I cannot even begin to express my adoration towards Siegward of Catarina. Every time I meet him is a gift from the gods.
What are you Playing?
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Just started playing Ori and the Blind Forest.
My god, this game is gorgeous. And, honestly, kinda tough.
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Duke Nukem 3D just came out on the Switch for 5 bucks, so I've been playing that lately.
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Not playing anything currently, since I'm stuck out here on my second deployment.
Part of being in the service is being able to buy whatever game I want whenever I want, but never really having the time to play any of them like I should.
I have a huge backlog of games to get through (half new games, half wanting to revisit older games before moving onto their newer sequels)
My current list sits at 15 games. :sad: Maybe I'll have more time when I get to my shore command.
However, the last game I completed was Plague Tale: Innocence, and it was great.
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Over the last few months I've been playing:
Yakuza Kiwami: Everyone says this game isn't as good as Yakuza 0, and while I agree, the gap wasn't as large as I was afraid it was going to be. Haruka was surprisingly likable. A very good child character. I cry for Nishiki.
Death Stranding: Really unique and interesting game. Generally really great whenever you're just delivering packages, but mediocre whenever combat is involved (except the boss fight with Higgs, that was hype). Cliff was the best part of the story.
Finally, I'm currently playing Judgement (currently at chapter 5): Wasn't really feeling it at first, but eventually it clicked and now I'm having about as much fun as I did with the other Yakuza games I've played. I can see this one being my favorite by the end.
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WoW is in off-season, so I'm playing like 10 minutes a day instead of the usual 10 hours a day. Playing more Fortnite and Overwatch now til fill the multiplayer itch. Also rotating through my backlog on steam while I have the time. Currently working on: Bioshock, Tales of Vesperia, Oblivion, and Oneshot. Plan to play: RE2, Bioshock Infinite, maybe Berseria.
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Resident Evil 4 for the first time ever (gamecube version).
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New pile of things I've played/am playing:
! Dark Souls III: I finally finished both real Dark Souls games and it was a bumpy road. A lot of ups and downs in terms of my impressions. My unpopular opinion is that Dark Souls 1 is the best looking game in the series and 3 is the worst. It's not just the greyness that does it for me, but the amount of low contrast details in the environment make the game so visually confusing. The graphics are high quality, but a lot of the compositions hurt my eyes. The gameplay is a lot more fun than Dark Souls 1 overall and it has me really engaged in the combat in a way DS1 never did. I still have complaints about a lot of the bosses having gimmicks and setups that are kind of unfair (fairness in this case meaning you can reasonably deal with it within the first few attempts, which things like hard to read telegraphs hurt), but on a second playthrough they're almost all pretty fun to fight. I really got in the swing of the difficulty at a certain point. My proudest accomplishment is that I beat Nameless King on basically my first try (I lost the first attempt almost immediately vs phase 1 so I don't count it so strongly). Still, despite the battle improvements, the world is so much less engaging than Lordran. The linearizaton of the game contributes to this for sure, but what I dislike the most is having to warp back to Firelink to level up (I know 2 did this with its hub too but I hoped they had walked that back). It really just takes me out of the moment and makes it harder for me to connect with or care about the world. My overall impression of Dark Souls as a whole is that it's a series of games that is best enjoyed by people who already like Dark Souls. The game's combat, exploration and lore all have issues on first exposure, but gain a lot of value when you really know what's up with them. I'll be moving to Bloodbourne and Sekiro after a short break and I'm looking forward to them!
! Hylics 2: If you're the kind of person who likes Jodorowsky movies and "That Part of Youtube
" then boy is this the game series for you. I played the first game a while back after watching Vinesauce play it and it was a dip in a pool of mind blending psychedelia. Hylics 2, though, submerges completely in those waters. It is such a huge jump up in terms of production and quality that it makes the original look like a prototype. The sensory experience of this game is bizarre, unique and beautiful. The game itself is a turn-based RPG with overworld exploration that has just enough twists to keep the formula fresh. It's mostly there to deliver the rest of the experience, though, which must be seen to be believed. The battles skew to the more difficult side and the exploration can sometimes be confusing (esp in the 2D platforming segments) but the style and experience of it all makes the flaws worth sitting through.
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! Outer Wilds: Goddamn is this maybe my favorite game I've played in years? It feels so big and polished that in the middle I was questioning if this even was an indie game. It's a game of space archaeologist set in a small alien solar system filled with all sorts of mysteries to explore as you piece together the greater mysteries before the sun explodes, sending you back to the beginning of a Majora-esque time loop. I love the ways the game guides you without needing to guide you. You're free to explore everything from the beginning and any direction you go will have you finding interesting or important things, which give you clues pointing elsewhere in space, so you're hardly ever lost. From the beginning, you're armed with every tool you need besides the knowledge you'll learn as you explore, so there aren't really any dead ends. Space travel can feel wonky, but in a sorta realistic way and exploration is seamless without a need for loading screens. There's so much to appreciate and love about the game that I don't think is clear unless you're playing it, but if any of that appeals to you and you haven't checked it out, go in blind and you'll get an experience like no other.
3DS FC: 0662-3589-2887
NNID: Gibbs-free
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I finished playing Etrian Odyssey Nexus a few weeks ago. It's a very long RPG and very rewarding throughout the game. There's about 20 different classes with deep skill trees that were tweaked from earlier games. My favorite memory is unlocking subclasses and spending hours looking at all the combinations I could use. It was a work night and I was just about to go to sleep but I ended up staying up until like 3am or something just being overwhelmed by all the options. Not surprisingly, I didn't go to work that day. Probably not worth it, but that customization needed to be done that night apparently
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Fallout 2 is some of the most fun I've had playing a video game in a while.
