What are you currently playing?

[Old_Hunter_77]

The Witcher 3: Brothers In Arms (and other) mod(s)

There is a popular mod for my favorite game I been meaning to check out that restores a bunch of cut content from the official version of the game. This kind of fan fervor deserves to be awarded with my attention! And any excuse to eat my comfort food is fine.

As with DMC, it's just something to jump into to chill out, with no rush or urgency to beat it. Unlike DMC, I would never play it on Switch because I want the big screen (my PC is connected to the TV console-style).

Also added a mod to make Gwent a little more fun and a couple of UI things. If anyone is interested in replaying and wants some recommendations lemme know- it's a bit tricky now after the big update a couple of years making some of the mods not compatible.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Hahaha! Yeah, my observation on that tidbit was that the ONE person that shows you kindness and affection in a half dozen games built around pain and punishment actually hurts you too. It's just a hug, right? Wrong!

Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed the game in the end. I'm not sure how much of a motivator achievements/trophies are to your gaming exploits, but I'd offer the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC offers the real challenge, but has no cheevos/trophies attached. Like you said, your build got you to the end of the base game, but the DLC doesn't give a shit about that. Given most players have min/maxed to the point that rune levels mean basically nothing by the time they're DLC-ready, the DLC is just punishingly harder enough that you might question all of it. Point in case, like you, I Bloodhound Fang'd it with the Fingerprint Shield for basically the whole game, and the first mini boss of the DLC made me look like I brought a knife to a gun fight. LITERALLY, he has an automatic crossbow that eats through your stamina like a firehose through rice paper. I still haven't beaten it; got through maybe 3-4 of the main main bosses, but I've not invested the time or effort in a while; it felt like a battle of attrition I'm simply not equipped for. Just sayin', if you think this was your easiest FROM platinum, you haven't felt it's teeth yet...

Trophies are fun on the side but never the reason I play or don't play something. The Artorias DLC was one of my favorite parts from Dark Souls.

I'd rank the difficulty of the games I've played so far, least hard to hardest:

4. Elden Ring
3. Dark Souls
2. Bloodborne
1. Demon's Souls

This might be because it's basically the order I played them though. I had the most frustrations with Demon's Souls, especially as I went through so many NG+ cycles with it and all the FromSoft baiting-and-switching was new to me, though there's a case to be made for Bloodborne being "objectively" harder (faster, no blocking, more labyrinthine, parry-centric).

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Nope, cannot for the life of me get by with DMC1. It just gives me a literal headache. Moving on..


Devil May Cry 3

I read that it's a prequel so I don't have to feel a little bad about not going in order.

 

[BrawlMan]

Devil May Cry 3

I read that it's a prequel so I don't have to feel a little bad about not going in order.

Good luck. Great news is that you're playing the one with the best story and cast.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I made a terrible mistake and played Slay the Spire 2 on my girlfriend's account. This has resulted in me sleeping at 3 AM for the past two days and a killer headache as I type this. I tried out the necromancer character since it was my girlfriend's least favorite, which I eventually saw was for good reason. But it finally clicked when I started focusing on Souls and Doom, which my girlfriend had been avoiding.

In general, clearly, I really like the game. I never played the first one, mainly because it just looked a little ugly. The art style was not the best, and the "animations" looked really clunky. The sequel just looks way better, which goes a long way in making a card game feel smooth and punchy. I was quite impressed that a single character has so many options to make a build out of. I didn't try a different character, but it seems to me that the differing playstyles would keep things fresh.

That said, it is in early access. I had this bug where the game would crash very specifically when I would try to play cards when bosses were transitioning to a new phase. When that first happened, good LORD I felt awful. I have a lot of UI complaints as well. It is WAY too easy to commit to or miss out on things. I would greatly appreciate if they had more confirmation gates, especially when you encounter mechanics for the first time.

