There’s much to praise about the remake of Demon’s Souls. It’s a remarkable technical showpiece for the PlayStation 5; a gripping gameplay experience that oscillates between exhilarating, nerve-wracking, and downright heartbreaking; and a faithful recreation of the seminal title that birthed the Souls-like subgenre. But developer Bluepoint’s greatest achievement is that it took something I’m intimately familiar with and made me feel like I was venturing into the unknown.
Fundamentally, Demon’s Souls for PS5 is what it has always been. Barring some small tweaks, the design of the game is identical to From Software’s original. The core mechanics are unchanged, the enemies are placed in the same positions and behave in the same ways, the devious tricks and traps are still there, ready to catch the unfamiliar off-guard.
And yet, while retreading a well-worn path through the kingdom of Boletaria, I find myself without the confidence I should have. I’m cautiously approaching basic enemies with my shield raised, knowing their every move and how to overcome them, but fearing them still. I stand paralyzed at the end of narrow stone tunnels ominously lit by flickering torches, knowing exactly what awaits in the darkness, but still needing to will myself forward. And as monstrous demons step into arenas in which I’ve bested them dozens of times, I begin to doubt my chances at victory once more.
Yes, Demon’s Souls is undoubtedly an impressive technical achievement. But what makes it special is how Bluepoint has applied its own creative vision to From Software’s original to remake the game not just as it was, but as it was meant to be, realizing its full potential. The result is a title that pays homage to From Software’s work, but at the same time stands as brilliant in its own right.
In breathing new life into Boletaria, Bluepoint has taken some artistic license with From Software’s work, for better or worse depending on your perspective. While the body of the game may look vastly different, its soul remains intact–I could feel as much as I stood in familiar places and absorbed the overwhelming amount of new details. As a result, it was as if I were experiencing the game all over again with a fresh pair of eyes, and in doing so, the emotions I felt on my first time through were stirred once more.
Stepping into The Nexus, the hub area for the game, felt like coming home, but what I once perceived to be an abandoned prison for the souls of wayward warriors now felt like a welcoming place of respite. Candles bathed the cold otherworldly architecture in a warm glow, statues were shrouded in brilliant, hopeful white light, and a fuller, richer version of the orchestral theme played to drive home the melancholic mood of the hidden temple.
Every facet of the environment is rich in detail, from the rippling water in the central pool to the intricate stone carvings and metal detailing on the archstones used to transport you to distant lands in search of demon’s souls. Even the people who occupy The Nexus have more detail, which in turn gives them greater depth. Stockpile Thomas, a forlorn figure who sits in a nook of The Nexus and offers to look after your excess items and equipment, tells his story in a way that wasn’t possible before. His wife and child were killed and his ineptitude in battle meant he was unable to save them. This is the first time in many hours of playing Demon’s Souls that I’ve been able to read the expressions on Thomas’s face, and the pain is visible as he recounts his tragic loss. His eyes look reddened and puffy, as if he’d just been crying.
Though their lines may be brief, the voices of these characters sound familiar–some have been re-recorded with the same actors, while others are new. The way Blacksmith Ed chastises you for not making use of his services, the Maiden in Black’s oft-repeated prayer whenever she uses her abilities to strengthen you, Patches’ insincerity as he tries to hide his deceitful nature–it all sounds right, and where new or tweaked writing and vocal performances appear, they still evoke the intended effect.
That is true of every area in the game. Each of the five archstones takes you to locales that are jaw-dropping visually and distinct atmospherically. The Boletarian Palace lies in ruin, with battlements barely standing or entirely destroyed. Mindless dreglings wander around, attacking you on-sight with a frenzy of sword swings ending in an exasperated sigh of exhaustion. This is a game that, in numerous ways, serves as a showcase for all of the PS5 signature features, and hearing Demon’s Souls is as gratifying as seeing and playing it. Thanks to the 3D audio through headphones, the heavy and threatening breathing of a Blue Eye Knight told me it was nearby before I could even see it. Buzzing flies and the ragged caws of pecking crows made the sight of a decaying horse carcass all the more unsightly. And as archers fired arrows, the sound of them whizzing by my ears revealed just how narrowly I had escaped.
Unlike Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro–From Software’s follow-up games–Demon’s Souls has a loose structure to progression. It encourages, and sometimes by way of insurmountable enemies, deadly bosses, and locked doors, forces you to travel to locations on other archstones until you are equipped to forge ahead again. This means it can be difficult to get comfortable with any location–it’s always ushering you toward dangerous unknowns, and Bluepoint’s technically and artistically stunning graphics mean each new area is an absolute joy to behold, as well as an anxiety-ridden nightmare to venture through even for veterans.
[Bluepoint’s Demon’s Souls remake is] a title that pays homage to From Software’s work, but at the same time stands as brilliant in its own right.
Crucially, in each location, the new effects, beautiful lighting, and gorgeous modeling never upend From Software’s intent and, in fact, create a truer representation of it. Advancement in technology and game design have given Bluepoint tools to do what From Software couldn’t on the PS3 back in 2009. The maze of tunnels in Stonefang feels even more claustrophobic and as you venture deeper, the rippling steam coming off lava makes the sweltering hot environment feel oppressive. The Valley of Defilement’s wet wooden scaffolding looks perilous to walk along, and torches burn bright blue, violently moving as if agitated by an unseen toxic gas–you feel gross just standing there.
Bosses are treated with the same kind of care, either true to the original or changed to more closely embody the spirit of it. The Vanguard looks less like one of those rubber Monsters In My Pocket toys from the ’90s and more like a disgusting demonic executioner. The Tower Knight looms above you, striking a presence that is both heroic and terrifying, and when it hurls a soul spear in your direction, the booming sound and the screen shake accompanied by the DualSense’s arresting vibration will make you think twice about stepping out into the open. The Flamelurker fight, because of how good the animation work is, made me feel like I was a matador trapped in a lava pit with a demonic flaming bull constantly bearing down on me. The thundering sound of its erratic movement coupled with the intense visual feedback turned it into a desperate, panicked battle for survival.
Technically, Demon’s Souls is astounding. On Performance Mode, it displays gorgeous visuals rendered at 1440p and upscaled to 4K at a consistent, smooth frame rate. Cinematic Mode runs at native 4K, but this seems to come at the cost of performance, as I found the frame rate to be much less consistent. I stuck to Performance Mode, and did so with the new offset camera view, which I found to frame the game in a more cinematic way. Features such as the ability to make the UI dynamically fade in and out do a great deal to improve immersion. There are also multiple graphical filters available, including the more muted, greener palette of the original PS3 release (although I think Bluepoint’s version, with its richness and vibrancy, should be the way you play the first time through). If it wasn’t clear, Demon’s Souls on PS5 is one of the best-looking and -sounding games I’ve ever played.
Outside of its presentation, Bluepoint has employed a defter touch. As mentioned previously, Demon’s Souls on PS5 plays very much the same, mechanically speaking. However, Bluepoint has clearly spent a great deal of effort on improving the feedback so everything is more impactful. There’s a weightiness and heft to the game that is communicated visually and through audio. Everything from movement to attacks, evasion, and even consuming items has a physicality to it. There’s a real sense of inertia and momentum as your blade cuts through the air, and noticeable resistance as it meets the steel of armor or the flesh of an enemy. Heavy weapons come crashing down in an incredibly satisfying way, and you’ll be thankful for your shield every time an enemy’s attack bounces off it. If you pick a magic-based build, you can send your spell off into the distance and watch as it travels, lighting up everything it passes before erupting like a little star going supernova.
Even though enemies haven’t changed as far as the kinds of attacks they do, when they use them, or how much health they possess, the visual feedback instills a greater sense of danger. You don’t want to get hit by things because it looks and sounds like they hurt, on top of actually taking massive chunks out of your health bar. The physicality now supports and reinforces the deliberate, methodical nature of Souls combat. And that’s what stripped me of some of my confidence; the difference in the way it feels–along with actually being a little rusty–has forced me to once again respect Demon’s Souls, because it is as ruthless as it has ever been, and in many cases more ruthless than the Souls games that followed it. New additions such as unique attack and finisher animations give weapons more of an identity then they had in the original, and landing ripostes is such a rush that you’ll want to try and parry every enemy.
But by sticking so closely to From Software’s framework, Bluepoint has also carried forward some of the more idiosyncratic aspects of the Demon’s Souls gameplay experience. Although World Tendency is explained a bit better and more readily visible to the player, that doesn’t make the underlying issues of it any better. It’s still, for all but the most learned players, quite obtuse as a concept. World Tendency can skew the state of the various locations towards white or black, depending on certain actions that you take or happen to you, though these aren’t ever explained. Most players will notice their health is capped while in Soul form and use an item to restore their human form to access the restricted pool, not knowing that dying in human form makes the world skew towards black tendency, where enemies hit harder. The idea of a player struggling, dying, and the game becoming harder as a result is suspect, but it is nonetheless intact in the remake.
