- Apr 1, 2009
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What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
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Definitely couch and TV. The game's reliance on visual mechanics pretty much mandates it. Handheld would certainly cheapen the experience.
Again, Superliminal is another esoteric one. A bit more literal in it's messaging and concepts, but a specific taste within the myriad flavors that draw gamers to gaming, i.e.: I don't think teenagers who spend 40 hours a week playing whatever popular multiplayer games are out now would be impressed by Superliminal's contemplative pacing and cerebral nature. Or if someone looks down there nose at any game that gives them fewer than 80 hours of content, welp, Superliminal has an achievement for beating it in 35 minutes, so...
For the most part, I'd say anyone who liked Portal will enjoy Superliminal; I think that's a safe bet. If nothing else, you can go the way of the @The Rogue Wolf, find a COMPETANT walkthrough, and simply appreciate watching it being played; I think it'd probably hit the same.
So here's an embarrassing display. I know I have to break the crystal before I actually do any damage. I also know I get a unique weapon by hacking at the dragon's tail. What I don't know is whether breaking the crystal will end the fight too soon for me to get the weapon - as far as I know this is a gimmick fight ala Ceaseless Discharge, and it ends when I break the crystal - so I spend an embarrassing amount of time hacking at its tail, just in case.
Is it me or does the track for the fight sound vaguely Tim Burton-y/Danny Elfman-y?
Is it me or does the track for the fight sound vaguely Tim Burton-y/Danny Elfman-y?
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Duke's Archives: A breezier Hollow Bastion.
Crystal Caves: #2 in the bullshit meter after Tomb of the Giants, until you figure out the trick to those invisible bridges, which is that there's usually no trick, except for the one leading to the slab. It's quite a sprint from the nearest bonfire but thankfully it's another one of those cases where I worry too much about a corpse run I end up not having to do.
The Great Hollow: So THE BASILISKS are much maligned in this game. But after hearing about them forever... meh. There's only a couple and they go down easy. Wasted an upgrade on Intelligence just so I could cast Resist Curse, which turns out is useless because it doesn't undo a status so much as reduce the buildup, and the buildup gauge is so short you might as well just take the time to roll away or you'll be cursed before you can get out your wand. But I was never cursed so the whole thing was for naught.
Ash Lake: Another nothing-burger of an area. Just huge swaths of distance between two bonfires and nary a thing to fight or pick up in between. I get the impression I'm supposed to fuck myself over by coming here before I get the ability to warp from bonfires, which would effectively trap me at the bottom of Basilisk Tower. But I'm not sure what was the point of coming all the way down here in the first place, other than to sign up for another covenant.
Crystal Caves: #2 in the bullshit meter after Tomb of the Giants, until you figure out the trick to those invisible bridges, which is that there's usually no trick, except for the one leading to the slab. It's quite a sprint from the nearest bonfire but thankfully it's another one of those cases where I worry too much about a corpse run I end up not having to do.
The Great Hollow: So THE BASILISKS are much maligned in this game. But after hearing about them forever... meh. There's only a couple and they go down easy. Wasted an upgrade on Intelligence just so I could cast Resist Curse, which turns out is useless because it doesn't undo a status so much as reduce the buildup, and the buildup gauge is so short you might as well just take the time to roll away or you'll be cursed before you can get out your wand. But I was never cursed so the whole thing was for naught.
Ash Lake: Another nothing-burger of an area. Just huge swaths of distance between two bonfires and nary a thing to fight or pick up in between. I get the impression I'm supposed to fuck myself over by coming here before I get the ability to warp from bonfires, which would effectively trap me at the bottom of Basilisk Tower. But I'm not sure what was the point of coming all the way down here in the first place, other than to sign up for another covenant.
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A rare weapon towards Knight’s Honor trophy is there too. Some people may like the tranquility of the area, as there’s mainly just one giant ass tree (ER foreshadowing, anyone?) and very little that can kill them lol.
Aren't there a bunch of basilisks in The Depths as well? In the place where you can fall down some holes.
I kind of doubt you could hack off its tail before breaking the crystal because you need to actually do damage to it for it to come off.
Yup, got the tail from the covenant dragon and the miracle in the tree.
I chalked the place as one of them "lore areas" people like.
There were two or three in a tiny section of The Depths that I went through only once, so they barely registered. Didn't get cursed there either.
