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

[warty goblin]

Any time I play Mass Effect, 1 or 2, especially, I want Netflix's "Skip Intro" button. Like, I've played this before. I've beaten it several times. Let me not have to deal with the "Walking through Normandy" section that doesn't add anything to the plot or mechanics in the end.

I absolutely love that you can remake your entire character after the intro/tutorial in Oblivion. One save game there, and you can replay whatever sort of character you want, and never have to play the tutorial again.

[LibraryOgre]

I absolutely love that you can remake your entire character after the intro/tutorial in Oblivion. One save game there, and you can replay whatever sort of character you want, and never have to play the tutorial again.

Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Fallout 4 all did this; Skyrim did not.

[factotum]

Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Fallout 4 all did this; Skyrim did not.

Well, duh, they *obviously* didn't want you to miss the several minute wagon ride through a nondescript forest that forms most of Skyrim's opening...

(I mean, seriously, one of the really big draws about Skyrim is that the game looks damned incredible, with snowy mountain vistas everywhere you look, and they decided the best way to show that off was on an unskippable ride through the most dull-looking part of the map?).

[Cespenar]

I'd heartily recommend the alternate start mod for Skyrim for that reason. It also turns off the dragons by default since you miss the MQ, which is a huge side-bonus (in my book). If anyone still plays Skyrim in 2020, that is.

[warty goblin]

I'd heartily recommend the alternate start mod for Skyrim for that reason. It also turns off the dragons by default since you miss the MQ, which is a huge side-bonus (in my book). If anyone still plays Skyrim in 2020, that is.

I really couldn't figure out what I was supposed to see in it back in 2011. So many of the game systems were unimproved from Oblivion, and it's not like those were outstanding, timeless mechanics in the first place. In a world that had plenty of time to learn from the righteousness of Dark Messiah, the animatronics flailing at each other with pool noodles of Skyrim was just a nonstarter for me.

[Triaxx]

Random Alternate start lives in my load order for a reason.

Also I still play Skyrim, still a fun game.


That said there's not a good break point built into Skyrim's intro for some reason. Even Oblivion had one.

[Man_Over_Game]

On Skyrim, anyone know of good mods that make the player-side of things a bit more fun/interactive?

For example, melee combat is mostly just making sure to stay out of LoS of enemy ranged units and bashing the first thing in front of you by spamming the Attack button. It got more interesting when you could Shield-tackle enemies down, but that didn't make the game too much more interactive.

And there were things like how smithing/enchanting gear gave you straight-up power creep, and were mutually exclusive against conjured weapons and temporary armor buffs.

Sure, you could level up into anything you wanted, but does it matter if you are good with a bow and Destruction magic when they both solve the same problems but one doesn't help the other? Enchanting basically required certain spells in order to use, since filling soul gems was so specific and niche in that game that it made enchanting impossible, or everything.

[Zevox]

Sorry, I was referring to the fact that it's a very aged mentality of games having several blocks of text, followed by the core gameplay, then another block of text, then you get to play some more. And while Final Fantasy isn't really in the same ballpark as "JRPG" anymore, it is still using modern techniques, and that was THE franchise for JRPGs for 10 straight games.

That doesn't clarify anything, I'm afraid. In what possible way is Final Fantasy not a JRPG anymore? I mean, given they're continuing with it in 16 it's probably safe to say it's transitioned into being an action-RPG series at this point, but that's far from unheard of, with things like the Tales series or Kingdom Hearts being longstanding action-JRPG franchises, so all that is is a subgenre shift. And if you're not talking about that, I honestly have no clue what you think you're saying with that remark.

I think there's the potential to gain something by integrating the story with the core gameplay effectively, and it's the fact that 40 years of JRPG experience hasn't really evolved all that much. They almost feel like a niche in video games nowadays, and I think a big part of that is because they're basically just the same 30-year-old games with better graphics.

