TGO Daily | April 28, 2021 | New Pokemon Snap Reviews
+ Sony financials and Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition
TGO Daily | April 28, 2021
In The News
New Pokemon Snap
The review embargo has now been lifted for New Pokemon Snap — reviving the franchise from a twenty-two year absence.
If you’ve never heard of it, the concept is that you are a photographer being guided through various Pokemon worlds to snap high quality photos of them doing interesting things. Or, as Polygon explains, it “blends the excitement of going on a safari with the safety of a Disney theme park.”
The good news is that if you were a fan of the original game, you will be a fan of this one. From IGN:
If "Pokémon Snap, but more" were the baseline for New Pokémon Snap being any good, it would handily clear that simple bar with far more courses, available Pokémon, and possible photos than its decades-old parent managed.
Not only did they add more content, but they also added encouragements for players to re-play levels. Pokemon behaviours will change the more time you spend in individual levels, and they will give you quests to snap specific photos that might be hard to acquire.
There were some gripes with the game that were consistent across reviewers. One of them was that the scoring system is pretty inconsistent — identical photos could have completely different scores, without any indication of what differentiates them. The biggest complaint was that the replayability was also repetitive. From VG247:
You will regularly hit roadblocks where you’ve done everything the story requires but nothing else is forthcoming to progress – instead, you have to go back into levels you’ve already seen five or six times before and keep snapping photos until something triggers. The game isn’t forthcoming about what the next trigger will be, either – it keeps you guessing.
Overall, critics were happy with the game and recommended it — especially to people who enjoyed the first one. If the concept itself doesn’t appeal to you, then the game probably won’t change your mind.
New Pokemon Snap releases on the Nintendo Switch on April 30th.
Sony FY Financials
We heard from Microsoft yesterday, and we’re hearing from Sony today. They had their best fiscal year ever for their Game & Network division, which includes everything PlayStation, reporting revenues of $25 billion and profits of $3 billion.
Income was driven by strong software sales, and the PlayStation 5 which isn’t able to meet the demand of the market. They expect to have hardware shortages for the next year, though will be attempting to sell better than the PS4 had sold during the same time period.
Of the 338 million games that they sold on the PS5, 58 million of them were first-party titles. They say that they will be “aggressively” investing in their first party studios over the next year.
Free PlayStation Games
Sony will also be giving away Battlefield V for PlayStation 4 users, and Wreckfest for Playstation 5. All PS+ subscribers will be able to download the games during the month of May.
In case you missed it, you can also pick up Horizon Zero Dawn until May 14th.
Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition
4A Games have announced that an enhanced edition of Metro Exodus will be arriving on PC on May 6th. It will be a free upgrade for existing owners of the game — though it is not designed for everyone to play. This edition specifically targets higher visual fidelity by making use of Ray Tracing. As such, a Ray Tracing capable GPU is the minimum spec needed to play the game.
Great option for people who are able to run it.
The Grab-Bag
Sunless Skies enhanced edition releasing on current gen consoles for first time, and will be a free upgrade for PC owners
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