Category: Sony

PS5

PlayStation 5 covers

I don’t like the PS5 looks: the curves that mean I can’t stack it up nicely with other consoles in my collection, the white color (although I do have Wii and Dreamcast) and most of all, the “wings”.
Luckily, it supports replacing covers, and not only official once.
When I removed the original covers, I discovered a few of the legs were already broken, probably by the previous owner trying to clean the console.
While trying to replace the covers, I broke a fingernail, they are really tight. And then I discovered I bought covers for the Digital Edition, while I have the one with disc drive. So I had to remove them again and wait for the correct ones to arrive.
But now, I’m much more satistfied with how it looks and fits.

Soul Reaver

Completed Soul Reaver.
Had to look at the guide to figure out how to beat Dumah boss. All other bosses are fought in an enclosed arena, and you need to use environment against them. Here, you can leave the throne room, and he’ll chase you, barely. At first I thought it’s just a bug. Then I thought that maybe you need to lead him to his statue, but he wouldn’t follow. And if he disappears from your sight, he teleports back to the throne room, which reinforced the idea that’s where you need to beat him. But no, turns out you need to lead him through the entire level.
When people say that Soul Reaver story is great, they either mean that the dramatic voice acting is entertaining or that the overall story of the series is great. Because the story of the original Soul Reaver is bare bones.
The last temple was designed by someone who played Mario 64 too much. You need to rotate switches by running around them, over and over. I’m glad I’m playing with an analog stick.
We are also shown some glimpses from the future, where Raziel kills Ariel to get Sun Reaver and then stands with the red Kain Reaver.
The final boss is one of the easiest in the game: you just need to hit Kain three times, and then he escapes to the past through the time machine portal. So it’s not even a complete story, just half of it.

Tags Soul Reaver

PS4 PS5 Sony

Soul Reaver

After obtaining Soul Reaver, Raziel can finally stop lugging a spear around to dispose of vampires, as while in full health, Soul Reaver can do the same. Doesn’t remind of any other game series at all 🤡
Cathedral is the worst of 90s design. You solve a puzzle, and somewhere else a switch opens. And those puzzles aren’t difficult, but they have endless enemies to distract you as well.
The boss of this dungeon confused me, as I thought that you need to aim with the eggs when he attacks. Turns out, you just need to set the eggs on fire before throwing them.

What’s even more confusing is the entire magic system, which I found about only because I was very confused were to go after the Cathedral. So I ended up finding two spells tucked away in secrets, one of them behind a 6-crate puzzle I was sure I was solving in order to progress the plot.

The Big Reveal is that Raziel and other vampire princes were once human Sarafan, paladin vampire hunters.

The “water temple” is not as bad as the spider temple, but it has a lot of platforming, which is surprising, you’d expect there will be a lot of swimming, but you get the swimming skill only after you beat the boss by jumping on tiny platforms, falling from which means you need to jump 8 platforms back, over and over.

I also found the fire upgrade for Soul Reaver, which is nice, because it allows to dispose of vampires from a safe diatance. Less clunky combat is a good thing.

Tags Soul Reaver

PS4 PS5 PSX Sony

Soul Reaver

Soul Reaver wasn’t supposed to be set in Legacy of Kain universe at all. It just so happened that Amy Hennig, best known for Uncharted series, was helping with Blood Omen, and then decided that the best way for her idea to get approved is to shoehorn it into existing universe.
Another fact I didn’t know is that there are two versions of the game: PC and PSX have the same models, while Dreamcast had them reworked. Then there’s the remastered version from 2024.

At first I tried the original. I can see how this game is the precursor of the entire action adventure genre on PS2, with its acrobatics, almost mandatory finishing moves and gathering of souls out of dead enemies to replenish your health. Nowadays, though, it’s mostly unplayable, since it was designed before twin sticks became the norm. So camera is an issue.

And since the only way to permanently dispatch of enemies is to throw them at hazards such as water or sunlight, without second stick it becomes a pain.

And you can’t even look up or down. So Remaster it is.

