Games Inbox: What character do you most associate with PlayStation?

The Friday letters page is relieved to hear that Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave is a good game, as a reader thinks Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls has been a flop.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Unofficial mascot
Interesting to see Sony realise that is hasn’t got much in the way of major characters that ordinary people can get into. I agree that they should’ve been aware of this problem much earlier than this and I never understood why they passed on the chance to own both Lara Croft and Crash Bandicoot.

For me, those two are the unofficial mascots of the PlayStation 1, which was probably the last time that sort of thing was important. But for me that means they’re still the mascots, since nothing else has replaced them.

If you were going strictly by PlayStation 5 games I guess you’d say it was probably Kratos and Aloy, but I don’t feel they’re particularly interesting or iconic. Maybe Kratos but he’s not exactly something you’d see six-year-olds wearing on their T-shirt, is he?

Neither is Ratchet & Clank or Astro Bot, if we’re being honest, so for me if I think PlayStation I still think Lara Croft. I hope the remake next year is a hit.
Kaliban

GC: We don’t think there was any easy way for them to ever get hold of Crash Bandicoot. It came in a job lot with Blizzard and then went straight to Microsoft when they bought Activision.

Time jump
Happy to see Hogwarts Legacy 2 confirmed and hopefully we’ll actually see it soon, maybe at The Game Awards in December. Personally, I would like to see the game set in the modern day, but I guess that wouldn’t make much sense when Harry is around and doing all the important stuff.

Maybe the answer would be to set it just a few years before Harry gets there. So it can be basically modern day and then once the game is over, he turns up for his first year. I think that would be pretty neat but thinking about it they may want to save that for a third or later game.

Although, I don’t think they’ll want to get into all of the World War stuff from Fantastic Beasts, so I’m not sure where you go from the 1890s, other than to skip ahead to the 1950s at a bare minimum. Maybe the 1990s to make it a round hundred years?
Scuz

Inventing problems
Everyone is saying they’re happy with the price of GTA 6; I’m one of them that has bought the higher price. I mean, nearly 14 years in the making. The one thing that will make me flip is a price on the online play. I know there is no news on the online bit and I might be jumping in with both feet but if they think I’m paying £90 for the game and then charging me for the online bit they can whistle.

If they do that and everyone pays for it every single developer will be doing it, starting with Call Of Duty, with them saying why charge once when we can charge twice – and for something they got for free b4efore. I know there isn’t any news on it but I’ve got a feeling they’re going to be charging for the online bit, as the saying goes: more money, more money, more money.
David

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Time extension
It’s funny how the Lego games are probably the best example of how long it takes to make a game nowadays. From at least one a year to one every four years. And that change has come in the space of just a decade. What used to be throwaway games, where you didn’t even care they were so buggy, have turned into big event triple-A games.

A decade ago you could pick one up for next to nothing after a year or so, but I don’t think I’ve seen the new Lego Batman get any major price cut yet. So I’m not surprised to find out they’re being more picky if we’re not going to get a new one until 2030.

I mean, if you play your first game at five you only get one more as a kid and then with the third you’re a teenager already! It’s crazy and obviously it’s not just Lego, it’s everything now. I don’t know what to even suggest to solve the problem.
Wotan

Money can’t buy you love
There’s something kind of disturbing about a big company like Sony ponying up several million dollars and just telling its workers to make something beloved. It got me interested in how Hello Kitty started and, as you’d expect, Wikipedia says it was all completely unexpected and started off extremely small scale. I don’t think £47 million in R&D counts as small scale.

If they want to spend some time making new family friendly games then I think that would be a very good idea but that doesn’t seem to be how they’re doing it at all. Microsoft never attracted that audience, but Sony used to in the PS1 and 2 era. Why they gave up I don’t know but even if the games are good I’d definitely agree that Ratchet & Clank and Astro Bot aren’t very good characters.

They look designed by committee and just aren’t interesting or distinctive enough. I always thought the same about Sack Boy.
Fisto

Understanding Nintendo
Very interesting Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave preview that was a lot more positive than I expected, especially as I know GC didn’t like Three Houses that much. All the other previews I’ve seen are positive too, so it seems this is going to be a winner, which I feel Nintendo needs at the moment given the mixed response to Splatoon Riders and the two N64 remakes.

I don’t think anyone can argue that Nintendo’s choices of games hasn’t been odd and I find it fascinating trying to imagine why. I think the majority problem is how long games take to make and that Nintendo isn’t used to making games for a console that’s almost as powerful as an Xbox Series S.

They’ve done well I think, overall, but I bet there were a lot of delays and changes in the schedules behind the scenes and that a lot of these games, like Fire Emblem, are just what was ready to go. I can’t imagine it or Splatoon Raiders were that expensive or time-consuming to make, as they both look like Switch 1 games and I bet reuse a lot of assets.

However, that doesn’t explain the absence of Animal Crossing, which everyone knows reuses assets and nobody minds, or why anyone at Nintendo would greenlight Kirby Air Riders. Maybe they were trying to get on Masahiro Sakurai’s good side or maybe… I just don’t know.

Who knows what goes on in Nintendo’s boardrooms, but I think the point here is that as weird as some decisions are they often don’t go the way you think. Some people actually like Kirby Air Riders and Fortune’s Weave seems to be a lot better than anyone imagined.
Karl

GC: Fortune’s Weave’s graphics may not be anything special but there’s a lot of content; it must’ve taken a lot longer to make than Splatoon Raiders.

Sales Marvel
So it looks like Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is going to be a bomb, or at least underperform, ensuring that the Marvel curse continues. Basically, every Marvel game that isn’t heavily Spider-Man focused flops, which isn’t far off for how it is in the movies too.

That makes me wonder how well exactly Wolverine is going to do. I doubt it’ll be a flop but it’s 18-rated, it’s linear, and while Wolverine’s character is popular his abilities aren’t particularly interesting when you turn them into a video game. Sony may end up wishing they’d make a Spider-Gwen game instead.
Jono

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1 out of 4
Hogwarts Legacy 2 has got to be the most obvious thing ever, especially as they already hinted at it, but I do hope Warner Bros. can get its act together in general. I mean, let’s look at how things are going with their ‘four pillars’…

Harry Potter is fine. They tried to make games other than Hogwarts Legacy, and they didn’t sell, but the sequel is a guaranteed hit, so that’s a big green tick.

Next is Mortal Kombat, where the last game was a flop and they didn’t mention it in their latest financials, so that’s a big red mark.

Then there’s DC Comics, which they’ve done nothing with in a decade or more. The only thing in all that time has been a Lego Batman game, with no attempt whatsoever to tie into the either the last cinematic universe or the new one. So that’s a big fat no too.

Finally, there’s Game Of Thrones, which is so important to them they’ve never made a console game about it. There’s some kind of PC strategy game coming out but I don’t think they’ve really shown it or explained what it is.

So that’s three major failures in a row. Not only have they not made any successful games with these three ‘pillars’ they’ve barely made anything at all. People asking why CEOs aren’t replaced by AI and it’s easy to say why.

I mean, they’ve got the talented developers. How hard is it to say: ‘Make some games for us.’
Winston

GC: We think you’re forgetting Suicide Squad but… that’s probably for the best.

Inbox also-rans
I would be totally fine with a Lego Superman: Legends of the Man of Tomorrow game. I’m not sure they’d actually risk that if it’s not going to be out until 2030 though. We’ll probably be on our third DC cinematic universe by that point.
Stein

I totally missed that Warhorse are making a Lord of the Rings game. That’s… made my day. Can’t wait to see it, but seems like that might be a long wait.
GungHo99

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