What are you currently playing?

[Worgen]

That's pretty much all the trailer conveyed, innit? Dark Souls, but in a larger world.

Which trailer? The more story based one didn't have much gameplay and I deliberately skipped the 15 min gameplay one. I like going into these games as blind as possible. There was always going to be some amount of Dark Souls DNA here, I just thought there would be less and it would be more of its own thing, from a game play perspective, like Sekiro was. Its still really good, just not as different as expected.

 

[bluegate]

Which trailer? The more story based one didn't have much gameplay and I deliberately skipped the 15 min gameplay one. I like going into these games as blind as possible. There was always going to be some amount of Dark Souls DNA here, I just thought there would be less and it would be more of its own thing, from a game play perspective, like Sekiro was. Its still really good, just not as different as expected.

It's a mix, I think I skipped through the gameplay one and I remember seeing one where a character was running around with homing soul arrows behind his back.

I haven't really been following the game, but what I saw from it before its launch made me go; Ok, this is just Dark Souls 4 then. Cool.

 

[Agema]

Decisive Campaigns: Ardennes Offensive

Ah, hex grid wargame, how I love you. The Battle of the Bulge is terrifyingly overused in wargames, but I guess it makes a decent enough basis for wargame.

I don't really know how "decisive" it was either. The Germans were going to completely lose the war when it started, and they were going to completely lose the war when it ended. It was never going to change the course of the war significantly because the notional objective (Antwerp) was utterly delusional, and everything else about they planned could be kindly described as wildly overoptimistic. Your best realistic aim (as the Germans) is to get about 20 miles further and capture major objectives faster before the massive weight of US (& British) arms grinds everything to a halt.

Anyway, all works fine. Except that I am perhaps unconvinced at how fragile some of the tanks seem: losses can be very high from battles when there is seemingly little reason why.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Was gonna say yeah, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, etc. Unless one goes in completely media-blind it’s pretty clear this is essentially Dark Souls: Super-Sized. There are certainly iterations on past games that feel like improvements, along with new stuff an open world necessitates, but the *ahem* soul of the game is very recognizable to anyone familiar with their past games.

As for performance, in my three hours so far everything on foot has felt smooth and responsive on PS4. Torrent is where the only noticeable hiccups have occurred anywhere for me, and this is likely due to loading in the game world at any type of speed. Even then, I’ve had worse instances of this in Sekiro during more demanding areas of gameplay (looking at you Hirata Estates in flames), so unless things get drastically worse I can only sympathize with anyone reporting stutters/judders/udders?. Well still, you can never be too sure on that last one given it’s a FROM game.

I was listening to SkillUp's review and he explained his impression of the open world and its layout that was interesting. He was comparing not only to Souls games but other open world games and assuming he's right that's what it'll distinguish the game beyond "Dark Souls 4." I was getting a similar impression listening to Nick and Jack stream it yesterday.

At this point I won't be playing it for months or a year and as Souls fan I was gonna play it anyway but I honestly am expecting more than just "Dark Souls 4" in terms of the general pacing of progression and mood, while expecting that basic combat and movement will be basically Dark Souls 3.

 

[Bartholen]

I went briefly back to Hollow Knight to see what it would take to get to the "true ending", and fuuuuuuuuuuck no! I'm not going on that fucking grind-a-thon fetch quest just to get a better ending. You're supposed to gather 1800 essence with the Dream Nail to even be able to get to one of the many, many steps it takes to get there. I've gathered all the whispering trees and defeated all the warrior dreams, and still have only slightly above 1000 essence. Apparently I'm supposed to go back and challenge variants of previous bosses but frankly GTFO with that crap.

It's such a fucking shame that this game ultimately leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It's so good in so many ways, but if one ending is completely unsatisfying, and the other one puts the Lord of Hollows ending in Dark Souls 3 to shame in terms of obtuseness and arduousness, then neither of those endings are IMO worth it. That and the frankly insulting amount of backtracking you have to do in this game. Whose idea was it to put the boss rush challenge area at the very end of a section you have to spend like 5 minutes on foot to get to? Add the incredibly convoluted map design that can outright mislead you at times, leading you to trudge back to whatever fast travel point you were last. This is not a game I'm going to play again for a good while.

 

[Worgen]

I went briefly back to Hollow Knight to see what it would take to get to the "true ending", and fuuuuuuuuuuck no! I'm not going on that fucking grind-a-thon fetch quest just to get a better ending. You're supposed to gather 1800 essence with the Dream Nail to even be able to get to one of the many, many steps it takes to get there. I've gathered all the whispering trees and defeated all the warrior dreams, and still have only slightly above 1000 essence. Apparently I'm supposed to go back and challenge variants of previous bosses but frankly GTFO with that crap.