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New pile of things I've played/am playing:
! Dark Souls III: I finally finished both real Dark Souls games and it was a bumpy road. A lot of ups and downs in terms of my impressions. My unpopular opinion is that Dark Souls 1 is the best looking game in the series and 3 is the worst. It's not just the greyness that does it for me, but the amount of low contrast details in the environment make the game so visually confusing. The graphics are high quality, but a lot of the compositions hurt my eyes. The gameplay is a lot more fun than Dark Souls 1 overall and it has me really engaged in the combat in a way DS1 never did. I still have complaints about a lot of the bosses having gimmicks and setups that are kind of unfair (fairness in this case meaning you can reasonably deal with it within the first few attempts, which things like hard to read telegraphs hurt), but on a second playthrough they're almost all pretty fun to fight. I really got in the swing of the difficulty at a certain point. My proudest accomplishment is that I beat Nameless King on basically my first try (I lost the first attempt almost immediately vs phase 1 so I don't count it so strongly). Still, despite the battle improvements, the world is so much less engaging than Lordran. The linearizaton of the game contributes to this for sure, but what I dislike the most is having to warp back to Firelink to level up (I know 2 did this with its hub too but I hoped they had walked that back). It really just takes me out of the moment and makes it harder for me to connect with or care about the world. My overall impression of Dark Souls as a whole is that it's a series of games that is best enjoyed by people who already like Dark Souls. The game's combat, exploration and lore all have issues on first exposure, but gain a lot of value when you really know what's up with them. I'll be moving to Bloodbourne and Sekiro after a short break and I'm looking forward to them!
! Hylics 2: If you're the kind of person who likes Jodorowsky movies and "That Part of Youtube" then boy is this the game series for you. I played the first game a while back after watching Vinesauce play it and it was a dip in a pool of mind blending psychedelia. Hylics 2, though, submerges completely in those waters. It is such a huge jump up in terms of production and quality that it makes the original look like a prototype. The sensory experience of this game is bizarre, unique and beautiful. The game itself is a turn-based RPG with overworld exploration that has just enough twists to keep the formula fresh. It's mostly there to deliver the rest of the experience, though, which must be seen to be believed. The battles skew to the more difficult side and the exploration can sometimes be confusing (esp in the 2D platforming segments) but the style and experience of it all makes the flaws worth sitting through.
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! Outer Wilds: Goddamn is this maybe my favorite game I've played in years? It feels so big and polished that in the middle I was questioning if this even was an indie game. It's a game of space archaeologist set in a small alien solar system filled with all sorts of mysteries to explore as you piece together the greater mysteries before the sun explodes, sending you back to the beginning of a Majora-esque time loop. I love the ways the game guides you without needing to guide you. You're free to explore everything from the beginning and any direction you go will have you finding interesting or important things, which give you clues pointing elsewhere in space, so you're hardly ever lost. From the beginning, you're armed with every tool you need besides the knowledge you'll learn as you explore, so there aren't really any dead ends. Space travel can feel wonky, but in a sorta realistic way and exploration is seamless without a need for loading screens. There's so much to appreciate and love about the game that I don't think is clear unless you're playing it, but if any of that appeals to you and you haven't checked it out, go in blind and you'll get an experience like no other.People drag on DS2 a lot but after replaying it a few times it has become one of the most unique to me. Not to mention the great DLC if you're playing the SOTFS Version.
Some bosses are defintely lacking, however and it may seem a little janky at first.
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People drag on DS2 a lot but after replaying it a few times it has become one of the most unique to me. Not to mention the great DLC if you're playing the SOTFS Version.
Some bosses are defintely lacking, however and it may seem a little janky at first.
I just really hated the feel of the game. I bought it for $10 so I figured I would take a chance on it and there are so many little things that add up, like the way that hits never sound like they connect, the absurd health pools of early enemies/bosses, the really tedious enemy placements, etc… I quit out when I fought the Pursuer, which was such a relentlessly boring fight that I couldn't deal with it. Matthewmatosis had a critique that the fights aren't necessarily hard, they're just so long and boring that it makes you want to take a shortcut and risk everything. When I saw further critiques of the game, it looked like the bad feelings I got from the beginning weren't going to get better throughout so I ditched it.
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DS2 is my least favorite Fromsoft game, hell I disliked it the first time I played it. Replaying it a second time made me get a new appreciation for the game. Yes it has a lot of flaws and doesn't feel or look as good as the other games (90% of the bosses are a joke). There's a lot of weird but interesting mechanics and level designs that are refreshing in their originality, ideas that disappointingly were never reused for the other games. Also it cannot be understated the improvements to the franchise the game brought, things like using multiple items, power stancing, not getting kicked to NG+ after beating the game and fashion souls. Also the DLC is all stellar with fantastic, non linear interconnected level design that I'd put on the level of DS1 (Also some of the best bosses in the franchise, Fume Knight, Sir Alonne, Sinh the Slumbering Dragon and the Ivory King.)
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As far as Dark Souls go, combat is the least interesting part to me. My major critique on the series is that difficulty and boss design are overrated in the series and lead to easily the worst moments in any of the games (not just because they're tough and induce salt in that way, but because of genuinely broken mechanics like the camera, lock-on, collisions/hitboxes, controls and poorly telegraphed attacks that you can't know how to deal with until they've killed you at least once). Considering Dark Souls 2 was largely made in the spirit of playing off the game's reputation for being difficult, it's no wonder I hated it almost immediately. It didn't really fix those issues because those were the franchise's bread and butter, and worked without much regard building the lore or exploration aspects up much. I can respect that 2 had some distinct locations, a cool hub, some streamlining and a few cool new ideas, but I have no patience for playing it at all. It also introduced the terrible mechanic of leveling up at the hub that apparently became standard in every subsequent From Software game and that is one major sin I cannot abide.
