What are you currently playing?

wings012

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Say what you want about CP2077, but night city is great. When I played it I made a point to never fast travel just to wander around the city. A shame there wasn't many stuff to discover in it, but still great ambience. I really wished instead of making the DLC a new area they instead made DLC like old rockstar did with ballad of gay Tony and stuff where they'd make a new campaign in the same map (and also update it a bit in the process, still bummed the sky train doesn't work).
I kinda only how nice the city looked when people were making these comparison shots with the Edgerunners anime and how accurate it was to the game. When I was playing the game however, I had my nose to the ground sprinting everywhere and rummaging for loot or quick traveling everywhere.

The game wasn't bad after they fixed it up, but it just wasn't the next sliced bread that a lot of people were hyping it up to be. It could probably have benefited from just being a linear adventure game instead of an open world one. The open world doesn't really contribute much to the game, but it is very nice to look at.
 

NerfedFalcon

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Mar 23, 2011
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Ended up getting back into Old School Runescape because I just can't quit that game for some reason. Been starting slow trying to get my rhythm back, but I've already got prayer flicking down again so that's a good first step towards bigger things. There's a couple of straightforward-seeming quests that I also want to try doing to open up some new things to explore - well, new to me, at any rate.
 

Zykon TheLich

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It's most common on red/archeotech relic gear.

Exalted Saint mode puts the heavy flamer to shame.
Well, thanks to giving the crusader a bit more of a go and your input I decided to buy the DLC in the end and have been enjoying it much more than I used to, I guess the assassin just wasn't a play style that worked well for me.

I find it a bit odd that the sororitas has 1 handed weapons grouped together in set pairs that other classes could get singly and then mix and match.

I still haven't worked out how the living saint works. I should probably just check the keyboard control options.
 

RhombusHatesYou

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Mar 21, 2010
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Between There and There.
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The Wide, Brown One.
I still haven't worked out how the living saint works. I should probably just check the keyboard control options.
When your faith meter is full press X.

Oh yeah, and in case you missed it, there's a spot to configure your faith abilities and saint powers right next to where Caius Thorn is standing... or next to the spots where you configured Psyker and Tech Priest stuff.

As for the weapon combos... yeah, they're a bit hit and miss. The only advantage I've found it that it gives you the basic attacks for both weapons (on left and right MBs, too) instead of the weirdness mix'n'match could result in.
 
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Old_Hunter_77

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Your boy played some games this weekend.

Spent some quality time with my new Steam Deck. Boy howdy is this a fine little machine, I love it. Of course I am playing it safe- no weird operating systems or add-ons, just trying a couple of games that Valve assures me will work. And I played some PS5 demos.

Soul Caliber 6
This came out so long ago already though it still feels "new" to my brain because I been meaning to check it out but I just couldn't justify paying more than 5 bucks for a fighting game, a genre I essentially swore off since I stopped having IRL friends to game with. But as something to have on my new portable device and it being super discounted, this is the time.
Well overall the combat is super fluid and fast, almost too fluid and fast because a lot of it "feels" luck-based and button-mashy, which is great because it lets me win some fights and progress, but also never feels deep. I know for that I would have to commit the time and energy to git gud but, eh, we'll see.

There are two story modes- one called "Libra" which has level numbers and a map and side quests and all the story is just text based and it's terrible. Just press x to read all the boring words then do some fights which are OK but you're using a character you "create" (which is really just one of the existing players with a skin) and you watch your stat numbers go up and very long loading screens. I think I made it about half-way through that and will not be continuing.
The other story mode I think is like with Mortal Kombat where you play as all the characters and that one looks more fun. I haven't gotten into that one yet.

