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[Casual Shinji]

So, time to complain a bit about Horizon: Forbidden West, or at least, mention some things I'm too sure about yet. Also, I am playing this on the hardest difficulty available from the outset.

The developers kinda screwed around with the weapons and it has sorta made it a bit tricky for me to get a feel for them now. Used to be you shot the smallest machine (which in Zero Dawn was the Watcher and in Forbidden West the Burrower) right in the eye with your Hunters bow and it'd go down, but now I can't get that to happen even with a Sharpshot bow. I'm not getting as much of the responsive feedback from non-elemental arrows as I used to in the previous game. I'm honestly using my spear for a good 60% of machine encounters now, though that might change.

Crafting arrows now also takes longer depended on the type of arrow. It's not even a matter of seconds really, but it's enough that in the midst of combat (where you'll be doing most of the ammo crafting) I would kinda get confused whether I actually made any ammo or not.

I think the telegraphed audio for machine attacks is lacking. One of the things that made the combat in the previous game so easy to learn was that most machines, whether they were attacking or were going to attack, made a very pronounced sound that had precedence over pretty much every other sound in the mix. This made so you were virtually never caught with your pants down during machine combat. In Forbidden West I'm just not getting that same kind of feedback.

The game throws too many weapons and skills your way too fast for you to properly get a handle on them. Now, it doesn't literally just give them to you, but it makes them available for purchase and gives you enough shards and skill points to purchase them, and since this is a new game and you don't really know what's what yet, you're going to buy all the help you can get. On a couple of occasions I suddenly found I had 4 skill points to spend on my skills tab and then not wanting to NOT spend them all, but also feeling like I might forget some of the skills I'd buy because I'm buying 4 new ones right now.

And lastly, this game might just be a tad too big, for me anyway. The first open-world area is handled very, very well I think, but once you're let out into the rest of the gameworld... oof. I feel like Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade when he tries to go back to his office and there's like 20 students vying for his attention.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

So, time to complain a bit about Horizon: Forbidden West, or at least, mention some things I'm too sure about yet. Also, I am playing this on the hardest difficulty available from the outset.

The developers kinda screwed around with the weapons and it has sorta made it a bit tricky for me to get a feel for them now. Used to be you shot the smallest machine (which in Zero Dawn was the Watcher and in Forbidden West the Burrower) right in the eye with your Hunters bow and it'd go down, but now I can't get that to happen even with a Sharpshot bow. I'm not getting as much of the responsive feedback from non-elemental arrows as I used to in the previous game. I'm honestly using my spear for a good 60% of machine encounters now, though that might change.

Crafting arrows now also takes longer depended on the type of arrow. It's not even a matter of seconds really, but it's enough that in the midst of combat (where you'll be doing most of the ammo crafting) I would kinda get confused whether I actually made any ammo or not.

I think the telegraphed audio for machine attacks is lacking. One of the things that made the combat in the previous game so easy to learn was that most machines, whether they were attacking or were going to attack, made a very pronounced sound that had precedence over pretty much every other sound in the mix. This made so you were virtually never caught with your pants down during machine combat. In Forbidden West I'm just not getting that same kind of feedback.

The game throws too many weapons and skills your way too fast for you to properly get a handle on them. Now, it doesn't literally just give them to you, but it makes them available for purchase and gives you enough shards and skill points to purchase them, and since this is a new game and you don't really know what's what yet, you're going to buy all the help you can get. On a couple of occasions I suddenly found I had 4 skill points to spend on my skills tab and then not wanting to NOT spend them all, but also feeling like I might forget some of the skills I'd buy because I'm buying 4 new ones right now.

And lastly, this game might just be a tad too big, for me anyway. The first open-world area is handled very, very well I think, but once you're let out into the rest of the gameworld... oof. I feel like Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade when he tries to go back to his office and there's like 20 students vying for his attention.

I have a suspicion it’s because they split up the previous game design’s more immediate effectivenes into all these new skill tree upgrades. It’s a trend I’m actually more weary of at this point than open worlds in general, because they take mechanics that could’ve simply been front-loaded as fun and effective game design and spread them thinly across busy work to pad game length.