It's such a fucking shame that this game ultimately leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It's so good in so many ways, but if one ending is completely unsatisfying, and the other one puts the Lord of Hollows ending in Dark Souls 3 to shame in terms of obtuseness and arduousness, then neither of those endings are IMO worth it. That and the frankly insulting amount of backtracking you have to do in this game. Whose idea was it to put the boss rush challenge area at the very end of a section you have to spend like 5 minutes on foot to get to? Add the incredibly convoluted map design that can outright mislead you at times, leading you to trudge back to whatever fast travel point you were last. This is not a game I'm going to play again for a good while.

I don't recall having any issues with the dream essence. I was totally disappointed in the ending till I looked it up and found out to use the dream nail on the last boss, I had totally forgotten that was a thing. The true ending was so much better. I think you can challenge other bosses multiple times at higher and higher difficulty, so it shouldn't be to bad to get there since the first challenge is only a bit harder then normal... Although I also might be thinking of challenging that one guy who thinks hes a hero and the dream fight for the nightmare carnival (which is brutal).

 

[Casual Shinji]

I think I'm a bit done with Horizon: Forbidden West.

Maybe I'm just a bit burned out having played it for a week and trying to finish every side-quest, or maybe it's the combat being balanced in a way that requires 60% of my time to be spent in the weapons wheel. Or maybe it's the new tribes being really kinda boring, with the only difference being that one dresses in green, one in red, and the other in blue. Or maybe it's that more than half of the open-world consists of desert, and all the lush tropical jungle and sea shit that the game was marketed with is at the tail end of the map. Or maybe it's the lack of personality in the character performances that this series unfortunately still suffers from. Or maybe it's this game just not willing to commit to its own bit, and have fun with it's wacky setting.

The swimming is nice though, I could do that shit for hours.

 

[Worgen]

I think I'm a bit done with Horizon: Forbidden West.

Maybe I'm just a bit burned out having played it for a week and trying to finish every side-quest, or maybe it's the combat being balanced in a way that requires 60% of my time to be spent in the weapons wheel. Or maybe it's the new tribes being really kinda boring, with the only difference being that one dresses in green, one in red, and the other in blue. Or maybe it's that more than half of the open-world consists of desert, and all the lush tropical jungle and sea shit that the game was marketed with is at the tail end of the map. Or maybe it's the lack of personality in the character performances that this series unfortunately still suffers from. Or maybe it's this game just not willing to commit to its own bit, and have fun with it's wacky setting.

The swimming is nice though, I could do that shit for hours.

I found the open world in the Horizon Zero Dawn kinda boring and annoying. The terrain was fine, but it was weirdly hard to find a path where you were just unmolested by giant robots, even if you were on the marked roads it was rather common to run into things seeking to annoy you. Plus the weapon wheel thing seems pretty apt for how much switching around the game likes to see you do. Not to mention that sometimes finding a mount was a pain in the butt that was further complicated by the mountable robots having more aggressive ones around too that would eff with you.

 

[BrawlMan]

Ninja Saviors - Trying to beat some of my time trials runs on hard mode with specific characters.

I'll be playing Bloodstain - Curse of the Moon 2 later this evening. Snagged a physical copy at Best Buy.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I found the open world in the Horizon Zero Dawn kinda boring and annoying. The terrain was fine, but it was weirdly hard to find a path where you were just unmolested by giant robots, even if you were on the marked roads it was rather common to run into things seeking to annoy you. Plus the weapon wheel thing seems pretty apt for how much switching around the game likes to see you do. Not to mention that sometimes finding a mount was a pain in the butt that was further complicated by the mountable robots having more aggressive ones around too that would eff with you.

I won't say the open-world in HZD was exciting, but it was good at gradually opening up the map and presenting you with changing scenery. You go from a kind of wintery forrested area, to a larger meadow-like valley that shows ruins of what the world used to be, then to an even larger rocky desert, and finally a jungle setting. In Forbidden West after a terrific starting area you just get dumped into this enormous desert map with very little flow to guide you, and once you've spent at least 5 hours wandering through it the map opens up to... another fucking desert that's even bigger.

I never had much issue with the weapon wheel in HZD, because even on the hardest difficulty you could pretty much lean on 3 or 4 weapons to carry you through the game. In Forbidden West they've made it so you REALLY need to use elemental attacks in robot fights otherwise you get stomped hard. So besides switching stronger and weaker weapons (and needing to make ammo for them) you're also constantly switching elemental attacks (and needing to make ammo for that). Then there's the charge mechanic that allows you to build up energy with spear attacks to then stick a little blue energy orb to an enemy which you can then shoot for an explossion, and this is cool, but you don't want to use your strong arrows (that require more rare material to make) to detonate it, so your back to the weapon wheel to switch to your lower tier arrows. The whole process is just so much more headache inducing now.