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Demon’s Souls for PS5 also features the same finicky multiplayer system that it had on PS3, and that From Software’s games continue to have. There are specific conditions that need to be met and items employed to enable jolly cooperation, but the information around this isn’t surfaced in a clear, visible way for newcomers to understand. It then falls on the player to figure it out through a frustrating process of trial and error, seek out guidance from someone in the know, or go hunting for information in a sea of forums and threads written around the 2009 version of the game.
But I can’t fault Bluepoint for leaving it untouched, warts and all. The studio is in the unenviable position of remaking one of the most beloved games of all time, which has an incredibly passionate and vocal fanbase. And what might seem like a reasonable change to one person could be an undermining of what makes the game unique, distinct, and memorable to another. While the dissonance between the game’s modern look and feel and some of the more outdated aspects of its design is noticeable, it doesn’t impact the experience significantly. Although I would have liked to see Bluepoint address the more obviously flawed elements, playing it safe and honoring the work and legacy of From Software and Demon’s Souls was the right move.
Quirks aside, Bluepoint’s remake is an unmitigated success. It is a technical tour de force and a true showpiece for the PS5 and the power of Sony’s next-generation console. But, more importantly, it’s also a creative marvel coming from a studio that is clearly showing the world it has its own voice. Bluepoint has taken From Software’s original game and expressed it in a richer and fuller way, and in doing so given me something I thought was impossible: the opportunity to relive the experience of falling in love with Souls games for the first time.
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Multiplayer is the beating heart of the Call of Duty series, and while all the games maintain similarities in how they look, feel, and play, there are also a lot of small nuances, too. With Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, developer Treyarch makes some changes to the formula, like allowing for more weapon attachments or altering Scorestreaks. There are a lot of little things to learn along the way, as well as tried-and-true strategies that you’ll want to know if you’re new to the battlefield.
We’ve compiled 10 quick tips that can help you get into fighting shape if you’re new to Black Ops Cold War. CoD veterans probably won’t need a lot of these, but there are some new wrinkles to the series formula that are worth knowing about–such as an increased emphasis on sound and tweaks to how you can earn those powerful Scorestreaks. And if you’re new to CoD altogether, these are essential things you’ll want to keep in mind.
The Vs. Bots mode gives you a chance to try out weapons and learn maps without the pressure of competing against other humans.
One of the easiest ways to up your game and get the hang of how things feel in Black Ops Cold War is to go through a few practice matches without any stakes. On the multiplayer Lobby screen, you’ll find an option toward the bottom that says “Vs. Bots.” That’s a match in which you’ll fight only computer-controlled enemies, with no records saved and no challenges unlocked.
Use the Bot mode to try out new weapons, mess with new loadouts, and get a feel for different maps. The more knowledge you have in a Call of Duty game, the more formidable you’ll be, so spending a little time in practice sessions can give you an edge when you go into unfamiliar locations or want to see about changing up your gear.
Stick With Your Teammates
You’re much more likely to survive and even win if you’re moving with teammates instead of alone.
This is an evergreen multiplayer tip, but worth reiterating nonetheless. It’s tempting to run off on your own, especially in a game as fast and furious as Call of Duty, but resist the urge. You’re much more deadly when you have a teammate or two backing you up. You can combine fire against enemies to drop them even more quickly than if you’re firing on your own, and they’ll often save your life in a fight you’d otherwise lose if you get caught by surprise. More sets of eyes and more guns are always better in any Call of Duty situation, so stay with your squad and back each other up and you’ll see results in the W column.
Don’t Worry (Too Much) About Dying
Scorestreaks persist even when you die, so worry more about backing up your team effectively than staying alive.
Black Ops Cold War brings back Scorestreaks (rather than Killstreaks), which means you don’t just have to drop a lot of other players or notch a lot of headshots to be useful to your team. Securing objectives can also help you unlock Scorestreak rewards to give you an edge in combat, allowing you to do things like call in spy planes or summon attack helicopters to aid your team.
And while you want to avoid getting killed as much as possible in a Cold War match, don’t worry about it too much if you have to die in support of your team. Scorestreaks don’t reset when you die–instead, they operate on cooldown timers so you can’t spam them too much. That means you can still be an effective addition to your squad even if your K/D ratio isn’t anything to brag about. Play carefully and play smart, and look for ways to contribute to your team that fit with your skills.
Listen For Footsteps
Hearing where your enemy is will often let you anticipate their approaches and take them out.
Sound design has leaped forward pretty significantly in the last few iterations of Call of Duty, and in Black Ops Cold War, you’ll want to listen closely while you’re on the battlefield. Sprinting makes a lot of noise in multiplayer matches, likely taking a page from Warzone, where using all your senses to identify enemies is essential. That means you can often hear a player long before you see them. If you can use them, headphones can seriously help you pinpoint an enemy’s location, but in general, try to use all your senses to anticipate attacks, not just your minimap.
Running Gives You Away
Only run when you have to–it’s noisy and leaves you vulnerable.
Along the same lines as the last tip, you’re going to want to work hard to control how much sound you make and whether it’s worth making it. If you go sprinting toward a spot you think is an enemy position, know that they’re going to hear you coming. Crouching, on the other hand, slows you down a lot but also lessens how much noise you make. Try to keep in mind how much information you’re giving to an enemy as you approach–if you think you’ve got a chance to get the drop on someone, don’t blow it by bounding up like a rhino to let them know they should expect you.
Shoot Down Spy Planes And Other Vehicles
Stop Scorestreaks before they demolish your team’s momentum.
Default Scorestreaks include spy planes and attack helicopters, both of which can seriously cramp a match if the enemy team starts firing them off all at the same time. As in most Call of Duty games, spy planes provide the enemy with your team’s location on their minimaps, while attack helicopters just fly down and shoot you. However, you can (and should) destroy these vehicles whenever possible.
This is the usual approach in Call of Duty, so you probably know this lesson, but small arms can damage flying vehicles, and launchers are even better. It’s worth having at least one loadout with a launcher in the secondary weapon position so you can knock down a pesky Scorestreak at a key moment. Destroying Scorestreak vehicles also scores points for you, helping you get to your Scorestreaks more quickly, so it’s worth taking a second to blind the enemy by knocking out their planes. If nobody else is handling the launcher duty, consider picking it up yourself.
Stick To Cover
Moving in the open is a great way to get spotted and killed before you know what’s happening.
Time-to-kill, the amount of time from when someone starts firing until the enemy they’re shooting goes down, is pretty low in Cold War, as in most Call of Duty games. You’ll also likely find that Cold War’s maps tend to have lots of lanes and avenues that allow you to catch sight of other players, or they of you. That means that Cold War’s maps have a lot of opportunities for ambushes, flanking maneuvers, and combat in general–and plenty of places from which you can get shot in the back.
It’s generally a good rule to limit your movements in the open on any given map. Stay low, stay behind cover, stick to the edges of areas, and try to put objects and walls between you and open ground. You want to cut down on the number of directions from which you’re easily spotted and shot, so that you at least have a chance to fight back before you’re picked off. Don’t give enemy players easy kills by walking through a big open room or across an open street unless you absolutely have to do so.
You Don’t Always Need To Aim Down Sights
Don’t let your ADS habit get you killed.
Another evergreen Call of Duty tip, but a good one to remember, is that aiming down sights is slow. It’s good for fighting players at various ranges, but not good in a close-range panic situation. Taking the time to aim at close enemies is very likely to get you killed. A lot of guns are effective firing from the hip–especially fast-firing weapons and shotguns–but it’s really better to fire anything without using ADS if your opponent is within 10 feet or so. Try not to panic or to spray bullets wildly, but better to hit someone with quick-and-dirty fire than waste time trying to land headshots in an emergency.
Spend Time Figuring Out Your Loadouts
Create loadouts that allow you to adapt to both the map you’re on and the team you’re facing.
Call of Duty games have provided custom loadouts for a while now, but Black Ops Cold War changes up the formula slightly yet again. You can now equip more weapon attachments than ever before, to say nothing of the fact that weapons, perks, and equipment are all a little different from the last few iterations of the franchise. You’ll unlock the ability to create custom loadouts relatively quickly, and you should absolutely start messing around with them as early as you can to start finding equipment you’re comfortable with.