3DS FC: 0662-3589-2887
NNID: Gibbs-free
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As far as Dark Souls go, combat is the least interesting part to me. My major critique on the series is that difficulty and boss design are overrated in the series and lead to easily the worst moments in any of the games (not just because they're tough and induce salt in that way, but because of genuinely broken mechanics like the camera, lock-on, collisions/hitboxes, controls and poorly telegraphed attacks that you can't know how to deal with until they've killed you at least once). Considering Dark Souls 2 was largely made in the spirit of playing off the game's reputation for being difficult, it's no wonder I hated it almost immediately. It didn't really fix those issues because those were the franchise's bread and butter, and worked without much regard building the lore or exploration aspects up much. I can respect that 2 had some distinct locations, a cool hub, some streamlining and a few cool new ideas, but I have no patience for playing it at all. It also introduced the terrible mechanic of leveling up at the hub that apparently became standard in every subsequent From Software game and that is one major sin I cannot abide.
That actually started in Demon's Souls though. Dark Souls just skipped it.
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@TLC:
That actually started in Demon's Souls though. Dark Souls just skipped it.
Did it? Damn. I think it could be said that it makes more sense in Demon's Souls because of the game's structure, where each level's entrance is physically centered around the hub and there are no checkpoints, so you end up at the hub regularly, compared to the later From Software games, where you're often physically far from the hub but have to teleport back anyways. I guess I can't blame it on DS2, but it really shouldn't have been brought into games structured like their subsequent releases have been.
3DS FC: 0662-3589-2887
NNID: Gibbs-free
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I'm playing the Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town Remake on my switch.
It's good for nostalgia but I'm so sad because the art direction could be a lot better.
It's a hefty price though but I got it as a gift.
I don't know how long I'll last because I don't really like the cutesy chibi art so maybe I'll hop on to stardew valley or rune factory again. -
I recently platinum'd Spongebob Squarepants Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated. It probably is the game that started my interest in games in the first place as a kid, and back then I absolutely adored it. Now, almost 20 years later I must say: It's still fun, but nothing to write home about. If you're having no nostalgia for the game, I absolutely cannot recommend it. Getting every golden spatula is just so easy and all the though challenges I remembered as a kid are a cakewalk now - and if you don't have any problems with the difficulty anywhere the levels just feel very tiny. Best part of the game nowadays to me probably are the slides, beating Larry's time at Sand Mountain was probably the only thing I had a hard time with. Nonetheless, still got a good nostalgie kick out of it.
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Played through Outer Wilds as well. My brother did too and described it short and good. This is big scifi!
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I'm really looking forward to playing Ghosts of Tsushima after all of the reviews that have come out. I'll probably get it in a few weeks when i finish up a couple other games.
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Just finished the base game in DS III (I haven't read Wagomu's posts, wasn't sure if there were any spoilers), and oh boy, I'm in love with this game.
Whenever I plan on doing a second run, I'll definitely go the faith path. Those spells looked so sweet and awesome, I was green with envy with my measly blue sorceries.
Maybe when I finish the DLC-s (already started both, one semi-accidentally) I'll write my own thoughts and maybe compare with Wagomu's experiences.After the DLCs, I'll hop onto the first game I think. I'm curious how well I'll fare the second time. Last time I quit at Blighttown, I think.
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Playing Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, which I have to say is just a wonderful little game. It's on sale for Switch right now, so now would be a good time to get it.
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Been playing Bug Fables to get a taste of classic Paper Mario RPG combat. I went in expecting a more flawed, simpler experience, but my god this game is going the distance. I'm having tons of fun and am constantly surprised at how much there is to do.
Excellent, excellent game that I cannot recommend enough. Especially for fans of TTYD and Paper Mario 64.
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Just finished the first chapter of TLOU Part 2, so far so good and it is as tense and grim as I expected. Quick question if anyone that’s played it knows, can the clickers actually see you now? Cos I’m pretty sure they’ve been able to spot me a couple of times when I’ve been crouched and not moving at all.
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Slight spoilers concerning the Ashes of Ariandel dlc:
! Beat Friede.
! Fuck two stage bosses.
! This one was three stages. 3! I had to use a completely different weapon, because my spears were far too slow. Corvian greatknife +10, lightning gem, + I summoned a phantom. Only other boss I summoned one was with the Deacons and that was sort of just like "hey, I kinda remember doing this once in the first game, let's see what this is".
! This wasn't my favourite boss. Not at all. Even if I maxed Dex, this wasn't anywhere a fair fight to me.
! Will I ever have another Pontiff Sulyvahn, or Dancer boss? I liked those.
! This was more like the Twin Princes, only worse and +1 stage. -
Slight spoilers concerning the Ashes of Ariandel dlc:
! Beat Friede.
! Fuck two stage bosses.
! This one was three stages. 3! I had to use a completely different weapon, because my spears were far too slow. Corvian greatknife +10, lightning gem, + I summoned a phantom. Only other boss I summoned one was with the Deacons and that was sort of just like "hey, I kinda remember doing this once in the first game, let's see what this is".
! This wasn't my favourite boss. Not at all. Even if I maxed Dex, this wasn't anywhere a fair fight to me.
! Will I ever have another Pontiff Sulyvahn, or Dancer boss? I liked those.
! This was more like the Twin Princes, only worse and +1 stage.! Glad to know I'm not alone on Friede lol. After beating the games I dove into reviews and discussions and was surprised at the amount of people who were calling her a great boss. She combines a lot of the worst aspects of Dark Souls bosses: the multiple health bars makes it hard to properly pace the fight, the multiple phases makes it hard to learn, the second phase is a multi fight that's broken like other multifights but with more AOE attacks, and every phase - the third phase in particular - has hard to read tells that will kill you multiple times before you figure out how to deal with it. Phase 1 and 3 are okay to fight, but phase 2 is a shitshow wedged in the middle that ruins the experience as a whole.