Anyway, my takeaway from this is that my tendency to obsess over new fun things is a huge weakness lol. I think it wasn't this bad with the Hades games because the story advancements each run really made me feel like I had some sort of progress. In Slay the Spire 2, the only progress I was thinking about was beating the final boss with the necromancer. Which entailed unhealthy periods of non-stop gaming.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Hmmm, I beat the final boss with the Ironclad on my first try. I get that he's the starter character, but I didn't feel like I had "build" going. Every new card was useful, I just picked whatever sounded cool regardless of how I thought it would fit in. With the necromancer, you could absolutely get fucked over if you picked a strong card that didn't fit in. Not sure how I feel about that. I hated banging my head against the wall with the necromancer, but I also don't want to just straight up cake walk the game either.

 

[Drathnoxis]

So far I've played/beaten Demon's Souls, Dark Souls: Remastered, Bloodborne and Elden Ring.

I hope you'll play Seikiro someday. It had my favorite combat system out of any of the Soulsborne games I've played.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Beat Shadow Man, pretty cool, doesn't feel its age as much as other older games like Soul Reaver, mainly because Nightdive is damn good at quality of life. Plot is decent and the ending is ok, but just a short but good speech.

Started playing Clair Obscura: Expedition 33. Story starts out interesting, but vague with too much jargon. Combat is pretty fun, but I feel like it will be easy with the dodge and parrys being pretty easy to time right now. Looks damn good, great art design so far and good character writing. Right now its no Persona 5, but its pretty good.

I remember always seeing the box of Shadow Man on the shelf of Video Update when I was a young child looking for a game to rent and being disturbed by it. I would always try not to look at it, but it was hard because it was right on the corner.

I watched SGF play the remaster a couple years ago, but I didn't think it was a terribly interesting game to watch.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Trophies are fun on the side but never the reason I play or don't play something. The Artorias DLC was one of my favorite parts from Dark Souls.

I'd rank the difficulty of the games I've played so far, least hard to hardest:

4. Elden Ring
3. Dark Souls
2. Bloodborne
1. Demon's Souls

This might be because it's basically the order I played them though. I had the most frustrations with Demon's Souls, especially as I went through so many NG+ cycles with it and all the FromSoft baiting-and-switching was new to me, though there's a case to be made for Bloodborne being "objectively" harder (faster, no blocking, more labyrinthine, parry-centric).

I’d say the same about difficulty but would throw Sekiro between Demon’s and Bloodborne. Shortest to platinum but highest plane of skill-based difficulty. Not putting Demon’s above it because like you said, the other obtuse factors coupled with being the “first” game. And it sounds like neither of us masochists took the Stockpile Thomas duping shortcut.


If you liked the Artorias dlc best, then that bodes well for whenever you play SotET. Similar in tone and atmosphere, with Miyazaki getting kinda wicked with the open word level design. For playing blind it was near the top of the list overall and imho the best thing about it. It's like a giant puzzle and there's one part in particular that topped it. Sorta think this might’ve been a good reason there’s no trophies; almost like Miyazaki didn’t want anyone fretting about it.

The main caveat is "loot galore" definitely takes a backseat, but what's there is some of the best in the game for melee especially.

 

[meiam]

I made a terrible mistake and played Slay the Spire 2 on my girlfriend's account. This has resulted in me sleeping at 3 AM for the past two days and a killer headache as I type this. I tried out the necromancer character since it was my girlfriend's least favorite, which I eventually saw was for good reason. But it finally clicked when I started focusing on Souls and Doom, which my girlfriend had been avoiding.

The big issue with necro is that she need access to a couple of key power to work, and without those, her various specs are mostly trash, while most other character specs can work, even if you don't get the key abilities.

 

[thebobmaster]

The other major issue with her is that she's the only character where a bad draw/round can not only hurt you that round, but actively reset progress from previous hands/rounds. Oh, you managed to get Osty up some HP? Well, he's dead, time to start rebuilding his HP again

 

[Worgen]

I remember always seeing the box of Shadow Man on the shelf of Video Update when I was a young child looking for a game to rent and being disturbed by it. I would always try not to look at it, but it was hard because it was right on the corner.

