All good things… (pic: Microsoft)

The Tuesday letters page hears more stories of video game dreams, as one reader enjoys the non-violent pleasures of Tchia.

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The fabled day
So there we have it, Microsoft warned that price rises were coming to Game Pass and now the £1/$1 deal is no more. Just as they’re about to buy Activision Blizzard too, I guess they’ve got to save money somehow if they’re going to make back that $69 billion.

Seriously though, this is clearly not a good moment for them. Games Pass has not caught on quite as well as they hoped and now it’s lost one of its main appeals: being stupidly cheap. Although I guess that was never going to last.

I have an Xbox Series S and am using it with a £1 deal so I’m not a hater but I really don’t know if I’m going to subscribe at full price to it. Not given how money is at the moment. If Microsoft had a long list of exclusives coming out maybe that would sway me but while that may be the case in the future what are talking realistically? Three or four years before they get into gear?

I don’t know if Game Pass is going to last that long unless it starts making real money for Xbox. It may well be doomed without that £1 deal and yet it seems doomed with it as well, as it was never going to pay its own way.
Olympoid

Never-ending story
Would definitely add my praise to all the positive comments about Resident Evil 4. Been playing it since it came out and it’s fantastic. It’s a long game and yet I still don’t want it to end, so I’m totally up for paying for some more DLC and, of course, the free The Mercenaries.

I imagine they’re going to make Separate Ways a lot more than it used to be but I would actually be fine with them extending the game further with DLC. I don’t think that’s ever really been done with a remake, given you extra scenarios that happened before or after, or even during.

Resident Evil 4’s story is so silly you can just do whatever you want so I’m all for it. It could turn into its own franchise!
Gonch

Arcade magic
I effin’ love Skies Of Arcadia! This game grabbed me right from the opening scene, with Aika perched on the bow of a ship when a gust whips a map from her hands, the camera follows it as it makes its way into Vyse’s hands, our young hero, wind blowing his hair as the camera pans out and you realise… the ship is flying! Duh, it is called Skies Of Arcadia!

Then into the first real mission, where your caught in a maelstrom, an ominous figure shadowing your ship… then wrecked. Only to meet captain Drachma, the salty sea (sky?) dog… uncovering an evil empire, wanting to control the world, epic sky battles with the titular gigas, literal sky-scraping kaiju.

Meeting rouges, enemies turned friends, a princess who can save the world, build a base, make discoveries, repurpose the empire’s newest warship into their downfall. And Belleza, oh Belleza, the bad girl turned good… If you can’t tell, I absolutely rate this game. Remove the random battles, make it look like an anime, Ni No Kuni is a look to aim at and I’ll at least, be a very happy boy.
big boy bent

GC: The rumour was a remaster not a remake.

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Shadow release
As always GC, you are the go-to place for reviews and games news. I do not trust, to anywhere near the same extent, any other reviewer out there.

On that note I was hoping you would get round to reviewing Tchia, which me and my kids have been enjoying immensely the weekend just gone. I can’t quite believe it is part of the PS Plus game catalogue, as I would have easily brought it outright going by what I have played so far.

It has a wonderful feeling of experimentation, kind of like in the PlayStation 2 era and has a number of smart cool moves and skill sets which are unlocked fairly early on. The fact that it uses the culture of the island of New Caledonia and embraces everything unique about that area of the world appeals to the gaming tourist in me.

It has a surprisingly dark undertone, which gives it an added edge when contrasting with the melancholic, peaceful vibe displayed throughout.

I heartily recommend it to anyone, especially gamers who have the subscription to enable them to try at no extra cost.
Baby machine-5 (PSN ID)

GC: Thank you. Our Tchia review is up today. We’re sorry it’s late but there were no review copies before launch. Which is presumably why most other big sites haven’t reviewed it yet either.

Dream tearing
Last weekend’s Hot Topic was especially interesting. I have had a few dreams about games and the detail is such that I can even tell the system on which the game about which I am dreaming is being ‘played.’ For example, I will notice the original PlayStation’s distinctive textures and there will be some screen tearing.