! Difficulty is the most overblown part of the Dark Souls series imo and I do not understand fans that like bosses simply because they're hard. So much of the difficulty in the series comes from just bullshit that's hard to account for, especially in the first two games. 3 I think has the best fights in the series, but sometimes it still falls into the same traps as the other games. Friede is among the game's worst offenders.3DS FC: 0662-3589-2887
NNID: Gibbs-free
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! Glad to know I'm not alone on Friede lol. After beating the games I dove into reviews and discussions and was surprised at the amount of people who were calling her a great boss. She combines a lot of the worst aspects of Dark Souls bosses: the multiple health bars makes it hard to properly pace the fight, the multiple phases makes it hard to learn, the second phase is a multi fight that's broken like other multifights but with more AOE attacks, and every phase - the third phase in particular - has hard to read tells that will kill you multiple times before you figure out how to deal with it. Phase 1 and 3 are okay to fight, but phase 2 is a shitshow wedged in the middle that ruins the experience as a whole.
! Difficulty is the most overblown part of the Dark Souls series imo and I do not understand fans that like bosses simply because they're hard. So much of the difficulty in the series comes from just bullshit that's hard to account for, especially in the first two games. 3 I think has the best fights in the series, but sometimes it still falls into the same traps as the other games. Friede is among the game's worst offenders.! Yeah, the second phase was the most lackluster and I found myself being bored. I'm a hybrid battlemage thingy, and, when the fights allows, I can retreat a bit and shoot the boss from afar. Phase two was just going in circles, avoiding Friede's freezefloors and Daddy Ariandel's rampage. I ended up just going ham with it once I got Gael, because the dude was not big on surviving and it was faster dealing with phase two entirely in melee.
One thing I forgot to mention: the disappearing gimmick was pretty cool, because you could actually hear where she was if you have a good set of headphones and really concentrate on it.
! There are bosses I was fond of and never really raged over. I mentioned Sulyvahn and Dancer (both of which have pretty cool introductions), but I also enjoyed Lord of Cinders. I hated the Crystal Sage, but tried using Irithyl Frostsword on her and she was completely annihilated by that. I felt like I was cheating, lol. Deacons were a cool concept, I liked that I had to think a little and see what it was all about. I like that you had Siegward on your side with Yhorm (provided you helped him out a couple of times). Aldrich is the same as Crystal Sage, but I was able to beat him fairly quickly. Didn't like the fight though. The Twin Princes were an interesing concept, but the teleportation absolutely fucked me over. Vordt, Oceiros and Dragonslayer Armour and both Gundyrs were pretty standard and I had fun with them.
As for Nameless King, I kinda broke him, I think. I managed to land like a hundred shots on him while he was just casually walking towards me. I liked the second phase though, his attacks seemed a lot clearer and more manageble that Friede's. The first phase and the camera angles, well, yes… I liked the concept, but the implementation left a lot to answer for.
The demons were pretty forgettable to be honest. Easy with some sorcery too. Although I still have to defeat the two demons in Ringed City...
Almost forgot the tree with the testicles and Wolnir. Treedude was weird, but pretty standard too. Once I got the hang of it, it was pretty straightforward. Wolnir was a fun introduction, but nothing extraordinary, once you figure out to hit the shiny parts.
! Also, fuck deathquotes by enemy bosses. Hearing them for the thousandth time is jarring to say the least (looking at you, Lothrick and Friede). -
! Yeah, the second phase was the most lackluster and I found myself being bored. I'm a hybrid battlemage thingy, and, when the fights allows, I can retreat a bit and shoot the boss from afar. Phase two was just going in circles, avoiding Friede's freezefloors and Daddy Ariandel's rampage. I ended up just going ham with it once I got Gael, because the dude was not big on surviving and it was faster dealing with phase two entirely in melee.
One thing I forgot to mention: the disappearing gimmick was pretty cool, because you could actually hear where she was if you have a good set of headphones and really concentrate on it.
! There are bosses I was fond of and never really raged over. I mentioned Sulyvahn and Dancer (both of which have pretty cool introductions), but I also enjoyed Lord of Cinders. I hated the Crystal Sage, but tried using Irithyl Frostsword on her and she was completely annihilated by that. I felt like I was cheating, lol. Deacons were a cool concept, I liked that I had to think a little and see what it was all about. I like that you had Siegward on your side with Yhorm (provided you helped him out a couple of times). Aldrich is the same as Crystal Sage, but I was able to beat him fairly quickly. Didn't like the fight though. The Twin Princes were an interesing concept, but the teleportation absolutely fucked me over. Vordt, Oceiros and Dragonslayer Armour and both Gundyrs were pretty standard and I had fun with them.
As for Nameless King, I kinda broke him, I think. I managed to land like a hundred shots on him while he was just casually walking towards me. I liked the second phase though, his attacks seemed a lot clearer and more manageble that Friede's. The first phase and the camera angles, well, yes… I liked the concept, but the implementation left a lot to answer for.
The demons were pretty forgettable to be honest. Easy with some sorcery too. Although I still have to defeat the two demons in Ringed City...
Almost forgot the tree with the testicles and Wolnir. Treedude was weird, but pretty standard too. Once I got the hang of it, it was pretty straightforward. Wolnir was a fun introduction, but nothing extraordinary, once you figure out to hit the shiny parts.
! Also, fuck deathquotes by enemy bosses. Hearing them for the thousandth time is jarring to say the least (looking at you, Lothrick and Friede).! I went melee only build with a +10 Claymore, so phase 2 Friede involved a lot of committing to attacks on one that a split second later end up wrong because of the other's AOE. Even when I beat the fight, I think phase 2 came down to luck. Almost every multi battle in Dark Souls is bad. Dark Soul's gameplay involves a lot of slow action and input buffers in order to make you fight deliberately and attack only when it is safe. With multi-bosses, you need to wait for safe zones with each boss to attack, which can take a while. Not only that, but if one of them ends up out of view then there's no telling how safe actions you take against the other are. Sometimes you think you're in a safe zone, commit to an attack and the within the attack from the other winds up an attack that you can no longer dodge. It makes multi battles slow, unpredictable and deadly. I'm in the camp that O+S is one of the worst designed fights in all of Dark Souls.