I watched SGF play the remaster a couple years ago, but I didn't think it was a terribly interesting game to watch.

Its a decent game to play, but yeah, probably really boring to watch since it came out at time time of corridors.

 

[Worgen]

The big issue with necro is that she need access to a couple of key power to work, and without those, her various specs are mostly trash, while most other character specs can work, even if you don't get the key abilities.

Ehh, if you get doom going then shes fine.

 

[BrawlMan]

I was playing some 3rd Strike on my PS5 a few nights ago, and this happened in one of my playthroughs. We ended up hitting each other equally and lost minor health at the same time. Anyone ever have this happen to them?

​

 

[Bartholen]

So something got fucky with my PS5, and it decided to reverse-delete my Lies of P saves, ie. restore the ones I thought it deleted, but in return deleting the save I'd most recently started. Oh well. I was playing it to go through the DLC again anyway, which I was about halfway through on a NG save, so win some lose some.

I first played the DLC in NG+ when it came out, so I though the difficulty wouldn't be as punishing in NG. Turns out not so much. If anything, easier difficulty modes having been added in updates would have given the devs an excuse to make the "standard", ie. hardest difficulty even harder, because I could swear I wasn't dying this often my first time round. The DLC is still one of the highlights of the entire genre for me, but it's skirting dangerously close to that line where the bosses just become insufferable. Unlike in Sekiro, you have much less margin to be liberal with your parrying, which combined with your much lower mobility and limited stamina can make many fights feel purely reactive. The bosses dictate the pace and aggression of the fight, not the player, and often times it can feel like the best strategy is to just sit your ass and bait out perfect parries.

Playing through it a second time the DLC's story isn't just sad, it's downright depressing. Basically every chapter is soaked in an atmosphere of loss, entropy, and the inevitability of our end. Despite the stakes being much lower than in any Fromsoft game, Lies of P manages to bring a sense of gravity, personal stakes and emotional investment to it that not many in the genre can match

 

[Worgen]

The DLC is still one of the highlights of the entire genre for me, but it's skirting dangerously close to that line where the bosses just become insufferable.

The bosses are insufferable without the dlc also.

 

[meiam]

Ehh, if you get doom going then shes fine.

Its really hard to get a serious doom spec going if you don't get either the card to apply more doom for the amount of doom already on the enemy or deal damage equivalent to the enemy doom. Cause without those, doom is just inferior to a regular damage spec with any other character, since you have to wait for the enemy to attack you before it trigger.

 

[Worgen]

Its really hard to get a serious doom spec going if you don't get either the card to apply more doom for the amount of doom already on the enemy or deal damage equivalent to the enemy doom. Cause without those, doom is just inferior to a regular damage spec with any other character, since you have to wait for the enemy to attack you before it trigger.

It seems like Doom cards are in decent supply for her, I kept trying to make a hand build work, but once I started taking doom, it got much easier

 

[bluegate]

Decided to continue playing Persona 5 but with the assistance of a "100% Perfect Schedule" guide.

Usually I don't enjoy playing games with guides open, but I'm rather enjoying the experience thus far. Everyday there seem to be events going on and stuff to do, it's a very densely packed experience with a brisk pace.

Just finished up the third Palace of the game, bring on July!

Reached the end of December in Persona 5 Royal.

I quite enjoyed the story and its ups and downs, there was a certain charm to playing as a rag-tag bunch of kids righting society's woes from the shadows all the while trying to evade the conventional forces of the law.

Spoiler: Having said that...

... I didn't really care about the late game plottwist of Igor actually having been the malevolent "God of Control" all this time. The entire time you're dealing with local to national level influential figures and suddenly at the last moment they drag out this monstrosity as the mastermind. If they wanted to go out on a big monster I'd rather they wrote it as it being a mindless monster born from the collective cognitive shock of the Japanese populace realising they had been lied to by Shido.

Now onto January and... a little bit of February?