What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

[Anteros]

Really? My understanding was that Genichiro is one of, if not the, most infamous boss of the game. As someone who hadn't played it I'd nonetheless seen people talk online about how hard he was by name, whereas, aside from the final boss, I don't know if I ever saw other specific bosses mentioned, just the game's difficulty in general.

And by "long combo into a sweep" you mean that ~7 or 8 hit sequence he does that ends in a rather delayed final attack? (Last attack didn't look like a sweep to me, more like an uppercut-style slash.) Parrying most or all of that certainly was one of the ways I built a lot of posture damage on him, but even a few of those didn't fill his bar completely, and it took a number of tries to get all of those in a row down. (Also, don't know what an "ichimonji double" is, nor why you'd jump on him there - aside from sweeps and to Lightning Counter, I haven't really used jumping in combat so far.) If he'd ever done several of those in a row it would've been easier, but after dealing with that he tended to start using his bow again, which as I mentioned was kind of a problem for me.

As for Lady Butterfly, the big thing that probably made her a lot easier is that she has a glaring weakness to shuriken, since she jumps around so much. Easy to knock her out of the skies with those for big posture damage and an opening to strike her a couple of times for free. Becomes harder to do so in part 2 when she's conjuring those spirits, though, which was why it took me a few tries to get her.

I think the main reason my friends and I had such an issue with Butterfly is the fact that we fought her with no prayer beads and 2 heal charges. You pretty much have to be perfect. Despite Raziere saying it doesn't matter, you can basically quadruple your damage and increase your life by almost 10x by the end of the game. It makes a huge difference when you fight her.

Ichimonji double is a sword technique you can get when you unlock the ashina skill tree by doing the rat quest for an npc near where you fight the horse boss. It's widely considered to be the best skill tree in the game, so it's worth going back for if you missed it.

You jump on enemies during their sweep attacks for enormous posture damage. This is why Genichiro is so easy once you learn him because it's really easy to bait out his thrust or sweep attacks. If you parry every hit of his long combo he will always follow up with one of them. I can literally kill him in under 15 seconds per life bar consistently.

I also agree that the first phase of the ape is a lot harder than the second. Outside of getting surprised by his scream attack the first time you shouldn't really die to phase 2. He's ridiculously easy to parry, and he doesn't do his run and grab attack with the ridiculous hitbox.

[Zevox]

I think the main reason my friends and I had such an issue with Butterfly is the fact that we fought her with no prayer beads and 2 heal charges. You pretty much have to be perfect. Despite Raziere saying it doesn't matter, you can basically quadruple your damage and increase your life by almost 10x by the end of the game. It makes a huge difference when you fight her.

Maybe. I didn't have much more than that, though - just one prayer bead necklace and one attack up from the horseman boss (forget how many healing gord uses I had).

Ichimonji double is a sword technique you can get when you unlock the ashina skill tree by doing the rat quest for an npc near where you fight the horse boss. It's widely considered to be the best skill tree in the game, so it's worth going back for if you missed it.

Oh, no, I've got that skill tree. I've mostly used it for the passives, though - pretty sure it's the one that gave me the passives that let me heal and recover posture when I get a deathblow, which are probably the best upgrades I've bought. I haven't used the special moves (and only bought the one that you have to buy to get anything else from the tree). My special move of choice for most of the game has been the leaping strike from the first skill tree. It may be no stinger (bit on the slow side and all), but an advancing strike like that is still pretty handy.

You jump on enemies during their sweep attacks for enormous posture damage. This is why Genichiro is so easy once you learn him because it's really easy to bait out his thrust or sweep attacks. If you parry every hit of his long combo he will always follow up with one of them. I can literally kill him in under 15 seconds per life bar consistently.

Really? Huh, now I'm wondering if the game mentioned that when it talked about sweeps back at the start and I missed the "jump on them" part, or if it really just said to jump the attack and didn't mention that part. Because I had no idea that would do anything.

Though I think that either you're misremembering when he does his red attacks, or maybe he changes that on higher difficulties/New Game+ or something, because he never did those are the long combo sequence for me. They were always a follow-up to his jump attack.

[Anteros]

Maybe. I didn't have much more than that, though - just one prayer bead necklace and one attack up from the horseman boss (forget how many healing gord uses I had).