More than that, even Cold War’s smaller maps have little nuances that mean you’re not going to want to use the same dusty loadout every time you jump into a match. You’ll quickly find yourself in situations where a gun with more range will serve you better, or that you’re facing a team that struggles with speedy, close-range engagements. Have several loadouts that you’re comfortable with so that you can adapt to a situation, rather than repeating the same mistakes or getting beat in the same way. As mentioned, you can test out loadouts in the Vs. Bots mode, and you’ll be happy you did when you’re able to switch to a new equipment set on the fly and exploit your opponents’ weaknesses.
Health Stimshots Will Save You
The default Point Man loadout comes with a secondary piece of equipment you’ll want to get familiar with: the Stimshot. If you’re not the kind of fighter that relies on stun or smoke grenades in the heat of battle, consider switching out for the stimshot instead. You can use it in the middle of a fight after taking damage to instantly heal yourself, which can completely change the tenor of a battle. It’s great for trading fire with an enemy so you’re both hurt, ducking behind cover, and then healing up, allowing you to come out swinging at full strength while the other guy is expecting you to be a much softer target. Stimshots can save you in a lot of fights, especially if you’re a close-range run-and-gun fighter.
Black Ops Cold War Makes Me Want To Play Every Shooter On The PS5
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In Yakuza: Like A Dragon, you have to worry about more than just yourself since managing the party is essential for getting through the game’s tougher fights. That means money plays a much bigger role than in previous Yakuza games–it’s not just about stocking up on Staminan Royale drinks anymore. You have to purchase weapons and gear for various party members to keep them well-equipped, and you’ll need to invest in the crafting workshop to unlock better gear.
More importantly, there’s a specific point late in the story that requires you to have three million yen on hand in order to progress. Yes, there’s a hard progress gate in Yakuza: Like a Dragon (Chapter 13), and if you haven’t had money on your mind, it’ll catch you off guard and leave you unexpectedly grinding away to get that cash mid-chapter. Here, I’ll outline the best and most efficient ways to make money throughout your journey.
Ichiban Confections, The Business Management Sim
I found that investing time into the business management minigame, first called Ichiban Confections, is pretty much essential. It’s introduced as part of the main story in Chapter 5, taking you through its backstory and basic mechanics, but afterward, you don’t necessarily have to worry about it as it becomes more of an optional venture.
But pay close attention to when its introduced since it’s also a tutorial, it’ll pay off big time (literally). Basically, you have to manage different properties (stores, restaurants, nightlife, etc.) by investing in them and hiring employees to work there. Certain businesses require employees with certain levels of skills, all of which is measured in the minigame’s menus.
The goal is for them to turn a profit every time you open them for business–once your employees and properties are set, then you watch the money roll in. Over time, you have to worry about employee salary and keeping them happy to make sure business runs smoothly.
You rake in money for the business accounts, but not your own pockets during these phases. Where you will make the big bucks for yourself is during shareholder meetings, which take place periodically.
Shareholder Meetings Means Big Bonuses
After several instances of opening businesses and raking in the dough, you’ll then be challenged to a regularly scheduled shareholder meeting. This acts as a separate minigame that can get pretty frantic. You basically have to race against a clock to argue against shareholders to convince them that the business is in good hands.
This boils down to having staff members on your panel to take care of the problem. Each staff member has a certain expertise, which is color-coded, and certain shareholders also have the same expertise with the same corresponding colors. When they begin to question you, break their argument with a staff member and then hammer away at them during the short window of time to drain their “health” bar. Matching the expertise color lets you rack up more damage and break their arguments faster.
However, each staff member consumes a limited resource (shown at the bottom of the screen) that only slowly recovers during the meeting. The challenge is making the most of these resources. You can also use the apologize mechanic that buys you time, does a bit of damage to the shareholders, and replenishes some of your resources. Time is limited as you have one minute and 30 seconds to earn as high a support percentage as possible.
Why am I outlining all of this? One, because it’s a bit overwhelming to handle all these mechanics at such a rapid pace without some guidance, and two, your success in the meetings puts money directly into your pockets. After each shareholder meeting, you’re rewarded with money–it’s not much early on, but the higher you make it up the capitalist food chain, the bigger the check will be.
Becoming Ichiban Holdings
If you can get a basic grasp of how both the business management and shareholder meetings work, you can quickly reach higher rankings and earn more money without sinking too much time into it or banging your head against its mechanics. Eventually, Ichiban Confections will become Ichiban Holdings, and the earnings will begin to skyrocket.
Each tier you climb up in the business chain, you can manage an extra property, but Ichiban Holdings has you playing with big bucks. The actual mechanics don’t change, but expectations get bigger and shareholder meetings get tougher. However, you’ll be pulling in bonus checks for yourself upwards of 600,000 yen or more per meeting, which will set you up nicely for earning the money necessary when the time comes. (Again, three million yen in Chapter 13, remember that.)
You should also be in a good position to gear up with the latest and strongest equipment and items, because the boss battles in these later chapters can be extremely challenging.
You can take this business management minigame as far as you want starting in Chapter 5, so you can be flushed with cash early on. Overall, it’d be wise to come back to it every now and then as you head into the late-game chapters to maintain a reasonable pace–unlike me who scrambled to build up Ichiban’s businesses right when I found out I needed that elusive three million yen.
Part-Time Hero, Full-Time Job
Chapter 5 just lays on a lot of good content–one of which is the Part-Time Hero side gig. It’s pretty simple–people around Yokohama are in distress and need help fending off bad dudes in fights or finding things around town. Locations for these jobs are marked around your map so they’re easy to find, and the phone menu shows the rewards for each job.
Early jobs as a part-time hero don’t yield that much cash, but better opportunities will start to open up the more you do it. The first set of these will get you about 5,000 to 10,000 yen, but will eventually turn into jobs that pay 50,000 yen and even 100,000 yen just for fighting off relatively easy enemies. While it might be the best option for earning that three million yen I keep mentioning, these part-time hero gigs are great for quick cash, especially in the early game; some decent gear and items will keep your party afloat.
Substories For The Plot (And Money)
The series’ signature substories are back, which are hilarious side quests that unlock great perks like summons in battle and additional in-game features. They also pay relatively well early on in the game, which can come in handy for gear and items.
The locations for substories are marked on your map with white quote bubbles, and once they’ve been initiated, the location to continue them are then marked with blue quote bubbles.
One good substory to do early once you get to Yokohama is the one that unlocks the pawn shop, which is located in the front of the store (it’s covered in trash at first). The pawn shop is the only spot in Yokohama that lets you sell items, and can net you some easy money fast.
Grinding The Combat Arena
Another good way to rack up money in the late-game is the combat arena that opens up in Chapter 12. Giving you its location would be a spoiler, but don’t worry, it’s introduced within the main story questline. You may not think much of it when it gets introduced, but it’s essential to take on the combat arena’s challenges–not just because it’s the best way to grind up levels, but its battles reward you fairly handsomely in yen.
The fights here aren’t too difficult if you have a good grasp of the combat system (which by Chapter 12, you probably do), though you will have to play smarter as you progress further in it. You can run through it as much as you’d like, and there are checkpoints after a certain number of fights where you can restart and grind through the more rewarding battles multiple times.
More Sweet Yakuza Content
For more on RGG Studio’s new game and first foray into RPGs, check out my Yakuza: Like a Dragon review. If you’re already playing and need a few pointers, be sure to read our Yakuza: Like a Dragon beginner’s guide. Becoming an RPG also comes with many intricacies in combat, so make sure you read through our Yakuza: Like a Dragon job guide that goes in-depth on which jobs are best in battle.
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Sackboy finally has a game to call his own. The smiley mascot for LittleBigPlanet and, occasionally, the PlayStation brand has always been treated as more of an icon than a character, a cutesy tabula rasa through which all video-game-related things are possible. In Sackboy: A Big Adventure, his purview is much more traditional. He’s a jumpman, a platformer in the tradition of Mario, Sonic, Crash, and all the other mascots that came before him. Sackboy, both the character and the game, rises to succeed the mascot platformer mantle well in many respects. Though its aesthetic often feels bland, its solid platforming makes for a worthy challenge.
Like many platformers, story is not Sackboy’s strong suit. You’re jumping around Craftverse, the world of LittleBigPlanet, to save it from a villainous jester doll called Vex. Though you’ll get a fairly steady stream of updates reminding you of Vex’s evil presence, there’s not much you need to know. You could say the story is a waste of Sackboy’s surprisingly compelling cuteness. On the other hand, you could argue that Sackboy’s cuteness keeps your interest in the game afloat, even without a compelling story.
