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

[Clertar]

KC:D is pretty alright, and fairly underrated in my opinion (at least around here). I only slightly coincide with those personal preferences myself, and it was still pretty enjoyable as a game probably simply due to the fact that it's at least somewhat realistic.

I'm playing KC:D on a PC, for full disclosure. I will have to say that you're absolutely right, I think the game pulled off a good blend of different elements from niche subgeneres that allowed it to be interesting to a quite broad audience and make a unique RPG. It's not a survival game by a long shot but has a couple of elements of that. It's not a social simulator but it has a some aspects. The fighting system is relatively streamlined, but still poses a challenge. And so on and so forth. The hardcore mode, imho, just enhances all these aspects.

The historical realism is extremely nice, I'm really grateful for that. You can feel that in some ways you're experiencing 15th century life in Rattay or in Sasau. And seeing things like this makes me respect the dedication that went into it a lot:

Spoiler: Image

Show

[Cespenar]

I'm playing KC:D on a PC, for full disclosure. I will have to say that you're absolutely right, I think the game pulled off a good blend of different elements from niche subgeneres that allowed it to be interesting to a quite broad audience and make a unique RPG. It's not a survival game by a long shot but has a couple of elements of that. It's not a social simulator but it has a some aspects. The fighting system is relatively streamlined, but still poses a challenge. And so on and so forth. The hardcore mode, imho, just enhances all these aspects.

The historical realism is extremely nice, I'm really grateful for that. You can feel that in some ways you're experiencing 15th century life in Rattay or in Sasau. And seeing things like this makes me respect the dedication that went into it a lot:

Spoiler: Image

Show

True, the environment and city/town designs were so authentic that most other open world games sort-of seemed arcade-y for a while after playing this. Only Witcher 3 came close to this in my opinion (if we're talking city design, at least).

[Man_Over_Game]

Trying Hollow Knight a second time, as I didn't get very far the first time I played it (mostly from just not having the time).

I'll be frank - it's a lot easier than I thought it was. I think the hours of fast-paced murdersprees playing Dead Cells has honed my platforming to the point where I'm...occasionally impressed with myself! I think I've only died like 5 times, and haven't lost my ghost yet.

Finally, at 30 years old, I think I can actually enjoy Megaman games!

I've just been kinda randomly wandering around. I know from watching my wife play occasionally that defeating the Broken Vessel unleashes this massive infection across the world, so I've just been doing everything around that. I want to find out where she got her Nail Art that does the spinning triple slashy thing, but I've only managed to find the dashy slashy so far.

I still have the royal sewers to go, as I haven't touched it at all, and maybe some stuff in Deepnest I haven't explored yet. I think I've explored everything else, outside of stuff that obviously requires the double jump (which you get from the Broken Vessel, from my understanding).

Anyone got suggestions for where to find mask or soul shards? I've only managed to upgrade my mask once, and I'm still looking for enough pieces to upgrade my soul.

[DemonicAngel]

You can circumvent some of the double jump area by poggo-slashing on top of stuff, either enemies, debris or enemy shots, just so you know. That might open up some areas you though you couldn't get into.

[Rakaydos]

Trying Hollow Knight a second time, as I didn't get very far the first time I played it (mostly from just not having the time).
(...)
I still have the royal sewers to go, as I haven't touched it at all, and maybe some stuff in Deepnest I haven't explored yet. I think I've explored everything else, outside of stuff that obviously requires the double jump (which you get from the Broken Vessel, from my understanding).

Anyone got suggestions for where to find mask or soul shards? I've only managed to upgrade my mask once, and I'm still looking for enough pieces to upgrade my soul.

Have you taken the tram -right- from Ancient basin? There's a couple zones that are only really reachable that way.

Also, there's a Pale Ore down a hole on the far left of the ancient basin tram station.
The shopkeep has a backroom, but you have to find the key to it in the crystal mines.