! That said, Dark Souls 3 got the closest in the series to some acceptable multi fights. Deacons were overly easy (my build mowed them down super fast), but like you said it was an interesting concept. The Abyss Watchers are great because the multiple element serves an interesting narrative purpose and to an extent works against the boss instead of just against you. Crystal Sage is a little easy with the right loadout, but she got to use her clones more effectively than Pinwheel, her attacks are slow and numerous enough to be challenging but not overwhelming, and if they get overwhelming you can attack the clones. Sulyvahn was the best of the bunch, with a clone that works in a predictable way with the main body and can be dispatched without an unfair amount of effort.
! As for the other fights, I agree with your evaluations. I hated the Twin Princes and they almost made me quit the game, not because it took me so long to get past them but because I thought that the teleportation was so unfair. In retrospect you can learn to deal with it without too much trouble, but it's still unfair in the sense that you can't know that without dying a few times to it. That and his big windup teleport attack makes you waste time looking for him and could almost one-shot me so I had to get killed by it a bunch to learn the timing. Nameless King I felt super proud of because I beat him first try (minus a single attempt before where I died pretty quickly to phase 1), with a sliver of health remaining and no more estus. With Yhorm I am so glad I went out of my way to save my boy Siegward because I would have had no clue how to beat the fight by myself. I did a victory lap of the gamin in NG+ and I still couldn't figure out how to use the secret weapon correctly. Outside of the Princes, Friede, the Lord of Cinders and one of the Ringed City bosses, I think I beat each boss within 10 tries? That's a good level of difficulty to be at. And at least it's fair for the Lord of Cinders to take more, because he is the last boss and really just takes time to figure out his many many patterns/attacks.
! I'll be curious to hear your opinions on the Ringed City bosses! -
On a whim I bought and played through Paper Mario: Origami King. My conclusion is that it is definitely better than Sticker Star and Color Splash, maybe on par with Super Paper Mario? But it's held back by a bad combat system, slow unskippable dialogue, tons of handholding, frustrating mandatory minigames and a bad main partner character. Otherwise it has a lot of cool set pieces, fun adventure elements and an excellent soundtrack that kept me engaged. I'd say overall the chapters/settings were maybe better than the SPM ones, with the caveat that they have less interesting stories. The things bosses I don't think were even that bad? I mean it's still frustrating that they refused to design them and their personalities/characters sometimes feel out of place, but they get good buildups and two of them do fun things with the designs.
Overall I'll probably never return to this because the frustrations make the game feel pretty slow, but I think it deserves some credit for getting way closer than either of the previous two entries. Also the soundtrack has some bops!
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I'm playing System Shock 2 for the first time.
It feels like someone grafted Resident Evil and Metroid Prime together (or rather looking back it's clear some people at Retro were huge fans of this game).
About the only complaint I have is the character models suck, otherwise this really deserves it's reputation.
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So I beat Dark Souls 3 with all the bosses and dlcs.
I will perhaps write a longer, better organized post about everything, so here I'll be just talking about the DLCs themselves.
! Both were pretty nice and I enjoyed their close connections to the main story and its characters.
! Ashes of Ariandel:- I'm currently sort of "researching" Pontiff Sulyvahn with all of the available in-game stuff (item descriptions, mentions etc) and I was surprised to read that he was actually born and raised inside the painting;
- at first I had the impression of a "token map influenced by Northern mythology" but I actually didn't mind this time;
- despite being a snowy wasteland, I found the environment beautiful especially the depths (it was weird seeing the craps though);
- the assasin-style enemies with the claws and the hoppity-jumpy fight-style were refreshingly different, and I even laughed a little when I tried taking two of them down from a ledge with sorceries and one just jumped and killed me (I lost like 30k souls there that I wasn't able to recover);
- the bug enemies can die in a fire, yuck;
- I love how when the game tells me to turn back, I relentlessly forge onwards (and die like a hundred times for my intrusion);
! Now onto the bosses: as far as I know, this one had two. Friede and the Gravetender
- Gravetender was interesting. Most of the bosses are ten-times the Ashen One's size and aside from the NPC invasions, it's rare to fight someone my own size. By this point, I knew there would be a change mid-hp, so the wolf didn't come as a surprise. The Gravetender himself was easy enough, I outranged him with my Lothrick Spear. Against the wolf, I was able to use the pillars, and it actually worked. Sometimes, especially Lothrick Knights, love to strike me through solid stone pillars~
- Friede, yea, I already talked about her. Incredibly annoying phases, with the last one being horrendously hard for me, because I was basically unable to use the mage part of my battle mage. Phase one is solid enough, although sometimes my rolling would be ineffective and she would have me on the end of her scythe. Phase two is boring and repetitive with Great Heavy Soul Arrows; just go round and round and hit the Father. Phase three… oh god. The relentless assault, the constant jumping around... Even with the Phantom of Gael, it was incredibly hard and it felt unsatisfying. Not a good boss.
! Ringed City:
- Dreg Heap was a nice wasteland (as wastelands go);
- I literally didn't notice the turtle grandma until like the 100th time;
- I liked Lapp, but I messed up his storyline and he attacked me, sadly. More content for the next playthrough though~
- The Ringed Knights were punishing and hard as heck sometimes;
- Whoever invented curse can recieve a slap on the head. Unfun mechanic that I hated in Dark Souls 1 and was glad wasn't that used in the main game in DS3. Even when it appeared, you could easly dodge and avoid the fumes, but in Ringed City, they only had to look at you for the curse to start stacking and needless to say, I wasn't a fan.
! Now onto the bosses:
- Demons: of course this was another two-stage bossfight. First stage was nice enough when the rng gods favored me and didn't make both demons rampage at once while I was in their faces. Second stage though, Demon Prince annihilated me. I pussied out and was really burnt out from Friede so I summoned Lapp and Gael and rushed the whole bossfight. The boss suffered from both the Two-Stage Madness and Double Trouble and this combination made it severly unfun. If it was only one stage, I would've liked it, I think.
