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Xprimentyl

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I've watched bits and pieces of Elden Ring playthroughs, and noticed those people romping around in the wild and seeing tons of glowing skulls on the ground they're able to smash for some quick and easy runes. I've not seen a single one in my game anywhere ever. I googled to find out why, and the Reddit thread below (God, help me; I went to Reddit) seems to be the only place I found any "answer." Some guy made the same observation I did, and a dozen people below him saying "me too." A couple people commented that it depends on what platform you're playing it on; it would appear we lowly Xbox One and Xbox One S peasants aren't privy to this feature despite all other platforms, including Xbox One X, have it. Sucks; I'm all about easy runes!

 
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Dalisclock

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I've watched bits and pieces of Elden Ring playthroughs, and noticed those people romping around in the wild and seeing tons of glowing skulls on the ground they're able to smash for some quick and easy runes. I've not seen a single one in my game anywhere ever. I googled to find out why, and the Reddit thread below (God, help me; I went to Reddit) seems to be the only place I found any "answer." Some guy made the same observation I did, and a dozen people below him saying "me too." A couple people commented that it depends on what platform you're playing it on; it would appear we lowly Xbox One and Xbox One S peasants aren't privy to this feature despite all other platforms, including Xbox One X, have it. Sucks; I'm all about easy runes!

To be fair, those easy runes don't amount to much after the early game.
 

Xprimentyl

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Carry on then. Sorry, I didn't catch that earlier.
No worries. I should probably be a lot further along, if I'm being honest. Starting to feel I've spread myself too thin trying to balance STR and DEX (for the Uchigatana which scales at D for both,) but have kinda neglected VIG and END which means I'm hitting better (not by much, but better,) but I'm also a two-shot away from being stun-locked and sent back to the last site of grace.
 
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Old_Hunter_77

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And in fit of flippant fickle fancy, a flee by Viking turn.
Ragnarok is platinumed.
Hellblade is still the confusing headache-inducing torture I remember and I guess I'm too stoopid to appreciate its artistry, I can't deal.
The "last chapter" of AC: Valhalla was just a few dialogue scenes that added nothing interesting to the story, and I have no patience to complete the rogue-like DLC thing that was added a few months ago so I'm done with that one as well.
And it seems Valheim is a co-op experience and I'm not about that so no thanks.

Playstation stores has a couple Castlevania games for 4 bucks, and since I just finished the Netflix show I'm gonna try that.
 

BrawlMan

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Playstation stores has a couple Castlevania games for 4 bucks, and since I just finished the Netflix show I'm gonna try that.
Which are you starting first?


 
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Drathnoxis

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Finished Resident Evil: Code Veronica X. It was alright. Pretty standard early Resident Evil fare, clunky controls, token key puzzles, laughably bad story. Tank controls are awkward but not too bad except in a few of the bosses where the game expects you to run around with a small amount of finesse and dodge attacks. The game gives you a ridiculous amount of ammo and health to compensate, though. I finished up with like 10 full heals worth of herbs and like 50 rounds for the grenade launcher, 14 for the magnum, and a bunch for the other weapons too. I probably could have almost beat the game again with what I had left over.

The story is ridiculous as usual. The protagonists are all idiots, and the villains cackling maniacs. The game starts out for Claire looking for Chris, and then about halfway in Chris shows up looking for Claire. What's even going on here? Our heroes were constantly getting their butts handed to them in cutscenes when they completely forget about the arsenal they are toting around. Worst was the 5 minute cutscene where Chris fistfights a superhuman Wesker despite the aforementioned 50 grenade rounds I am waiting to unload on him as soon as the game gives me control, which it never does. Chris ends up dropping some convenient steel beams on his head and then Wesker just leaves, swearing he'll get Chris next time. Wesker, you had like 10 opportunities to kill both Chris and Claire that you wasted because you just walked away seconds from finishing the job! The game ends with Chris saying "Now, we've got to destroy Umbrella! Let's finish this once and for all!" Umm, isn't that the same thing they were saying like 2 games ago? And is it even worth it without Steve?! Poor, poor Steve. I'll never forget him and... uh, the way he dual wielded SMGs and kept getting punked out by bosses.

I didn't hate my time with it, but it does make me wonder how the heck Resident Evil managed to become the major franchise that it is, since the games were kind of bad until RE4. After you finish the game you unlock the Battle Game mode, where you can run around and kill enemies with infinite ammo, and like, what's even the point? Yeah, I came here for the tank control, auto-aim combat! Give me more of that! Anyway, I'm glad I've finally finished it after 20 years. What should I play next, I wonder?
 

hanselthecaretaker

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No worries. I should probably be a lot further along, if I'm being honest. Starting to feel I've spread myself too thin trying to balance STR and DEX (for the Uchigatana which scales at D for both,) but have kinda neglected VIG and END which means I'm hitting better (not by much, but better,) but I'm also a two-shot away from being stun-locked and sent back to the last site of grace.
Change the affinity to heavy or keen and then you can focus on one or the other, ultimately ending up with A scaling when upgraded enough. Though if you’re not planning on doing any casting it might be better to stick to strength. The default skill of Uchi is also pretty good, but once you find different whetstones you can swap it with some good status effect ones that don’t require extra stat investment too.
 
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Old_Hunter_77

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Which are you starting first?


I checked out Symphony of the Night because it's a name I've heard referenced quite often. Man I forgot how difficult and unforgiving old games are, lol. Probably won't come back to it but who knows, that's the fun of cheap games.
 