Oh, no, I've got that skill tree. I've mostly used it for the passives, though - pretty sure it's the one that gave me the passives that let me heal and recover posture when I get a deathblow, which are probably the best upgrades I've bought. I haven't used the special moves (and only bought the one that you have to buy to get anything else from the tree). My special move of choice for most of the game has been the leaping strike from the first skill tree. It may be no stinger (bit on the slow side and all), but an advancing strike like that is still pretty handy.


Really? Huh, now I'm wondering if the game mentioned that when it talked about sweeps back at the start and I missed the "jump on them" part, or if it really just said to jump the attack and didn't mention that part. Because I had no idea that would do anything.

Though I think that either you're misremembering when he does his red attacks, or maybe he changes that on higher difficulties/New Game+ or something, because he never did those are the long combo sequence for me. They were always a follow-up to his jump attack.

What he does is based on how much of his pattern you parry. If you parry every single hit (not block) he will do a red attack, which gives you a great chance to damage him. Lots of bosses in the game offer high risk/high reward situations like that as a reward for parrying over blocking.

Also, something I don't think the game tells you. Your posture will never break on a parry, even if it's full.

[Zevox]

What he does is based on how much of his pattern you parry. If you parry every single hit (not block) he will do a red attack, which gives you a great chance to damage him. Lots of bosses in the game offer high risk/high reward situations like that as a reward for parrying over blocking.

Also, something I don't think the game tells you. Your posture will never break on a parry, even if it's full.

Huh - guess I never full parried the whole sequence, then. Thought I must have somewhere in there, it felt like I was after a certain point, but it can be hard to tell blocks from parries sometimes, so I guess I must've been blocking one at some point.

And yeah, I kind of figured that last part. I don't know if that mini-boss before Genichiro would even be able beatable if that weren't the case - I actually took way more tries fighting him than I probably should have because I saw how much posture damage he was doing even on deflects and thought there must be something else I'm supposed to do against him, since at the time I didn't think deflect would prevent posture break. Wound up just going back to deflecting as much as possible after everything else was obviously failing, and that of course worked after a few tries.

Progress today: beat the second fight with the giant/undead ape... and his friend, annoyingly enough. Lucky thing that one is a lot weaker and less aggressive than the first form of the original fight, otherwise I don't know if that 2-on-1 would have been possible. Took 3 tries again, seems to be a recurring number for me against major bosses that aren't Genichiro or the horseman. Saved at the statue after the house where I killed a guy who was filling the area with mist... I really don't know why they even made him take two deathblows, since he literally did not put up a fight at all. Might as well have let the sneak attack just do him in and not pretend he was a boss.

Also, god do I hate those shadowy bird-men enemies. Acrobatic shuriken-spamming bastards...

[Cygnia]

So, finally starting "Gris" -- and it took me a while to figure out the controls on my PC. Gorgeous art work, loving the music so far.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I've been playing some Rocket League, which is nice because it's 4 person local, letting my whole family play at once on the same device.

Haven't really had time for much with end of the semester and finals, but once that's done I'm going back to Sekiro and Devil May Cry 5, the last two games I was playing. I've barely even started Sekiro, but I've beaten DMC V on the harder of the two starting difficulties. I have to say, I really hate the auto-targeting system V has; I much preferred how the DMC reboot let you control the direction of distance-covering moves with the analog stick instead of always shooting you towards either the enemy you were already attacking or the closest enemy (because that's what I want when activating a big lunge; to be right next to where I started).

Maybe I'll also finish up Subnautica. I love the game, but I've had recurring problems with the game losing my saves. Most recently, it apparently had some sort of connection problem when booting up and wasn't displaying my saved game at all, which was... disheartening. I don't think I love the game enough to play through the entire thing again with no guarantee that it won't lose all my progress a few hours from beating it. But hey, maybe it'll be there the next time I boot it up. Also, my sister's played through to even further than I had (which is how I know I'm so close to the endgame) and hasn't had any problems with lost progress, so I don't think it's a widespread phenomenon; technology just hates me sometimes.

[Anteros]

I've been playing some Rocket League, which is nice because it's 4 person local, letting my whole family play at once on the same device.