I got it in my head that this might be a joke boss ala Ceaseless where you break the crystal and the fight's over, so I wanted to give it a few thwacks first just in case. I was also resigned to just die trying to cut off the tail, I didn't expect to pull through all those AoE attacks.
I have now had my most recent true feeling of accomplishment gaming. Cleared a Gold Stake run on Balatro.
Two very easy bosses in Demon's Ruins, Demon Firesage and Centipede Demon. As far as I could tell Firesage is a reskin of Stray Demon but with fire resistance; Centipede is pissweak but has the added annoyance of the lava field. I guess they're there in the role of midbosses, with all the nerfed Capras and Taurus running around signalling that you're now the bigger threat.
The only really challenging fights so far have been O&S and 4 Kings some ways down. But I shouldn't speak because I know there's some BS coming with Bed of Chaos, whatever that is.
The only really challenging fights so far have been O&S and 4 Kings some ways down. But I shouldn't speak because I know there's some BS coming with Bed of Chaos, whatever that is.
It’s *some* bs but mostly an annoyance because of the floor (you’ll know) and the runback. Being the only boss with save points alleviates some of it. Guessing FROM understood this and made a concession when the deadline approached.
What was the big dragon boss from Demon’s Souls? Yeah; It’s a bit like that.
I found Bed of Chaos to be pretty challenging, but, uh, not really in a good way.
- Apr 1, 2009
- 15,437
- 4,232
- 118
- Gender
- Whatever, just wash your hands.
Beat Doom Medievial. Yeah pretty fun, I think its a bit better then 2016 but not as good as Eternal. The difficulty is a bit easier, but I'm a horrible judge for difficulty of an fps since I'm quite good and I did only beat it so far on Ultraviolent. Story might be good but its poorly told and kinda disjointed in places. Gameplay really holds things through and it remains pretty fun throughout, although in a few of the later levels I wanted the encounters to be longer, just when I would really get into the rhythm they were over, but there are some nice intense ones by the end. Final bosses are pretty good, not the best but nice and satisfying. My main downside aside from the plot being disjointed and your allies being chumps (you don't fight with them, but they just seem to be getting trounced by not difficult things) is that I saw no bunnys and no Daisy. I might have missed them, in eternal it could be hard to spot most of them. I think it takes away from Doomguy not to have a bunny.
Yeah that thing was very annoying. At one point it knocked me into this isolated section that was completely cut from the main floor, which might as well kill you since there's no way of jumping back in, I think. Died trying.
Then I died a couple of times while timing my jump onto the branch under the floor. Figuring the jump down was also another tough part. You spend the whole "fight" avoiding falling down at all.
And another death simply trying to sprint towards the thing. Ended up streaking nekkid across the arena for added speed.
Yeah, pretty much the same for me. It has a horrendously long run back from either of the bonfires you can approach from, and then you just get knocked off 10 seconds after the fight starts and you get to run back again. It was the main thing I dreaded when I was trying to speed run the game.
And here I'll repeat my "hot take" that so-called gimmick fights are generally more interesting and fun as they add to the theme of an area or lore and variety. Starting with DS2 they removed unique most fights and it's all dodge attack over and over and freaking lame and tired by Elden Ring.
On the other hand, it's the only FromSoftware boss fight ever that actually saves state in between phases. Once you knock out one of the things, it stays that way, so you can suicide run 3x and beat it. I found that delightful in my NG+ run.
What I wouldn't give for an option to not have to repeat first phases in boss fights.
A few aborted gaming attempts recently (reminder- I am extremely picky and fussy and when I drop a game a part of me celebrates the time I will get back from not playing it).
These complaints are, as always, not objective indictments of these games, just why I'm not pressing forward.
Citizen Sleeper- turns out you need a mouse to rotate the station and I don't do mouse gaming. Oh well.
Fe- tried to play it via GamePass but you need an EA account, and I had to figure that shit out and almost quit right there. When I finally got to play it I got my little character to sing at another animal but then nothing happened and I couldn't move. When I tried again later EA app complained that I couldn't play the game because someone else downloaded the app with my account on my device (lol WHAT?!) so I'm done.
Cold take- requiring TWO accounts to play a game is a crime and should be treated as such.
Claire Obscure- PARRY PARRY PARRY DODGE PARRY DODGE apparently if you make any game these days, even a turn-based JRPG, without forcing the player to nervously react to awkard timing of confusing colors and animations, you go to some game jail now?