- Halflight: pretty easy, once I figured out I should stay away when he initiated the samurai sword stance thingamagig. Overall I had fun, but it wasn't really a fight that elevated my pulse to the levels of, let's say, Dragonslayer Armour.
- Gael: so I messed up the order, and killed Gael before Midir thus dooming Lapp I guess (I will find out in my second playthrough). Now Gael was an incredibly fun boss for me. Even though it thecnically had 3 stages, they felt more akin to the two stages of Pontiff, Dancer and basically any main game bosses aside from the Twin Princes and the Lord of Cinders. I tried a couple of things with him, but the winning strategy was a Crystal Weapon enchanted spear in stage one and Great Heavy Soul Arrows in phases two and three. His moveset was much easier to get a good grip on than Friede's and I was able to pinpoint the danger zones easily. I died a lot though, but I never got so frustrated as with Friede and Lothrick. Stage 1 was tricky sometimes, because I got gready and wanted to land one more hit and got punished, but with patiente, I even managed to not get hit a few rounds. Stage 2 was the easiest once I adapted a mage-y stategy of staying at a safe distance and dodging his bolts and miracle discs. Stage three offered much less room for landing the shots and I felt it was a real endurance fight.
Overall, a very satisfying boss that will go onto my favourites list just below Pontiff I think. - Midir: now this is more like dragon slaying than anything Skyrim could offer. Now I truly felt I was fighting against a mighty beast. It helped that there were no ledges for easy one-shot loune-attack kills. Overally pretty enjoyable and kind of on the easy side, because I had pestilent mist and once I figured out his movesets and the best time to get under him and cast my spell, it all came down to correctly reading his intentions and dodge accordingly. The one-hit death laser hurt though. I wish I found him earlier so I could see what the Lady behind the closed door said (who asked me to kill Midir in the first place and whom I killed after Gael).
! On my next playthrough I will try and beat those bosses I summoned phantoms to without phantoms (Friede, Demons and Deacons), and I'll be looking forward to see how a faith-based battlemage will fare against them.
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Finally, after playing the game on and off for the last few years and crafting some op weapons from my old stash, managed to beat every single level of Kid Icarus Uprising on 9.0 intensity.
Eat your heart out Hades.
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Been playing Bug Fables to get a taste of classic Paper Mario RPG combat. I went in expecting a more flawed, simpler experience, but my god this game is going the distance. I'm having tons of fun and am constantly surprised at how much there is to do.
Excellent, excellent game that I cannot recommend enough. Especially for fans of TTYD and Paper Mario 64.
Glad to hear this game is good. Got it last night and I’ve only heard great things so far.
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@Capone:
Glad to hear this game is good. Got it last night and I’ve only heard great things so far.
It was 10% off on the Switch eShop so I got it earlier this week. Definitely on a par with the first Paper Mario but, at least of the second chapter, not quite up to The Thousand Year Door's standard. That's no bad thing, mind you, and gives me more to look forward to since I don't know what to expect in the upcoming chapters.
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Over the last few months I've been playing:
[…]
Judgement (currently at chapter 5): Wasn't really feeling it at first, but eventually it clicked and now I'm having about as much fun as I did with the other Yakuza games I've played. I can see this one being my favorite by the end.
Finished it and, yeah, I loved basically everything about this game. Might even be a top 10 favorite game, or at least very close. I've still got some side content to chip away at while I'm also playing…
Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin: So far so good. I've heard that this game has a lot of annoying enemy layouts of melee focused characters, so I've decided to try a Sorcery build. I'm glad I did because it makes it feel distinct for my DS1 Tank character.
That said, if the rest of the game is like No Man's Wharf then, uh, I don't know how I'm gonna feel about this by the end.
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Currently playing Sekiro again.
I love this game so much, I usually don't get that much into combat, but here…chef's kiss. Is there any other move in a video game that is as satisfying to do than the Mikiri counter?
While currently playing I attained the Shura ending with Emma & Isshin being pretty rad bosses and then went on to my old file to finally beat Owl (Father), which was tough as nails but in comparison to other hard games not even remotely that frustrating. -
So I'm playing Dark Souls II…
! The game wants me to believe, that 20+ rats is a perfectly legit bossfight.
! No.
! I can see why this one isn't as well-liked as the other two. -
Not sure how many of you would be interested, but the first Higurashi novel is free on Steam right now. Also I guess I'm 'playing' that.
The executioner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg9XPcPKYAQ
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The saga of Nolus and Dark Souls II continues:
! First off, why is there a boss named Dragonrider with no dragon under its sorry hiney and why is there more of this sad excuse for a boss in the game?
! So I've reached a point where I was having less fun with the game than finding various bits of furniture with my toe at night, so I respecced and got myself a weapon with a reach longer than the length of my nose. A halberd to be exact. I also reinforced and infused it for good measure. I've also given up on keeping my equip load under 50% for those fast/medium rolls, because I've given up on solely relying on my ability to consistently dodge anything, and dressed up as a Faraam Knight (awesome looking armour, and I like the colours).
! I've also, ugh, farmed a few hours. So I leveled up some, and also got some new miracles from various places.
! Today I also tried out the rapier, to have something faster and less swingy for situations where my dear halberd proves inefficient. I can also attack with both of them from behind a shield, that I also equipped so I can block in lieu of rolling and still getting hit.
! With these changes and some subtle tweaks to my mentality, I've started to enjoy the parts of the game that are actually enjoyable.
! I'm currently at the Shrine of Amana, and I know I'm going to soon regret my previous statement. I've heard stories and I'm not looking forward to experiencing one of the worst parts of the game.
! It looks pretty tho, I'll give you that. -
Started over on Super Mario Odyssey. Somehow feels more fun this time around even though I've already beaten it. That's pretty rare.