JRPGs have always been niche games, aside from specifically Final Fantasy, mostly (to my understanding at least) because of how huge FF7 made that series. Or Dragon Quest if you live in Japan, I suppose, but for the rest of us, no, Final Fantasy's the only one that's popular enough to break out of the niche status.

I don't know, maybe Persona's starting to these days, but I don't feel too confident on that front just yet.

Chrono Trigger is 25 years old, you can get it on your phone for $10, almost every gamer who's ever touched a JRPG has played it. Yet hardly anything has come close to its level of design, despite virtually unlimited memory and so many past examples of success. The devs for Chrono Trigger obviously didn't have Chrono Trigger to base ideas off of, so a lot of what they did was really ingenius at the time. What's our excuse?

Okay, Chrono Trigger I have played, and honestly, while it's certainly a good game that I enjoyed, I don't see what you're talking about there at all. There's nothing about it that I'd hold up over many other JRPGs. Certainly I think there's plenty of better ones out there. It was probably one of the best at the time it came out, but now? Not even close, IMO.

Zevox, since you say you've never played Planescape: Torment, you owe it to yourself to rectify that immediately. Everything you've been saying says that you love RPGs for the story, and PS:T is probably the finest RPG storyline ever written. The fact I can still say this more than 20 years after the game was released makes me a bit sad for the development of CRPGs in general!

What he said. It's hard to find a thread where PS:T is talked about objectively, as it's pretty difficult not to fangirl over it. For reference, Witcher 3's writing feels bland and slow in comparison.

Definitely not happening anytime soon - my plan is that after I finish up my War of the Chosen run it's finally time for me to play through Persona 4 Golden, since I didn't want to jump right into that when it dropped just as I was finishing Persona 5 Royal back in June. And... honestly, I don't know. I've seen people praise it on here before, obviously, but aside from the general amount of love it gets like that, when I've seen specifics, they've never made me feel like I wanted to play it. Things like talking about how the combat is the worst part of it and you want to just avoid it don't exactly get me raring to play a game, for example.

(Also, Witcher 3 comparison is another that doesn't work for me, haven't played that. Deliberately chose to skip it since it does the whole open-world thing that I'm just not into.)

PS:T is dark, but it still adds its own color and beauty when doing so, while Witcher 3 and GoT are dark to emphasize how terrible society is. The latter examples can be exhausting to enjoy over long periods of time, where the way PS:T pulls it off really just draws you in like a work of art.

At one point, a man who can't die talks to a man who wants to kill himself. The Undying then breaks his own neck by turning it all the way around, then retells how empty the void was to the suicidal guy, giving him a reason to live. That's Planescape: Torment, in a nutshell.

Kind of another example of what I mean about specifics not making me want to play it there. Maybe there's something to the presentation of it that makes that appealing in some way in context - there's certainly games that can get dark like that and still be appealing to me in the moment - but I don't think just talking about it like that is selling it the way you seem to think it is. It just makes it sound morbid and unpleasant.

[Anteros]

I actually don't like games like Torment where you know that dialogue is the solution to every problem. Once you know that diplomacy always works, it stops feeling like a dynamic decision to try to talk things out vs using violence when needed and starts feeling like I just need to keep my numbers on the character spreadsheet high enough to keep the dialogue running. It loses a lot of the interactivity and immersion. You're not making decisions based on what you think is right, you're just going along with your highest stat distribution and watching the show.

[Man_Over_Game]

I actually don't like games like Torment where you know that dialogue is the solution to every problem. Once you know that diplomacy always works, it stops feeling like a dynamic decision to try to talk things out vs using violence when needed and starts feeling like I just need to keep my numbers on the character spreadsheet high enough to keep the dialogue running. It loses a lot of the interactivity and immersion. You're not making decisions based on what you think is right, you're just going along with your highest stat distribution and watching the show.

Well, it doesn't always. There are a few times where you don't want to negotiate, with slavers, murderers, crime bosses, etc. There's also a few times where negotiations don't work. Overall, though, I do agree that stacking your social/intellectual skills ends up being more rewarding, but it's not exactly a game that implements combat well in the first place.