Darksiders 2
I bought this many years ago after enjoying the first Darksiders, and for some reason the controls just didn't work or something. I'd press jump and the dude didn't jump or whatever, and I don't know why I couldn't just get a refund. So it's been sitting in my library all this time and I decided to give it a whirl on my Deck and lo and behold, it works now *shrugs*

Man, this is what a "video game" feels like to me. Stupid action but requires some skill but not too much and looks awesome and is fun. There are puzzles but it's mostly about understanding the environment. The game is 10 years old at this point but looked great for its time which means it translates brilliantly to the Deck.
Yes, I recognize that Darksiders is just an conjunction of greater games: Zelda + God of War, basically. But it's the best parts of both without the extremes of neither. It's like a really great blues-rock bar band- I'm not here for innovation or genius, I'm here for a consistent good time.
You play as "Death" and the design of the character is very heavy metal, I love it- he's just a bare chested brute as opposed to the heavily armored cosplayer of War from the first game. Most important is the main weapon is a pair of scythes which looks and feels great to fight with.

My only real annoyance so far is the wall jumps, I struggle with the timing and angle sometimes. And for combat, it's easy to lose sight of the enemy and you have to constantly smush left trigger to simulate a lock-on. If these things get too annoying as the game gets harder I'll probably quit but for now I'm good.

Brotato
This is a case of me not reading the description carefully and regretting the purchase but for $5 I'm not gonna cry about it. It's basically if Vampire Survivors looked like Binding of Isaac. I incorrectly assumed it would play more like Isaac, but this whole trend of walking while the game does the shooting and you only worry about how to level up is in effect here. I was looking for casual, but this is too casual.
But, I like it more than Vampire because it's a series of small areas and short rounds so there's a better feedback loop of progress and reward. And the cleaner simpler visual style is more appealing to me.

Sony offered 5 free demos as some sort of Game Awards cross-marketing something or other. I never get to play demos so this was exciting for me, and two of the games were games I had my eye on.

You Suck At Parking
I already tried this one out via Game Pass but just wanted to mention here in case any PS5 folks are here. It's a cute little "racing" game with physics-based mechanics.

Bramble: The Mountain King
Another entry in the little boy in a creepy world genre, this one is sorta 3D and has a fairy-tale nature vibe. The environment is absolutely stunning and I think the visuals are going to be its selling point. Unfortunately, I only "played" for a couple of minutes because I got to a big sleeping statue-creature and could not figure out what to do next- it wouldn't wake up, there was nowhere else to traverse, and none of the buttons did anything. So either I'm an idiot (likely), or it's broken or whatever, and I just stopped caring.

Season: A Letter to the Future
A chill exploration walking-sim game where you go around from location to location in 3rd person. Though it's being promoted as a bike-riding adventure, the demo focused on the walking around part and you are supposed to observe the environment and take pictures and audio recordings. It's all about figuring out what happened or is happening to areas that are disappearing or something like that. I suspect this will be a hit for folks who like this type of thing.

Thirsty Suitors
One of the games that struck my interest when it was revealed in the summer, it's a turn-based combat dating sim thing. Its hook is that it's by and about South Asians and it's explicitly a modern setting and story. So you're this young woman and you got boyfriends and girlfriends and the combat is representing conversations so you "attack" opponents by insulting or flirting with them and your mom is the kaiju summon. It's a very cute idea and I love the diverse representation.
Unfortunately, the demo rubbed me the wrong way. Most significant is the problem that happens with small games that focus on a uniquely clever idea- the actual mechanics are lame. It's all the most simplistic turn-based combat but the QTE's. Blech.
The tone was off-putting at times. The protagonist has purple hair and nose-peircing and listens to "cool" music all the time- it's just so try-hard. Like I get they're going for very modern vibe and to put Indian and South Asian characters in a relatable context, but it all feels like an old person's idea of young people. Then during the combat my narrator character kept using the world "thirsty" so much it felt like an old timer in the 1980's calling everything "groovy."

Forspoken
This is now my most anticipated game of 2023- less for the game itself then for the... say it with me now.. DISCOURSE. This is the one where a trailer came out and there's a young woman of color doing magic/fighting and saying snarky things and everybody made fun of it like it was the greatest marketing crime since Crystal Pepsi. Frost and KC played the demo over the weekend and they were underwhelmed, while folks in the chat were crapping on is mercilessly before the stream even started. The hate for this one is strong.
And, yeah, it is basically you go around a fantasy-ish open world on a map with icons and waypoints, which apparently these days is an offense to tru gamurz worse than death.