I’ve only played to Meridian so far, but if it’s like you’re saying with map icons up the yin yang once you get out “West” then to me it seems like the concerns are compounded. I kinda wish games like these were designed where you could actually pick skills and actively learn by simply doing the thing required vs just completing quests and dumping “points” into them. It’s why an open world game like RDR2 never felt overwhelming to me, because it had neither the typical open world map clutter nor skill trees, and simply let you explore naturally and gain efficiency in abilities by doing them.

 

[BrawlMan]

I tried putting my Wii through an HDMI converter for the first time. Looks good with everything up-scaled at 1080p. The only issue is that in the Wii options, it won't let me go to 480p HD, even though I am running it through a converted. Anybody know how to correct this?

I played some Mad World after not touching the game in a long while. For Platinum's first game, it still holds up well and is the beat'em up on the Wii...ever. Sure, does not the combat depth of Bayonetta, DMC, God Hand, or even your average Dynasty Warriors game/clone, but everything feels good and controls near perfect. This is game is about the bloody spectacle, story, and the soundtrack. It's just fun building multipliers and how far you can wreck your enemies before they expire. Especially if you're sticking caution signs on a mini boss or knock them in to a wall of spikes. It's was and still fun to do crazy things like that. The camera be a wonky at times. and I agree with critics there. With that said, most players can adapt and get used to the camera control.

You get all these cool weapons and fun bonus-mini games during the stages after getting high scores. The game encourages you to be as brutal as possible to gain new weapons, more lives, health, or unlock more death traps to knock your opponents in. The motion controls actually work the only trouble is reading vertical strikes during QTEs. Here is a hint: when doing vertical strike with the Wii-mote, do not turn it when doing the motion. The game will think you're doing a horizontal strike. Keep the Wii-mote still and completely vertically straight. You won't believe how many gamers screwed this up.

Overall, still a good game with plenty of style and substance.

 

[Casual Shinji]

So fuck me, Horizon: Forbidden West is c*nt-garglingly hard. I'm playing it on the hardest difficulty available (Very Hard), so you might think 'well duh, it's hard', but even on Ultra-Hard in Zero Dawn I wasn't getting kicked this remarkably square in the nuts, except maybe with the Scorchers.

I just finished my first cauldron and I don't think I've ever wanted to rage-quit a fight in HZD as much as I did the final fight in that place. I also had my first encouner with one of those big, snapping turtle-looking machines, and it has like 5 super duper obliterating weapons that home in on you like a motherf*cker.

Shit is fucking tough in this game.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

So fuck me, Horizon: Forbidden West is c*nt-garglingly hard. I'm playing it on the hardest difficulty available (Very Hard), so you might think 'well duh, it's hard', but even on Ultra-Hard in Zero Dawn I wasn't getting kicked this remarkably square in the nuts, except maybe with the Scorchers.

I just finished my first cauldron and I don't think I've ever wanted to rage-quit a fight in HZD as much as I did the final fight in that place. I also had my first encouner with one of those big, snapping turtle-looking machines, and it has like 5 super duper obliterating weapons that home in on you like a motherf*cker.

Shit is fucking tough in this game.

Oh is that the cauldron on the main quest path with the surprise added monsters as soon as you begin to fight the boss? Cause it glitched on me when I first defeated the boss and somehow must have squeezed one of the enemies through the floor and into the codeless void, judging by my friendos' curiously stuck in agressive stances and NPC talk towards their own feet while the game stubbornly not accepting my clearly won success;





*Taps screen with pointy stick* In exhibit A and B it shows the boss's corpse undoubtedly corpsified, no other enemies remain, yet the incompetent fools are staring angrily into their nether regions shouting like they're going to murder them! Of course, it being a difficult fight meant the relaoding of the save felt pretty bad after initially thinking it was completed.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Oh is that the cauldron on the main quest path with the surprise added monsters as soon as you begin to fight the boss? Cause it glitched on me when I first defeated the boss and somehow must have squeezed one of the enemies through the floor and into the codeless void, judging by my friendos' curiously stuck in agressive stances and NPC talk towards their own feet while the game stubbornly not accepting my clearly won success;

View attachment 5608

View attachment 5609

*Taps screen with pointy stick* In exhibit A and B it shows the boss's corpse undoubtedly corpsified, no other enemies remain, yet the incompetent fools are staring angrily into their nether regions shouting like they're going to murder them!