[sihnfahl]

The issue is the bosses themselves aren't well designed enough to be a threat, so each boss has hordes of adds.

Yeah, they're pretty repetitive. 'Do this' becomes 'do this faster'.

I don't mind the adds. They can actually help beat the bosses...

Like Gorefists' adds. Melee boss with a wide swinging arc and a long sword? And adds that explode when they're hit, including the boss' sword?

[Silverraptor]

I've been playing Mario 64 on the Mario All Stars game on my newly purchased Switch. Now, I've only played Mario 64 by proxy by going over to a few friends houses and only a few worlds at a time. So now I've hit the wall of finally hitting material I haven't seen before, such as where to find the metal cap. So now the real fun of figuring out how to proceed through the game can begin.

One of the main differences in playing this game now and when I was a little kid is I remembered the worlds you visit in the paintings being much bigger. But now that I'm an adult, and experience in game design and level layout with the amount of memory cartridges had back then, I now realize just how small these worlds actually are. It's pretty ingenious to get around the memory limitation by forcing the user to have to reuse the same maps atleast 8 times to give them the illusion that the game is bigger than it is, and if I recall, the game was the largest game of it's time when it came out.

[Man_Over_Game]

You can circumvent some of the double jump area by poggo-slashing on top of stuff, either enemies, debris or enemy shots, just so you know. That might open up some areas you though you couldn't get into.

Have you taken the tram -right- from Ancient basin? There's a couple zones that are only really reachable that way.

Also, there's a Pale Ore down a hole on the far left of the ancient basin tram station.
The shopkeep has a backroom, but you have to find the key to it in the crystal mines.

Thanks, guys!

I think I'm pretty set on upgrades for now. Managed to get 7 total masks, a soul jar upgrade, a second sword upgrade (of 3 total, I think), two of the three Nail Arts, and the second-to-last Notch upgrades.

Getting that last Pale Ore from the hidden Deepnest boss was a pain-and-a-half. Took me several tries, but he actually seems a lot more predictable than most other bosses, just seems like you gotta get your inputs and positioning correct. I recognized a pattern where he'd do his jumping attack whenever he ended a charge with you close-by (so that you don't get a huge pause to heal, I imagine), and he only ever threw out his corrosive slime when he was in the center of the room (to keep you from pogoing him and to distract you from his followup charge). He was an extraordinarily well-designed boss that barely used any random elements while still managing to kick your ass. My biggest frustration is that he didn't really allow any room for your Nail Arts to be used, which is dumb considering he's probably a late-game boss, and Nail Arts are optional and end-game to begin with.

I'm finally going to explore the Royal Waterways, it's just been really really boring to explore so far since I don't have a map (and it seems Cornifer is walled off on the other side of a void wall that's stopping me from reaching him). I am a really lazy gamer, and I'm incredibly forgetful, so having no map is a quick way to make me give up halfway through.



On a side note, I am a major nerd for innovative game design, and I am really impressed with the depth of design in this game.

The platforming and Dark Souls mechanics are standard and nothing much different than you'd expect from Edgy-Bug-Megaman. However, a few big things that I noticed:

• Even though the game has several abilities that are required for progress (the dash, the ability to climb, the downwards smash, super-dash, until eventually the double-jump), there's not really an inherent requirement for what order you need to gather them all, and not all zones are blocked off from the same requirements. You can play the entire game without the ability to swim in acid, despite the fact that acid-water can be found in almost every zone. The double-jump isn't necessary to solve some of the jumping-puzzles in Deepnest, but it certainly helps! As a result, the game actually gets easier the more you play, because of the fact that you're utilizing your new tools, not because they're required and not because an artificial growth system (like Experience) says the game should be easier.
  -
• There are these secret collectable creatures you can save that you get rewarded for, the Worms. They make a cute sound when you're nearby so that you know a hidden worm is in the area that needs saving. The thing is, the developers knew that the player would naturally adapt to the sound of worms, and so they included enemies that take advantage of that fact by being hidden and hurting the player when they're obliviously checking walls and such for secrets. This starts out as these weak little bush monsters in Greenpath, but later on that same role is assigned to these damn bats that scream when you reach their line of sight before they charge at you and explode for huge damage. As a result, you're taught to learn the subtle differences in the telltale sounds of a worm vs. a bat, and you have an increased sense of paranoia that goes with the theme of a dark world turned darker.
  -
• There are three optional sword powers you can get from three Nail Master brothers that are all on opposite sides of the map, blocked by some kind of major challenge. While they're all hidden and difficult to reach, you can hit them with the Dream Nail (a tool used to read the thoughts of people and corpses, mostly useful for lore purposes) to find out where one of the other brothers are. So a player can always know where at least one brother is as long as they've found one naturally. A clever way of rewarding players for learning more about the world.

If I had a complaint, it's mostly how dull the world is. You see fragments of how the world WAS, and that seems really interesting and fun! But in Hollow Knight, you see the same 2-color greyscale, with the occasional green or orange thing trying to kill you, with personalities to match. Everyone's tired. Everyone's sad. The most interesting place in the game is a graveyard full of dead people you can talk to that don't actually do anything or add to the world. Rather, the game felt worse after visiting it, since it felt like so much more could have been done.

Maybe that was intentional, to give a false sense of longing to a world that nobody gets to experience now, but the cynic in me says that it was a false way of giving color to the world without actually putting in the work for it. It would have been a lot more work to make that world, so they give you a taste of it so that they can make it work with a high-action Dark Souls game that's planning on killing you with very little plot going on. By telling us "Well, the world USED to be like that", there's not much room for complaint, since we can't actually interact with it, yet it feels like it's a well-made story. And don't get me wrong, Hollow Knight has story, but it's usually in like 1 sentence lines from dead people, or people that are about to die, with about 30 minutes of fights and jumping puzzles in between.

Rather, it doesn't HAVE a story. It HAD a story. It feels like playing in the corpse of a world I actually want to experience.

Kinda reminds me of Dead Cells, in that way. I just feel like Dead Cells doesn't try to...cover it up? Hollow Knight tries to make the plot feel important (when it's not, I still don't know what I'm actually doing besides the plot points I accidentally looked up, and I'm probably 70% of the way through the game), while Dead Cells realizes it's a wacky game that you play because you want to move fast and murder things. There's no DC also has a better color scheme for the same "desolate civilization" shtick , but maybe that's just a stylized thing.

I do appreciate the level of technical requirement from Hollow Knight. It has a very Guacamelee vibe about it, but what it did particularly well is incorporate combat with it, while Guacamelee had a problem with dividing its combat and its platforming challenges into being two very distinct things. Hollow Knight ends up feeling like Guacamelee mixed with Dead Cells, it just happened to forget the color and then tried to patch it up with more grey.

The game's pretty good, tho, despite that. I'm probably just being too cynical. Props for the devs, though. This was their first game, if I remember correctly.

[Rodin]

I've just made the mistake of playing Little Hope on Bonfire Night.

"What's that in the shadows?"

*BOOOOM*

"AHHHHHH!"

*thing in the shadows leaps out*

"AHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

[Anteros]

Okay so I beat Vaal Hazak, then I went and did a bunch of quests to get money and materials for things like more armor and to get Wyvern Blade Holly so I can deal poison damage to Xeno'jiiva. Of course then I lost to Xeno'jiiva but the way it moves, Xeno doesn't seem that bad, they're actually a bit slow compared to some of the rathians I've been fighting to get my Holly, the only real problem is not knowing Xeno' patterns. sure its bigger and has laser beams and fire trails, but the lasers are honestly the easiest part to avoid, its figuring out how to avoid that big tail sweep thats the problem because that is what caused me being carted more than once. its similar to how the Teostra explosion move just seems to occur a little too fast for me to get away consistently: its so wide ranging and so damaging that its hard NOT to get hit by it.