Superliminal- I was digging the setup and even the puzzles but controlling it was really annoying. You have to hold things at a certain angle to get them the right size and it was just so much futzing- I'd know what I had to but I just could NOT get it sometimes. I already don't like first person and puzzle games but the reason Portal and Portal 2 were enjoyable was because the actual gameplay was smooth- I was always able to try stuff out and then the only barrier was the intended challenge of actually figuring out the puzzle. This was the opposite.
Moonlighter- an indy favorite of my new favorite genre where it's half-management sim and half dungeon crawler. I stopped when the management sim part- running a shop- just kept going and going. I got bored right away. I also did not understand the menus, how to set prices. The 8-bit graphics just made it harder to read as well as making the actual combat just feel uninteresting. And just 10 minutes into the game I already saw it would involve too much futzing about in menus and these days I am just really averse to games that feel like work. I already spend at least 5 hours a day getting paid for staring at screens full of tabs full of cells full of bullshit information, I'm not gonna turn around and pay for the privilege of doing that.
These complaints are, as always, not objective indictments of these games, just why I'm not pressing forward.
Citizen Sleeper- turns out you need a mouse to rotate the station and I don't do mouse gaming. Oh well.
Fe- tried to play it via GamePass but you need an EA account, and I had to figure that shit out and almost quit right there. When I finally got to play it I got my little character to sing at another animal but then nothing happened and I couldn't move. When I tried again later EA app complained that I couldn't play the game because someone else downloaded the app with my account on my device (lol WHAT?!) so I'm done.
Cold take- requiring TWO accounts to play a game is a crime and should be treated as such.
Claire Obscure- PARRY PARRY PARRY DODGE PARRY DODGE apparently if you make any game these days, even a turn-based JRPG, without forcing the player to nervously react to awkard timing of confusing colors and animations, you go to some game jail now?
Superliminal- I was digging the setup and even the puzzles but controlling it was really annoying. You have to hold things at a certain angle to get them the right size and it was just so much futzing- I'd know what I had to but I just could NOT get it sometimes. I already don't like first person and puzzle games but the reason Portal and Portal 2 were enjoyable was because the actual gameplay was smooth- I was always able to try stuff out and then the only barrier was the intended challenge of actually figuring out the puzzle. This was the opposite.
Moonlighter- an indy favorite of my new favorite genre where it's half-management sim and half dungeon crawler. I stopped when the management sim part- running a shop- just kept going and going. I got bored right away. I also did not understand the menus, how to set prices. The 8-bit graphics just made it harder to read as well as making the actual combat just feel uninteresting. And just 10 minutes into the game I already saw it would involve too much futzing about in menus and these days I am just really averse to games that feel like work. I already spend at least 5 hours a day getting paid for staring at screens full of tabs full of cells full of bullshit information, I'm not gonna turn around and pay for the privilege of doing that.
I propose it's "the only FromSoftware boss fight ever that actually saves state in between phases" because they know the fight will retain the patented FromSoftware annoyance even with save states. Actually can't decide if the fight itself is more annoying or unfair. There's some annoyance baked into every boss even if it's just the run back, but it's also unfair because the unique combination of figuring out what to do, and actually doing it, all in one go without dying, becomes nigh impossible against the boss's attacks.
I don't mind gimmick bosses if there's some intuition to their design, because I'm all for fights reflecting a boss's personality and creating a memorable moment. Micolash in Bloodborne. Maiden Astraea in Demon's Souls. Del Lago in RE4. Approximately 51% of all fights in Killer7 and No More Heroes. But if I have to do something that goes directly against what the game or the fight itself has taught me so far, to the point I wouldn't know it without looking it up or bumbling into it, then I call BS.
To circle back to Rule of Rose, a game me and maybe four other people in the world have played, you beat the final boss by waiting for him to tire himself out, then walking up to him and without any prompt (and unlike anything you've done in the game so far) going into your inventory and offering him a gun so he'll commit suicide. Let's see anybody defend that design choice purely because it's memorable.
Thanks for the shout out.
The first time I found out about that in a early video LP on YouTube, my reaction was "Who the fuck thought that was a good idea?".
I've been playing the Capcom Fighting Collection 2. Mainly Capcom vs. SNK 2. I will be playing Power Stone later.
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