Haven't really had time for much with end of the semester and finals, but once that's done I'm going back to Sekiro and Devil May Cry 5, the last two games I was playing. I've barely even started Sekiro, but I've beaten DMC V on the harder of the two starting difficulties. I have to say, I really hate the auto-targeting system V has; I much preferred how the DMC reboot let you control the direction of distance-covering moves with the analog stick instead of always shooting you towards either the enemy you were already attacking or the closest enemy (because that's what I want when activating a big lunge; to be right next to where I started).

Maybe I'll also finish up Subnautica. I love the game, but I've had recurring problems with the game losing my saves. Most recently, it apparently had some sort of connection problem when booting up and wasn't displaying my saved game at all, which was... disheartening. I don't think I love the game enough to play through the entire thing again with no guarantee that it won't lose all my progress a few hours from beating it. But hey, maybe it'll be there the next time I boot it up. Also, my sister's played through to even further than I had (which is how I know I'm so close to the endgame) and hasn't had any problems with lost progress, so I don't think it's a widespread phenomenon; technology just hates me sometimes.

Are you playing Subnautica on console? It's my understanding that the console version has a problem with losing saves. The pc version is a little more stable.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Are you playing Subnautica on console? It's my understanding that the console version has a problem with losing saves. The pc version is a little more stable.

Yeah, Xbox. So was my sister, but maybe she's just lucky. I might be able to access it via PC through Windows 10, though I have no idea whether my save would actually carry over, now that I think about it...

[Eldan]

I've also played Subnautica a bit recently. I find it quite relaxing, except for those times something I can't see comes up behind me and one-shots me when I dive too deep. I suppose I'll find out how to get around that eventually.

[IthilanorStPete]

I've also played Subnautica a bit recently. I find it quite relaxing, except for those times something I can't see comes up behind me and one-shots me when I dive too deep. I suppose I'll find out how to get around that eventually.

The vehicles are probably the best protection; first the Seamoth, then the Cyclops. Also helps to know where the leviathans are so you can avoid them.

[Triaxx]

Also understanding you start in the south east of the map is handy.

[Man_Over_Game]

I've been playing a bit of Stardew Valley. I was surprised to know that there was actual combat in it! It's simple but stressful enough to be a half-way decent action portion of a Harvest Moon game.

So far, the game feels pretty fun, although there's a large number of complaints I have on it:

You can only talk to villagers once or twice in a day. Further attempts don't do anything.

• There's no functional use for your pet. While they track how affectionate they are of you, and you can water their bowl for more affection, there is no reward or use for doing so from what I've come to understand.
• The game doesn't give a lot of knowledge on certain plants, and has kind of a toxic way of punishing ignorance. For example, you can purchase Strawberry Seeds at the first Festival, but you're already halfway in the season by that point, and Strawberries take a while to make a profit off of, and plants die between seasons. So the only real way of using them is to buy them a full year beforehand, and that's a terrible mechanic for a player's first season.
• Crafting seems quite limited.
• Friendship is developed in the terrible Harvest Moon method, where you have to give gifts to people who don't care about you, until they eventually like you enough to marry you. What's worse is that the game only tells you if they like/dislike something if you've already given the item.
• Villagers move around, and there's no indicator where they are through the day. This is a big problem when you have a timed quest and doors lock after a certain hour.
• The controller controls are pretty terrible, as you have your directional pads and joystick be redundant, and you have two buttons to use to shuffle between tool pages (forward, back), when you only have a max of 3 tool pages to shuffle through. This wouldn't be a big deal if they had managed to include things like your map or crafting page on the controls rather than shuffling through your pause menu.
• Directions are pretty poor. While the village is pretty, it has a lot of dead ends and wonky paths that are ignored by the map to make the map look functional and pretty. Just because the map shows you can go directly south doesn't actually mean you can without first going northeast to the bridge in the river, etc.

Just a bunch of dumb issues. I've been looking into mods that improve on these, but I haven't found many that actually solve problems, especially related to pets. Mostly just reskins or some extra content that someone thought was cool.

[warty goblin]

Been messing about in Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnaughts again, since I finished The Rules of the Game, Andrew Gordon's 600 page examination of the Battle of Jutland, with a lengthy detour into the weirdness of late Victorian England.

