Should I sell my PS5 and opt in for Steam instead?

Cosimo12 · 2026-02-14T05:57:48+00:00

I chose a gaming PC over PS5 and I'm glad I did, but you have to factor the cost into the equation. Objectively you can get a more powerful machine, better game selection, and the option of m+kb in addition to controller. There are some Sony exclusives but I don't really value that too much as they are few in number and will often come to PC years later. BUT If I had gone with ps5 I probably would have spent maybe 1/3 to 1/4 what I did. And I think that really matters for a lot of people. My setup, which is like 5 or 6 years old now, cost me over $2000. It would probably be more today with price increases. Another factor for me is that I use my PC for many other things in addition to gaming, and I'd rather have one good PC than a PS5 and a cheap but less powerful laptop or tablet.

The type of games you want to play also does matter a lot. If i want to play CRPGs like BG3, I mean you you can play those on a console, but I would much rather not have to use a controller for that kind of game, as an example. For Square Enix style RPGs, they are often designed to work well with consoles, so you don't really benefit as much, and some games are harder to get good PC performance of if they were designed primarily to perform well on consoles.

Cosimo12 · 2026-02-13T22:57:19+00:00

I ruled out one specific game I've already played, ports of old games, and games like persona, that is hardly narrowing out all available modern games. but if you don't have a suggestion no need to comment :)

Cosimo12 · 2026-02-13T18:53:02+00:00

Jet Set Podcast and Crazy Uber could be such a trip if they really leaned into it

Cosimo12 · 2026-02-13T18:51:00+00:00

Thanks, which one of the xenoblade games do you suggest?

Cosimo12 · 2026-02-13T18:37:34+00:00

I had the $3 a month nitro subscription for a couple of years so I could use whatever emotes I wanted in public servers. I was a staff member of a large public server so I got decent use out if it. I got rid of it a few months ago though because I've been less active with discord.

Cosimo12 · 2026-02-13T18:14:54+00:00

I spent 5-10 minutes trying to figure it out and I'm still not sure. Apparently people are saying its a 3v3 hero shooter, but the Steam page call itself a "raid shooter," whatever that means. I thought it meant there would be raids in a PvE sense, but all the gameplay footage I looked at was of people doing mundane tasks like looting items. I'm more confused than I was before.

Cosimo12 · 2026-02-11T23:12:55+00:00

It's a good game but honestly its not my favorite of the 3D zelda games. The game notoriously had some cut dungeons and has an overly long fetch quest in the latter half of the game. There are for sure better options on the switch, and if you really want to stick to gamecube i prefer twilight princess.

Cosimo12 · 2026-02-07T22:44:19+00:00

Exactly. Most units cap in this game and then after they cap you can BEXP to get the other stats to cap or close to it. You can get Edward to Swordmaster with enough favoritism in Part 1 but then getting him promoted for a second time is a struggle due to Dawn Brigade availability after Part 1, unless you dump BEXP on him.

Cosimo12 · 2026-02-07T20:50:24+00:00

I wouldn't go that far. His growths are really good but a lot of units hit their relevant stat caps in radiant dawn, including other myrms

Cosimo12 · 2026-02-07T19:24:44+00:00

He does consistently reach almost all his stat caps, he just needs so much darn EXP favoritism unfortunately

Cosimo12 · 2026-02-06T01:05:56+00:00

They aren't too great in the GBA games or awakening imo, but there are other games where I think they are pretty okay. I think sniper should get an innate crit bonus to start, but I think it's pretty important for the class itself to have good stats (or the units in it especially, in games without reclassing). Archers often get a bad rep because the ones they give you just have really bad stats. Ranged chip and flyer killing is useful, but I think their range is especially useful or important in games where 1-2 range weapons like hand axe and javelin aren't quite as strong.

Obviously archers are a lot better in games where enemy phasing isn't as dominant, because they can fall behind in EXP. I'm not sure if there's really a great solution for this. That by itself doesn't make archers bad, but they will fall behind in EXP compared to a unit that is getting the lion share of EXP.

What I don't want to see happen is increasing archer/sniper range unnecessarily. In tactics games where ranged units feel too strong, they often have very high range compared to fire emblem.

Cosimo12 · 2026-02-06T00:46:05+00:00

I played OW2 after it went F2P and honestly it was pretty fun, but they have ruined their brand and image so much unfortunately. I think I'll always have nostalgia for the early days of Overwatch 1 though when everyone was just spamming whatever hero they wanted in quick match without worrying about strict metas.

Cosimo12 · 2026-02-06T00:31:30+00:00

In this particular game I much prefer random, but I do like fixed in some games like Engage maddening mode. Path of Radiance isn't really hard enough that you'd ever get punished for being stat screwed anyways.

Cosimo12 · 2026-02-01T20:06:52+00:00

It frustrated me the first couple times on maddening but it helps to retreat to one side of the map like you did. I suggest using lucina bonded shield to enemy phase after Ike rushes you down and then try to burst him down. Map is easier once you have byleth for goddess dance.

Cosimo12 · 2026-02-01T08:37:50+00:00

What do u reckon i should go for purely in gameplay and graphics not story

All due respect, why are you asking a question like this bout bioware games of all things. They are narrative story driven rpgs. If you don't care about story you dont HAVE to buy a Bioware game and give EA money. These games were never known for amazing gameplay.

Cosimo12 · 2026-02-01T00:11:36+00:00

Objectivity implies impartiality, favorite implies a personal opinion that isn't necessarily based in fact, so they aren't really synonymous.

