyro the Dragon is the game that showed me what a video game can really be.

Spyro the Dragon is a fun-first type of game. A classic game that gives you a good enough excuse to run around and collect the collectibles. You have a bad guy you need to take down, and know just enough about him to understand why you should take him down. It doesn’t need a backstory for Toasty, or an epic cutscene where Metalhead breaks down the door and monologues about his desire for evil or revenge or what have you.

All Spyro the dragon needed was a Gnorc who doesn’t like being insulted, and 5 other bosses you can fight before him should you wish to. They’re simple, they’re no threat, and besides, they are ugly. But at the end of it, I love that I’ve fought them so many times. An obstacle with a face, never anything more, and I still cherish them to this day for wearing that concept like a badge of honor.

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*Credit for featured image: All images used property of Sony Interactive, Universal, and Insomniac Games.

The Villains Of Video Games: Xemnas (Kingdom Hearts)

Kingdom Hearts had something to prove when it came to the original characters. Sora, Riku, and Kairi led the series a great foot forward, but that still left original villains needing to prove themselves. Now, Riku fell to the dark side of course, and Chain of Memories showed a section of Organization XIII. But, as Riku found redemption and many players jumped into Kingdom Hearts II without knowing Chain of Memories would be important, the only original villain to leave their impression was left with Ansem the Seeker of Darkness.

A fine villain for what he was, a subject for his entry, but ultimately a plot-twist villain that is nearly spelled out should you look for the signs (i.e. reading the Ansem Reports). I’m a Kingdom Hearts 1 fan, yet it’s not a twist of my arm to say that game doesn’t have the best villain of the series. That villain is the main antagonist of Kingdom Hearts II; the Nobody Xemnas.

Xemnas led Organization XIII, a shadowy Organization even if you did play Chain of Memories on the GBA (Something I still haven’t). The threat of the Organization was left a mystery until the halfway point of KHII, leaving them to feel around as enigmatic as Yen Sid describes them. In a flash, we get their true motives and the backstory of specifically Xemnas, something that back during release was honestly a bit infamous.

To tell players that the man they defeated, was not, in fact, ever a man named Ansem. That Ansem the Wise was someone else, only the teacher of the man who would steal his name and attempt the throw the universe to darkness on a lark. Xehanort was the man you killed, his Heartless side, whom also created the Nobody Xemnas. This smug slow-talker who can’t even step out of the shadows as long as he still has Nobodies to throw at you.

And as I said, over the years I’ve grown to love Xemnas. I’ve played all the games released on console (aside from Melody of Memory), and I know Kingdom Hearts loves feeling like it’s pushing bigger punches than it really is in the writing department. KH1 and Re: Chain Of Memories have great writing, but starting in KHII, we instead saw mediocre stories that would somehow manage to have great moments anyway.

The Organization and the Nobodies are sort of this, see, the game focuses so much on telling the players that Nobodies are emotionless and non-existent beings. The authority figures of the game outright hate the Nobodies, and this hate gets passed on to Sora, Donald, and Goofy. Even when I was younger I felt this was a bit mean; why should I be forced to believe people unfortunate enough to stop existing must be evil by default? Likely why this backstory would later be retconned. As for KHII itself, Xemnas’s ultimate plan was to awaken Kingdom Hearts and force the entity to grant Hearts, therefore existence, unto every surviving Member of the Organization. Genocide is the means to his end, sending Heartless to swallow the Hearts of countless, and then have those Hearts be unleashed through a Keyblade. Only done so when the Heartless in question is killed.

It’s dark when thought about, darker than it already sounds, and yet still Xemnas feels this is his only option. He doesn’t feel bad about these atrocities, as, he can’t. He’s emotionless, and not even a real being anymore. He isn’t capable of caring, and unlike his subordinates, never really tries to ape his forgotten emotions either. Xaldin mimics the psychology of a domestic manipulator, Saix loses his cool after perfectly maintaining it for dozens of gaming hours, Demyx is panicky and seems to understand fear on a real level, and going back in time with Chain of Memories shows us Larxene’s sadistic streak. But, Xemnas barely raises his voice and only speaks in terms of incorrect facts. Things he completely misunderstands, to the point where I now get the impression that Xemnas straight-up doesn’t remember what emotions were like, despite how other members ranging from Axel to Saix openly brag that they remember what emotions were like, hence the ability to copy them.