You don't run from the Teostra explosion. You flash him while he is in the air and do a ton of damage while he's stunned.

[Cygnia]

HONK!

Finally playing Untitled Goose Game.

Taking me a while to get used to the controls. And I'm getting some motion sickness unfortunately.

[Rodin]

You don't run from the Teostra explosion. You flash him while he is in the air and do a ton of damage while he's stunned.

Or if you're me playing HBG you accidentally start loading Wyvernsnipe ammo because you forgot the three-button combination to bring out your slinger. Or I do remember, but accidentally picked up slinger ammo that landed on top of the Teostra material I'm trying to pick up. So instead, I fire a rock which plinks off Teostra's armor harmlessly.

I've pretty much given up at this point, even though I had it down on hammer. Much easier to try and put the weapon away and go for a superman dive, or just run my happy ass away and leave my cat to get blown up.

[Lord Raziere]

You don't run from the Teostra explosion. You flash him while he is in the air and do a ton of damage while he's stunned.

that might as well be a high level expert maneuver to me, just using slinger at all is something I have not learned to do. too busy dodging and whacking monsters with my katana, maybe some grappling hook here and there.

Beat Xeno'jiiva second try though, its actually easier than the bosses before it and once I got my barnos jacket back on I could just walk across the heated places it leaves behind without worry. like I'm pretty sure Nergigante could take Xeno'jiiva given how slow Xeno'jiiva moves and the mistakes it makes compared to Nergigantes constant calculated aggression. but thats just me. I think my next step is figuring out various swords I want to get like an elder seal one, a stun one, things like that before I start iceborne so I have a better more well-rounded arsenal going into it, right now the only purple swords I have is the blast one given to catch up and Holly because poison is good against Xeno'jiiva.

[Rynjin]

Yeah, they're pretty repetitive. 'Do this' becomes 'do this faster'.

I don't mind the adds. They can actually help beat the bosses...

Like Gorefists' adds. Melee boss with a wide swinging arc and a long sword? And adds that explode when they're hit, including the boss' sword?

Spoken like someone who probably didn't fight Ixillis the first week the game released. Where the adds are fast, plentiful, and don't drop ammo. And then a second boss appears.

Apparently they nerfed it multiple times but I never played the weaker version to compare.

[Anteros]

that might as well be a high level expert maneuver to me, just using slinger at all is something I have not learned to do. too busy dodging and whacking monsters with my katana, maybe some grappling hook here and there.

Beat Xeno'jiiva second try though, its actually easier than the bosses before it and once I got my barnos jacket back on I could just walk across the heated places it leaves behind without worry. like I'm pretty sure Nergigante could take Xeno'jiiva given how slow Xeno'jiiva moves and the mistakes it makes compared to Nergigantes constant calculated aggression. but thats just me. I think my next step is figuring out various swords I want to get like an elder seal one, a stun one, things like that before I start iceborne so I have a better more well-rounded arsenal going into it, right now the only purple swords I have is the blast one given to catch up and Holly because poison is good against Xeno'jiiva.

Well, keep in mind that Nergigante preys on other elders, so he's supposed to be tough. Plus, Xeno is a newborn infant. I would imagine it would be much stronger as an adult.

[Lord Raziere]

Well, keep in mind that Nergigante preys on other elders, so he's supposed to be tough. Plus, Xeno is a newborn infant. I would imagine it would be much stronger as an adult.

Well yeah, thats why Nergigante and Xeno'jiiva are my favorite monsters, Nergigante is tough, it looks awesome and hunts things its own league, while Xeno'jiiva is such a threat that you have to kill it before it can grow up and looks alien, elegant and cool. I keep wanting to make superhero characters or whatever out of them.