Then there's the climbing which is still as unsatisfying as it was in the first game, but now there's way more of it. I guess this was Guerilla's way of trying offset how railroaded the climbing felt in HZD, but now there's just way more railroads for you to awkwardly switch between.

 

[Dalisclock]

I think I'm a bit done with Horizon: Forbidden West.

Maybe I'm just a bit burned out having played it for a week and trying to finish every side-quest, or maybe it's the combat being balanced in a way that requires 60% of my time to be spent in the weapons wheel. Or maybe it's the new tribes being really kinda boring, with the only difference being that one dresses in green, one in red, and the other in blue. Or maybe it's that more than half of the open-world consists of desert, and all the lush tropical jungle and sea shit that the game was marketed with is at the tail end of the map. Or maybe it's the lack of personality in the character performances that this series unfortunately still suffers from. Or maybe it's this game just not willing to commit to its own bit, and have fun with it's wacky setting.

The swimming is nice though, I could do that shit for hours.

So as someone who loved the plot in HZD and was one of the main reason I remember that, I've noticed nobody really talking about the plot in HFW, which makes me worried there isn't much to speak of. Just something about Hades still being out there(and if you watched the stinger of HZD , then yeah) but then it's more tribal stuff which I never found that compelling in HZD.

 

[Casual Shinji]

So as someone who loved the plot in HZD and was one of the main reason I remember that, I've noticed nobody really talking about the plot in HFW, which makes me worried there isn't much to speak of. Just something about Hades still being out there(and if you watched the stinger of HZD , then yeah) but then it's more tribal stuff which I never found that compelling in HZD.

There is more to it, and there are some reveals that on paper are actually pretty cool. But it doesn't handle it as well as the first game handled the whole Zero Dawn reveal.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Still playing Iconoclasts.

Some technical niggles. It's missing a sense of growth or progression you get from the really good Metroidvanias. There're no health upgrades, no XP, no currency to get or merch to buy and no new movement abilities to unlock. You have your two starter weapons, each with a couple of story-mandated upgrades, and that's pretty much it. You'll never discover through exploration or intense puzzle solving anything that isn't a schematic for a tweak or the material to craft it. And frankly tweaks are kinda lame.

They're like the mods from SteamWorld Dig 2 and the charms from Hollow Knight: equip them to walk a little faster or get an extra hit, stuff like that. Except you can only equip 3 at a time (and never ever more than 3), and if you're like me you'll keep the same 3 tweaks on for the duration of the game (or at least 60% into it, which is where I am right now). Simply put the majority of them will ever be as useful as anything that lets you do stuff a little faster. And even then tweaks break when you get hit. You can farm 2 or 3 enemies to restore them, which isn't a big deal but it will definitely be constant one.

So as fun as exploring and doing the puzzles can be, that's somewhat mitigated knowing the reward will just be another crafting material to add to the pile to craft a tweak I will never equip. I'd like it better if you were able to increase the number of tweaks you can equip, and if they all didn't take up space equally, and if they wouldn't break as soon as a level one goomba brushes past me, and if the save statues would restore them like they already restore all your health.

Otherwise exploration is fun enough. I always like it when your abilities carry over across the three legs of combat, puzzle and traversal. Your wrench is good for hitting enemies, parrying projectiles, unlocking doors, charging machines, grappling across ziplines, swinging from platform to platform, etc. The gun feels more like a token addition to combat (it tends to self-aim so long as you're within 45 degrees of the target) but the bombs are fun to use in puzzle-solving, especially once they can carry electrical charges and you can detonate them at will.

 

[BrawlMan]

Curse of the Moon 2 - It's the first game and Dracula's Curse, but better. This game really relies on character switching and is quick with it. The game is more difficult than first game. I've died twice, but it was either to an enemy or obstacle. The bosses so far have not given me trouble. Zangetsu returns as the sword guy, and gets new moves as you get further in to the fame. There is a little bit of Bloodlines DNA, as Dominique is the Eric Lecarde of this game. She even has the Scrooge McDuck/Shovel Knight/Cranky Kong/Cherry Hunter press down on a enemy or object to pogo jump off of it. I still disagree how health is handled with characters. Everyone has their own health bars, but 2 out of the 4 party have low health. This more so applies to Robert is a straight up walking paper tiger. I gets for character balance, but some of the weaker characters should have gotten a little more health. At least Dominique has a sub-weapon that can heal people. I am only on the 3rd stage so far, and taking a break.

