Still plugging away at Dark Souls 3 (you're welcome,
@happyninja42.)
*hissing noises*
OT: Wife and I beat Immortals: Fenyx Rising today. It was fun. It's definitely a streamlined BotW. You love gathering up tons of different items to craft into foods and potions? Well then go play BotW because you don't get any of that in I:FR. You get to craft 4 potions, healing, stamina, offense, and defense. That's it. You can spend a specific crafting item to upgrade the potions to make them more powerful, to the point that the offense/defense pots can basically be god mode while they last. Frankly I'm fine with this, as I used almost none of the piles of shit I was carrying around as Link, as they really weren't necessary at all.
The gear upgrades were fine, but nothing really to write home about. They gave combat bonuses. Helmets give you offense bonuses, like +% damage to axes, or when using air attacks, or against unique enemies, etc. Armor gives you defense bonuses of similar varieties. So depending on what you are doing, you will change out your gear. Though honestly you mostly just find one outfit that suits your playstyle, and stick with that one when the combat starts. You have a stamina boosting outfit as well, which is your puzzle/climbing/etc outfit, as the bonus stamina chunks are very useful. So it's like BotW in that way, but they got rid of the "changing outfits every 30 fucking seconds because you changed elevations, and thus temperatures, or are climbing, etc." which got really fucking old to me.
No weapon durability! ....what? Do you need further explanation? Of course you don't! The weapons don't break when you sneeze on them! Improvement!
Having voice acting, both with the protagonist, NPCs, and the narrators, really helped make it feel more lived in than BotW. I've mentioned before, but the screeching noises of cat/pig hybrid demons, being run through a wood chipper, that Zelda uses to denote speech are...terrible. I:FR uses actual...*gasp* WORDS! And the dialogue is pretty funny most of the time. I've compared it to Xena and Hercules, in tone and level of camp, and I stand by that. So if you don't mind some god tier cheese in your mythology, you will enjoy it.
Cons:
The story is very transparent. I mean they aren't trying to make it terribly deep, but if you are at all familiar with story structure and narrative pacing, you will see pretty much all the points WAY ahead of time. Which, again, not a big deal, as they often lampshade their own stuff. They know they are telling a broad parable, as if you were watching an actual play. Bombastic characters, easily understood motivations, the usual. Don't go into this game expecting a mind blowing story. Go in expecting a saturday morning cartoon, with the
occasional constant adult joke thrown in there. I mean this is greek mythology, so lots of fucking going on, and it gets referenced.
The quest rewards are very underwhelming. Like, REALLY disappointing. You will do a quest chain, with multiple parts, that is built up like you are doing something epic. Freeing an ancient being trapped by Typhon! They will reward you!! ....you get a skin, for an outfit you don't ever really wear. Oh and maybe a handful of crating materials....but honestly you probably farmed more of them along the way to finish this quest.
Some of the puzzles/vaults were annoying as hell. Like I know BotW had some annoying as shit shrines, and I:FR doesn't force you to use the motion controls of the controller for anything, thankfully. But, they are annoying. Maybe it's just my low tolerance for spatial puzzles, like shifting of blocks onto other blocks, onto platforms, to jump up and press a switch, to move blocks again. I just...no. Jumping/Platform puzzles I'm usually fine with. But I just lose interest in trying to suss out a lot of the more nitpicky kinds of puzzles. And this game had them. Luckily my wife loves those, so she would do those bits.
Some of the story beats used bothered me personally. Minor spoiler, but it's something you learn pretty quickly in the plot, so it's not a huge deal. Like how
How Haephestus had his memory trapped, because it was too painful for him. Because the rest of the greek pantheon were all assholes to him, and shunned him. So he carved out his pain to try and avoid it. Well, when Fenyx finds him, and he's basically Bob Ross, with happy little projects. She talks about the pain she sees being "true art". Implying that age old shit of "you have to suffer for your art." Which, yeah fuck you Ubisoft, that's a load of ass. It really made me and my wife reluctant to finish the plot. It was like "Are we the baddies?" There are some others that I can't recall, but that one stuck out. Usually they were little things, and these points are addressed by the end in a way that felt....somewhat earned I guess.
Overall, it was a fun game. Worth playing if you like BotW, and also greek mythology.
Mortal Kombat 11.
Started this one today (story mode) aaaaand....got to the final fight as well...today. Didn't beat it, because that final boss is a fucking PITA, but...yeah it was pretty damn fast. It was fun, even having like zero memory of MK 1-3 (the ones I played), and nothing past that, but it really wasn't needed. The plot is very straightforward. I'm sort of ambivalent on the changing of the roster as you play the story, because some of them I just don't like playing as. But some were fun as hell. Like Jaquie was an enjoyable character, and I liked her basic attacks as well. But, Johnny Cage, both versions, was really damn fun to watch. Not so much to play as, but I really enjoyed the actor playing him. He seemed to be having a blast playing both versions of himself, and the chemistry between them and the rest of the cast was fun. A lot of the sub plots for the different groups were interesting. Like Jax and Jacquie were an enjoyable storyline, as well as Jade and Kitana. Would've liked to see more of those 2 sets, but eh. *shrugs*
I don't like fighting games like this with a controller. I need an arcade joystick apparently. As I lost count of how often I felt like I was doing Left,Right, Button, and apparently it was reading it as Left/Down/Right, so I wouldn't do what I wanted. I did not have that much trouble with just basic move control in the arcades. I think it's the difference in fine control between my whole hand with a joystick, and just my thumb. Luckily you don't really need to know moves to make it through the story, and can just cheese with some good old gouda cheese moves to just win....at least until the last fight. Which again, fuck that boss!
It's fun, I'll probably beat it tomorrow. I might fiddle with the other stuff, though we'll see. If it's just grind stuff to unlock finishers and the like, I'll honestly probably just skip it.
www.pcgamer.com