The demo is just a taste of the combat and traversal, deliberately skipping on story which KC oddly criticized. It is third person action-y which I like. IMO there is the core potential of a fun game but it needs refinement. The "feel" of the combat seems like it's trying to be both free and float-y like Assassins Creed- where the priority for the player is progressing quickly- but also sticky and weighty like God of War. But you can't do both and if they insist on trying to do that, it will fail for me. But if they refine the speed, interaction and camera a bit it can be good. The little bit they preview on cut scenes and facial animations and such looks absolutely next-gen gorgeous.

All of the combat and most of the movement uses magic, which is a clever way to add a bit of flair to this old formula. Everything is a "spell," and you can switch between spell loadouts pretty quickly, though sometimes it seemed to switch without me wanting to which was annoying. The game has "magic parkour" which means in order to go very fast or to scale walls you gotta do a magic thing.

The story set-up is that you're a modern day young woman from New York that gets Connecticut Yankeed into like a Zelda world and you have a talking magic bracelet that sounds like Vision from MCU. This is where the controversial dialogue tone of the game comes in, as the playable character and the bracelet smarm at each other. And, yeah, this will get annoying, for sure. I also agree with KC and Frost that her swearing while you're running around this cartoony world is very jarring.

Mark my prediction for this game now: it will come out, get absolutely savaged by critics for its tone and unoriginality (both real and exaggeratedly perceived), and become the thing that gamers pile on and crap on even if they never play it or have any interest in. And because the protagonist is a woman of color, some of the criticism will be exaggerated and criticize it for stuff other, popular games do with the "go woke or go broke" crowd harping on about insignificant details. But also the game won't be so great as to merit hardcore defenders. So, kinda like what Horizon got.
Then after a year or two, it will be praised as a sleeper hit and an actually good game once it becomes discounted or added to subscription services. I call this the "Immortals: Fenyx Rising" cycle. See also: Days Gone, before one of its creators peed his diapers on Twitter.
 

Dreiko

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Just started this beauty called Chained Echoes, indie sprite art Jrpg style game by some german dude. Really gorgeous art style, world feel is like a dark final fantasy 4, with mechs and dragons and demons. It's got some rather grim bits only a few hours in to contrast the overly pretty world and you can feel that it is not being held back in any way.





The combat system is also balanced brilliantly when you play on hard (high enemy stats) mode, it has a system where you have to use specific actions to keep a synergy bar going and not overfill it and if you do you take a ton more damage but you also can do some specific actions to reduce it. Also there's no need to heal after fights since you auto-heal which speeds up things a lot, since a majority of encounters is likely to leave your party half dead or more. There's no random encounters at all so they seem to have planned each and every fight and fitted the difficulty curve by hand. Only 3.5 hours in so far but the party members I've seen are generally likable, though one dude seems like a psycho elitist. He's gonna cause some problems for sure in time lol. My fav has to be the samurai bandit lady, she's badass.


Also the mech system looks epic, they give you a taste of it in the prologue but then shit happens and you don't have a mech any more for a long while, once I get one again I shall add more details. All I know is that they look kinda like steampunk gundams mixed with Escaflowne aesthetics.
 
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XsjadoBlaydette

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The Many Annoyances of Callisto Protocol: 'I Tried to be Nice' Edition
It's done. It's no longer taking up precious hard drive space. My pathology for this genre has been granted sweet blessed release at last. And now all's left is to try and process the last few dozen hours - a foggy cocktail of compromising emotions - through the acclaimed therapeutic method known commonly as 'wailing into the eternal void of the internet.'

1. Here's a tip for devs trying to make interesting, fun and memorable boss fights... don't make them one-hit-kill attacks when the environment is claustrophobic and your main character has no movement capability surpassing the average walking speed of care home residents. That's a bad. And don't repeat the same boss 4 times. Also try to be creative with their visual design at the very least.