I quickly discovered that the easiest way to dispose of vampires is to always carry a spear with you. Once you impale one, you can always reuse it.
Box puzzles are a genre staple. But it’s actually rare to see you are allowed to get boxes over obstacles and stack them to solve puzzles.

The game shows its age: the locations are pretty small to fit PSX memory, and the view distance, albeit better than in the original, is still quite limited. The blood effects are on PSX level as well. When you traverse corridors, camera follows Raziel closely, so you wouldn’t feel discomfort when you couldn’t control it.

Tags Soul Reaver

PSX Sony

Blood Omen

Completed Blood Omen.
I must give credit where it’s due, they actually managed to recreate a battle pretty well. Two or three full screens covered in red and white soldiers, actually fighting and killing each other, with the king fighting at the front.
Then we transported to the past, to kill William the Just before he became Nemesis (another “inventive” name). The nice play there is the huge statue. At first we pass by it standing, then in the past we see it half finished, then once we are back it’s shattered.
Turns out this was all Mobeius plan, so he could hunt all the vampires in present. Although I’m not sure how Nemesis prevented that, as Mobeius was also manipulating him.
The Mobeius fight is weird, because it’s almost the end of the game, and he sends a few whimpy villagers at us. Also, you need to be very specific where you step, or he wouldn’t open the gates to the next arena for you.
The necromancer that resurrected you turns out to be also the one who sent assassins after you, which makes no sense, as Kain was a random minor noble. You beat Mortarius once, he turns into a daemon with a single attack, you beat him again, and given a Dark Souls kind of ending, where you can either restore the world or take control of it.

This was one of the worst games I managed to complete without dropping. Probably the most annoying aspect is that Kain is useless without mana, as he can be easily interrupted or even stunlocked, but mana recovers slowly, and there are no mana potions, only this orb that gives you infinite mana, then brings you back to zero again.
But yeah, I wanted to experience it, I experienced it, it was bad, very bad. The constant need to switch between weapons through the menu, because with half of the weapons you can’t heal or cast spells. So you see an enemy, switch to single handed sword, cast shield, go back to the menu, switch back to two handed 🤦‍♂️.
The collision detection, the lack of feedback, you don’t know if you’re hitting someone or not, which is annoying especially with bosses, the visuals, everything is bad. Can’t recommend at all, even as a joke.

Tags Blood Omen, Legacy of Kain

PSX Sony

Blood Omen

Malek is killed offscreen in a cutscene, but you still pitted against two magicians at once. Not a bad idea, although the Druid just places water puddles, which is hilarious. I suspect that they rolled those bosses together due to time constraints, since when Kain brings their “mementos” to the pillars, he repeats “and the pillar accepted” three times in a row.
Because there’s no experience or currency in the game, fighting enemies is just a waste of time. Moreover, the further you get, the more annoying the enemies become, often stunlocking Kain with ranged attacks or poisoning him, while there’s a limited number of antidotes available. Kain has magic shield that completely negates ranged attacks, and mist form that ignores most melee attacks and floor spikes. Both require mana. If you don’t have mana, it’s best to wait around the corner for it to replenish, since enemies AI is lower that ghosts from Pac Man. They would literally try walking towards you through a wall.
The boss of the cathedral, Azimuth (sic!), is terrible. She fires homing missiles that have a knockback of a missile, and teleports before you even manage to get close. You just need to get lucky to hit her with the Soul Reaver, which you also get in the cathedral.

I found a way around slow menus: you can set CD-ROM speed to x8, which improves it by a lot. Setting CD-ROM to x16 breaks the game, though, menus stop opening altoghether.

Tags Blood Omen

PSX Sony

Blood Omen

Malek castle is quite terrible, but at least it has a point: there are no one alive, so there’s nowhere to get fresh blood. I’m lucky I stocked on healing items.
The fight with Malek is one of the worst boss fights I can remember. He has literally a single attack with windup.
I was puzzled at first that while using axes, Kain can’t cast spells. Are those anti-magic axes? No, turns out he needs a free hand.
First time I got really stuck was in Vorador’s Mansion. There’s a bridge where you aparently need to take control of a human, but how? Turns out you can walk on water in your mist form, which isn’t explained anywhere.
The Mind Control itself implemented very amateurishly. First, when you hit someone with it, their corpse sometimes appears. Then, you have to travel with the mind-controlled person between screens. But when Kain travels between screens, enemies respawn. So you can bump into “yourself” when you come back 🤡

I’m playing the PSX version, because I wanted shaders and save states. But it has its own problems. First, there are no subtitles, so you forced to listen to repetetive audio for any clues (although I think the subtitles in the PC version are a fan made patch as well). And second, each time you switch your weapon, it takes you to a loading screen, and each time you switch your form, the game just freezes for a couple of seconds. Annoying.