This was the computerized 3.5 Icewind Dale/Baldur's Gate kinda stuff, and at least those games let you pick what your characters did (while Torment has specified powers/classes for each unit in your team).

It just makes it sound morbid and unpleasant.

Sorry, just meant that as an example of how dark it can be. Most of it is wonder, investigating, and wit. But, to each their own.

[Razade]

Hades is fully released and on the Switch so finally getting a chance to play that. Enjoying it a great deal as I expected.

Also Disgaea 6 was announced and as a Switch exclusive for summer of next year. So that's a bonus on a day that's not been ideal.

[Zevox]

Sorry, just meant that as an example of how dark it can be. Most of it is wonder, investigating, and wit. But, to each their own.

Hey, I'm not saying I'm definitely not interested in playing it or anything. Just that everything I've heard leaves me unsure whether it'd be something I'd like. And games that I'm unsure about tend to be low on the priorities list, you know?

Also Disgaea 6 was announced and as a Switch exclusive for summer of next year. So that's a bonus on a day that's not been ideal.

You know, I used to like Disgaea quite a bit, back when I played the first two games. When I tried the third and fourth though I never did finish them. Think I just finally hit the point where I'm not up for the amount of grinding the series wants, even just to finish the story missions. Always liked the goofy characters and stories, though.

[Razade]

I like some Grind when I'm in the mood. I didn't get to do three or four when they were new and the QoL that 5 brings in is just too much for me to go back to earlier games though I do have 4 on my Switch. I didn't care for 2 much but I really liked 5 a great deal. Love the general mechanics, love the goofy tone of some of the game and the attempt at giving a serious and heart felt story that's not gritty or grim. Disgaea 1's story is still a pretty good not-a-love story even if NIS has ridden its poor corpse to dust. It's not a game for everyone for sure. NIS has always been pretty niche. But ya know, people don't have to buy it if they don't care for it.

[Zevox]

I like some Grind when I'm in the mood. I didn't get to do three or four when they were new and the QoL that 5 brings in is just too much for me to go back to earlier games though I do have 4 on my Switch. I didn't care for 2 much but I really liked 5 a great deal. Love the general mechanics, love the goofy tone of some of the game and the attempt at giving a serious and heart felt story that's not gritty or grim. Disgaea 1's story is still a pretty good not-a-love story even if NIS has ridden its poor corpse to dust. It's not a game for everyone for sure. NIS has always been pretty niche. But ya know, people don't have to buy it if they don't care for it.

Oh, certainly, I didn't mean that as a criticism. More trying to express my appreciation for it despite the fact that I don't know if I'll be playing it any longer - and disappointment that I actually hit such a point, I suppose. Laharl and company were a lot of fun back in the day, and as much as 2 was weaker in terms of characters I did like Rozalin at least, and still enjoyed the game overall.

[Zombimode]

(Also, Witcher 3 comparison is another that doesn't work for me, haven't played that. Deliberately chose to skip it since it does the whole open-world thing that I'm just not into.)

Depending on what exactly you don't like with open world this may be a misconception about Witcher 3. It's open world in the sense that you can walk everywhere but other than that it has nothing to do with games like Elder Scrolls or the UbiSoft open world games.

[factotum]

I don't know, maybe Persona's starting to these days, but I don't feel too confident on that front just yet.

Persona 5 Royal was the seventh-best selling game overall for the month of March in the US, so I think we can safely say that's pretty darned mainstream.

[Rynjin]

Depending on what exactly you don't like with open world this may be a misconception about Witcher 3. It's open world in the sense that you can walk everywhere but other than that it has nothing to do with games like Elder Scrolls or the UbiSoft open world games.

Arguably it's not much more "open world" than the first two games; it's just better able to realize the concepts of those. Witchers 1 and 2 were compartmentalized into distinct zones, but within those zones you could still go anywhere and do anything in any order you pleased, though once you moved on you usually couldn't go back, since plot developments would prevent such.