2. This game hides leech enemies in various containers you have no way of knowing they're in till opening, which initiates an unblockable QTE attack you gotta mash the button to kill your way out of. Health is always lost. The first few times, alright fine, whatever, maybe even a few after that if spaced out enough. I swear to satan they did this enough that I journeyed the full 7 stages of grief 3 fucking times before they were done with this shit. The regularity increased towards the end as well. Give it a rest, fellas, for crying out loud.

3. Shoulder swap. Plz. These genre of games absolutely need a shoulder swap option for carefully navigating claustrophobic corners without offering your dumb meat sack as willing sacrifice to anything bumbling behind the next right-hand corner.

4. Environments are bland, uninspired, yet strangely reminiscent of the poorer end of the resident evil series. By the time I reached the lab areas in the latter half, an anticipated familiar feeling washed over me like visiting a childhood home.

5. I've a growing suspicion this game was born of a long-held resentment from not being allowed to implement their extravagant death animations on the original Dead Space series during development, so basically pulled a "build my own casino with blackjack and hookers" dealio where the blackjack is overlong unskippable death animations and the hookers are also overlong unskippable death animations, because god fcking damnit the world needs to witness their historically oppressed overlong unskippable death animations!
- Now, tbf these are often elaborate with a clear amount of care put into them (seemingly more than any other part of the game) and I was doing quite well not being frustrated by their stubbornness through most the campaign. That was. Until. The final boss.
- Ahh, the final boss. There are multiple angles of bullshit contributing to this, including the 'resi evil' style build up and design found elsewhere in the game. But the biggest gripe is its' one particular death animation when it grabs you - obviously a 1 hit kill like the others btw - which it does every time, is longer and more elaborate than any other death animation, even longer than the amount of time I spent with some attempts fighting him! Being unskippable and long meant I often ended up checking my phone during each death, so when it auto loads straight back into the fight I'm often distracted just long enough for the boss to grab me and start the cycle over again.

6. You know what would really be hack videogame design in a hack horror story in any fictional medium? A self-destruct sequence being activated which the characters must escape from in the finalé. You wouldn't do this to us though, would you Callisto Protocol? ...would you?? Of course you fucking would!

7. Sequel bait is gonna sequel bait I guess.

8. Oh did I mention the parts of the game it forces you into a 'walk and talk' style of movement where you can't do anything except hobble slowly around. In Sony exclusives, this technique is used to focus on conversations intended to build character and backstory or whatevs. However, this game truly innovatives by placing these areas with no observable rhyme or reason...no conversation, nothing to look at, just random hobbling so the game can laugh at your impotence I assume.

9. Yet I still couldn't stop playing. What is wrong with me? There are amazing, competently designed games to be found in so many other places, however I ignore or fall off them quick sometimes only to be somehow hyperfocused on this shoddily composed bowl of burnt rice. It's gotta be pathological.

-

Now am starting FF: Crisis Core remake. Never played before, never heard of until ppl were fawning it's announcement. There's an eternal slot machine in the corner mysteriously dictating my life, sort of how I'd imagine a blunt representation of a compulsive gambler's consciousness would look.
 
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BrawlMan

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The Many Annoyances of Callisto Protocol: 'I Tried to be Nice' Edition
It's done. It's no longer taking up precious hard drive space. My pathology for this genre has been granted sweet blessed release at last. And now all's left is to try and process the last few dozen hours - a foggy cocktail of compromising emotions - through the acclaimed therapeutic method known commonly as 'wailing into the eternal void of the internet.'

1. Here's a tip for devs trying to make interesting, fun and memorable boss fights... don't make them one-hit-kill attacks when the environment is claustrophobic and your main character has no movement capability surpassing the average walking speed of care home residents. That's a bad. And don't repeat the same boss 4 times. Also try to be creative with their visual design at the very least.