Tags Blood Omen

PSX Sony

Blood Omen

While people rave how good Legacy of Kain games are, I’m puzzled by how bad this game is. You have no indication if your hitting your opponents or not, no indication if people are hostile or neutral.
The intro is confusing: some vampire kills some mages, while a knight runs to save them? And that knight is either immortal or made into immortal as punishment for not saving them? Then some woman is stabbed? Then we play as another knight, that walks out of a tavern, gets killed, then is resurrected by a necromancer that descends into hell where he’s bound and pulls the sword that impaled him our of his back, which turns him into a vampire, although he doesn’t seem to be hurt by either sun or rain, despite saying he is.
Then you find 9 pillars, and a ghost of a woman that was killed in the intro tells you that each pillar is connected to a mage, and you need to kill all of them to restore balance.
What is this? Student’s project? Also, the writing:
“The wind was carrying screams from the west. I smiled. Someone was suffering more than I”. So edgy 🤡
At it’s core, it’s Legedend of Zelda. You get disposables, like shourukens, you get some spells, and you have different forms. Although one of the forms is basically just fast-travel, and one of the spells is basically return-to-checkpoint.
The first boss is environmental boss, I’m not even sure it has HP. It fires walls of projectiles at you, but some of them dissipate, so you need to dodge through the gaps multiple times to get to him. As a reward, you get a mace to break stones. Just like in Zelda games.

Tags Blood Omen

PS5 Sony

God of War 2018

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date March 29, 2026

I already tried to play God of War once, but dropped it quickly. It is clearly well made, but because of how well made it is it also feels slightly boring and sterile. Still, I’m glad they decided not to milk the Ancient Greece until the very end.
It’s a completely different game from the PS3 era, both in tone and mechanics. Some enemies are immune to your axe, so you have to stun them barehanded, then finish them off. I was also surprised that Kratos can die from a single blow, until I understood there is a level system, similar to looter/shooters. No matter how good you are at slashers, higher level enemies will be trouble.
Half of the time you spend solving “puzzles”, instead of beating enemies. Not like it’s a bad thing. Just different.

Tags God of War

PS2 Sony

Dead or Alive 2 Hardcore

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date March 2, 2026

I decided to refresh my memory on Dead or Alive 2 Hardcore, and it’s not even comparable to the Xbox version.

The thing that impressed me the most is the fact they created a whole new intro. PS2 version has none.

Tags Dead or Alive

PS5 Sony

Playstation 5

The strange benefit of a jailbroken PS5 is that at least at the moment, it’s the most convenient Jailbreak. PS4 requires USB drive and Internet connection, PS4 Pro requires Blue Ray disc, and all you need to jailbreak PS5 is to launch the app. It may change, though, as I fully expect that PS4 9.00 will get a permanent jailbreak at some point.
Installing PS4 games is as easy as on PS4, by using Package Installer from etaHEN menu. PS5 games are a different story. You need to install another app, Itemzflow, and the games are copied unpacked over FTP. In the meantime, the only PS5 game I managed to launch is Street Fighter 6, and honestly, I can’t see a difference from PS4 version. Demon’s Souls doesn’t launch, and I haven’t tried Last of Us 2 yet.
So at this point, PS5 is just a glorified PS4 Pro.

PS5 Sony

Playstation 5

Playstation 5 is a strange console, because Playstation 4 never fully left. Plenty have been said about that, too big of a customer base to stop making games, and too small of a technological leap for customers to upgrade. So after all those years, there’s just a single console exclusive game that’s worth mentioning: Demon Souls Remake. Everything else is either on PS4 or PC, or both.
So I’ll end up playing PS4 games on PS5.