[DeTess]

So, I just finished Aegis rim: 13 sentinels. It's got a great mystery/science fiction story that's told from 13 different perspectives. I won't go into much detail here except that the story's very good and kept bringing up new twists until the very end. You can swap between the 13 main characters fairly freely, though sometimes progress in one story is locked off until you've reached a certain pint in another's story. This freedom to prioritize some stories over others both allows you to prioritize whichever story thread currently seams most interesting to you, but can also lead to some really interesting revelations, depending on the order in which you play certain stories.

In addition to the visual novel/adventure game style main story, there's also a real-time with pause mech-combat section. This makes up a smaller part of the game (I finished the story in 35 hours, about 5 of which where spent in the mech-combat mode), and is okay to good. It basically presents the final chapter of the story (99% of the visual novel segments take place before it). The earlier parts are pretty easy, but the difficulty and intensity of the fights ramp up as the game progresses, and the final fight is incredibly frantic and intense, and you're basically being overwhelmed from the very start.

Anyway, if you like science fiction and mystery stories,you should serisouly consider picking up this game if you happen to own a PS4.

[Winthur]

Finished Tales of Symphonia. It was great, even though I would have naturally been missing the creature comforts of Vesperia's free run and the like, but the rigid way Symphonia's battles work out was actually fun and engaging in its own right - I actually used Guard way more often than in Vesperia. Tempest is one of the most fun skills ever and it was great for my stubborn desire to actually beat up Kratos on Hard at the very first Tower of Salvation clash and many other things.

I'm deep enough in the Tales hole that I already have Berseria waiting. At this rate I'm going to blow through all of the Steam releases before 2021 hits.

[Zevox]

So, after they extended the rollback beta due to popular demand (was originally just supposed to be last weekend; now it goes until the 16th), I find myself playing more of Guilty Gear XXAC+R than I expected. It's taking a while, but I'm slowly acclimating to the pacing and feel of the game, and my win rate is slowly ticking up - from the low 20%s to the low 30s, but still, progress. Been sticking with Testament, and similarly slowly acclimating to him as a character. I like his combos and normals, and the zoning tricks with his traps and pseudo-projectile specials are nice to play around with. (I've always have liked zoning more in fast-paced fighting games than in slower ones - feels less lame when a quick IAD or ground dash could get your opponent past it than it does when they need to slowly walk their way in or look for a moment where you're vulnerable to a jump-in.) I'd hardly say he's any kind of main for me comparable to when I say that for other series, but I'm enjoying him enough that it'd get my attention if he were revealed to be the last character in Strive's base roster, or even one of its DLC characters.

Still, certain things are a big challenge. It boggles my mind how often my opponents seem to be able to grab me on wakeup, for instance, since they need to be mashing heavy slash for that, and I were properly timing a meaty attack, that'd get them killed. It's just really hard to figure out the timing of that, especially for Testament's overhead.

Aside from that though, after wrapping up AC: Odyssey, I found myself unsure what to play next for a single-player title. So eventually I took a look at what my free PS Plus games for the month were. Turns out, they're Middle Earth: Shadow of War, a game I have no interest in; and Hollow Knight: Voidheart Edition. A game I basically know two things about: people around here seem to like it, and it's a platformer.

So I went "eh, why not?", downloaded that, and played a little of it today. Seems fine so far, though I must admit to being a bit annoyed at how it handles the map. Really don't see why that shouldn't just be automatically filled out as I go in a game like this without me needing to buy a bunch of things for it. Still, I'm not far yet, so not much to comment on beyond that so far - and I guess that I like how your downward jumping attack has a Scrooge McDuck pogo bounce effect when you hit an enemy with it, that's a nice touch.

[Razade]

Finished Tales of Symphonia. It was great, even though I would have naturally been missing the creature comforts of Vesperia's free run and the like, but the rigid way Symphonia's battles work out was actually fun and engaging in its own right - I actually used Guard way more often than in Vesperia. Tempest is one of the most fun skills ever and it was great for my stubborn desire to actually beat up Kratos on Hard at the very first Tower of Salvation clash and many other things.