2. This game hides leech enemies in various containers you have no way of knowing they're in till opening, which initiates an unblockable QTE attack you gotta mash the button to kill your way out of. Health is always lost. The first few times, alright fine, whatever, maybe even a few after that if spaced out enough. I swear to satan they did this enough that I journeyed the full 7 stages of grief 3 fucking times before they were done with this shit. The regularity increased towards the end as well. Give it a rest, fellas, for crying out loud.

3. Shoulder swap. Plz. These genre of games absolutely need a shoulder swap option for carefully navigating claustrophobic corners without offering your dumb meat sack as willing sacrifice to anything bumbling behind the next right-hand corner.

4. Environments are bland, uninspired, yet strangely reminiscent of the poorer end of the resident evil series. By the time I reached the lab areas in the latter half, an anticipated familiar feeling washed over me like visiting a childhood home.

5. I've a growing suspicion this game was born of a long-held resentment from not being allowed to implement their extravagant death animations on the original Dead Space series during development, so basically pulled a "build my own casino with blackjack and hookers" dealio where the blackjack is overlong unskippable death animations and the hookers are also overlong unskippable death animations, because god fcking damnit the world needs to witness their historically oppressed overlong unskippable death animations!
- Now, tbf these are often elaborate with a clear amount of care put into them (seemingly more than any other part of the game) and I was doing quite well not being frustrated by their stubbornness through most the campaign. That was. Until. The final boss.
- Ahh, the final boss. There are multiple angles of bullshit contributing to this, including the 'resi evil' style build up and design found elsewhere in the game. But the biggest gripe is its' one particular death animation when it grabs you - obviously a 1 hit kill like the others btw - which it does every time, is longer and more elaborate than any other death animation, even longer than the amount of time I spent with some attempts fighting him! Being unskippable and long meant I often ended up checking my phone during each death, so when it auto loads straight back into the fight I'm often distracted just long enough for the boss to grab me and start the cycle over again.

6. You know what would really be hack videogame design in a hack horror story in any fictional medium? A self-destruct sequence being activated which the characters must escape from in the finalé. You wouldn't do this to us though, would you Callisto Protocol? ...would you?? Of course you fucking would!

7. Sequel bait is gonna sequel bait I guess.

8. Oh did I mention the parts of the game it forces you into a 'walk and talk' style of movement where you can't do anything except hobble slowly around. In Sony exclusives, this technique is used to focus on conversations intended to build character and backstory or whatevs. However, this game truly innovatives by placing these areas with no observable rhyme or reason...no conversation, nothing to look at, just random hobbling so the game can laugh at your impotence I assume.

9. Yet I still couldn't stop playing. What is wrong with me? There are amazing, competently designed games to be found in so many other places, however I ignore or fall off them quick sometimes only to be somehow hyperfocused on this shoddily composed bowl of burnt rice. It's gotta be pathological.

-

Now am starting FF: Crisis Core remake. Never played before, never heard of until ppl were fawning it's announcement. There's an eternal slot machine in the corner mysteriously dictating my life, sort of how I'd imagine a blunt representation of a compulsive gambler's consciousness would look.
How you feel about that torture was of similar to how I felt about GG Gore. The only difference is that I got stuck at a point I couldn't finish the game, so I traded it in. That game did not need to be 20 plus something stages anyway. They should have ended it at 8 or 9 and been done. Nothing happens story wise in this game for it to be that long. I'm so glad I kept the original on PS2 and got it for the price of four bucks back in 2007.
 
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Drathnoxis

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I finished Tunic. Easily GOTY for me. Like I said before, visually, the game is gorgeous. The game is full of striking vistas and is just very stylish. But that's nothing out of the ordinary, many games have a well realized art direction. What is unique, though, is how the game teaches the player. Throughout the game you'll find pages of the games instruction manual, a nice detailed retro-style manual that might have come with a SNES game, except most of the text is in a made up language. This turns figuring out how to play the game into a bit of a puzzle as you pick up a new page and suddenly learn that you have an ability that you could have been using the whole time, or suddenly understand the purpose behind a monument is. The game is as much a puzzle game as it is action. It is very much Zelda for a mature audience, despite the cartoon visuals. Zelda crossed with Dark Souls may also be an accurate statement, although there is more Zelda in the formula than Dark Souls. The combat is fairly difficult, if a little clunky, especially against bosses, but if you've explored thoroughly your power level does creep to the point that most enemies aren't too much of a threat. Death is also not penalized overly much.