As of the last patch, they added flash fires in turrets. While their graphical damage models don't allow for ships to actually blow in half, if a flash fire reaches the magazine, it will sink the ship in spectacular fashion. The turret is launched way up into the air, and a giant blast of flame comes roaring out of the barbette. The chances of this happening are effected by your choice of propellant, as well as how much you armor your ship, so you can certainly minimize the odds of one of your ships turning into a giant naval blowtorch, but the potential is always there. In a game that's already most about things not happening (the shell not hitting, the ship not sinking) this adds another exciting layer of non-event, punctuated by a n occasional and very, very dramatic event.

[Zevox]

So, Sekiro progress. Doesn't feel like I've explored much more of the game in the last couple of days, but that's because it's mostly been boss-fighting and backtracking.

Moved further into the area I was in and beat the Corrupted Monk boss, took around four or five tries IIRC. Tougher than the average boss before him, but not by much. Got the plot item he was guarding, went back... and found out I had to re-do the castle area. Kind of annoying, especially with all of the new, much tougher enemies lurking around it (good gods those purple-cloak ninjas[?] are a pain, especially if there's more than one). More importantly, the new boss fight up top of the castle was a bit challenging, but fun. I noticed that Owl didn't do any red attacks in that fight, which made for a fun dynamic compared to other boss fights, since you're usually safer against him since everything can be blocked/parried, but he gives you fewer big openings since you generally get big rewards for appropriately countering those red attacks. Felt appropriate for him. I think he took 5 or 6 tries? Wasn't counting the total closely, but I remember I only needed one additional try after the first time I got through his first deathblow, he didn't really get harder in phase 2 so much as slightly more annoying with the smoke bomb move.

After that, though, oh boy. Well, let's just say that since I don't know when I might re-play the game, I decided to use guides to find out how to unlock all of these different endings I hear it has. And despite the purported "best" ending not requiring it, I went to that second Hirata Estate Memory. Just getting through that was pretty tough (see also: purple-cloak ninjas), but the boss fight with Owl at the end, holy cow. Toughest fight since Genichiro, quite possibly tougher than him. No idea how many times I died, like with Genichiro I just stopped counting after a certain point. Like Genichiro, he really just forces you to learn how he fights and how to counter him extremely well, because he punishes any mistakes brutally, which I appreciate. I actually had no less than two runs where I had him just a hit/parry or two away from posture break on his second deathblow, only to die, which was frustrating, but made finally finishing him off tonight very sweet.

So, I should now have those extra ending options locked in, and not too much more to go. Looking forward to seeing the remaining boss fights, this game's had some good ones.

[Garlic-bread]

Currently playing Gwent, but recently bought Skyrim on sale only for 3 dang euros, so gonna game whenever I find time and inspiration >:D

[Eldan]

The vehicles are probably the best protection; first the Seamoth, then the Cyclops. Also helps to know where the leviathans are so you can avoid them.

The seamoth helps a lot, but more as a mobile air tank refiller than anything else so far. Just got all the parts of the Cyclops by randomly bumbling around the map, but that seems to require several of those damn fangs that are almost impossible to get. I'd produce them via console, except that I can't seem to open the console on my keyboard with any key combination.

[IthilanorStPete]

The seamoth helps a lot, but more as a mobile air tank refiller than anything else so far. Just got all the parts of the Cyclops by randomly bumbling around the map, but that seems to require several of those damn fangs that are almost impossible to get. I'd produce them via console, except that I can't seem to open the console on my keyboard with any key combination.

You can farm fangs by tossing a few scrap metal objects into the kelp forest, near stalkers. The stalkers will pick up and carry around the scrap, and there's a chance for their teeth to break off so you can collect every time they do.

[Triaxx]

About halfway between the pod site and the Aurora crash is a tiny keep forest pocket. It's set in a valley, and so at the bottom of that is almost always a few teeth.

[Starbuck_II]

Finished Blackguard 2 and now trying to finish Solasta demo (dled but never beat yet)
Deep Spiders kicked my butt.

Going to try again later.

[Anteros]

You can make a scanner room it's definitely worth it for hard to find stuff like the teeth. Chances are that there are hundreds of them around you, but actually finding them is a pain.

[Zevox]

Pretty sure I'm at Sekiro's endgame, now. Went through the Divine Realm today - have to say, I like the level design on it, fun sort of obstacle course to traverse, and I particularly like how bright and colorful it is, which is a great change compared to basically all of Dark Souls and Bloodborne (or what I played of that, at least, I never did finish Bloodborne). I can say that about other areas in the game too, but it really stands out in the Divine Realm.