The Witcher 3 works much the same way, save that content gating is entirely plot based; you can still go back to places but some quests may no longer be available depending on the current events in the plot.

Really all the Witcher 3's open world does is add a sense of seamless transition between zones instead of there being long loading screens and a series of "But thou musts!" locking you off from going to certain places at certain times. It's one of the best designed "open worlds" ever made since the open world actually serves the story and worldbuilding rather than just being there for the sake of it.

Mind, there's still a certain amount of fluff off the beaten path, like any other open world, but I find it's easily ignored and usually worth your time to check out.

If you like the way most Zelda games are set up (which have been "open world" in the same sense for the majority of the series' lifespan, including all of the most critically acclaimed entries, like Ocarina and Wind Waker), you should have no issues with the Witcher 3's open world design.

[factotum]

Having got a fair way into the second Trails in the Sky, still enjoying it, but there is one really irritating thing about it--and that is, how it does sidequests. I mean, it at least gives more of a reason for sidequests than most RPGs do--you're playing a "bracer", a person whose entire job is doing random stuff for people--but it puts arbitrary time limits on them, generally with no way to tell what the limit is, so you'll go and do the next main quest and find that several of the jobs you had on hand are now "failed" because of that. Also, it tends to put some extra sidequests in *after you've finished a chapter*, so you walk out of the Bracer Guild house ready to start the next chapter, but you have to run back in and check if any new sidequests have been added, which disrupts the flow somewhat.

The first game did a bit of that as well, but it was definitely not as bad as SC in that regard.

[Cespenar]

I really couldn't figure out what I was supposed to see in it back in 2011. So many of the game systems were unimproved from Oblivion, and it's not like those were outstanding, timeless mechanics in the first place. In a world that had plenty of time to learn from the righteousness of Dark Messiah, the animatronics flailing at each other with pool noodles of Skyrim was just a nonstarter for me.

As much as I like to bash on Bethesda myself, there are not many open-world RPGs that can do what BethRPGs do. Now, can you write an encyclopedia worth of stuff that can be improved? Yes, starting with a simple lack of fun melee mechanics like Dark Messiah. But can other games do all that Skyrim does? Not really.

I actually don't like games like Torment where you know that dialogue is the solution to every problem. Once you know that diplomacy always works, it stops feeling like a dynamic decision to try to talk things out vs using violence when needed and starts feeling like I just need to keep my numbers on the character spreadsheet high enough to keep the dialogue running. It loses a lot of the interactivity and immersion. You're not making decisions based on what you think is right, you're just going along with your highest stat distribution and watching the show.

I don't like that kind of feeling myself, but with Planescape (and other games that do it right), it doesn't really turn that way because while "diplomacy" may always work, the type of diplomacy needed for the occasion might elude your character's stats/skills, or might not fit your preferred methods of solution. Though if you somehow become an all around powerhouse with 20s in Wis, Int and Cha, and not care about good & evil, that might become an issue, I guess.

The strongest instance of what you described, for me, was in Sunless Skies, where the game quickly devolved into a spreadsheet-fest in which you sometimes not skip a well-written but mostly irrelevant snippet.

Having got a fair way into the second Trails in the Sky, still enjoying it, but there is one really irritating thing about it--and that is, how it does sidequests. I mean, it at least gives more of a reason for sidequests than most RPGs do--you're playing a "bracer", a person whose entire job is doing random stuff for people--but it puts arbitrary time limits on them, generally with no way to tell what the limit is, so you'll go and do the next main quest and find that several of the jobs you had on hand are now "failed" because of that. Also, it tends to put some extra sidequests in *after you've finished a chapter*, so you walk out of the Bracer Guild house ready to start the next chapter, but you have to run back in and check if any new sidequests have been added, which disrupts the flow somewhat.

The first game did a bit of that as well, but it was definitely not as bad as SC in that regard.

The safest method is to just check the quests in the journal and see if they are short, medium or long term, and just rush the short ones before doing any main quest stuff.

[LibraryOgre]

Random Alternate start lives in my load order for a reason.