No, it was the one where you fight two of those hippo machines at the same time.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

No, it was the one where you fight two of those hippo machines at the same time.

Well, shit, mayhaps I have not strayed from the path as well as I had first assumed!

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Playing Iconoclasts.

About an hour in I get the sinking feeling the game's never going to get any better than what it is right now. Not that I'm not having fun, I just have the feeling that this is precisely as fun as it gets and the game's not going to throw any surprises my way any time soon.

The story's a bit jarring too. Apparently it's set in a super oppressive dystopian regime with Brave New Word style social engineering where private practice is strictly forbidden under death penalty and everyone's a profusely religious zealot talking about sin and penance like it's the Chinese social credit system. But... everything looks like a Sonic game.


The narrative is also super scattershot and keeps throwing in cutscenes involving people you haven't even met yet while the story moves very briskly from introducing a character to the death of the character to meeting another character to becoming separated to introducing another character etc. Paced like ADHD.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

So fuck me, Horizon: Forbidden West is c*nt-garglingly hard. I'm playing it on the hardest difficulty available (Very Hard), so you might think 'well duh, it's hard', but even on Ultra-Hard in Zero Dawn I wasn't getting kicked this remarkably square in the nuts, except maybe with the Scorchers.

I just finished my first cauldron and I don't think I've ever wanted to rage-quit a fight in HZD as much as I did the final fight in that place. I also had my first encouner with one of those big, snapping turtle-looking machines, and it has like 5 super duper obliterating weapons that home in on you like a motherf*cker.

Shit is fucking tough in this game.

Soooo glad I opted to just stick to Normal diff. on this one!

Anyways speaking of difficult, finally cleared my personal Cursed Isz Gravestone run in Bloodborne. Depth 5 x 3 layers of hell culminating with a fight against Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos. Was ready to call it a night but kept trying because I was getting so close and eventually it happened. The grueling penalties of half health, half healing and other status effects made it probably the toughest fight I've experienced in all of SoulsBornIro; at least in terms of death count from what I can gather reaching back into distant memory. In the end I only used four blood vials but getting to the point of learning where to stand at what time and how to avoid all the flailing tentacles, charges, head stomps, blood spits, arcane spells, etc. required a near insanity-inducing level of trial and error.

 

[BrawlMan]

So fuck me, Horizon: Forbidden West is c*nt-garglingly hard. I'm playing it on the hardest difficulty available (Very Hard), so you might think 'well duh, it's hard', but even on Ultra-Hard in Zero Dawn I wasn't getting kicked this remarkably square in the nuts, except maybe with the Scorchers.

I just finished my first cauldron and I don't think I've ever wanted to rage-quit a fight in HZD as much as I did the final fight in that place. I also had my first encouner with one of those big, snapping turtle-looking machines, and it has like 5 super duper obliterating weapons that home in on you like a motherf*cker.

Shit is fucking tough in this game.

This is why I almost always stick with Normal mode on my first playthrough on any game. Then I do the harder difficulties later, or on NG+. You chose it, so that's on you.

I did another arcade run on KOFXV. This time I played as Team Secret Ladies: Blue Mary, Vanessa, and Luong. Like I said before, final boss is cheap as fuck.

 

[Ezekiel]

Continued my God of War save file after three years of no progress. Stuck again. It was a puzzle that killed what little enthusiasm I had in early 2019. Now it's this:

Spoiler

I don't get it, I don't get it, I don't wanna get it! I hate the throwing puzzles in this game so very, very much. The puzzles in the old games never annoyed me so.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Continued my God of War save file after three years of no progress. Stuck again. It was a puzzle that killed what little enthusiasm I had in early 2019. Now it's this:


I don't get it, I don't get it, I don't wanna get it! I hate the throwing puzzles in this game so very, very much. The puzzles in the old games never annoyed me so.