But, especially toward the endgame, exploration and puzzle solving is much more of a focus. There are hidden areas and chests all over, and by the end you'll discover that puzzles are even layered on top of each other, and the knowledge you'll gain by reading more pages of the instruction manual will allow you to go back and recognize and solve the puzzles organically. The game is fairly well paced in how it doles out information, however, there does come a point where you need to travel back across most of the world, and the pacing does suffer quite a bit at that point. It does give you a chance to solve some of the puzzles you missed the first time, however, they make the mistake of removing the music for this point of the game. Now the music is kind of dull to begin with, but removing it entirely just really hurts the mood and makes traveling the world feel like a chore. It's also night for this section as well which doesn't help.

The puzzles are, for the most part, adequately hinted and fairly simple. I did have to look up several hints online, but you should be able to get the true ending with simply in game resources. Going for 100% is another story:

First, I did have to look up a hint for the golden path, and I'm really annoyed that I did. I was convinced that all those numbers were part of some sort of math/number manipulation puzzle that would show the correct path to take but I just could not figure out how they all related to each other. Once I read someone say that the numbers were page numbers I immediately thought of all the little line sections that I had noticed and didn't know what to do with and was really annoyed with myself for not thinking of it. It wasn't until hours after I solved it and was trying to find the last couple secret treasures that I realized that 22/22 was actually supposed to be my hint. That made me doubly annoyed because I even noticed that 22 looked like the bottom of the page it was on and stared at that number for several minutes, but I just never connected it to the golden path. Darn it. But that one is all on me.

The red skull puzzle sucks, and it really shouldn't. It's actually pretty well designed, the manual has a pretty obvious hint with the skullx4 doodle, and then you see a red skull sitting on a tombstone with a hole below. It's fairly obvious what you need to do. However, actually doing it is an exercise in frustration because there is no way to pick up the skull and you need to awkwardly roll them around by bumping into them and they don't always roll because they are oddly shaped, and the ground is not flat and they will end up rolling into the bottom of ponds where they are difficult to roll out. The worst part is the skull hidden behind the tombstone. I was literally running into it, and it didn't move, I even thought it seemed like I was hitting something behind the stone but gave up because it obviously wasn't coming out. It wasn't for another 10 minutes that I thought to tilt the screen and actually got a glimpse of it, and another 15 or so until I completed the puzzle because I'm pretty sure that it fell out of the world one time, and then I kept dying to the big skeleton. All together it probably took me 30-45 minutes to solve this puzzle and I knew the solution the second I saw the red skull on the grave. Very frustrating.

The wind chime puzzle is the worst regular puzzle in the game. You need to turn off music and ambient sound to even really hear the stupid thing. It took me a while to figure out that the puzzle was outside and not inside the house. Then you need to decipher the clue from the manual, which isn't too bad really. The chimes are quite subtle and irregular so you need to listen very carefully to accurately map them to directions. But the worst part is that there is no clear starting point to the sequence, and you need to input from the beginning or you don't get credit. I spent about 5 minutes writing down the chimes, and after inputting it all I didn't get credit because I didn't begin from the start. I had to look up the solution, and I had the solution, but I just didn't get credit for it. Very bad puzzle, with a really easy way to improve it.

I probably spent half an hour trying to find one of the fairy chests in the forest, but not seeing any puzzle. After looking it up you need to be there at night. That's great, how was I supposed to know that?