Also I still play Skyrim, still a fun game.


That said there's not a good break point built into Skyrim's intro for some reason. Even Oblivion had one.

The I can think of two good places:

1) Your initial choice to go in the Left Door with the Imperial or the Right Door with the Stormcloak. This is the only real choice you make at that point.

2) Upon leaving the cave and stepping into the sunlight, just before the dragon flies over again.

Option 1 would still have you going through most of the tutorial, which makes it less ideal. Option 2 means you've passed up the choice for option 1, which makes IT less ideal. I think a fun option might have been to have you go through Helgen Keep's tunnels with both guys, and make the decision at the end, but that would also require writing an entirely different enemy into Helgen Keep... perhaps undead and more spiders (Falmer would seem like a great option, but would give them too much prominence, and make them seem like a major part of the main quest).

[warty goblin]

As much as I like to bash on Bethesda myself, there are not many open-world RPGs that can do what BethRPGs do. Now, can you write an encyclopedia worth of stuff that can be improved? Yes, starting with a simple lack of fun melee mechanics like Dark Messiah. But can other games do all that Skyrim does? Not really.

I played a lot of Oblivion, and loved it. Running around a big fantasy world and swording things and doing quests everywhere and just exploring stuff was a blast. Sure there were problems, but the scale of the thing was hella cool, so it didn't really bother me.

I dumped a lot of hours into Fallout 3 as well. Not as many as Oblivion, because the monochrome ruined cityscape was vastly less appealing to me than Cyrodil, Fallout as a setting has always kinda bored me, and FO3's shooting is even rougher than Oblivion's melee. But a lot of fun was still had, even if the basic mechanics felt a lot like Oblivion's.

Then I tried Skyrim. The basic pleasure of wandering around the super atmospheric world was still there, but I was just utterly worn out of those same janky systems that hadn't progressed since Oblivion. So I could wander the map, but the only result would be finding another cave where I'd just have to fight another group of irrelevant enemies with the same bad systems I'd been tolerating for years. The stealth was still crude, the combat an uncontrolled mess of flailing, and the inventory clearly the punishment of a vengeful god.

It didn't help that Skyrim released at about the same time as Saint's Row 3, which scratched more or less the same open world pitch, but had enjoyable characters, a goofy sense of humor about itself as a game, and systems that basically worked ok. Then Kingdoms of Amalur dropped, which took more or less the same idea as TES, but gave it combat that was actually fun s and smooth to control. Sure it was total over the top high fantasy nonsense, but running into another group of enemies wasn't actually unpleasant.

So yeah, Bethesda games do some stuff that other games don't. That was really spectacular back in 2006. They've barely advanced since then, and it simply isn't good enough for me anymore.

[Cespenar]

I played a lot of Oblivion, and loved it. Running around a big fantasy world and swording things and doing quests everywhere and just exploring stuff was a blast. Sure there were problems, but the scale of the thing was hella cool, so it didn't really bother me.

I dumped a lot of hours into Fallout 3 as well. Not as many as Oblivion, because the monochrome ruined cityscape was vastly less appealing to me than Cyrodil, Fallout as a setting has always kinda bored me, and FO3's shooting is even rougher than Oblivion's melee. But a lot of fun was still had, even if the basic mechanics felt a lot like Oblivion's.

Then I tried Skyrim. The basic pleasure of wandering around the super atmospheric world was still there, but I was just utterly worn out of those same janky systems that hadn't progressed since Oblivion. So I could wander the map, but the only result would be finding another cave where I'd just have to fight another group of irrelevant enemies with the same bad systems I'd been tolerating for years. The stealth was still crude, the combat an uncontrolled mess of flailing, and the inventory clearly the punishment of a vengeful god.

It didn't help that Skyrim released at about the same time as Saint's Row 3, which scratched more or less the same open world pitch, but had enjoyable characters, a goofy sense of humor about itself as a game, and systems that basically worked ok. Then Kingdoms of Amalur dropped, which took more or less the same idea as TES, but gave it combat that was actually fun s and smooth to control. Sure it was total over the top high fantasy nonsense, but running into another group of enemies wasn't actually unpleasant.