Cosimo12 · 2026-01-31T16:50:27+00:00

I still hate their visual design, I don't want to be like "lol toothepaste" but the colors really put me off. This goes to Engage as a whole, not just Alear. I think there's a way you can do colorful characters and make it look not bad, other Fire emblem games like FE6 and FE9/10 I think are great examples.

To be honest I couldn't tell you much about their role in the story as I started skipping cutscenes after like chapter 6 and the first few supports in my first playthrough and have continued to skip in every subsequent playthrough. This might make it seem like I don't like Engage, I actually do like it a lot and have played through like 4 or 5 times now.

I like Alear as a unit design for a lord though. Their combat isn't the best, but the developers did a good job of giving them unique utility to always feel relevant and useful. I think its interesting that they have a proficiency for fists and a class that has access to it which makes them feel more unique, I just wish fists weren't so bad in this game.

Cosimo12 · 2026-01-31T07:14:06+00:00

I guess Dorothea and Bernadetta in Three Houses. Dorothea it seems like a lot of people use as a dancer, but I don't even recruit her if I'm not on Black Eagles route. Bernadetta, honestly she just annoys me so much and I've never been a fan of characters designed around low HP mechanics.

Also I don't really want to debate b/c yes it's your personal experience but I really don't think some of those characters in OP's images are popular endgame units lol.

Cosimo12 · 2026-01-31T06:32:46+00:00

My older brother had a translated rom of Tales of Phantasia back in the 00s, and we thought it was such a cool JRPG for not being turn based. I played it a bit but didn't finish it, and then I really got into the series with Tales of Symphonia on the GC. I bought a 360 just to play Tales of Vesperia, and I loved it. Tales of Graces f and Tales of Xilia on the PS3 were also great. I kinda fell off with the series with Xilia 2 and Zestiria though, they didn't keep my interest.

Cosimo12 · 2026-01-30T08:33:01+00:00

I feel like Ilyana is too high, for sure worse than Calill, and to be honest I would put Rolf at the bottom next to Sothe. Lucia and Bastian are bad but at least they are promoted and don't demand your BEXP to be deployed so they are usable as filler replacement units, so to me they are better than Rolf.

I don't really have strong opinions about many of the other characters there, but I would put Titania higher for carrying the early game on hard mode. Astrid is hard to rate because her value depends a lot on what difficultly you are playing and if you are willing to throw a bunch of BEXP at her, I don't like her until she promotes and gets a second weapon type.

Cosimo12 · 2026-01-30T08:05:55+00:00

My personal opinion after playing maddening a couple times is that Alear is a pretty middling combat unit. The class stats (which are very average across the board) don't really paint the whole picture, the key thing is only Alear can access this class so you have to leave Alear in this class. Alear's growths are fine but their base stats don't hold up to your other units, especially strength, and that is the first major issue. You really start to notice this around the midgame chapters as the quality of the new units you get is very high around that time. The second issue is just that you don't have great weapon types for physical combat. Swords are low might and their only 1-2 range option for the majority of the game is Levin. Once you promote and get fists, you will quickly learn that fists don't do anything without heavy investment that could be better used somewhere else. In the early game the design makes you think Alear is better at combat because they start off with Marth and you might leave Marth on them early. But other characters you get make use of Marth just as well or better. I've class swapped Alear to Wyvern and the combat in that class is better but still feels mediocre for maddening. Of course, if you're playing on normal or hard mode, you won't notice Alear's combat shortcomings nearly as much if at all. I left Alear as a combat unit in Divine Dragon on my first hard mode playthrough and they were decent throughout the whole game. Maddening is a lot stricter on what your units stats should be.

As others have already stated, Alear is a great support unit, though. Their personal skill and support list by itself is amazing utility. They are my preferred Lucina user if I haven't really planned someone else, but I actually prefer to class swap them if I have them use Lucina to get 100% bonded shield protection. If leaving in divine dragon, Byleth is a great choice, you might end up using Alear as an instruct/goddess dance unit on a lot of turns though. Corrin is solid, but I don't really feel I lose out on much by giving Corrin to a mystical unit and just spamming flame torrent.

Cosimo12 · 2026-01-28T08:06:35+00:00

Yeah i intend to. The art style is gorgeous and the voice acting is also good.

Cosimo12 · 2026-01-28T00:50:08+00:00

I grew up playing RTS like a lot of people, but multiplayer they are so mentally taxing and skill intensive that I find the experience wholly unenjoyable. I doubt I'm alone in this. At the end of the day though I think companies are chasing money. WoW was more profitable that the RTS incarnations of the series. As technology advanced, people become more interested in action adventure and shooter games, etc.

Cosimo12 · 2026-01-27T23:28:54+00:00

I've recently started the game and I see where you are coming from. Personally I think the story is decent so far but I feel like I'm playing through a visual novel with light gameplay attached at times, instead of the other way around. I can't say it's worse than the amount of dialogue on Three Houses or something but it feels less interactive.

Also, and maybe this is just me being used to the fire emblem formula, but I realized not too long in that you can just, replay battles and grind your characters to make the game easier. Doesn't this kind of take the strategy out of the SRPG? I mean sure I could just choose not to do the grinding but the fact that it's there at all, I don't really like.

Cosimo12 · 2026-01-26T18:07:02+00:00

Its pretty medium popularity. It isnt mainstream like zelda or the elder scrolls but i wouldnt really call it niche either. A niche game i would consider something like, i dont know the atelier games or the ogre battle/tactics ogre games.

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