The worst puzzle in the game, though, is secret treasure #4. There are 12 secret treasures in the game, all mounted on pedestals in an obviously hinted secret room. The fact that they are all grouped together makes it seem that they are all an equivalent difficulty, and in fact, most of them are not too hard. Most of them involve noticing a subtle marking on a map and just going to the location, and maybe inputting a simple code. Then there's #4 where you NEED TO TRANSLATE THE LANGUAGE IN THE MANUAL. It is the only puzzle in the game where you need to do this. I can't even begin to solve this puzzle, I just don't know how. They give you a little key, but don't map anything to English so I just can't do it. If they give me a sequence of 26 characters and say the first one is 'a' I could do that, but I'm not a linguist, I can't translate a phonetic language just like that. It's absurd. And even when you do translate it, the riddle requires huge leaps in logic in order to implement. You need to equate feathers with down, correct with right, and departed with left. It sucks doesn't fit with the other puzzles and has no place in the game. You are guaranteed to waste a bunch of time looking for a solution that doesn't exist because the game has firmly established that you don't need to translate the text.

I don't think they should have provided a translation key at all really. I skimmed the fan-translated manual and I think the game is worse for it. The story seems really pretentious when you can understand it, and the writing is quite poor.

Also, I have to say it here, but the game is really Zelda crossed with Dark Souls and The Witness.

Overall, I enjoyed the game a lot. It's something quite special and well put together. It's not perfect, audio is a weak point, as is story, and the experience does diminish significantly if you try to go for 100%, but I liked the earlier parts well enough to overlook it's flaws.
 
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Old_Hunter_77

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I finished Tunic. Easily GOTY for me.
I am jealous. I really wanted to like this game and still do, I just can't get past the combat in the early sections at all. Maybe one day I'll try again but my initial impression was viciously negative.
 

Drathnoxis

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I am jealous. I really wanted to like this game and still do, I just can't get past the combat in the early sections at all. Maybe one day I'll try again but my initial impression was viciously negative.
The combat is really hard before you get the sword and shield. After that most enemies can be stun-locked or blocked and countered.
 

Xprimentyl

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"A rollercoaster of emotions!" - The Rogue Wolf, Escapist Magazine forums
Y'know, something I've realized, I could probably stomach this game more readily if I had a friend in the room with me, someone to converse with, someone to laugh at my failures so they feel less like abject failures. I think a cheerleader would make the whole thing feel more "fun" and less "depressing." I used to game like that with my buddy back home in Ohio all the time; we've not done that in nearly a decade.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Darksiders 2
I bought this many years ago after enjoying the first Darksiders, and for some reason the controls just didn't work or something. I'd press jump and the dude didn't jump or whatever, and I don't know why I couldn't just get a refund. So it's been sitting in my library all this time and I decided to give it a whirl on my Deck and lo and behold, it works now *shrugs*

Man, this is what a "video game" feels like to me. Stupid action but requires some skill but not too much and looks awesome and is fun. There are puzzles but it's mostly about understanding the environment. The game is 10 years old at this point but looked great for its time which means it translates brilliantly to the Deck.
Yes, I recognize that Darksiders is just an conjunction of greater games: Zelda + God of War, basically. But it's the best parts of both without the extremes of neither. It's like a really great blues-rock bar band- I'm not here for innovation or genius, I'm here for a consistent good time.
You play as "Death" and the design of the character is very heavy metal, I love it- he's just a bare chested brute as opposed to the heavily armored cosplayer of War from the first game. Most important is the main weapon is a pair of scythes which looks and feels great to fight with.

My only real annoyance so far is the wall jumps, I struggle with the timing and angle sometimes. And for combat, it's easy to lose sight of the enemy and you have to constantly smush left trigger to simulate a lock-on. If these things get too annoying as the game gets harder I'll probably quit but for now I'm good.
I've got a huge weakness for the Darksiders games. I've enjoyed all of them a lot. But, I would say the first one is closer to Zelda and Devil May Cry then god of war, really the only similarity to god of war is the executions. Anyway, yeah, lve em, Darksiders (Zelda meets Devil May Cry), Darksiders 2 (diablo meets third person), Darksiders 3 (Darksouls meets.... Darksouls) and Darksiders Genesis (diablo meets better combat).
 