So yeah, Bethesda games do some stuff that other games don't. That was really spectacular back in 2006. They've barely advanced since then, and it simply isn't good enough for me anymore.

Eh, as you put it as well, it sometimes has a lot to do with where your "itch" bar was when you played it. Myself, I loved Morrowind, then not really enjoyed Oblivion and F3, which emptied that bar a lot and allowed me to enjoy Skyrim. Though also, as much as I liked Saints 3 and KoA, they don't really scratch that same place for me. Somehow Kingdom Come or even Far Cry 3-5 come closer, though.

Besides all that, I'd also claim that even if Skyrim didn't really improve its mechanics, it did improve its polish a lot since Obli and F3, and I mean a lot.

[Triaxx]

Mark: I can see the idea... but so much is influenced by what happens past those doors. The actual leveling process starts through those doors, and while yes, you can avoid it all, you start leveling skills as you go through the cave. And without Oblivion's, 'these skills are super low level until you actually select which start high', skipping the dungeon would tend towards you starting the same thing over and over.

Warty: Yes, with two caveats to me. My favorite part of Fallout 3 was the open world outside of the DC ruins itself. That huge free, empty space around the 'city' was the best part to me. Skyrim filled that hole nicely, but while it was very much the same style as oblivion, it felt like home, but with Dragons, and I really like that aesthetic.

[Thomas Cardew]

The I can think of two good places:

1) Your initial choice to go in the Left Door with the Imperial or the Right Door with the Stormcloak. This is the only real choice you make at that point.

2) Upon leaving the cave and stepping into the sunlight, just before the dragon flies over again.

Option 1 would still have you going through most of the tutorial, which makes it less ideal. Option 2 means you've passed up the choice for option 1, which makes IT less ideal. I think a fun option might have been to have you go through Helgen Keep's tunnels with both guys, and make the decision at the end, but that would also require writing an entirely different enemy into Helgen Keep... perhaps undead and more spiders (Falmer would seem like a great option, but would give them too much prominence, and make them seem like a major part of the main quest).

Rewrite it to be both. Play up their friendship, imperial is saving his friends life by getting the two of you out. Have all 3 of you be attacked by both 'crazed' imperials and stormcloaks as you escape, give each npc lines telling his faction to stop that the enemies ignore. The two can bicker about the civil war as you walk through the dungeon which lets you cut some of the transport monologue and provides a lot more chances to show rather than tell. At the cave mouth, choose one of them to go with to riverrun while the other runs off to report.

[LibraryOgre]

Rewrite it to be both. Play up their friendship, imperial is saving his friends life by getting the two of you out. Have all 3 of you be attacked by both 'crazed' imperials and stormcloaks as you escape, give each npc lines telling his faction to stop that the enemies ignore. The two can bicker about the civil war as you walk through the dungeon which lets you cut some of the transport monologue and provides a lot more chances to show rather than tell. At the cave mouth, choose one of them to go with to riverrun while the other runs off to report.

Excellent rewrite. It would also get you used to being disappointed in your companions combat choices early.

[Zevox]

Depending on what exactly you don't like with open world this may be a misconception about Witcher 3. It's open world in the sense that you can walk everywhere but other than that it has nothing to do with games like Elder Scrolls or the UbiSoft open world games.

I mean, I based that decision on their marketing for the game, so maybe, maybe not.

As far as what I dislike about open world style games, the massive, oversized worlds that take forever to traverse are a chief offender (and fast travel systems don't help, since they're only available when backtracking). The two biggest exceptions that I've found to my dislike of the style, Infamous: Second Son and the 2018 Spider-Man game, have you playing characters with superpowers that allow them to traverse the world so rapidly that it feels a lot smaller than it actually is (I actually frequently forgot those games even have fast travel systems because of it!). So if there's anything like that, that'd be a big point in its favor. Any sort of system that makes getting around the world harder or more tedious, such as the stamina meter from Breath of the Wild, would by contrast be a major strike against it.