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Beat the main mission in Dark Souls 2:
! While I appreciate duo bosses not being horrendously overpowered and difficult, having a health pool the equivalent of that of a goldfish makes beating them less satisfying than farming basic mobs.
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Beat the main mission in Dark Souls 2:
! While I appreciate duo bosses not being horrendously overpowered and difficult, having a health pool the equivalent of that of a goldfish makes beating them less satisfying than farming basic mobs.
Hey, now you can start the DLC, which are the highlight of the game.
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Just burned my way through Doom 2016 and am now playing Doom Eternal. I love how much depth and customization the sequel added. These games are unholy amounts of fun.
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Why is the DLC of Dark Souls 2 actually good? I mean, I'm genuinely having fun. Backstabbing is still broken, and enemies like to disregard walls whilst hitting me, but the exploration is interesting and there's hardly any bloody spambushes.
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I finished up Bloodborne the other day.
! Overall a very solid From Software game that I enjoyed with some caveats.
! Big problems out of the way first: the blood vial system sucks. Having a limited inventory of them is exactly the problem that turned me off of Demon's Souls initially, and it made some bosses a pain to retry. I had at least two instances of running out of vials, after which I learned to just spend a bunch of time grinding and not enjoying the game in order to beat it. Also, there was no reason for the bonfire/lantern system to be revised so that it doesn't heal you/respawn enemies when you touch it.
! My last big problem is that, out of all the From Software games, I felt the least invested in anything that was going on in this one. The setting is really cool, and the hook is fantastic, but the narrative direction of the game is so messy that I never had a great idea of what I was doing or what was happening other than 'move forward to continue.' I never had any clue where in the game I was and I flat out had to have a friend tell me what the end of the game was and that I could do it after beating the wetnurse. It's not like the other From games are less cryptic, but they at least give you a direction you can latch onto as a player. In Dark Souls 1 it's ring a bell, find the lordvessel, beat the lords and become the flame (or refuse). In Dark Souls 3 it's return the four lords to their seats and keep the flame going. In Bloodborne it's go fight things until the game says stop. I've read the plot/lore since and it doesn't really excuse the lackluster game pacing, since I don't think it serves Bloodborne at all that the progression is a mostly linear path. I think Bloodborne would have worked a lot better with either an interconnected DS1 type town whose true depths you open up over time, or a bunch of separate zones where you're tasked with hunting the monsters that infest them. The linear path just made me feel like I was going nowhere in particular and nothing of relevance was happening.
! All that said, the places where the game succeeded for me was its impeccable visual design, its streamlined item management and its fun combat. The gothic horror style is striking and some of those bosses are just so visually cool. Special mention goes to Mergo's Wetnurse who, I know is disappointing to some people, but I love her impossible faceless, slithering design. Ludwig was great, too, being a hideous abomination drawing out the last shred of his humanity. The landscapes and lighting help immerse you into that classic monster movie gone wrong feeling, especially how great the moon looks in contrast to the dark environments. The battle arenas for Gehrman and Orphan of Kos are gorgeous and atmospheric and only get outdone for me by DS3's Nameless King and Gael arenas.
! I love that the weapons/armor are compressed in function/utility, making it easy to essentially wear and use anything you want. There's no weight system and heavy/light weapons are the same weapons, so experimenting with the combat is a lot more encouraged. Even though I didn't really switch from the hunter's axe, being able to change to light attack mode =mid-battle made combat feel a lot more interesting. Plus, the feeling of shortening the axe to pull out the torch when entering dark rooms always feels so badass.
! Speaking of badass, the combat in this game is some of the most fun I've played yet from a From game. I know DS3 took inspiration from this, and I'd consider it more polished in some regards (the worst thing about Bloodborne combat is that the hitboxes are not always readable, which is a thing DS3 fixes), but the Bloodborne combat is pretty close. Now I'm a pretty dumb muscle player for these games, so I stuck to rolls only, no guns, big axe most of the time, but I loved the feel of movement and attacks, especially the charged up heavy attacks. They just feel so chunky when they land. The boss fights, while easier than DS3, have a fun flow to them. My favorite fight was probably Maria. I know she's easier if you actually parry, but because I didn't I really had to get the dodge times down, and it hit a fun and challenging groove by the time I beat it. One small thing that I really appreciated in Bloodborne compared to Dark Souls 3 was that multi-phase bosses never swapped out health bars. It annoyed me a bunch in DS3 because I'd be managing my estus based on the health bar, get down to none and then a boss's second phase would come out of nowhere. Having a single health bar made the toughest fights challenging, but less frustrating. Like naked shrimp man is considered one of the hardest bosses in all of Soulsborne, but he felt a lot more manageable to me thanks to knowing that I just had a little more to push through once he moved onto the squidier phase. My only complaint is how Gehrman/Moon Presence have to be the last fight, because they're so easy by the time you beat the DLC.
! Overall a really enjoyable game. If it was structured better, it might have topped DS1 for me. As is, I'd rank DS1>DS3>BB>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>DS2 so far. -
Sekiro probably did healing the best. A more limited number of heals but they regenerate, and you can increase the total over time by finding/earning items. And there are some skills that can also boost healing efficiency. Probably my favorite setting and story as well, if only because I'm sick of grimdark gothic/medieval settings and I pretty much loathe the sparse indirect storytelling. Sekiro fixes both of these without making it bland or straightforward either.
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I finished Dark Souls 2 for all intents and purposes. I say this, because I didn’t actually kill all the possible bosses, nor do I really feel I’ve reached completion, but I don’t see the point of seeking out another three or four optional bosses that are probably not worth the trouble anyway.
Warning: wall of text ahead.
! A mess is the word I’d use to describe this game in a single word. I started it with the knowledge that this might be the worst out of the three installments and that it’s reception is very divisive to say the least. I tried to keep an open mindset and so I fired up the game and the first impression was…
That’s an awfully long and uninteresting cutscene that told me absolutely nothing of the world. It focused heavily on you, the character that’s very different from the other two games where the first cutscene aims to paint a picture of the world, give a bit of a backstory and offer a sneak-peak into who you’ll end up meeting/fighting. The problem with this is at this point, I haven’t even made my character, yet the cutscene implies a lot from the get-go with the picture of a wife and child. One could argue that it was just an example and not directly related to our character but even then it was unnecessary in my opinion.