I'm deep enough in the Tales hole that I already have Berseria waiting. At this rate I'm going to blow through all of the Steam releases before 2021 hits.

I've been really hoping they'll bring a remaster of Symphonia to the Switch. Easily one of my favorite games from the Gamecube. I still have my gamecube and I still have my copy of the game and a memory card but it'd be nice to have it on my Switch.

[warty goblin]

So, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. It's good. It's very good. Goes down smooth and fiery, like fine whiskey.

(Or at least the first hour and a half do.)

At this point Assassin's Creed has pretty much completed its metamorphosis into historical action RPG, and it does a very good job of it. The writing is still not exactly brilliant, but it's clear, effective, concise, and overall of pretty solid quality. I'm particularly impressed at how well they do at making it feel like Eivor is part of a group of people, all of whom have known each other for years, rather than the typical RPG protagonist who has no history, family or friends at the beginning of the game.

The visual worldbuilding is really excellent. It isn't, and isn't going for, high realism, but it absolutely nails a very lived in but slightly elevated aesthetic. I think of it less as "how this looked" and more "how seeing this might have felt." So sure the halls are bigger and grander than they would have been, but it captures the idea that these are the biggest, grandest and most important buildings around. They're supposed to be impressive, so they should impress the actual audience of modern people who probably aren't up and up on late Migration era architecture. Also of note, the camera work in the intro sequence is astonishingly good, like the best I may have ever seen in a game. It also sticks in lots of little side stuff that doesn't need to be there, but makes the world and gamespace feel a lot richer. You can have a drinking contest, or a poetry battle, or get ludicrous volumes of tattoos. There's a dice game I haven't even tried yet.

Simply between the writing and the worldbuilding, this is the best third person action RPG I've played since Witcher 3.

Gameplay the short version, it's a post-Origins Assassin's Creed. Long version, it's fun. They've added a stamina bar to combat, but it doesn't actually piss me off, since it mostly functions to keep you from eternally defending and penalize you for throwing bad attacks. Successful light attacks actually regenerate stamina. I'm playing with combat set to Hard (delightfully you can change the difficulty for combat, stealth and exploration all independently) and at least so far it's not exactly difficult outside of boss fights; although enemies do pretty reasonable damage it's fairly easy to avoid. Hitting people with axes feels quite satisfying, you can use shields properly, and it flows together pretty well in a fairly standard third person action game sort of way. Which I'm quite happy with, I'm here to kick asses and split skulls, and this sure does let a person do that.

There's a stealth system, which I'm sure the game will make me use at some point. But stealth is not exactly a Viking cultural value, and it seems pretty ignorable if you want. Good. Again, skulls and axes.


Overall I haven't been this enthused by a new game in quite some time. While I'm sure the Ubi-exhaustion will set in at some point, this is just great so far.

[Zevox]

I'm a little ways into Hollow Knight now, and enjoying it. Could definitely still do with the map stuff being simpler and more automatic, but besides that, seems solid gameplay-wise. Looks like the designers decided that the actual platforming could get some elements of challenge to it once you picked up the wall jump ability too, which is nice. I've enjoyed the boss fights so far, too.

The story... is way too Dark Souls for my liking. Everything's vague and not explained in much detail, and the tone is very somber, and the general atmosphere kind of dark and depressing. I know some people go for that, but not I, personally. Oh well, good gameplay can certainly make up for that, and so far, all good in that area.

So, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. It's good. It's very good. Goes down smooth and fiery, like fine whiskey.

I'm rather curious to hear how it compares to Odyssey myself. Just finished playing that recently, and was surprised and fairly impressed by it - I think it's the clear best AC I've played. But I don't have enough faith in the series as yet to grab a new release right away without hearing the general reaction to it, so I'm waiting on deciding whether I want Valhalla or not.