Sackboy regularly evokes LittleBigPlanet’s arts-and-crafts visual aesthetic. Sometimes, the motif works well. There are great visual details in many of the levels, like hard-drawn cutouts of animals in the backgrounds or platforms made from stacks of books, which imply that the levels were set up in a child’s bedroom. More often, though, it leads to generic “imagination-world” design. Most of the enemies are multi-colored animals or blocks with cute but angry eyes. And, even with those craftsy details, the basic level settings–space, the jungle, under the sea–all feel vague.
Sackboy: A Big Adventure’s visual design on the generic side, but the art itself is stunning on PS5.
While the visual design is generally uninspired, the art itself shows off the impressive technical capabilities of the PlayStation 5. The bright and colorful levels, full of spinning platforms, lasers, and all kinds of moving parts, make for a visual feast in 4K. The movements of the gracefully weaving camera feel notably smooth. Lasers and metallic surfaces–like ruby armored crabs–shine. It may not give Craftworld a strong sense of place, but the art looks adorable.
It also helps that the game has a great soundtrack to keep you moving. Each level’s catchy, upbeat track feels good to jump along to. Some of them feature riffs based on pop hits and classical scores you may recognize. I rarely take a moment to stop and just listen to game music, but I frequently found myself wanting to take these tracks in, either because they were songs I recognized or because they simply had me bouncing my head along.
Sackboy’s core competency, platforming, is quite strong. All the moves in Sackboy’s core arsenal–a jump with a secondary flutter, a punch, and a roll–all feel responsive and precise. Like the LittleBigPlanet games, Sackboy’s jump is a little floaty with a full button press, but having a flutter ability gives you more control over when and how you land. Despite its storybook appearance, Sackboy does feature sequences that present some significant challenges, particularly if you’re trying to collect every item along the way. But the levels are built around Sackboy’s particular jump, and the game’s demands are based around it.
Sackboy’s multi-faceted levels are the real stars, though. It feels like every part of each level serves up a new challenge, which keeps things fresh. Some areas are straightforward, pushing you to string together jumps as if you’re running an obstacle course. Other areas are more self-contained. In some levels, you’re forced to search a larger area for a set of hidden keys to advance. Some are built around items you find at the start of each level, like a boomerang, which allows you to hit enemies and collect items from afar, or anti-gravity boots, which let you float at the height of your jump for an extended period of time. There’s an incredible amount of variety within each level and from one level to the next.
Not every concept level works, though. Each world has a musical level, where all the elements of the world–enemies, platforms, and background objects–move in time with pop songs like “Uptown Funk,” which are playing, lyrics and all. It’s an interesting concept, but ultimately jarring. Different level elements move in time with different parts of the song, which made it hard to track at times. There’s a moment of recognition when each level starts, which is pretty neat, but that quickly falls away. By the end, the lyrics are so distracting that it can be difficult to keep track of everything going on. Obviously, this is in stark contrast with the standard soundtrack, which is impressive with and without a pop connection.
Gallery
Sackboy is a hoarder’s platformer. Every level is chock-full of things to pick up: score bubbles, a LittleBigPlanet holdover; collectibells, which you use to buy costumes between levels; dreamer orbs, which you need to collect to unlock the final level of each world; and costume parts. Bounding through each level, you’re constantly grabbing items and scouring the levels for more. To find it all, you need to keep an eye out for alternate paths, extra spaces, and hidden rooms housing self-contained minigames and puzzles. At the end of each level, you’re given a trophy based on how many score bubbles you got. (It takes a picture of your Sackboy with the trophy. It’s cute.) While you can technically complete a level with very little, the expectation is that you will make an effort to find most, if not all, of it.
And lowering your score is the primary form of punishment. You start each level with five lives, which you lose by getting hit by enemies or falling in pits. When you lose a life, you lose a percentage of your score bubbles, making it harder to get a high score. When you lose all your lives, you have to start the level over. Having a limited number of lives is rarely an issue–even when you die frequently, extra lives start popping up frequently from enemies and breakable items the moment you lose one. The real impact is how it affects your score.
So the goal is to master each level, completing it with the highest possible score, collecting all the important items, and without losing a life. It seems fairly attainable at first, but by the halfway point in the game, Sackboy ramps up to offer a pretty significant challenge, even without the score chase. Mastering most levels should take a couple tries, and there’s always room for improvement. That said, the game kindly avoids penalizing less competitive completionists; other than score bubbles, once you acquire an item, you have it for good. Even the dreamer orbs and costume pieces you’ve acquired before dying mid-level count as acquired.
The story may not be incredibly interesting, but the adorable art carries you through.
In addition to the standard levels, you can unlock short but extra challenging time trial levels that really push you to make every movement count. Even these levels feature a collectible-hunting component–most have clocks in the world that shave seconds off your time. Short and precise, these challenges feel very different from the long, winding campaign levels and give you the chance to mix things up if the standard flow ever starts to feel stale.
There are also optional co-op-only Teamwork levels, which feature puzzles that require a certain amount of coordination. (In the interest of full disclosure: I’m quarantining solo, so I’ve only played one of these, just to get a sense of how they work. I’ll say this: The puzzles are trickier when you’re holding two controllers at once.) You can also play the core Sackboy campaign multiplayer via local co-op all the way through with up to four players. Everyone plays as Sackboy, but with different outfits, so you can put that wardrobe to good use. According to Sony, cross-gen online multiplayer is coming later this year. Personally, I prefer to play platformers solo, so I didn’t see not having access to co-op as a real loss.
Sackboy is a solid platformer and, despite its rote art style, makes great use of the PS5’s enhanced visual and technical performance. It’s a fun little romp of a platformer, with lots of interesting moments. At times, the visual design can look a bit flat. Even in those moments, though, the tight controls and interesting level layouts create gameplay challenges that make those flaws easy to overlook.
In The Mandalorian Season 2 Episode 3, Mando (Pedro Pascal) heads to Trask with The Child (aka Baby Yoda) and Frog Lady, where he finally finds more of his kind. We finally find out who WWE superstar Sasha Banks (credited as Mercedes Varnado) is playing on the show, and it turns out she’s part of Clan Kryze. Not only that, but she’s with Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff)! Bo-Katan calls Mando a Child of the Watch, basically confirming he was rescued by Death Watch as a child.
We learned exactly what these other Mandalorians were after and how they could help guide Mando to locate a Jedi on his journey to get The Child home. The episode was also full of Easter eggs and references to other corners of the Star Wars galaxy, like The Clone Wars and Rebels!
Demon’s Souls on PS5 is a full remake of the classic FromSoftware action-RPG that began the stoic and uncompromising trend of Souls-likes that we know of today. For those who experienced the dangers and threats within the kingdom of Boletaria in 2009, you’ll quickly find that the tough-as-nails gameplay and sense of anxiousness when exploring remains intact. However, for those who’ve never played a Souls game or who focused on the Dark Souls series or other iterations, you’ll quickly find that Demon’s Souls has a particularly sharp edge to it in areas you’d least expect. And most often, it leaves much of the finer details of its gameplay for you to uncover.
With the launch of the Demon’s Souls remake, we’ve put together some tips that will help make your opening hours a bit more manageable. If you want to read more on Demon’s Souls, check out our early review impressions of the full game from editor Tamoor Hussain.
Pick Your Starting Choices Carefully
Once you begin your journey, you’ll create your character and choose their starting class. While traditionally character classes have defined stats and skills, the classes of Demon’s Souls are merely a starting point for your journey. Once you begin collecting weapons and using the souls of fallen enemies to level up and amplify critical stats, you’re free to evolve your character in any way you see fit. So a humble barbarian has the means to evolve into a magic-wielding glass cannon by the game’s end.
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Still, your choices here can have a significant impact on your chances of surviving. For beginners, the Knight, Soldier, Temple Knight, and Royal classes are solid picks as they cover all the bases for attack and defense, and have reliable weapons and armor to back them up. The Royal class, despite starting at level 1, has access to the powerful Soul Arrow, which can easily wipe out enemies from a distance. After you pick a starting class, you can also choose a starting item. A majority of these are one-time use items, so you’re better off picking something with a longer shelf life. We’d recommend picking the Providential Ring, which will increase Luck and raise the drop rates on healing items and crafting materials. In the early hours, this can be a massive boon for your survival.
Get To Know The Nexus, And Keep It Safe
After meeting your inevitable first death at the hands of the Vanguard Demon (or, if you manage to beat him, the Dragon God), you’ll find yourself whisked to the Nexus. This place will serve as your main hub, and it’s the one true safe haven in Demon’s Souls. In this location, you’ll get to meet the game’s key characters, merchants, and supporting allies who will offer you advice on how to proceed. While at the Nexus, you can upgrade your equipment and manage your inventory, which is excellent for improving your chances in the many locations you’ll explore. The upper levels of the Nexus also include an interesting take on player leaderboards, which keeps track of the online community’s standing in the game.
