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Its easy to get lost in the meme and "every game is dark soul now", but I don't think its an exaggeration to say that dark soul was the most influential game of its generation, and for good reason.
Gaming started with short game that were very expensive, and arcade with limited playtime, for this reason they really increase difficulty to the point of unfairness and frustration. This led to a strong backlash, with most game being so easy that you could easily win by just button mashing. Demon/dark soul kinda re calibrated this being pushing difficulty but trying to get it fair and consistent (which it mostly succeeded at), while also having just one difficulty so that everyone would play this and letting the dev focus on balancing one experience. Its actually really not that hard to make the game much easier, all of them have a few way to really quickly farm a ton of soul and most of them have some sort of easy way to get a really powerful weapon/item near the beginning, or have some build ridiculously overpowered (not sure what state it is now, but there was a pyro spell at release that pretty much made your guy immortal and let you cheese the rest of the game).
Some "parting" thoughts, before I start NG+, because Platinum:
- The old adage about how the hardest FROM game is whichever you play first is probably true.
- I've said this a million times by now but the game's difficulty for me peaked at Ornstein & Smough. Gwyn and these dudes felt like proper duels, although Gwyn is a joke by comparison.
- The bullshit scales considerably in the second half with the pitch dark areas and invisible bridges and the Bed of Chaos boss. I'd rank the BS in the first half - namely Blighttown and Sen's Fortress - tough but fair.
- You can get by fine while ignoring a large breadth of the game's mechanics. Parrying, summoning, most spells/miracles/pyros and with minimal weapon switching or upgrading. Simply put, in my experience nothing was ever as crucial as timing Estus sips, conserving stamina for rolls and not getting greedy with attacks. That and dumb luck will win just about every fight.
- Nothing will ever be as exhilarating as unlocking a shortcut that loops back to a bonfire, or even discovering a new bonfire. The game was a 10/10 as soon as I rode down the lift in Undead Parish to what turned out to be Firelink Shrine.
- Thwacking enemies to the ground with a the Zweihander's R2 attack rocks.
- They should make a sequel!
- The old adage about how the hardest FROM game is whichever you play first is probably true.
- I've said this a million times by now but the game's difficulty for me peaked at Ornstein & Smough. Gwyn and these dudes felt like proper duels, although Gwyn is a joke by comparison.
- The bullshit scales considerably in the second half with the pitch dark areas and invisible bridges and the Bed of Chaos boss. I'd rank the BS in the first half - namely Blighttown and Sen's Fortress - tough but fair.
- You can get by fine while ignoring a large breadth of the game's mechanics. Parrying, summoning, most spells/miracles/pyros and with minimal weapon switching or upgrading. Simply put, in my experience nothing was ever as crucial as timing Estus sips, conserving stamina for rolls and not getting greedy with attacks. That and dumb luck will win just about every fight.
- Nothing will ever be as exhilarating as unlocking a shortcut that loops back to a bonfire, or even discovering a new bonfire. The game was a 10/10 as soon as I rode down the lift in Undead Parish to what turned out to be Firelink Shrine.
- Thwacking enemies to the ground with a the Zweihander's R2 attack rocks.
- They should make a sequel!
Started a game called Super Lesbian Animal RPG. Only about 20 minutes in, but it's lived up to all four of those words. I am also amused that the options menu has a yes/no toggle for "art", a slider for "politics", and another slider for "ludonarrative dissonance".
Never in my life have I needed something so much, and never known until I received it.
Though, I'd feel bad starting it before I finish Final Fantasy 7 Remake at least. I've been making some good progress there, got through Chapters 12 and 13 today while waiting for the flu shot I got to stop hurting in my arm. Got knocked out by a random encounter and by Failed Experiment, and both of those are mostly a skill issue but I don't know at all how to avoid Experiment's jumping attack that deals half your health bar in damage. Game's actually pretty hard when it wants to be, as I've said before, not that I see that as a negative even when I do get frustrated sometimes.
Ended up talking to Aerith in the garden.
- Apr 1, 2009
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I've been meaning to grab that game forever, just never had time for it in my gaming schedule.
I don't know, I thought Dark Souls 3 was pretty darn hard in the DLC. Hey, actually did you do the DLC in Dark Souls? I don't remember you talking about those fights.
I actually liked Tomb of the Giants, and I cleared it with the lantern because I didn't have the DLC and had to give up my shield. It's a really unique mechanic and adds a ton of suspense to exploration. There aren't many games that use darkness half so effectively.
Sorcery pretty much breaks the game over its knee. The soul arrow spells hit from a range most enemies can't deal with and does a ton of damage.
I agree, always satisfying.
I backed up a save just before fighting Gwyn so I could do the DLC later but without having to circle back from NG+. I kinda wanted to beat the game first before going there.
Am I trapped in the DLC until I beat it like Ariamis or can I warp back and forth freely?
You can warp in and out of the DLC.
So I thought I'd be taking a break from Dark Souls but now I'm some ways into the DLC. Beat Sanctuary Guardian and Artorias so far. Both Artorias and the area immediately after him feel very Bloodborne-y.
There's some free DLC dropping for Sea of Stars tomorrow that I've been looking forward to so I'll probably stop here and come back to wrap up and fight the dragon and/or Manus later.