Beyond that, the Bethesda style is definitely the biggest issue. The feeling that the game isn't actually focused on its main story, or much of the world being filled with shallow, uninteresting side-quests just to keep all that extra space from being wholly empty - those sorts of things bother me a lot and greatly detracted from my enjoyment when I've tried Bethesda games especially, and other open-world games to one extent or another.

Persona 5 Royal was the seventh-best selling game overall for the month of March in the US, so I think we can safely say that's pretty darned mainstream.

Eh, looking that up, it came in below every other notable new game that released that month, so all that really means is that it sold better than a bunch of games that didn't release that month and are just popular enough to have decent sales after their launch period. I guess the fact that it stayed in the top 20 (at 18th) in April is something, though. But it was also off the list entirely by May.

[Razade]

Put some time into Hades yesterday between work and cooking and usual life stuff. As usual Supergiant Games absolutely slays it in the regular departments. The voice acting is top notch, the narrator is a nice touch even if it's not the warm, soothing voice of Logan Cunningham that I've come to know. I know he voices the narrator and a few of the Gods/Characters in the game but it's not the same. The art is spectacular, each God portrait is a pleasure to see each time it pops up either in dialog or just the lore section. I especially love Charon and Nyx.

The main character isn't the brash, hot headed and arrogant tool he looks like he could be, and that's a great touch. They did a good job giving him some empathy while still connecting him to the very person and people he's struggling against. As with Bastion and Pyre, I'm hooked on knowing how things turn out for him even knowing I'll be playing that story over and over. It's an odd touch, for a Roguelike, to give such a personal story and struggle so I guess I'll see how much I enjoy it when I'm 200 hours in.

The combat is fun though it has a little jankiness that sometimes makes me feel like I got hit not because I messed up but because that's just how it goes. Which is not a high mark for Roguelikes. I am only 11 runs in however so that might just be very early player complaints considering I am not nearly as upgraded or as far along as the amount of time I feel I put in would be. I managed to get to the first boss on my 4th run. She's a blast. Managed to beat her on my 11th, latest, run and even managed to get to the second boss. Changing from the Sword to the Bow did wonders for me. It's great that each weapon feels like a completely different play style even though the core mechanics remain the same. I fear though that the Gate Keepers will inform me that the Bow is Easy Mode for the game and I don't think I could argue that. It absolutely was the core of my success.

The thing I am having trouble with is the Casting. I get that it's helpful with perks to Cast on an enemy for more damage and I'm absolutely certain that it's a mechanic I ought to be using more but even through the second area of the Escape Attempt I didn't feel like it was helpful without some Boons on it. Which man, when you do Casting is great fun.

[Rynjin]

I think the bow is actually considered fairly weak in Hades, though everything is pretty well balanced with the other options. It largely comes down to preference, though I think at the absolute highest skill level the default sword is the highest damage with the right setup; personally I really like the shield. You also might want to check and see if there's some delay with your monitor; my experience with the game was that it was very clearly my fault any time I got hit, as it feels very fluid to move. You may have some slight desync or input lag.

[Razade]

I'm on the switch, so it'd have to be some input delay on the television. I don't have any problems in any of the other Roguelikes I play on it. I still consistently win my Isaac runs on my Switch.

I figured I was looking at all the stuff from a very early perspective in relation to weapons and upgrades. I've tried not to spoil myself too much on the game, since that's part of the fun of roguelikes, and it could have been I just got a good set up with Boons. I had Doom with every main shot and the arrow spread gave Weakness. Both were also upgraded to Level 2 from Poms. I even almost managed to beat the second boss on my first try but like most Roguelike bosses, the patterns and unfamiliar nature kicked my butt. The second boss is pretty slick, I got it to half health before it pulled its multi-head move on me. Before that I was worried it'd be a cakewalk and that probably led to my defeat more than anything.

