The crouch is a wierd game shorthand for sneaky, where "oh, that guy is crouched, I can barely see him now, even if he's only a foot shorter then he is when standing".
I know why they do it, but it's dumb, really dumb. It should be there to let you hide behind objects and get into low spaces, not to make you quiet. Pouncing them or rushing to the next piece of cover before they see me is more thrilling to me. It's boring being forced to move that slowly and seems like one of those things that's expected just because every other game does it, a checkbox mechanic. It's not even about balance; you can make the enemies less slow and dumb to average out your faster movement.
The stealth is not the best in this game, nor the worst, but it is busted when you get the Ambush skill. Kill an enemy that is apporaching, you can kill them when behind cover. It trivializes most of the stealth with non-boss enemies. On Normal mode, anyway I usually go in guns blazing for most areas when on NG+. Nightmare mode and other harder difficulties are another story. Still loves this game and found it better Resident Evil game than 7. Evil Within 2 is my favorite horror game of this generation.
That is the main flaw with almost any game directed by Hideki Kamiya is that he has these section that try to spice up variety and avoid repition, but they are usually not fun. The best shooter section he ever did was in the first Viewtfiul Joe, when the first half of stage 3 is a horizontal shoot'em up. I hate the first person underwater sections as well, but once you realize what to do and where to go, they are freaking quick. Believe it or not, the underwater section in Devil May Cry 2 are even shittier when playing Lucia's campaign. Those sections are in 3rd person too.
Now go for Hard and DMD. Don't you want it?
Hmmm, nah. Immediately replaying a game I just played sounds like such chore. I very rarely would even do that for a game that I really liked.
That was pretty much my take on it. It's not a bad game at all, but it makes a number of missteps that makes it far more frustrating then it needed to be and it felt like at times there was an undue emphasis on "MORE! HARDER!" which suggests the design team either didn't know what made the first one work or, very likely also true, the troubled dev cycle where the lead was replaced(unclear if he stepped down or was fired) halfway through and the game seemed to have been rebuild from the ground up (Time Travel was meant to have had a bigger role in the original version, thus likely explaining the intro cutscene).
Well, then, I guess I'll have something to look forward to next time, because I just finished it after a marathon session. Going to move on to Bloodborne next, and probably still keep playing Sekiro in the meantime.
I was always under the impression it was because Miyazaki was making Bloodborne and left DS2 to FROM’s B-team. He made the right choice though, imo.
I'm sure that had a lot to do with it, yeah. I've read Miyazaki was a bit more involved in the DLC which explains their higher quality.
Yup, he had more direct influence on things like level and boss design. They are some of the best pieces of content in the whole IP imo.
Both the Axe and the Saw Cleaver work very well for early game. Most beasts(which is a majority of the bosses and enemies in early game) take more damage from Serrated weapons but the axe has the famous "Spin to win" attack in it's favor.
One of my big disapointment of bloodborne is that starter weapon are really good and can be used the entire game no problem (the axe is one of the best weapon hand down). In a way that's kinda cool, but it also make the gameplay moe repetitive than it has to be and remove most of the wonder from getting new weapon, since you know they're almost certainly inferior to what you already have.
There were a couple of situationally good weapons(the fucking lightning mace is nice for certain arcane bosses) but honestly for me that seems to be a Souls thing in general. I'll often find an optimum weapon early on and just keep upgrading it and my stats to match. I played most of Dark Souls using the Zweihander except when I got the Black Knight Halberd when that became my go to for the rest of it.