There's some free DLC dropping for Sea of Stars tomorrow that I've been looking forward to so I'll probably stop here and come back to wrap up and fight the dragon and/or Manus later.
Chapter 14 of FF7 Remake wrapped up. I did go out of my way to finish all the sidequests, and I definitely don't regret doing it despite having set a 'deadline' for myself to beat the game; besides that I enjoyed the stories, having a second Elemental Materia is a huge deal. I did get killed by a couple more fights, but not a second time after changing my Materia setups to handle them better, which I've said before and I'll say again, speaks to the game's quality: there's a clear difference between skilled and unskilled play, and while the latter can usually get you through if you just try hard enough, the former feels so much better to pull off, especially in a runback.
Coming into the endgame. With the amount of content in this game, I feel like everybody who called it an 'episode' when it came out was, at best, misinformed. If you have to compare it to television, it's much closer to being the complete first season. And, while Deltarune is what I want to do after this, I'm already anticipating Season 2.
Coming into the endgame. With the amount of content in this game, I feel like everybody who called it an 'episode' when it came out was, at best, misinformed. If you have to compare it to television, it's much closer to being the complete first season. And, while Deltarune is what I want to do after this, I'm already anticipating Season 2.
Cleaning up the collectible achievements in Superliminal, and so far, it's a massive pain in the ass. Very unintuitive many of them, and even when you know what to do, execution is really clunky. I just spent 10 minutes wrestling with the exact size, shape, and angle of an object to reach a hidden chess piece, and the guy doing the guide said "it only gets worse." Ugh...
- 1st Mission: Liberty Island
- 2nd Mission: Battery Park, Hell's Kitchen, and Warehouse District
- 3rd Mission: Brooklyn Bridge Station, Mole Tunnels, and LaGuardia Airport
- 4th Mission: Hell's Kitchen (Second Visit) and NSF Headquarters
- 5th Mission: Secret MJ12 Facility and UNATCO Headquarters
- 6th Mission: Hong Kong
- 7th Mission: Hell's Kitchen (Third Visit)
- 8th Mission: Brooklyn Naval Shipyards and Lower East Side Cemetery
- 9th Mission: Paris Streets and Chateau DuClare
- 10th Mission: Knights Templar Cathedral and Morgan Everett's Home
- 11th Mission: Vandenberg Air Force Base
- 12th Mission: Sub Base, Ocean Lab, and Missile Silo
- 13th Mission: Area 51
Oh my god... I just finished Hong Kong and thought it was nearly over. Need a break.
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess
This came out last year and I feel like it's one of those games that people who played it liked it but didn't have much of an impact or something.
Well it fits squarely within my my current comfort zone of game.
The deal is you're a warrior who has to defend a dancing lady from point A to point B in each stage while monsters attack at night. During the day you free and enslave villagers and decide which kind of warrior they are and where they go.
So... half a management/strategy, half an action combat, neither particularly complicated.
I played the demo last year and I found it interesting but too hard. This time, I'm pretty much breezing through it though I'm still early on, only cleared three area. So they nerfed the whole thing or I'm just finding it a lot more comfortable in handheld on the ROG Ally. Either way, it's nicely paced. I may change my mind when I get stuck on a hard area.
What also adds to the pacing is that in between full stages there just straight up battles where you have to take down a creature with the villagers your freed. And then between all of that is a little base building. Importantly, the menus and items and all that crap makes sense and seems useful.
I also adore the art- it's- Japanese, I guess? Everything is dancing- your goddess dances around to fix nature, the combat is dancy like, and when you get to the end of an area and hold down the button to clear the stage, everybody does neat dance to heal the world. It's very pretty and fantastical.
This came out last year and I feel like it's one of those games that people who played it liked it but didn't have much of an impact or something.
Well it fits squarely within my my current comfort zone of game.
The deal is you're a warrior who has to defend a dancing lady from point A to point B in each stage while monsters attack at night. During the day you free and enslave villagers and decide which kind of warrior they are and where they go.
So... half a management/strategy, half an action combat, neither particularly complicated.
I played the demo last year and I found it interesting but too hard. This time, I'm pretty much breezing through it though I'm still early on, only cleared three area. So they nerfed the whole thing or I'm just finding it a lot more comfortable in handheld on the ROG Ally. Either way, it's nicely paced. I may change my mind when I get stuck on a hard area.
What also adds to the pacing is that in between full stages there just straight up battles where you have to take down a creature with the villagers your freed. And then between all of that is a little base building. Importantly, the menus and items and all that crap makes sense and seems useful.
I also adore the art- it's- Japanese, I guess? Everything is dancing- your goddess dances around to fix nature, the combat is dancy like, and when you get to the end of an area and hold down the button to clear the stage, everybody does neat dance to heal the world. It's very pretty and fantastical.
- Apr 1, 2009
- 15,490
- 4,271
- 118
- Gender
- Whatever, just wash your hands.
That game is so cool, you can feel the love they put into it. Like, they knew it would be super niche but didn't care and did it anyway. I wish I could finish it, as much as I like it, for some reason I just can't bring myself to start it up and play more of it and I'm not sure why.