The Nexus’ most important character is The Maiden, who will help players level up with the collected souls. You’ll eventually have more characters enter the Nexus who can offer you new items, magic spells, and other insights on places to explore. Depending on your choices, though, you may set into motion events that can put your allies at risk. So if you meet someone who seems “sus” and wants to visit your place in the Nexus then maybe you shouldn’t ask them to come back to your only safe space. Always use your best judgment when it comes to new faces looking to journey to the Nexus.
Don’t Be Afraid To Explore Elsewhere
Unlike the Dark Souls series’ winding, interconnected levels, Demon’s Souls has five standalone worlds that are all tied to the Nexus. Inside the Nexus, you can travel to each location in the game from one of five Archstones. The places you’ll visit include the Boletarian Palace, the Stonefang Tunnel, the Valley of Defilement, the Tower of Latria, and the Shrine of Storms. After defeating the Phalanx boss in the Boletarian Palace, you’ll have access to each of the Archstones, giving you more freedom to explore the different realms.
It’s important to stress that you are not expected to complete each Archstone in a single run.
It’s important to stress that you are not expected to complete each Archstone in a single run. Once you’ve defeated a boss in one realm and unlocked the next waypoint, you’ve essentially completed the first part of that realm. It’s a much better use of your time to head out to a new location and make progress there. While it’s possible to keep proceeding forward, you’ll quickly find that the monsters and enemies after a completed boss fight are much more challenging, so don’t be afraid to venture off to a new space if you feel like you’ve hit a wall in your progress.
Only Take What You Need
Inventory management is just as essential in Demon’s Souls as swordplay and carefully dodging traps in the environment. Each item and piece of gear in the game has a unique weight attached to it. Depending on your character’s endurance, you’ll find that items you have in your inventory will eventually begin to affect your character’s movement and what they can pick up. An inventory that hasn’t been managed can be especially troublesome when you find a valuable item but can’t pick it up when you need it.
With this in mind, you need to keep track of what your character has on them, even for smaller items like healing grass–which can add up. In the Nexus, you can talk with Stockpile Thomas to access the game’s storage boxes, allowing you to offload spare items, unused gear, and crafting materials. Early on, it’s best to ditch things you don’t need and place them inside. One fantastic quality-of-life improvement with the Demon’s Souls remake is that you can instantly send items to the storage box if your character’s weight limit has reached its limit. While this can still prevent you from using certain items at the moment, it does take the sting out of missing out on valuables forever.
Leave A Helpful Message Behind
A hallmark of the Souls games is their communication system, which players can use to leave helpful messages or vague notes in the environment for others to find. These notes can point out upcoming threats, offer insight on nearby items, or sometimes be used for nefarious purposes to lead players into a deadly trap. The remake of Demon’s Souls has the original’s messaging system intact, and given the incredibly harsh stakes in the opening hours, paying attention to these notes–while also using your best judgment–is key to survival.
Using the touchpad, you can select the option to leave a message based on a preset list of keywords. Besides being a great way to help fellow dungeoneers, it also allows you to get a sudden health boost if another player gives your message a positive affirmation. While its usefulness can be a bit situational, that boost can potentially be a massive help when exploring a lengthy dungeon. So be sure to take advantage of the message system when you can.
Know Your World Tendency
One of Demon’s Souls’ more intricate features is the world tendency system. Essentially, your actions and choices, which include defeating key characters, bosses, and even your instances of death, can shift the balance in various realms of Boletaria. The world tendency systems move between both white or black tendencies, and these shifting tendencies alter the way you explore dungeons and fight enemies. For instance, exploring dungeons with black world tendency will have more aggressive enemies and a larger frequency of enemy Black Phantoms invading your world. However, the black world tendency will also lead to higher drop rates for specific items, which adds some incentive to stick with the added challenge.
What made this feature such a strange system in the original was how vague it was to understand how things were shifting clearly. Thankfully, the remake makes the world tendency system a bit more evident with the inclusion of a new menu that shows off the balance of each realm and your character. Coming to grips with world tendency will not only make it easier for you to understand your current odds, but it will also allow you to understand how to tip the balance in your favor. In some cases, you may want to shift a particular realm to the black world tendency, which can open up a pathway to a hidden encounter. So the sooner you learn how the system works, the better you’ll understand how to pull the various threads holding the world together in Demon’s Souls.
Be Patient, And Always Be Prepared For A Fight
Despite its uncompromising approach to combat, Demon’s Souls is a largely fair game when it comes to each encounter and boss fight. The trick is understanding that you’ll need to think several steps ahead before you engage in a battle. More often than not, you’ll meet your end when fighting aggressive foes with wild attack patterns, falling into pits, or simply running too fast down a hallway and barrelling straight into a crowd of enemies. It’s never a pleasant sight to see a death, but each one is a learning opportunity.
The keys to overcoming the many challenges in Demon’s Souls are perseverance, patience, and understanding the threats you face.
The keys to overcoming the many challenges in Demon’s Souls are perseverance, patience, and understanding the threats you face. Combat is one of the core pillars of the game, and while the introduction will walk you through the various ins and outs of its standard attacks and defensive skills, sometimes it’s much better to let enemies wear themselves out with their attacks and then rush behind them for a backstab while they’re catching their breath. The moment-to-moment experience of playing Demon’s Souls can be tense and challenging, with countless outcomes for every move you make, so always take a second before an encounter to analyze what’s to come.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon has gone full-on RPG, and that means introducing classic RPG elements like a character class system. These classes are called “jobs” (a la Final Fantasy) and offer the chance for characters to learn new skills, get a boost to stats, and generally break out of their default roles. While it’s possible to finish the game without changing jobs, exploring the system to its fullest will make your adventure a lot more satisfying, and gets you a few important skills that carry over between jobs. So which jobs are worth using, and which careers are best left ignored? Read on to learn all about your job options.
Kasuga and company will be able to learn and use different combat skills from changing their jobs. Jobs can be changed starting in mid-chapter 5 at Hello Work. Talk to Ririka and she will give you a list of available jobs for each character. Not all jobs will be available immediately–some will require characters to be at certain experience and bond levels to be selectable. In Kasuga’s case, some jobs will require both a certain experience level and his various attributes to be at certain levels.
Not all jobs will be available immediately–some will require characters to be at certain experience and bond levels to be selectable.
There are separate job sets for male and female characters. Also, every character has at least one job that is unique to them that no other character can use. (Kasuga has two.)
How Do Jobs Work?
After a fight, you get both character EXP and job EXP. Your chosen job levels up separately from your character. At certain levels, you will either learn a new, job-specific technique or get a permanent stat boost.
While most skills you learn from job levels are only usable while the character is in that job, each job has two “Character Skills” that will always be available once learned, even when you switch over to other jobs. Some otherwise mediocre jobs are worth leveling simply to get access to the character skills. Party members will also get unique skills every five character levels that are usable regardless of job, and Kasuga can earn additional skills through the business management minigame.
What About the DLC Jobs?
There are two optional DLC jobs, the Devil Rocker for males and the Matriarch for females. Since these are paid DLC that isn’t a part of the base game, we’re leaving them out of the guide.
We won’t be covering the paid DLC jobs in this guide.
When Should I Start Exploring the Job System?
As we wrote in our starter guide, it might not be a good idea to start job-swapping right away, as it’s much harder to level jobs and get skills in the early part of the game, and you will lose access to many skills you’ve become accustomed to. (One exception: Saeko is best switched to an Idol ASAP.) With most of Chapter 6 being a long series of fights, Chapter 7 is a better time to start playing around a little bit more, especially if you recruit Eri into your group through the business management minigame. You’ll also have more funds for buying weapons, which are unique for each class.
It’s also significantly easier to get job levels and skills towards the end of the game, as you’ll have access to the Battle Arena starting in Chapter 12. Each of the fights in the Battle Arena rewards a substantial amount of job experience, and you can gain job levels very quickly there from even the lower-level fights. (You’ll also want to grind levels and earn gear there to aid in Chapter 12’s extremely rude boss fight.)
Unique Character Jobs
Freelancer
Freelancer
Default/Exclusive class of Kasuga Ichiban
Freelancer is the job that attempts to carry over the raw, bare-knuckle fighting of the previous Yakuza games directly into Like a Dragon. It’s also the job that Kasuga starts with and has access to for the entire game. And it is quite good at offense, as the attacks hit hard and can give bonus effects like stun. The critical damage rate for this class and its skills is also quite formidable.