The second Corrupted Monk boss fight was surprisingly a lot easier than the first despite her having three deathblows instead of one. Probably in part because of already having the timing down on parrying her attacks and the general idea of her patterns from the previous fight, but I think she also just wasn't regaining posture anywhere near as fast as in the other fight, so it was a lot easier to get through those deathblows. I almost took that one down on the first try, and only didn't on the second because my house had a power flicker and my PS4 turned off in the middle of that final life bar. Guess it's a good sign that I'm learning enough from these fights to make a repeat a lot easier despite the few extra curve balls they threw in.

And the Divine Dragon fight was fun. Relatively easy, but fun. They did a really good job on making that thing look good and feel like a superior being, even though it wasn't actually as dangerous as most of the game's other bosses (I assume because it's benevolent and doesn't want to be, it's just testing you or some such?). That kind of flashiness is something the game could do with a bit more of, I think.

[Eldan]

You can make a scanner room it's definitely worth it for hard to find stuff like the teeth. Chances are that there are hundreds of them around you, but actually finding them is a pain.

Good point. I had a scanner room for ages, never thought to use it for that. Thanks.

[tonberrian]

Playing FF12: Zodiac Age on the Switch. Having a lot of fun, been a while since I played FF12.

[Balmas]

Just started playing through Morrowind again, this time as an Altmer born under the sign of the Apprentice. Nonesuch the Nonce shall spear, burn, or sneak past every enemy in Vvardenfell.

Probably going to be doing Tribunal for the first time, but I'm debating when to jump in since I don't actually know what story beats / level requirements exist.

[Corlindale]

As usual, I find myself gravitating back towards Tales of Maj'Eyal despite the hundreds of other games in my library.

I've been diving more into the Embers of Rage campaign lately. I never got very far into it earlier, but decided now was a good time since a recent patch added some interesting new stuff for it. For example, I just managed to unlock the new Technomancer class evolution (sort of like a D&D prestige class) for the Archmage class. It seemed pretty fun, but unfortunately I managed to commit suicide quite spectacularly with one of my newfound technomancer abilities. I had gotten used to being pretty reckless with my fire spells because I was almost immune to self-inflicted fire damage, but it had slipped my mind that the galvanic rods from the techomancy tree actually deal a combination of fire and lighting damage... so I guess you can figure out what happened. Oh well, at least it's thematically fitting that playing with magitech experiments can be pretty dangerous.

I did mange to unlock the use of Rogue classes in the Embers campaign along the way, though, so now I'm testing out a Rogue using a combination of throwing daggers and poison. Seems very efficient so far, but we'll see what happens at higher levels. Hoping to unlock the new Annihilator class this time around.

[Eldan]

Just started playing through Morrowind again, this time as an Altmer born under the sign of the Apprentice. Nonesuch the Nonce shall spear, burn, or sneak past every enemy in Vvardenfell.

Probably going to be doing Tribunal for the first time, but I'm debating when to jump in since I don't actually know what story beats / level requirements exist.

The numbers going around were L15 for Tribunal and L30 for Bloodmoon.
Don't activate Tribunal before you're high level enough and want to deal with it. The beginning of Tribunal is an utter pain if you aren't prepared and don't want to immediately deal with it.

[Anteros]

The numbers going around were L15 for Tribunal and L30 for Bloodmoon.
Don't activate Tribunal before you're high level enough and want to deal with it. The beginning of Tribunal is an utter pain if you aren't prepared and don't want to immediately deal with it.

Alternatively, it's free high level armor that you can wear or sell for huge profits early. Kinda breaks the game though if you do.

[Eldan]

If you manage to defeat those enemies. The first few times they showed up for me I died, because I was like level 3 with no equipment.

[Cespenar]

Tribunal can get pretty bonkers if you go before ~L20. The assassins are... manageable, but then there are the goblins, the "comic relief" wood elf in the city who is tougher than Almalexia, etc.

[LibraryOgre]

The numbers going around were L15 for Tribunal and L30 for Bloodmoon.
Don't activate Tribunal before you're high level enough and want to deal with it. The beginning of Tribunal is an utter pain if you aren't prepared and don't want to immediately deal with it.

This is why I have Conjuration early. Daedric Dagger covers a multitude of sins.