There is an update that allows a harder difficulty called Legend. Fuck that noise! I'll stick with Veteran mode! The 8 bit soundtrack is awesome as always and love the little animations between intermissions. Also, this games gives you 32 save slots! In case you wanna do multiple playthrough at different difficultes or back up your saves. You see that AAA gaming? You have no excuse not to do multiple save files anymore!

A first for the series is two player co-op. I highly doubt I can get my brother co-op with this type of game. I'll add more thoughts on the game later.

 

[Worgen]

Still playing Iconoclasts.

Some technical niggles. It's missing a sense of growth or progression you get from the really good Metroidvanias. There're no health upgrades, no XP, no currency to get or merch to buy and no new movement abilities to unlock. You have your two starter weapons, each with a couple of story-mandated upgrades, and that's pretty much it. You'll never discover through exploration or intense puzzle solving anything that isn't a schematic for a tweak or the material to craft it. And frankly tweaks are kinda lame.

They're like the mods from SteamWorld Dig 2 and the charms from Hollow Knight: equip them to walk a little faster or get an extra hit, stuff like that. Except you can only equip 3 at a time (and never ever more than 3), and if you're like me you'll keep the same 3 tweaks on for the duration of the game (or at least 60% into it, which is where I am right now). Simply put the majority of them will ever be as useful as anything that lets you do stuff a little faster. And even then tweaks break when you get hit. You can farm 2 or 3 enemies to restore them, which isn't a big deal but it will definitely be constant one.

So as fun as exploring and doing the puzzles can be, that's somewhat mitigated knowing the reward will just be another crafting material to add to the pile to craft a tweak I will never equip. I'd like it better if you were able to increase the number of tweaks you can equip, and if they all didn't take up space equally, and if they wouldn't break as soon as a level one goomba brushes past me, and if the save statues would restore them like they already restore all your health.

Otherwise exploration is fun enough. I always like it when your abilities carry over across the three legs of combat, puzzle and traversal. Your wrench is good for hitting enemies, parrying projectiles, unlocking doors, charging machines, grappling across ziplines, swinging from platform to platform, etc. The gun feels more like a token addition to combat (it tends to self-aim so long as you're within 45 degrees of the target) but the bombs are fun to use in puzzle-solving, especially once they can carry electrical charges and you can detonate them at will.

Keep going, I'm curious as to your take as you get closer to the end.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Keep going, I'm curious as to your take as you get closer to the end.

The story? I'm enjoying it well enough. It's a bit overwritten, you could trim half the dialogue in the game and you wouldn't lose anything that hasn't already been covered in five other occasions. I'm sick of hearing about One Concern. But there's something darker/weirder going on that keeps me going.

And Robin is kind of a flatline. Everyone around her is more driven or interesting, she seems mostly along for the ride. Her motivation is always either reunite with someone you just got separated from or help them reach somewhere or rescue someone. Rinse and repeat.

 

[Worgen]

The story? I'm enjoying it well enough. It's a bit overwritten, you could trim half the dialogue in the game and you wouldn't lose anything that hasn't already been covered in five other occasions. I'm sick of hearing about One Concern. But there's something darker/weirder going on that keeps me going.

And Robin is kind of a flatline. Everyone around her is more driven or interesting, she seems mostly along for the ride. Her motivation is always either reunite with someone you just got separated from or help them reach somewhere or rescue someone. Rinse and repeat.

How far are you?

 

[laggyteabag]

I am most of the way through replaying BioShock Infinite.

I am enjoying the story, and Columbia is decent enough (though the setting doesn't adapt as well to the genre nearly as well as Rapture did - nor is it anywhere near as atmospheric), though my main point of contention is the gameplay, which leaves a lot to be desired, IMO.

Whilst BioShock 2 is a definite expansion of BioShock 1's mechanics, Infinite instead strips out quite a lot.

2-weapon limit. The removal of health kits/eve hypos. The addition of a regenerating shield. The removal of hacking. The removal of Power to the People stations (and with much less interesting upgrades to boot). Simplified melee mechanics. Removing big daddies/little sisters, etc.

So whilst you are still rummaging through bins for resources, and throwing vigours (plasmids) all over the place, the game feels much less mechanically interesting than its predecessors.

It is definitely a different BioShock experience, and I am certain that it was not for the better.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

How far are you?

Just finished the snowy bit.

 

[Worgen]

Just finished the snowy bit.

Ahh, so a decent ways in.