However, one big issue with this class (and quite a few classes we’ll cover) is a lack of options. There are no support abilities beyond self-buffs, and all attacks are based on blunt force damage, which numerous enemies have resistance to. Compared to the Hero class Kasuga gets shortly afterwards, which is about as well-rounded as a skillset can get, Freelancer feels very restrictive. Yes, the hits feel satisfying, but the visceral pleasure of beating the snot out of someone gets dampened when they don’t take full damage from what you’re dishing out.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: It’s a solid offensive class, but extremely limited. It pales in comparison to the Hero class in terms of combat versatility.
Hero
Hero
Exclusive class of Kasuga Ichiban, unlocks during Chapter 4
Hero is the jack-of-all-trades class you’d expect from an RPG protagonist. It’s got damage dealing, a little bit of support, and a little bit of healing and revival to make for a very versatile Kasuga. These skills’ potency will also be boosted as Kasuga raises his various parameters like charisma and passion, making them even better as the game progresses. Perhaps the only downside is that the Hero’s damage typing lacks variety: it’s all physical blunt force damage, which several enemies have resistance to. If you bring in a couple of offensive character skills from other classes, you can help make up for this. Ultimately, Hero will be Kasuga’s best option for the endgame challenges.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: Hero offers almost everything you’d want a job to provide. What it doesn’t do, you can learn in other jobs and carry over.
Homeless Guy
Homeless Guy
Exclusive class of Nanba
This is essentially the equivalent of a magic-using class in more traditional RPGs. Nanba is the Homeless Guy class acts as the token magician–a pyromancer, to be exact, since many of his attack spells will turn him into a human blowtorch. He’s also got a good range of debuffs and healing spells to complement his fire-wielding, making him a great all-around offensive magic and support character.
Unfortunately, the usual drawbacks of magic users apply: his physical attack power isn’t too good, and defense can be a serious problem. While he has a few non-elemental magic skills, his stronger attacks being fire-based means that he won’t be quite as effective against foes with fire resistance. As a whole, however, this class is great, and it can be even better with carryover skills from jobs like Musician and Fortuneteller.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: An excellent magic-using job. Its weaknesses are easily compensated for by carrying over skills from elsewhere.
Detective
Detective
Default/Exclusive class of Adachi
Ex-cop Adachi’s specialty is riling opponents up and locking them down. He has several skills which can cause enraged status, making enemies unable to do anything other than target him with normal attacks. This way, he can act as a tank, taking the hits and smacking enemies down with additional blunt-damage skills that can cause status afflictions like stun if Adachi’s HP is high. It’s a solid enough tank-y class.
However, once Adachi gets access to the Enforcer job and some good gear for it, Detective pales in comparison. Fortunately, the Character Skills from Detective work extremely well when carried over to Enforcer, so there’s some value in spending time with this class… mostly because switching to Enforcer right away can be pretty tough.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: Detective will carry you a decent way into the game. You’re going to want to swap out eventually, though.
Hitman
Hitman
Default/Exclusive class of Joon-gi
Hitman is Joon-gi’s starting class, and it’s a doozy. It’s built around doing lots of damage in lots of ways very quickly. One of the biggest upsides is that you have access to both blunt and rare (and rarely resisted) gun/piercing damage through skills, making a Hitman Joon-gi extremely adaptable to a lot of different combat situations. Some of his skills can also add status ailments, but the success rate is pretty low, so you’ll mostly be focused on outputting damage rather than inflicting status. Also, while most of the skills at early job levels are single-target, he’ll earn an amazing multi-target piercing attack in Heavenly Shot at job level 16, making Joon-gi one of the best mob-clearers in the game.
While the class makes good use of Joon-gi’s high agility, it does little to offset his low defense, making him a bit of a glass cannon unless you have gear to bulk him up. Low MP is also an issue in a class that’s so skill-dependant, though accessories can help remedy that a bit. If he’s really in trouble during combat, one option is the unique Banshee Bayonet skill, which makes him untargetable until his next turn–though that applies to both enemies and allies. Overall, Hitman is an excellent offensive class that works well in almost every party configuration and situation.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: Really fast and versatile beatdowns that are effective against a wide variety of foes. Highly recommended.
Gangster
Default/Exclusive class of Zhao
Do you like punching? Do you like stabbing? Well, with the Gangster class, you get to do both! Zhao’s an offensive monster as a Gangster, wielding both bashing blunt martial arts skills and slashing sword skills, including his standard attack. The damage is big, and with some skills, you can apply additional effects like defense down and bleeding, which is a nice bonus. With access to two attack types (some with debuffs attached) and high pure damage output, Gangster is perhaps the game’s most formidable attack class.
However, if you’re looking for anything more than pure offense, you definitely aren’t going to find it in this class. With no support or recovery skills, Zhao will be reliant entirely on items for healing and buffing options. Of course, you can take a bit of time to build some other jobs and carry the skills over to give him more options… or just add a larger variety of damage sources.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: Offense, offense, and only offense. Be prepared to carry over some skills if you want anything besides damage dealing.
Barmaid
Barmaid
Default/Exclusive class of Saeko
Barmaid might just be the most mediocre default job in the game. It’s got a decent mix of single-target offensive skills and self-buffs, and several of the attacks also have various debuffs or status ailments attached. However, a severe lack of multi-target attacks and damage variety really hurts, as does the inability to provide support to anyone except herself. It’s not the worst job, but it’s really hard to justify using this over many better women-only classes. Early-game Saeko is better off as an Idol for support, and late-game Saeko can get better offensive character skills from jobs like Night Queen and Gambler, making the Barmaid feel mostly irrelevant.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: Not a particularly noteworthy job. Saeko won’t be hurt much if you switch out of it right away.
Clerk
Clerk
Default/Exclusive class of Eri
Eri is the game’s only optional party member, and she comes into the party with this job in tow. But despite her demure appearance, the swift-acting Clerk is capable of a lot of serious pain. Eri wields office work implements as weapons of mass destruction, including deadly boxcutters that deal slash-type damage with normal attacks. Her skills offer a bit more attack variety, with both blunt and slashing techniques at her disposal, almost all of which can cause various status afflictions. Even better, her Rolling Kick skill gets extra damage on enemies with status ailments.
Much like Zhao’s default class, however, Clerk is heavy on the offense and light on most everything else. It comes with a self-recovery skill, but that’s about it. And aside from Thumbtack Scatter–which is quite good–the job lacks AOE attacks. But when she’s hitting fast and hard with damaging attacks and very potent status afflictions, these aren’t as big of issues as they might sound.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: Excellent damage and debuff potential. Make every day secretary’s day!
Male-Only Jobs
Breaker
Breaker is similar to the Hitman class in that it’s built around doing lots of damage very quickly. It is indeed quite fun to smash enemies with a barrage of funky-fresh dance moves! Some skills have a random chance to grant self-buffs in addition to dealing damage, which is nice. The final two skills, Essence of Rolling Mixer and Essence of Breakdance Delight, do excellent double duty as attack skills that remove status ailments and restore party HP.
The big issue with Breaker, however, is a severe lack of variety. What makes Hitman so good is the ability to use different damage types depending on the situation. In contrast, all of the Breaker’s attacks deal blunt damage, meaning that if you’re up against enemies who resist that kind of damage, the Breaker’s effectiveness is severely hampered. Low defense also puts a character at risk if the enemy lands a few lucky hits. The two character skills you can learn, Atlas Hold and Double Hatchet, can carry over well into other classes due to their self-buff capabilities, but beyond that, it’s hard to recommend staying as a Breaker for extended periods of time… unless you know that forthcoming encounters will be solved primarily by punches and kicks to the face.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: This class would be fantastic if you had access to more than one type of damage. As it is, it’s good but not amazing.
Foreman
Foreman
As you might expect from a job that wields a giant wrecking hammer, Foreman is a class with great offense. You’ll learn a bunch of hammer-based attack skills that target both single enemies and groups, along with a handful of fire-based magic explosive attacks. It’s a solid class in terms of defense, too: levelling the job will give you boosts to both HP to absorb hits and MP to use all of your skull-crushing skills. (You also get an extra 30% bullet/pierce resistance as a nice little bonus, though this damage is much less common for enemies to use than slash damage.)
The Foreman’s biggest drawback, however, is that it’s quite slow. Not just in terms of raw stats either: many of the best skills, like Master Hammer, take an extra turn before they activate, meaning that there’s plenty of time for the enemies to react or interrupt. Still, when the attacks land, they hurt a lot. It’s up to you to decide whether or not you want to chance playing the waiting game, especially when other classes can deal a good amount of damage without having to charge up.
Also, take note: You’ll want to switch Kasuga to this class at least once, even if you never plan on using it for him. You get an exploration skill, Demolish, which will allow you to break down certain walls. If you plan on exploring the optional underground dungeon, this skill is mandatory.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: Not a bad class, but difficult to use in certain situations. Patience and foresight are a must if you want the Foreman to be effective.