I can relate to ttfp saylow when he says that he can see things from two different perspectives simultaneously. I have had dreams in which I was playing a game from a third person perspective while at the same time experiencing the game from a first person perspective. What’s more, from the first person point of view it wasn’t necessarily a game, it was ‘real life.’

Obviously this is quite as difficult to explain as you would expect, when talking about any kind of dream, but dreams about games could be an entire subset of research to advance our understanding of all kinds of fields, whether that be sleep, the subconscious, gaming or what have you.
Kehaar

Mobile advantage
RE: the Reader’s Feature on Activision Blizzard. Ignoring the rest of the whataboutism, I must take issue with this: ‘Sony doesn’t have any mobile developers to speak off and this is immediately going to make them unable to compete, and yet I’ve never heard any of the investigators mention that.’

Last I checked, Sony has no mobile presence as far as games (if I’ve missed it, feel free to correct me), so how exactly, would this affect them? Surprised GC didn’t response to this part.

Just to clarify, I couldn’t care less whether the acquisition is approved or denied, just detest the whole ’this is what they’ll do’ or ‘x will be short-changed’ (for want of a better phrase, without having any clue).

Fact is, none of us know what will happen, nor will know unless it is approved. Trying to come up with, as I said, whataboutism, is rather pointless.
Ribeyefan

GC: That’s not what whataboutism means. To your main point, Sony doesn’t have much in the way of mobile developers so they will now be at a major disadvantage, if Microsoft end up owning Candy Crush maker King.

The discovery of Zelda
Looking forward to Nintendo showing off 10 minutes of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom and us still not having any clue what it’s all about. That’s not being ironic either, I love the fact that Nintendo knows to keep their games secret and let people discover them naturally. I think that’s an overlooked reason for why Breath Of The Wild worked so well, because people were not expecting that!

I actually probably won’t even watch the Direct to be honest. I don’t need to be told anything to know it’s going to be worth my money, even if it isn’t as good as Breath Of The Wild.
Tension

Your right hand comes off?
Merhaba fellow readers and GC. Resident Evil 4 Deluxe Edition on PC is £42.99 at CDKeys.com.

Completed that iconic opening over the weekend, it was simply exemplary. I’m loving the opulent overhauling of the original’s Grindhouse B-movie inspired aesthetic, especially the luxuriously ominous new lighting model and Leon’s dazzling, pheromone-releasing hair.

As a super fan of all things parrying in video games I always relish the chance to counter a Ganado’s assailment with the knife, a visceral and cleaver addition to the formula in my opinion, ahem.

But is it me or does the game feel slightly easier than the original due to the more generic control scheme? I only died once because I wanted to see the death animation at the hands of a certain surgeon!

It might be a classic case of recency bias, after playing the original again for like the 10th time back in November 2021, but I think I still slightly prefer the original’s deliberately confining, tension-inducing controls.

Tell you what though; I dread encountering the Regenerators and Salazar’s right hand predator again!
Galvanized Gamer

Inbox also-rans
I am genuinely impressed at the Resident Evil 4 village shortcut, that’s really clever. I bet someone will figure out a way to do it with the pistol too. It’s blatantly been put there for speedrunners.
Supes

I doubt I’d be the only one to say this but if there’s one God Of War character I’d be happy never to see again it’s Týr. I know him being annoying was the point but yeesh.
Sandy

This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Tesla, who asks what video game franchise have you played the most entries in?

Many video game franchises have been going for 30 or 40 years at this point, with dozens of sequels and spin-offs, but which one have you played the most entries from? Is it because you’re a fan of the series and you purposefully sought them all out or was it more of an accident?

What put you off the entries you haven’t played and how much of a completionist do you tend to be about series you like? Do you like to keep the games and do you own any merchandise for them?

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The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.

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MORE : Games Inbox: Resident Evil 4 remake fan verdict, the Pawmo controversy, and Untitled Goose Game 2

MORE : Weekend Hot Topic: Dreaming about video games

MORE : Games Inbox: Resident Evil 4 as the best game ever, GTA: San Andreas VR, and Amazon Luna verdict

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The Tuesday letters page hears more stories of video game dreams, as one reader enjoys the non-violent pleasures of Tchia.