PS5 Sony

Playstation 5

I’d be honest, I didn’t plan to buy Playstation 5. But once I got into hunting for jailbreakable Playstation 4 Pro, I discovered that Playstation 5 can be also easily jailbroken. The caveat is that, as usual, you need a low firmware, and you loose all your data, since the exploit comes within a backup.
I got an email from eBay saying that I have another hour to place my bid on this low-firmare console, I clicked without thinking much, because I didn’t expect to win, and here I am, with Playstation 5.
The first step is, as I mentioned, to restore from backup. Since I didn’t need to keep anything on the console, this was easy. Then you open the exploited YouTube app, that starts a server, and use Python script to inject two payloads, first JavaScript, then binary, which is the actual debug menu.
Because doing that would be a bit denuous, you then replace the exploited YouTube app with an even more exploited one, that does the injection by itself.
And here you have it, PS5 running FTP server and all that stuff.

PS4 Sony

Callisto Protocol Final Transmission

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date February 4, 2026

I decided to go back on my words and actually complete the only DLC for Callisto Protocol. I highly doubt I would have returned to it later, and if I did, I would have forgotten how to play the game anyway.
I decided to play it on PS4, because I didn’t want to buy it on PC.
I was complaining about unnecessary transitions on PC. On PS4 the loading times are so bad that sometimes the lift doors won’t open, because the level behind them is still loading, something that never happened to me on PC.
Because I can’t transfer my saves, I started with a default loadout. Which is, to be honest, fair. You get mostly upgraded shotgun, glove, and pistol, and you can pick up other weapons as you go. Worse off than if I could continue from my save, but it is what it is.
Jacob starts with light amnesia, for some reason. He also hallucinates Elias, the now dead cellmate, which didn’t happen to him in the original. There’s a “new” enemy: same robot with a flashlight, but this time covered it fungi.

Also, I guess because people complained about boring vent crawling, now they added traps inside the vents. Which only make them more annoying, as they do not save you before the vent. At least I was prepared the second time.
At some point you break your button and given a hamme, because developers couldn’t implement two melee weapons at once. In addition to being incredibly powerful in melee, it can also break crates.

Credit given where credit is due, they actually added an almost original boss. It’s obviously based on two-headed ogre, but it has also a ranged attack and a stomp, and transitions between melee and ranged forms. It’s actually better than the final boss from the original, in a sense.

Tags Callisto Protocol

Sony

Playstation 4 Pro

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date February 1, 2026

So I got myself another Playstation 4 Pro, with 12.52 firmware, and the BD with an exploit.
This was after I had a funny encounter on eBay. I’ve seen someone selling it for 100GBP, which is a great price nowadays. I bought it immediatelly, only for the seller to refund me and say that it’s not the final price, he doesn’t sell it without games, and the real price is 150GBP. I found another seller who was selling it at 120GBP.
The exploit is both easier and harder than the one for 9.00
On one hand, you don’t need to launch your browser and insert a USB, which I like. You don’t even need Internet connection.
But it is a race condition, so sometimes it fails, and you need to restart your console and do it again.

PSX Sony

“Why Nintendo Hates Fire Emblem’s Creator”

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date January 15, 2026

Didn’t know the original creator of Fire Emblem series released a Fire Emblem knock-off called TearRing Saga on PSX:

PS4 Sony

Playstation 4

Half a year ago I sold my “unhackable” Playstation 4 Pro 11.52 for 110GBP. And did I miscalculate.
Two things happened. First, now those are hackable up to 12.52. And second, the RAM price hike drove all the console prices up, even the older ones. Go figure.
In any case, if I wanted to get Playstation 4 Pro now, I would pay at least 150GBP.
Not that I need it. Or not that I can’t afford the price difference. But it is still quite wild.