The motion Xemnas is going through though are barely one-track, even when he tries to manipulate the heroes he just points at them and tells them to gather more Hearts, lacking all the wordplay and mind games of Saix, Luxord, or Xigbar. Even when Kingdom Hearts is shattered, and he knows his dream is gone, he speaks with the exact same cadence he did when he cheered his victory. I remember him being smug when I was younger, but as an adult, he now just sounds matter-of-fact, with the facts in question being half-lies and other things he isn’t capable of understanding. Out of every Organization member, it is Xemnas who feels like someone not allowed to cry out in pain. Xemnas is unforgivable but quite understandable.

I’ve danced around it, but what exactly happens with the retcon is only a shame for Xemnas. Just think for a moment, taking in everything Xemnas is; how should a villain like Xemnas react to hearing everything he did was completely pointless, as he was growing a Heart again anyway? The retcon makes sense, as while it may spit in the fact of Yen Sid and Ansem the Wise, neither truly comes across as all-knowing (especially the latter). It’s a fact that feels right, and something that paints over every previous feeling with almost the same coat of paint anyway. You still feel bad you killed Demyx, and are less surprised Larxene was such a cretin.

Xemnas however, underwent a complete re-write that was a slap in the face to his character. Xemnas was not Xehanort nor The Seeker of Darkness, he was his own self, a bit of themselves with his own goals and needs. But Dream Drop Distance instead ushered in one of the least-liked Kingdom Hearts story ideas, especially in my book, that every game must in fact be building to the next one whether you like it or not, and especially whether it fits or not. Xemnas became nothing but another Xehanort, despite how obvious it is that there were other ways to have him react to the retcon.

Like many other Organization members, he could have just been simply horrified at the news. Stunned that he did unthinkable acts for well and truly no reason. Of course, as Xemnas was recycled as a villain for Dream Drop and KHIII, there’s even another option: just make him succumb to the sunk-cost fallacies. Xemnas spoke in incorrect facts he believed in, I see no reason he wouldn’t have heard about the retcon and simply ignored the epiphany. Just a calculated response; he had no idea it was unnecessary so he shouldn’t be held responsible. That if he felt like he needed to do it, why is everyone judging him at he did it? An obvious lie that men like Xemnas tell themselves every day. It’s why Dream Drop Xemnas is such a let-down, because it feels like nothing was done to justify fighting him again. Hey everybody, remember Xemnas? Because he’s back again and about a seventh as interesting. Another Kingdom Hearts staple.

I will say these complaints were heard, in what I think was my favorite bit of KHIII. Look, I’m not on the boat ride claiming it was actually a good game this whole time. It’s bloated and somehow just as rushed as it is padded, but as I said before, ever since KHII this series managed to stick mediocre scripts with stellar sections. And Xemnas’s death is maybe its most stellar.

Sora politely asks his foe how he really feels. Puts it together that someone who put his co-workers into the slaughter only because he wasn’t allowed to process the emotional discourse, is very likely suddenly full of guilt now that emotions have come back to them. And Xemnas, admits it. His lackluster cadence manages to shrivel, making something, sorrowful. KHIII’s main villains, all of whom overstayed their welcome, range from patting Sora on the back for killing them or just gloating that they will always be evil anyway. Xemnas is the one who comes to realize just how much of a monster he is, just how much blood is on his hands just because he did not think to stop. While the other villains see Sora as an annoyance or as an equal when he defeats them, it’s Xemnas who fully understands why Sora is the better man. His call out that having feelings and embracing them must make you unfathomably strong, sounds so perfect as a closure to everything about his character.

A villain like Xemnas only comes when a writing team truly believes they are saying something. I think that’s why he’s one of the many highlights of KHII, and one of the few highlights of KHIII. When he’s the epitome of Nothingness, how seeking for existence without a care who gets hurt, he’s a stand-out villain you both enjoy defeating and wish you could talk down. He’s not a good Xehanort, but why did he ever need to be? Nothingness and yet layered after all.

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