! Fine, moving on, I could already feel the controls being a little more floaty than I’d like, but no worries, I’ll get used to it. I started as a cleric, so I had a mace and I instantly took a liking to how my character was wielding it. Felt much cooler than my pyromancer mechanichally hacking away with an axe in DS1.
! Forest of the Fallen giants goes by fine enough, and so we come to the second boss, the Pursuer. Big floaty armored dude with a lot of unused weapons on his back. My mace does a fine amount of damage to him, I can easily roll-dodge his attacks and where did half my HP go? Maybe his red visor is draining it? Do I have to beat him in a certain timeframe?
! No, it turns out, when I dodge-rolled one of his attacks, I didn’t really dodge it according to the game. Before going into the whole agility/iframes debate, this already presents a glaring gameplay issue, namely not clearly indicating that I took a hit. I honestly can’t remember ever wondering when I lost HP in the other two games. In DS2, I constantly had to be on the lookout, eyeing my healthbar to see if I had to heal or not.
! Now onto the agility thing… Whilst fighting the Lost Sinner, I became increasingly frustrated with not being able to dodge some of his attacks even though they were clearly telegraphed and I felt I reacted accordingly. My friend informed me to dump a few points into adaptability, because less than 105 agility (an attribute scaled by maxing adaptability) means less iframes than what was available from the get go in the other two games. Some people like this change, I think it’s horrible. One thing I like about Dark Souls is that you can technically beat the whole thing without levelling (SL1 runs). Leveling and updating your gear just makes it somewhat easier and it allows you to get by with a few mistakes instead of basically necessitating a perfect run. Dodge-roll is a big part of that. Someone argued that the introduction of agility makes it easier to distinguish between agile, quick assassin characters and heavily-armoured knight-like ones. Equip load already does that, since the heavier your gear, the slower your animation, the less your iframes and the shorter the distance your travel with rolling. Agility just forces you to dumb your early points into one stat unless you give up on rolling (like I did for the most part) and equip a shield because it’s much more reliable and easier to read.
Another problem I encountered fairly early on, is that I literally hit enemies out of reach with consecutive attacks. I would hammer away at a foe and realize my second, third and fourth hit only reached empty air, and then I’m out of endurance and the enemy pummels me back. It’s one thing having different reach with different weapons (which is a good thing btw), it’s something else to be forced to pause your attacks to move closer to the enemy between every attack.
On top of it all, I regularly found myself wrestling with the controls especially with my run button. I play with a fairly beat-up xbox controller so at first I thought it was just getting old and faulty, but I saw others having the same problems. Neither DS1 nor DS3 had these issues, at least not in these proportions (DS1 had some janky controls, but not outright unresponsive).
! NPC invasions broke me. It was in Iron Keep, with Armourer Denis where I seriously considered dropping the game altogether. Invasions in the other two games happened only when you either gained back your humanity (DS1) or were embered (DS3) so if you were having a rough time, the game didn’t punish you unnecessarily. DS2 seems to revel in punishment and fucking with the player, so even if you have reduced max health from dying a couple of times, you get ganked. And these npc-s are relentless and incredibly unfair. They come at you with infinite stamina, stunlocking attacks or hyper-armor ultra-greatswords that effectively oneshot you. All the while you’re probably already spammed with the regular enemies of the area and are trying desperately to survive.
After trying to beat Armourer Dennis at the Iron Bridge, I noticed that one of the regular enemies seemed to have disappeared. I asked my friend and he told me enemies disappear after you kill them 10 or so consecutive times. My first thought was, damn, I died that many times here? Then it hit me. So firstly, the game spams me a hundred enemies, adds in an npc that has infinite stamina and an arsenal of spells and a sword and shield, and then has the audacity to take away the enemies and simultaneously robbing me of getting over these insurmountable odds. I know this sounds very oxymoronic (or just moronic), but it truly made me feel utterly disrespected as a player. Each games had some unfair areas and challenges that tested my patience, but fighting through the bullshit at least left me satisfied to have beaten the obstacle put before me. DS2 takes it away from you while upping the ante on the bullshit factor by a hundred.
! These are my main gripes with the game and sadly, these define the whole experience for me.
! For the sake of not being all negative about it: the weapon variety is pretty great; some of the areas are beautifully done, as well as the animations; the Eleum Loyce dlc is well-done and only minimally frustrating and has the best moment of the entire game:
Maldron the Assassin. I explore a building and happen upon this white phantom looking guy who waves and beckons at me. I’m a little suspicious, but seeing as he behaves peacefully, I go on my merry way. I pull the lever and immediately get impaled on his lance. After respawning, I go back to where I first saw him, and sure enough, there he is, waving at me amicably. Having learnt my lesson, I take the chance to attack him first and get my revenge. He initiates turbo-mode and runs away. I follow close behind. I lose sight of him, but can hear the telltale sounds of estus-drinking, so I proceed. There he is, but not alone. A slightly whiter Covetous Demon emerges, and I find myself outnumbered. I focus on the demon, slowly chipping away his hp. At one point, it eats me and spits me out naked. I panic and start frantically punching the beast with my bare fists and manage to down it, but without any weapon, succumb to Maldron. I finally got him the third time, but boy, was the whole thing entertaining and funny.That’s about it, really. Wouldn’t wholeheartedly recommend the game to anyone.
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The Sinking City bundle is on sale til just after the weekend on Switch. I'm debating whether to get it. Metacritic's score isn't filling me with confidence, though. Anyone have any opinion on the gameplay? Though I can't help but wonder if a sale like that, or better, might happen again around Black Friday.