I've used all the weapons I've got (I managed to unlock the first four in 9ish runs) in the testing room. The Shield looks like a lot of fun for sure. I like the Trident as well in theory. It's pretty neat with its returning mechanic. I like the shield has a charge move as well. Both feel way different than the Bow and the Sword. Excited to see how the Gauntlets and the Guns (which I read about here) will play. I imagine I'll need twenty more keys for that though. I really wanted to get the first boss down with the sword before I really got into the other weapons, but I'm glad I just picked bow for a laugh and managed to kick butt with it on my first try with it.

[Man_Over_Game]

The thing I am having trouble with is the Casting. I get that it's helpful with perks to Cast on an enemy for more damage and I'm absolutely certain that it's a mechanic I ought to be using more but even through the second area of the Escape Attempt I didn't feel like it was helpful without some Boons on it. Which man, when you do Casting is great fun.

This is actually a major point that I absolutely hate about Hades.


You get all of these cool mechanics, what between

• Dash attacks
• Normal Attacks
• Heavy Attacks
• Charge Attacks (on some weapons)
• Casting

And they had an excellent foundation of getting boons that enhance these aspects and change how they play.


And then they did the worst thing possible: Made them mutually exclusive.

So now the best way to play is by making yourself boring, and stacking everything into the most overpowered mechanic you can load everything on to and condemn yourself into being bland.

• Using a Sword? Stack Dash boons, and never do anything but.
• Using a Bow? Stack On-Hit boons, trying not to pick stuff specific to Normal/Dash attacks if you can help it (because damn is managing those with a bow useless)
• Using a Shield? Stack Heavy On-Hit Boons or Casting boons.
• Spear? Normal Attack Boons, or Casting boons.

Sure, you can do the Heavy Attack with a Dash Sword build, but you're not really getting anything out of it. Same thing that happens when you use your Cast on a Non-Cast build: Eventually, you realize it's a wasted button slot and you don't even know what it's there for.


They could easily fix that by nerfing boons and having their benefits apply to several mechanics at once (so a chain lightning boon from Zeus now applies to Dash Attacks, Charge Attacks, and Casting), so that you're not just gambling effectively a 1/5 chance to play a specific way each time you pick a boon, and instead are mutating and evolving into an entirely new entity every time you play.

Because, as of right now, the priorities on which of the 3 boons you should pick, with each boon pickup, boils down to the one that (In order of priority):

1. Adds to the thing you're already doing (that interacts with the above attack methods)
2. Adds to the special riders you've already applying to your attacks (like improving the damage of all of your Chain Lightning effects)
3. Adds a general passive buff that is always useful to anyone
4. Adds a new power to something you're not already focusing on.

This means two things:

1. That adapting is the last thing you do
2. RNG can devalue your past decisions and investments, as there is a chance that none of the boons you could pick at that moment are actually relevant (when another run may not have that issue, in a game where you get a limited number of boons and rewards each run)

And neither of these are the kind of philosophies you'd want from a Roguelike Action Game. There have been moments where I just restarted immediately after looking at my boon choices right at the start, since there are just some builds that don't synergize enough to work (like Heavy Attacks with a Sword).

And don't get me started on the whole Normal/Dash Attack issue with Bows.

I give Supergiant props for making a fun, colorful, interactive combat Roguelike, as those take a lot of gumption. But, man, does it make me sad to think about what coulda been. Mostly because I know that they are very capable of it (See: Transistor, Pyre).

I was always hoping they realized their mistake before the final release. Still hopeful that someone at the top pushes for it to change.


Don't get me wrong, the game is still fun, and I'm still going to play 50 hours into it, but I've sunk hundreds into Dead Cells because I am rewarded for mastering every aspect of the game.
They're both very similar in concept, but the big difference is that Dead Cells makes sure nothing goes to waste, whether that's your random gains, blind build choices, or using low-level items. The better you get, and the further you go, the more "game" there is to play, and you feel like it was your fault when things get hard.

Hades...took a different route.