PSX Sony

Ace Combat 3

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date September 26, 2025

Completed Ace Combat 3.
This wasn’t easy, but not because the game is hard. To get the True Ending, you need to beat all 5 scenarios, and save them on the same memory card. I didn’t know that, so I used two memory cards, and had to repeat at least one scenario. I was also afraid that I was missing some missions, due to the way save states and memory cards work in RetroArch. But it worked out in the end.
I know I complained a lot about boss battles in this game. But “Ouroboros 1” scenario is probably the best boss battle in the entire series. First, Rena goes crazy, and you fight Night Raven. Then Keith comes to your rescue and sticks his plane in Rena’s (Night Raven is like a biplane from WW1).

In the Fi/Neucom ending, Dision mentions Yoko, but we have no idea who she is. Turns out, she was a scientist and Dision’s lover that performed Sublimation on him. It’s not a concience transfer, but a concience copy. So when General blew Dision and Yoko up, Dision-clone could watch how his original dies.

Keith/General ending is surreal, and I say it after the cyberspace battle from Dision’s ending. You fight Rena after failing to collapse geofront ceiling on her and Dision. Keith is shot down, but not before he shoots down Dision too. Then you need to fight 8 more Night Ravens! But once you beat the first, you somehow hack it, and then pilot it for the rest of the battle. No explanation is given, and the cockpit is shown to be empty.

In Dision/Uroboros ending, Dision mentions Simon, but it’s not clear why. In the True Ending, we get an explanation, and it’s a good one. Nemo is a computer program (that’s why Rena at the very beginning asks you why do you fly just like her), and the purpose of that program was to erase Dision from cyberspace. And alternative scenarios are alternative paths that the program takes to erase Dision. Talk about breaking the 4th wall.

Ace Combat 3 story is not just unparalleled for a flightsim. It is one of the best storylines in games. Dision plot made me think of Soma (which I hated) and Tides of Numenera (which I’m fond of), while multiple conflicting storylines reminded me of Zero Escape games, which, when I think of it, also dealt with conscience transfer.

Tags Ace Combat, Ace Combat 3

PSX Sony

Ace Combat 3

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date September 23, 2025

Next I decided to go back and shoot down Fi and Clarkson, which took me to the UFEO scenario.
Park, the UFEO commander, is corrupt and working with Uoroboros to pit General and Neucom in order to eliminate both.
There’s an interesting twist in he mission where you need to bomb nanomachines: Rena’s plane gets infected, and you need to hit it with a freefalling bomb 😬

It’s explained that Dision onboarded Rena into an experimental program convincing her to install neurolink so she could pilot Night Raven. Then he was killed by General either because Neucom split or for another reason, but managed to preserve himself in Electrosphere.

He offers Night Raven to Rena, but she uses it to shoot the zeppelin out of the sky. She crashes, but survives to be picked up by Nemo (the protagonist) and Erich. The strange helicopter you blow in the English version turns out to be Park trying to flee.
This ending is much more positive, and also the entire scenario is easier: Su43 you get from UFEO is far better than the aircraft from Neucom, and there are no annoying boss battles or tunnel runs at all.

Tags Ace Combat, Ace Combat 3

PSX Sony

Ace Combat 3

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date September 21, 2025

At the mission where you need to escort the UN diplomat, Fi is onboard with him when you’re ordered to shoot the aircraft, because Clarkson is about to defect to Neucom. Rena doesn’t care, but Erich objects. Another choice.

Joining Neucom we’re introduced to Cynthia, Fi’s edler sister. Turns out she is a Neucom ace, and obsessed with “Sublimation”, or in other words transcending into cyberspace.

Another choice, either follow her and join Ouroboros, or stay with Fi and Neucom. I didn’t save that broad just to let her go! So I stay with Fi.

In the underground, we fight Rena, then Dision. Now at least I understand who I fought in the English version. And that’s it, end of Neocom scenario. No delirious fight in Electrosphere. I thought that fighting Dision for a second time would be better. It wasn’t.
Rena receives a message from her sister telling her that she’s happy in cyberspace. The end.

I mentioned that Ace Combat 3 was the longest Ace Combat I played, and now I understand why. They mashed together missions from different scenarios. So I didn’t get to blow a train or to fight a virus or to free a path for a falling zeppelin. A single campaign in the Japanese version takes under an hour, pretty standard for Ace Combat games.

Tags Ace Combat, Ace Combat 3