5 hours in so far Tales of Arise is a great game. It feels so different than past games which were mostly mediocre. (Vesperia is amazing) The combat is really special. Visually stunning. Maybe because of how just Bersia looked 4 years ago. This almost feels like a 9th gen game even tho I'm playing on PS4. More of a contrast thing between this game and the last entry.

I mean I guess mute the TV during it. I just tune it out I'm so used to it in action games and RPGs. I think this has been a thing in Tales games since forever and is common in ARPGs. For games like Xenoblade, it's kinda critical to hear it. So I guess either you get used to it or not.

So after watching that Ragnarok trailer again and hearing that this is going tie up the Norse gods story. Makes me really interested to hear more about it.

Like the significance of Tyr being alive, which could actually be the catalyst for Ragnarok - and the old tale of the giant/s acting vengeance on the Aesir gods. Which is ironic seeing Atrus sounds like they want to help the world from Ragnarok. Then you have Thor who sounds pissed (I mean who wouldn't be) after finding the two who killed your family and is seemingly egging on Kratos (who most likely knows his violent past). And Atreus foreboding horns (as Loki) in the beginning.. Who's a teenager now and seemingly been hiding out from the other gods and wants his father to take on upcoming war that could lead to Ragnarok. Which he's not keen to do after finding some sort of peace and solitude away from the god-hood and violent past, that he's now being dragged in again. And also the the prophecy laid at the end of the first game.

But yeah I really want to see Kratos go all out in this one. Thor is looking and sounding like he's going to be the strongest enemy Kratos has ever face and he is going to need to be is stronger than he's ever been. And seeing as he's confirmed strongest in GoW 4 (and that he's been holding back) a lot I really want him to do a 180 somewhat and go ham on Thor and possibly Odin. Can't wait to see the fight 1 vs 1 against Thor.

Where are you guys hearing this? It could certainly be the case given the game's title, but it always sounded to me like Odin was being set up as the big baddie of the Norse arc who we'd presumably face in a third game (Thor being this game's big foe).

https://www.thegamer.com/god-of-war-ragnarok-end-norse-saga/

There are quite a few articles covering that. I'm guessing they want to wrap it up here.. and move the series onto other mythos.

Like there are pointers that they could end up in Ancient Egypt or Japan - if we go by the tapestry in GoW ending.

FUD about the new PS5 SKU was much ado about nothing. It actually runs cooler where it matters (the APU):

Don't worry about which model you get.

Austin Evans videos are clickbait lol. And his 'testing' near useless. You don't just put a thermal camera behind a computer and judge its heat output on that. Adding to that, these consoles are designed to run identically to one another based on power limits not thermals, and in that video he shows he has no clue on how the PS5's APU works and goes onto spread misinformation. In fact, the way it uses more power when in use and less power in idle may be an indication that the new SKU may be improved somewhat.

Also the other video isn't that much better because they don't even put the thermal probes on the actual APU chip and only on the metal bracket (lol). If for some strange reason you do care for thermals, you'd be best off waiting for Gamers Nexus to do a test. Though tbh, the fud around is silly and they'll most likely perform very similarly -  and is a complete non issue. These consoles are designed with tolerances in check and I'm going to guess they kinda overdid the cooling solution with the original model.

I think only concerned trolls were worried.

Now that I've made some real progress and broken through the barrier, I'm kicking myself for having not played Ghost of Tsushima earlier. This game is amazing! While it certainly feels unfair at times (If the enemies decide to swarm you there's little to nothing you can do until you unlock smoke bombs, unless you are a god at timing and juggling abilities), the combat system is amazing! the graphics are outstanding! The art direction is seriously some of the best I've ever seen with some of the most memorable locales ever put in a video game...and I'm not even past the first section of the island! (There are three sections, not including the expansion).

it did take a LONG time to unlock most of the map and I am absolutely not looking forward to having to do it all over again on NG+ to get all the trophies, but the steady drip of getting resources, upgrading my skills and abilities, saving my people, expanding storage and resolve and health....it does a VERY good job balancing continued rewards and long-term goals.

Plus the story has hit me harder than I thought it would.

I've still got a LONG way left to go, but I definitely see this being a 9+ game from me. We'll see how that pans out.

Also, I had to lower the difficulty to normal or medium or whatever the 'base' difficulty is. Hard was regularly killing me way too quickly. I could do it but I really didn't want to die 20 times every time I tried to liberate a base. I don't even die that often on Dark Souls bosses.

**Edit** Oh, and as an aside, I find it funny that all the other games people talk about and how fast the load times are, I always found them to not be THAT impressive. I saw videos of Demon's souls loading times and found my console took about 5-7 seconds longer, making me think 'oh, the loading times aren't THAT impressive!'

But then I saw Ghost of Tsushima loading time videos and thought 'oh, those aren't that impressive', but then when I tried to fast travel it literally only took as long as it took to exit the menu.