Bjomesphat

I dunno, a 60 hour metroidvania sounds miserable. Hollow Knight wore out it's welcome after 20 hours. I feel like I'm more likely to play Ender Lilies than this.

The allure of the game to the wider audience was its unrelenting difficulty and kind of the status that came with beating it. Yes the game design is immaculate and its greatest strength, but I don't think it gets the same reputation and cult following if you take away the difficulty.

Yeah I probably will. I really don't care that much about this stuff.

I kind of just wish there was a way to prove you’ve given these games a fair shake before you’re allowed to lower the difficulty. I feel like once you have the option, most people will take that option due to lack of patience, whereas without the option the game forces you to accomplish something you didn’t think you could. I’m only half serious of course because I truly don’t care how people play their games, but I do appreciate the games force you to go beyond yourself, but I do feel for those that just can’t overcome the challenge.

Maybe in a game like Sekiro there’s a level of inherent skill required because there’s literally nothing you can do to make the game easier other than playing exactly how the game requires you to play. But for the other From Souls games, there’s always ways to make the game easier, and there’s often a fine line between a healthy challenge and completely trivializing the game. And unfortunately, there’s been quite a few times I’ve trivialized a Souls game and it kind of ruins the experience. Zelda easy is still a fun time, but Souls easy is just boring.

I certainly prefer games that have a singular difficulty and are specifically tuned to that. And I definitely prefer that Souls games take this approach too. I like that there’s a shared community experience that every single player can relate to. One thing I firmly believe is that Dark Souls saved the direction the industry was going in, and that has 100% to do with no compromises on the difficulty. Dark Souls became a huge success because overcoming the challenge became a feat that people strived for. With a difficulty slider, I don’t think this happens and I don’t think we have as much acceptance in the industry now to letting the player experiencing failure. I will say, no matter how much you think these games are too hard for you, I guarantee you can beat them. Back when DS came out, my wife who doesn’t play games, and certainly doesn’t play 3D games and has never ever used a dual analog setup, challenged herself to play Dark Souls and ended up making it to the second to the last boss. I didn’t physically help her, but I did guide her experience, and honestly, the games become pretty trivial if you know how to take advantage of all its systems. Perhaps following a guide would be to your advantage because that’s really how you enable “easy” mode, building your character a specific way and going the right way.

Nah, there's not some DS2 resurgence happening. There's a core group that love it, but most still prefer every other entry. And the entire premise of the article is really a stretch and really only mentions level design and builds. It's not some radical innovation to have more complex builds. That would happen with our without DS2, depending on if the game called for it or not. I mean, look at Sekiro. Miyazaki was going further and further away from character loadouts before Elden Ring. And as for level design, just because your game doesn't have a fully interconnected world like Dark Souls, doesn't mean you're taking inspiration from DS2. People don't criticize DS2 solely because the levels go from A > B > C, it's because each individual area is designed like shit. Look, there's no DS2 redemption coming. The game is fundamentally flawed, and no amount of time is going to fix that. The enemies suck, enemy placement sucks, the AI sucks, the level design sucks, the feel sucks, hit detection sucks, the combat timing sucks, half of the art direction sucks, bosses suck, but I will say Majula fucks.

Just found out you have to watch another show to catch up on the story. That's insane. Really makes me not want to even bother with season 3.

Certainly nothing else for me. Someone else should take advantage of your generosity. You're the man, thanks!

@Zaku3 If you're doing anymore, I've been looking forward to playing Returnal on PC. All my funds went to Hogwarts recently, and not sure when I'll get the chance for a new game.

@Zaku3 This a random drawing? Been away for a bit, mostly due to the birth of my third kid, but started missing the community and have been hanging around a bunch more. Hoping to get Returnal on PC at some point in the near future.

I was actually expecting to really like this one, but came away kind of disappointed. Nothing particular stood out as bad or anything, it just didn't have much atmosphere and I was expecting more dread paranoia like in It Follows.

It always takes me years to play From Soft DLC because I hate having to start over a year later after playing the base game. I'm pretty sure some Souls games, after beating the final boss, either force a NG+ or start a new save, but even the ones that let you go back, it's still hard to pickup the game after so much time has passed. Hopefully they let you access the DLC from your endgame save, otherwise I doubt I will ever play this. I really have no intention of playing Elden Ring again.

The only people that boycott this are those that didn't care about HP in the first place. People boycott when it's convenient. It's not like you saw people unsubbing from Netflix when they didn't drop Chapelle (who probably made more from Netflix telling trans jokes than JK made from this game).

I would love for handheld "minis" to be the next thing. I have a Raspberry Pi in a Gameboy replica, and it's just a fun novelty playing GB games like that, especially with the right shaders. I'd be there day one for an ACTUAL Game Gear mini, and I might actually do it myself at some point.

I think TEW1 is visually more interesting, has better atmosphere, I think the pacing and level variety is a bit better. The story is dumb across the board, but I was more interested in TEW1 than the sequel.

Watched this last night and had pretty much the same thoughts. When shit started going down I was really on board, but when I realized the next 45 minutes was seeing everything through a pinhole light, it became apparent that this is because they have no budget, not just a creative decision. It became a bit tiresome actually and ruined a lot of the tension for me.

The Evil Within is fine, but I hope his next project isn't just trying to recreate the same magic as RE4. I feel like TEW2 was a step in the right direction, but never fully committed to the new ideas, and was also in many ways a step back from TEW.

I played a lot of Octopath 1 but never finished it. I really loved it, but it wasn't an RPG that really compelled me to keep coming back. I think I just didn't care much for the disconnected storylines, and even each individual story was a bit dull. No idea when I'll get to the sequel though. I have, AT LEAST, in front of me: Persona 5, Xenoblade 3, and Live A Live.

They're pretty good, and as much as I hate to give JK props, the books are even better. The first two movies are straight up kids fantasy movies. Silly, magical, low stakes, friendship conquers all type stuff, but very charming and creative. I would at least watch through the 3rd movie and determine if you're going to finish the series. It takes a pretty radical turn there and is more reflective of what the IP becomes.

Puzzle solution:

One of my favorite mechanics in this game that other RPGs should take note of, you can equip gear for the stat benefits, but choose another piece of gear for the appearance only. This solves the issue (especially in Souls games) of running around looking like a moron because the random assortment of gear you have equipped gives you the best stat boost.

I can’t imagine listening to every line of dialogue in a game, even well acted ones like TLoU. Sure if it’s a cinematic I’ll watch the whole thing, but if it’s just back and forth dialogue I’ll read and skip. Saves a ton of time. And I t’s really no difference in the experience, tbh. If you’re reading along in your head while the voice actor speaks, and you finish reading the line first and move on, your memory of it is still a fully voiced experience.

Yeah. There’s not only an Easy difficulty but also a “Story” difficulty which I imagine trivializes combat or perhaps removes it entirely, not sure. She should be fine.

I got tired of the terrible PC performance and ended up turning off ray tracing entirely and locking the frame rate to 75, and then I could put everything to ultra with DLSS. Even though I can hit 120 in many cases, the game just randomly has massive frame drops for seemingly no reason, it’s even worse with ray tracing. I locked it to 75 because without ray tracing the drops never went below that, so that gives me pretty smooth performance.