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meiam

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I've got a huge weakness for the Darksiders games. I've enjoyed all of them a lot. But, I would say the first one is closer to Zelda and Devil May Cry then god of war, really the only similarity to god of war is the executions. Anyway, yeah, lve em, Darksiders (Zelda meets Devil May Cry), Darksiders 2 (diablo meets third person), Darksiders 3 (Darksouls meets.... Darksouls) and Darksiders Genesis (diablo meets better combat).
To me the darksider game are a perfect example of a game that's more than the sum of their part, none of the aspect are particularly well done (and certainly not original) but they all gel well together and make for a pretty fun adventure.
 
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Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
To me the darksider game are a perfect example of a game that's more than the sum of their part, none of the aspect are particularly well done (and certainly not original) but they all gel well together and make for a pretty fun adventure.
Agree, really the biggest standout of the series is the unique art direction. Darksiders characters look pretty unique, the only other game that comes to mind with a similar character design is Battle Chasers and that's because both Darksiders and Battle Chasers had the same guy doing designs.
 

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Darksiders 2
I bought this many years ago after enjoying the first Darksiders, and for some reason the controls just didn't work or something. I'd press jump and the dude didn't jump or whatever, and I don't know why I couldn't just get a refund. So it's been sitting in my library all this time and I decided to give it a whirl on my Deck and lo and behold, it works now *shrugs*

Man, this is what a "video game" feels like to me. Stupid action but requires some skill but not too much and looks awesome and is fun. There are puzzles but it's mostly about understanding the environment. The game is 10 years old at this point but looked great for its time which means it translates brilliantly to the Deck.
Yes, I recognize that Darksiders is just an conjunction of greater games: Zelda + God of War, basically. But it's the best parts of both without the extremes of neither. It's like a really great blues-rock bar band- I'm not here for innovation or genius, I'm here for a consistent good time.
You play as "Death" and the design of the character is very heavy metal, I love it- he's just a bare chested brute as opposed to the heavily armored cosplayer of War from the first game. Most important is the main weapon is a pair of scythes which looks and feels great to fight with.

My only real annoyance so far is the wall jumps, I struggle with the timing and angle sometimes. And for combat, it's easy to lose sight of the enemy and you have to constantly smush left trigger to simulate a lock-on. If these things get too annoying as the game gets harder I'll probably quit but for now I'm good.
As much as I respect the art style to these games, I could never get into Darksiders. I tried, but I would get bored at certain points and move on to something else. They're also the closest you're ever going to get to a modern Soul Reaver and Legacy of Kain. Glad you are having fun and enjoying.

Darksiders (Zelda meets Devil May Cry),
And God of War (Greek Era). This was the year of heaven vs. hell brawling action games in 2010! Bayonetta vs. Darksiders vs. Dante's Inferno. Bayo and Darksiders managed to get three mainline games and a spin-off/prequel game. Actually, all the sequels are prequel/side stories, but Genesis is the loudest about it.
Darksiders 3 (Darksouls meets.... Darksouls)
You mean Dark Souls meets Darksiders, with a little bit of Lords of Shadow. Crazy irony; a few months later a patch update allowed Darksiders 3 to play more like 1 and 2, removing the Souls aspect. It is optional, and many a fan are still happy for it.
 
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Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
You mean Dark Souls meets Darksiders, with a little bit of Lords of Shadow. Crazy irony; a few months later a patch update allowed Darksiders 3 to play more like 1 and 2, removing the Souls aspect. It is optional, and many a fan are still happy for it.
Did it get the souls patched out? I mean I played it long after release and it felt pretty much like Darksouls to me.
 

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Did it get the souls patched out?
No, it's still there. When you pop in the game and start new campaign, the game will prompt you on which play style you want. You can either choose the Souls mode or go with the Darksiders mode. I don't know the official naming for it, but it's true that is what the update does.