Xprimentyl

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Change the affinity to heavy or keen and then you can focus on one or the other, ultimately ending up with A scaling when upgraded enough. Though if you’re not planning on doing any casting it might be better to stick to strength. The default skill of Uchi is also pretty good, but once you find different whetstones you can swap it with some good status effect ones that don’t require extra stat investment too.
See, what does that mean, "change the affinity"?? I finally found an Ash of War I liked, and I chose the Keen affinity, but is there another way to change the affinity without an Ash of War? Also, I had to google if it was possible to use an Ash of War ability without having to two-hand the weapon, and indeed, there is a way, but as far as I now know, it's only buy applying a "blank" ash to your shield so the left trigger defaults to your right-hand weapon's special ability... Jesus, this game is so fucking convoluted!
 

Old_Hunter_77

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Playstation store has its end of year sale. My purchase:
XCOM 2 for $6

Strategy, tactics, turn-based combat games usually bore or intimidate me, but it's good to kick yourself out of your comfort zone sometimes and this is one of the those big titles that I"ve always been curious about. A deal and a rainy weekend are the right time to do something like that.
 

BrawlMan

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I checked out Symphony of the Night because it's a name I've heard referenced quite often. Man I forgot how difficult and unforgiving old games are, lol. Probably won't come back to it but who knows, that's the fun of cheap games.
True, but the Castlevania games from the 8-Bit and 16-bit days are even tougher than SoN. In the Castlevania collection, you can switch to Japanese versions which are easier, but still tough. Unfortunately, you don't get achievements for beating them on the Japanese version, but that's not a big deal. Plus, there are no achievements on Switch version anyway. Have fun.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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See, what does that mean, "change the affinity"?? I finally found an Ash of War I liked, and I chose the Keen affinity, but is there another way to change the affinity without an Ash of War? Also, I had to google if it was possible to use an Ash of War ability without having to two-hand the weapon, and indeed, there is a way, but as far as I now know, it's only buy applying a "blank" ash to your shield so the left trigger defaults to your right-hand weapon's special ability... Jesus, this game is so fucking convoluted!



The Whetstone knife is used in conjunction with a specific type of whetblade that will change affinities independently of Ashes. For example, the Iron Whetblade can grant Heavy and Keen affinities to any number of ashes of war found, but there are limits. Other types of whetblades are needed for applying stuff like occult, magic, fire, etc.

And yeah, without a No Skill ash on a shield you’ll either need to swap to something else or two-hand to use your RH weapon skill. The other shield ashes aren’t all that worthwhile anyways unless you like using it for parrying, stance breaking or a defense perk.
 

Dalisclock

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True, but the Castlevania games from the 8-Bit and 16-bit days are even tougher than SoN. In the Castlevania collection, you can switch to Japanese versions which are easier, but still tough. Unfortunately, you don't get achievements for beating them on the Japanese version, but that's not a big deal. Plus, there are no achievements on Switch version anyway. Have fun.
Yeah, I've only played the SNES/NES/Genesis Classicvania's but some of those are brutal, partially because the controls weren't generally good on the NES. Notably CV3's stairs were very likely to kill you by trying to ascend/descend because of how poorly the controls play with them(and this is still true in the collection versions), so it's a very fine line between "use stairs" and "Fall to death through stairs" and there are a LOT of stairs in CV3. The irony is that CV3 is the best of the NES games by a mile despite that.

I do have Rondo/SOTN on PS4 but haven't gotten around to playing them yet.
 
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Dalisclock

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So I guess I'm on a major Viking trip right now.

God of War: Ragnarok- completed yesterday

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice- I gave up on this game because I hated the environmental puzzles but I love the idea of it so much that I want to give it another chance. Will be restarting this tonight or tomorrow.

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla- yeah yeah I know everyone hates this one but I don't. AC is my good-bad series, in that I recognize its flaws and understand the complaints about it but I still enjoy them. Looks like Dec 6 will be the final update with some sort of last quest that presumably explains how Eivor's body ends up in North America.

Valheim?- I'm gonna buy a Steam Deck and maybe check this one out at some point because like everyone freaking loves this. "Survival" games ain't my thing so much so I dunno.
If you're interested in an Isometric RPG/Tactics game, Expeditions: Viking is worth checking out.
 

BrawlMan

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Playing and enjoying Sonic Frontiers. I am loving the open world and it's fun to explore. The cyberspace levels are short, but that is intentional, so you can replay to them for collectibles and achieving S Ranks. This is taking me back to the Adventure days.
 
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NerfedFalcon

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@NerfedFalcon, I finally beat level 38 and made it to level 40 in SOR4 Survival. I used Cherry Hunter. I got a new high score of 830,984 and a time of 52:33.
And here's me still not having finished Story mode on Hard yet. Maybe I'll get around to that if I can stop playing Minecraft or joining my friends' Overwatch 2 queue for a bit.
 
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Bedinsis

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34 hours into Hollow Knight.

I've unlocked an achievement (Grubfriend) that makes me think I'm halfway through the game.

I am still compelled to continue and want to play more. In other words: yeah, the game is as good as people say it is.

I also suspect this is a game that speedrunners appreciate, since I unlocked an area where a platforming challenge turned out to be a cakewalk, due to some unlocked abilities I had, so I suspect it was designed so that someone without all the abilities I had would still be able to proceed.

The biggest negative so far has been that I had to go online to realize I could hold the down key while pressing the attack button to bounce off bouncy platforms and some shell-covered enemies. I also find the story uninteresting. Otherwise the complaints I have are mere niggles.
 
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