Musician
Musician
The Musician’s a weird one. It’s kind of a support class, but also kind of an attack class. Its gameplan revolves around raising “Voltage,” which can be randomly gained after executing certain skills, and then using other skills that get damage boosts based on how much Voltage you have. It’s a fun idea, and who doesn’t love the idea of singing your way to victory through buff-granting tunes? But re-read that sentence above–you randomly gain Voltage. With most skills, it’s not guaranteed, and the only skill where it is guaranteed is a counter technique that requires a different random factor to work. If you want to use the Musician to its fullest, you’ll be stuck using a bunch of standard skills, some you might not need, and crossing your fingers that you get that voltage boost. (There’s also another gimmicky skill, Album Drop, that increases in power not through voltage, but through how many members of the active party are Musicians. It’s quite unlikely you’ll want more than one.)
However, it may be worth spending time as a Musician simply for the character skills, both of which are very good. Endless Desire gives the entire party a health-regeneration buff, while Be my Shelter is a skill that restores MP–a valuable rarity.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: Fun, but really gimmicky. There are better options for both damage and support.
Host
Host
Host is a unique hybrid physical/magic class that does a lot of different things. You’ve got pure blunt damage in the form of techniques like Birthday Bash. You’ve got elemental, status-afflicting skills like Sparkling Splash (which can cause drunkenness and cold), and Rose Stinger (a fire-based skill that can cause charm). And then you’ve got several skills that can steal items from the enemy, if you feel like trying to nab some rare goodies. Top it all off with an MP restore on your regular attacks and you’ve got a good job that covers several bases. The champagne bottles the Host can equip also come with elemental or status-afflicting properties, too, leading to even more strategic possibilities.
Of course, the “jack-of-several-trades” nature means that there isn’t really one area the Host excels in, but in terms of sheer utility, it’s a fine job to have. Perhaps its biggest downside is that the two Character Skills–Ice Bucket and Secret Cocktail–are kind of mediocre in comparison to what other classes give. It’s also worth noting that some Host skills overlap with similar techniques Kasuga learns from the business management minigame and gaining levels, making the class a bit less valuable for him compared to other characters.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: Host might not be the best job for every situation, but it’s rarely a bad one. A solid complement to many party configurations.
Bodyguard
Bodyguard
Let’s be upfront: this job is bad. However, it can dish out a lot of damage–skills and normal attacks are slash damage, which can add the bleed status condition to enemies. The bodyguard also has high-damage skills that inflict lots of pain on foes at the cost of the user’s own HP.
But the bodyguard has issues–lots of them. Much like how the Freelancer’s and Breaker’s attacks are entirely blunt, all of the bodyguard’s techniques are slashing damage, which reduces their effectiveness if you’re facing a resistant foe. Bleed is a decent gradual-damage status effect, but it doesn’t restrict a foe’s actions like other, better status ailments do, and the need to live on the edge with low HP and MP to get the most out of certain techniques is a severe demerit that’s also rather luck-dependent. (The low-HP-based attack, Diehard Skewer, also damages you as a side effect, making using it even riskier!) You’ll need lots of support skill users to back up this high-maintenance, high-risk job, and ultimately it’s just not worth the stress.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: A job that looks and sounds cooler than it actually is. You can skip this one.
Enforcer
Enforcer
The fact that this class carries a gigantic shield and wears riot gear should clue you in that Enforcers are built for defense. As this job’s level grows, the characters in it will receive considerable buffs to health and defense, though they will lag behind in other areas like speed and dexterity. Speed isn’t the point here, however–the Enforcer exists to soak up damage and strike back with some potent attacks, including the extremely useful (and painful) electric-based Paralysis Prongs. Transfer Shield comes in handy in battles where you want to protect a certain character, as the defense debuffs the Enforcer will get from using the skill are offset by their stat boosts. Adachi in particular is a perfect fit for the Enforcer class: his base stats are naturally tank-y, and he can carry over Detective skills that further help draw aggro onto him and leave enemies stunned.
The Enforcer has one huge drawback, however. Weapons for this class are extremely hard to come by, as most shops in the game don’t stock shields, and the basic starting shield is… not great. Until you find or craft a better shield, the Enforcer’s damage output is going to be lacking, making it hard to recommend switching into this class immediately. Nobody wants a tank that can’t fire back.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: Enforcer is a superb tank job worth exploring. Provided you’ve got the weapons and time to make it shine, of course.
Chef
Chef
The chef excels at two things: sharp implements and fire, with a peppering of blunt damage to top it all off. That’s a pretty nice mix of damage! Add in some extra agility and magic boosts, and you have a solid hybrid offense class that can whip up a good helping of hurting. The bleeding and burning status effects many of these skills can cause are a nice little side dish, too!
The only downside? This class is strictly offense-based, with nary a support or healing skill to be found, so you’ll either be reliant on items for healing or need to carry over skills from elsewhere. Also, since Nanba has access to many fire skills in his Homeless Guy class, this class may be of slightly less benefit to him. (Though the boosts to magic power are quite nice.)
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: Slice, dice, tenderize, and toast. A very good offensive job with a nice ability mix.
Fortuneteller
Fortuneteller
Fortuneteller is the dedicated support class for male characters, and it’s pretty mediocre. It’s got a decent enough mix of skills that buff allies and inflict bad status on enemies. However, the two character skills you can learn from the Fortuneteller class are particularly good: Soul Tether revives a KO’ed party, and Fulminating Forecast is a very strong AOE lighting magic skill.
However, there are a lot of classes in YLAD that have support, debuff, and status-inflicting skills, and a lot of them come with higher damage output or a more versatile toolkit. The Idol job in particular outclasses Fortuneteller in every way, having great healing skills, bad-status-causing strikes, and buff and debuff abilities. Consider learning the job for the character skills, but leave the support to the dancing girls.
TWO SENTENCE SUMMARY: A lot of classes have support skills, so Fortuneteller winds up feeling unnecessary a lot of the time. The character skills are really good, though!
Women-Only Jobs
Idol
Idol
If you want a ray of sunshine in the dark dregs of battle, you’re going to want an Idol in your party. Idols do three things extremely well: they give attack buffs, they heal the party’s HP and status ailments, and they stick particularly potent status ailments on enemies. For example, charm is among Like a Dragon’s best status afflictions for crowd control, since it prevents an enemy from doing anything until it wears off–and one of the Idol’s starting skills is Smash Step, an attack that can inflict Charm. After a few levels, you’ll get a skill called Magical Song that heals the whole party for a huge chunk of HP, which is practically essential for some of the harder fights.
Gear for the Idol is easily available, and some of it grants higher odds of status ailment affliction–be sure to make good use of that. Top things off with the ability to recover MP with normal attacks and you’ve got a class that’s on top of the world. Sure, you have somewhat lower HP and defense, but that’s not too hard to compensate for. Besides, it’s not like enemies can hit you when you’ve got them wrapped around your pinky with charm, right?
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: The best support class, bar none. Idols will make your combat experience much happier.
Hostess
Hey, it’s the female version of the Host job, and that job’s good… so this should be good, right? Sadly, Hostess does not have quite the mostest. Gone are many of the fire skills and item thievery techniques, replaced with some decent slash skills and support boosts. Many of the Hostess’s attacks have status afflictions and debuffs built in, which is also a nice benefit.
One big drawback is that most of the Hostess’s skills are single-target, making it extremely bad at crowd control in a game where the vast majority of encounters involve large crowds. The support skills are nice, but if it’s strong support you want, you really should go for the Idol instead. The hostess’s skill variety is useful earlier in the game, but the further you get, the less appealing the class becomes.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: It’s like the Host class, but not as good. Decent, but nothing too special, and its deficiencies become more prominent the further into the game you get.
Night Queen
Night Queen
Night Queen is a job that’s all about laying down some physical pain while potentially winning the enemy’s heart in the process. A Night Queen has access to a variety of single-and multi-target blunt-force strikes with the potential for additional damage effects like brainwash, KO, and burn. Literally every single one of her strikes has a possible status ailment attached to it, making her into a highly offensive mistress.
So what’s the problem? Being an attack-focused class isn’t necessarily bad, but the Night Queen’s focus is limited compared to what other women-only classes have to offer. Both the Clerk and the Dealer can inflict a good amount of damage while having access to either multiple kinds of attacks and/or the potential for additional damage. Brainwash is great, when it works… which is never as often as you’d like it to. Still, the two character skills–Somersault Leg and Candle Rush–are excellent AOE attacks, and it’s worth exploring this class if you want more multi-target options for Saeko and Eri. Night Queen isn’t terrible on its own, but it’s hard to advocate for in the face of more versatile options.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: If you like causing pain, this job’s for you. The character skills that carryover are great as well.