Not a fan of the ax I take it. I had fun with it overall but I didn’t like the Winds of Hel timed stuff in this realm where you had to book it through obstacles to unlock stuff. I don’t like timed puzzle stuff much in any game really.

Hint Solution if you’re still stuck -

Spoiler

 

[Ezekiel]

Not a fan of the ax I take it. I had fun with it overall but I didn’t like the Winds of Hel timed stuff in this realm where you had to book it through obstacles to unlock stuff. I don’t like timed puzzle stuff much in any game really.

Hint Solution if you’re still stuck -

Spoiler

I solved the puzzle like seven times, but the Circle icon over the door was tiny and nobody said anything, so I couldn't tell it was already open.

 

[Dalisclock]

Still waiting for ER to drop so I've been re-playing Earthbound on the switch. It's a lot like I remember except I don't remember it being this difficult in the early game. Not joking I've died like 5 times in the first town(luckily I don't lose much more than half the money on my person, and there's a bank account to mitigate that) because something can take away half your life bar in a few hits and the time between you choosing to use a healing item and actually using item to heal can mean taking a couple more hits to the face. And you don't get a 2nd party member until the end of the 2nd town so it's basically you vs. anywhere up to 4 enemies at a time.

Even more fun, your magic system(called PSI) scales with level which means you probably don't have any notable magic for a bit unless you grind, but far worse, your inventory is super limited. As in, the same space holds: Plot required items, Armor, weapons, healing items, restorative items(cures status effects), etc. It's like 16? 20? spots and NOTHING STACKS, so you might as well buy the best healing items you can afford because there's no point in having anything that you don't need or that doesn't give yoju the most bang for your buck and this is one of the most annoying bits of the game. At least there's a storage chest offscreen(that you can access via a courier that you can summon from any phone), but this only keeps the game from being unplayable.

Otherwise it's a fun game and it's quirky atmosphere still appeals to me wonderfully, and helps justify why so many things look weird(like how a lot of the houses and buildings look way too big and small at the same time from the inside). Arguably the most cringey bit is the bit where you're hauled into a room with a bunch of cops who take turns trying to beat you down because.....they're american cops. Keep in mind you're character is like 13 years old.

 

[Ezekiel]

Again.

Hate, hate, hate the puzzles. Wouldn't bother me quite so much if I didn't have companions who kept blurting out completely unhelpful hints.

"Father, look at this."

 

[bluegate]

Continued my God of War save file after three years of no progress. Stuck again. It was a puzzle that killed what little enthusiasm I had in early 2019. Now it's this:

Spoiler

I don't get it, I don't get it, I don't wanna get it! I hate the throwing puzzles in this game so very, very much. The puzzles in the old games never annoyed me so.

A puzzle stumped you in 2018GOW? You might need to brush up on your gaming abilities there matey.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Again.

Hate, hate, hate the puzzles. Wouldn't bother me quite so much if I didn't have companions who kept blurting out completely unhelpful hints.

"Father, look at this."

I thought there was a prompt to focus on something whenever he said things like that. Could be wrong though. Pretty much all the puzzles seemed to use the ax to freeze or blades to set fire to something IIRC.

 

[Ezekiel]

A puzzle stumped you in 2018GOW? You might need to brush up on your gaming abilities there matey.

Yet I could list off many other adventure games whose puzzles I had relatively little trouble with. Including the God of War trilogy. The reboot's puzzles are just shit.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Yet I could list off many other adventure games whose puzzles I had relatively little trouble with. Including the God of War trilogy. The reboot's puzzles are just shit.

The puzzles are worse, but they're also way easier. Anything that you can't either walk through, smash through, or BOi through requires you to simply throw your axe at something shiney. Considering everything that you're required to do before you really get to any genuine puzzles I wouldn't say the game at all does a bad job at visually hinting at what needs to be done.

 

[Ezekiel]

Wtf... I DID THAT! Trash puzzles, where you give up on the correct strategy because you weren't precise enough. Which is another reason God of War was better before the action buttons were moved to the shoulders and it became about aiming. God of War was conceived when aiming was still seen as secondary in most games, rightfully so. How many of those early 3D action and horror games had auto-aim or fixed camera angles? Damn analog sticks.