Dealer
Dealer
If Bodyguard is a job that sounds cooler than it actually is, Dealer is the opposite. The in-game description sounds like the worst kind of random, gimmicky nonsense that would make it more of a liability than anything. But in actuality, the Dealer is pretty great. In this class, you’ll have access to attack skills that cover all three types of physical damage, but with a bit of a twist: there’s almost always some element of randomness to them. Whether it’s the possibility of boosted damage (Card Sharp) or an AOE piercing attack with randomly selected targets (Darts Airstrike), there’s always an unknown variable involved. Lucky Dice and Unlucky Dice will raise and lower random party member and enemy stats, respectively, adding some support potency to this job as well.
However, what makes the Dealer good is that even when the cards aren’t great, you still inflict a decent amount of pain. There are no self-harming drawbacks like the Bodyguard, nor do you have to spend precious turns trying to build a gauge like the Musician. When the chips are down, the Dealer has a strong potential to pull off an upset.
TWO-SENTENCE SUMMARY: It’s gimmicky, but more often it’s an effective job with variety. Surprisingly versatile, too!
The PlayStation 5 may come with a 825 GB SSD, but that doesn’t mean you can use it all. In fact, there’s only 667 GB of precious storage for your games. Given that some AAA titles regularly clock in over 100 GB (we’re looking at you, Call of Duty), and PlayStation 5 games can’t be moved onto an external hard drive, let alone be played from one, that’s going to fill up fast.
SSD storage is coming for the PlayStation 5 eventually, but it’s not available at launch, so in this video, we give you our top tips to save space on your console. From specific Trophy settings to turn off to game prioritization to, crucially, ensuring that you’re putting your PlayStation 4 games on a USB hard drive, there are many things you can do to get the most out of your PlayStation 5’s internal storage.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has a few endings to its single-player campaign mode. Players are given the option to save the world by preventing a nuclear war, or teaming up with Perseus to commence the launch and deter the Americans to a dead end. Throughout the story, you’re given many options to progress the way you want. But when it comes to this final mission, a lot more is at stake and your actions are a matter of life or death. Here’s how your options break down.
After some mental interrogation, your character Bell wakes up and finds themselves with Adler and the American team. You’re strapped to a chair and given one choice: Tell Adler the truth about Perseus’ location and help prevent a nuclear catastrophe, or lie to him, divert the American team to another location, and help Perseus vaporize all of Europe. If you tell Adler the truth, you get the canonical ending where you, Mason, Woods, and Adler head to the Solovetsky islands and stop the launch from happening. Perseus escapes but America wins this fight and saves all of Europe.
Lying to Adler sends you to the Duga array in the Ukraine- a distraction for Perseus to start the launch with no Americans in his way. If you unlocked the secret door in Hudson’s base prior to this mission, you also have a chance to not only turn your back on the US team, but plan an ambush that leads to the deaths of Woods, Mason, Kim and Adler by your own hands. Once the US team is killed, you and the mysterious man (who turns out NOT to be Perseus) launch the nukes and blame the United States. Be on the lookout for GameSpot’s Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War coverage with its upcoming review and guides to both multiplayer and zombies mode.
After months of anticipation, Sony’s PS5 is finally out now. Although it’s only just now getting into the hands of eager fans, we’ve had the chance to interface with the console for quite some time. In our testing, we began to consider what Sony could do to further improve its next-generation console, whether it be through firmware updates or future hardware iterations.
Below we detail our biggest wishes for PS5 after using the console for a few weeks and what we think would help the PS5 shine even brighter than it already does. As a note, this article is focused more on the console from a feature-set or quality-of-life standpoint, so don’t expect any wishes about specific game franchises coming back.
After you’re done reading, be sure to jump into the comments to share your biggest wishes for the console moving forward. If you’re still on the fence about buying one, read our PS5 review. And if you’re looking to get a PS5, be sure to check out our PS5 buying guide, where we offer the latest updates on which retailers have the console back in stock.
Add Folder Organization
When you first open up your PS5 library, it’s quite the sight to behold with all your game icons laid out in such a tidy manner. But while it’s nice to view your collection in this way, you may find yourself wanting to organize it further into sections based on your preferences. Unfortunately, PS5 currently doesn’t have any folder options you can use to customize or manage how your games are laid out. It’s an odd look for PS5, seeing as it’s something the PS4 can already do. Here’s to hoping we’ll get folders, or maybe something even more useful!
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We don’t want this to become a list of features that Xbox Series X/S but PS5 doesn’t. That said, we feel that Quick Resume–which allows you to bounce between multiple games without having to boot each one from scratch–is something that would be cool to see Sony implement into the PS5. How feasible that is to do from a technical standpoint is unclear, and the feature is certainly more of a luxury than a necessity. But we still feel passionately that PS5 could benefit from such functionality in the future, particularly if it can address some of our gripes with how it works on Series X/S.
Store PS5 Games On External Storage
Okay, one more thing that Xbox has: Gosh darn it, the option to store PS5 games on external storage sure would be nice! As is, there’s not a lot of wiggle room on the internal drive, and with game install sizes being pretty massive these days, it can fill up pretty quickly. Letting you install PS5 games on an external would be an enormous help for people who have to worry about slow internet speeds and data caps. And luckily, it does seem like Sony has heard people’s pleas, and is looking to address this issue in a future update.
Make Older PlayStation Games Available On PSN
In the months leading up to launch, Sony said it didn’t have time to make the PS5 backwards compatible with PS3, PS2, and PS1 games, and it was a total bummer. While PS4’s library is outstanding, it still feels like a missed opportunity for the company not to include older PlayStation generations in its backwards compatibility list. That said, running older-generation PlayStation software on new hardware is no easy task when we’re talking about Sony getting its oldest games to run on PS5 just by inserting the discs alone. Who knows if Sony will commit to adding such a capability to the console in future models.
For some reason, the PS5 library menu defaults icons for cross-gen games to the PS4 versions.
But if we inevitably can’t play old PlayStation games that way until a new console version arrives, then we’re hoping that Sony will re-release some of its most highly-regarded classics on PSN via emulation, much like what it did on PS4 with its “PS2 Classics” series. Heck, it’s possible to run those PS2-on-PS4 games on PS5 via backward compatibility, and you can even access a decent catalog of PS2 and PS3 games using PS Now. If you’re really looking to play old games on PS5, there are a few ways to do so–it’s just a bit scattered.
So, our biggest wish in all this talk about playing old PlayStation games on PS5 is for Sony to unify its approach to making previous-gen games available to play. Perhaps new classic games from PS1 to PS3 can be sold on PSN under a new banner. Or better yet, maybe all these games get clumped into Sony’s PlayStation Plus Collection. Whatever the company chooses to do, all we want to do is play its older games on its latest platform.
An Easier Way To Access Your Trophy List
Given the relatively seamless all-in-one interface allowed by the PS5’s Control Center, it’s a bit disappointing that there’s no easier way to check the Trophy list for the game being played. As it stands, you can’t seem to quickly pull up the list for the game like on the PS4. You can only access it by going to the Trophy menu directly.
It’s also far too tedious to sift through the Trophies, as Sony decided to give each Trophy a flashier design than the basic list on the PS4. It certainly makes you feel like a champion when you earn one, but it’s a chore to look through the whole list.
Fix PlayStation 5 Games Defaulting To PS4 Versions
On PS5, if you’ve got a game like Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales that’s available on both PS5 and PS4, you can choose which version you want to download. However, the PS5 often defaults to downloading PS4 versions of cross-generation games when they appear in your library. When you highlight a cross-gen game in the Library tab, it’s typically the PS4 version, and not the PS5 version, at first glance–although the difference isn’t made visually clear. To get to the next-gen version, you actually have to hit the button with the three dots that appear when you select a game to pull up a menu where you can choose between and download each version.
It’s easy to forget, but PS4 did have PS2 games you could play via emulation.
We’re hoping that Sony patches this up because this interface issue persists even after you download the proper PS5 versions. Repeatedly during pre-release testing, we had PS5 apps that we’d already played switch their icons back over to PS4 versions on the home screen, which prompted the menu to start a download of the PS4 version every time we selected it, rather than just start playing the PS5 version.
Honestly, it seems like this issue might be tied to how some games get automatic updates, but again, if you’re moving quickly through the UI, you can start a download accidentally that’ll instantly need to delete. And if you have both versions of a game installed, it’s very easy to start the wrong one and not realize it, which has become increasingly frustrating the more we’ve had it happen. For more about our thoughts and frustrations around this UI issue, check out our feature detailing our experiences.