[Thomas Cardew]

I started playing Vermintide 2 when it was on a free trial week for it's 5th anniversary and seemed like a decent hack&slash co-op game, which tend to be few and far between. I decided I liked it well enough to pick up the main game for its heavily discounted price but not enough to spring for all the DLC. I've actually really enjoyed it, it sort of reminds me of the EA Return of the King game. It also doesn't hurt that there was also challenge going on to kill 555,555,555 rats on the special event map, with the reward being triple XP for 2 weekends. The devs were surprised people finished it and decided to do 10 full days of triple XP. It made leveling all the characters up very quick and relatively painless. I doubt I would have enjoyed grinding at normal speed at all, particularly on the characters I didn't like or who's builds don't really 'click' until you hit key talents. On the other hand, there's some careers I haven't tried at all yet, mostly because I didn't want to figure out the builds/ gear requirements for them.

My biggest issue with it right now is that the game relies so much on auditory information. You have to listen for the footsteps behind you, the noises of the different special spawns, the cues for blocking/dodging, etc. As someone who tends to play games with another video or show on the 2nd monitor or music playing, it's definitely an adjustment. On lower difficulties it didn't matter too much, but in the higher ones even trash takes off 10-15% of you health in 1 hit, or 50% if it's a charged one. But it really scratches that itch for slaughtering hordes of enemies in a much more visceral way than say Diablo or PoE. I really love playing Waystalker Kerillian and spamming arrows for days before popping my special to refill. Or Bounty Hunter Saltzpyre and being able to one-shot elites/specials with my crossbow.

[Thomas Cardew]

I started playing Vermintide 2 when it was on a free trial week for it's 5th anniversary and seemed like a decent hack&slash co-op game, which tend to be few and far between. I decided I liked it well enough to pick up the main game for its heavily discounted price but not enough to spring for all the DLC. I've actually really enjoyed it, it sort of reminds me of the EA Return of the King game. It also doesn't hurt that there was also challenge going on to kill 555,555,555 rats on the special event map, with the reward being triple XP for 2 weekends. The devs were surprised people finished it and decided to do 10 full days of triple XP. It made leveling all the characters up very quick and relatively painless. I doubt I would have enjoyed grinding at normal speed at all, particularly on the characters I didn't like or who's builds don't really 'click' until you hit key talents. On the other hand, there's some careers I haven't tried at all yet, mostly because I didn't want to figure out the builds/ gear requirements for them.

My biggest issue with it right now is that the game relies so much on auditory information. You have to listen for the footsteps behind you, the noises of the different special spawns, the cues for blocking/dodging, etc. As someone who tends to play games with another video or show on the 2nd monitor or music playing, it's definitely an adjustment. On lower difficulties it didn't matter too much, but in the higher ones even trash takes off 10-15% of you health in 1 hit, or 50% if it's a charged one. But it really scratches that itch for slaughtering hordes of enemies in a much more visceral way than say Diablo or PoE. I really love playing Waystalker Kerillian and spamming arrows for days before popping my special to refill. Or Bounty Hunter Saltzpyre and being able to one-shot elites/specials with my crossbow.

[danzibr]

Trying Hollow Knight a second time, as I didn't get very far the first time I played it (mostly from just not having the time).

I'll be frank - it's a lot easier than I thought it was. I think the hours of fast-paced murdersprees playing Dead Cells has honed my platforming to the point where I'm...occasionally impressed with myself! I think I've only died like 5 times, and haven't lost my ghost yet.

Finally, at 30 years old, I think I can actually enjoy Megaman games!

I've just been kinda randomly wandering around. I know from watching my wife play occasionally that defeating the Broken Vessel unleashes this massive infection across the world, so I've just been doing everything around that. I want to find out where she got her Nail Art that does the spinning triple slashy thing, but I've only managed to find the dashy slashy so far.

I still have the royal sewers to go, as I haven't touched it at all, and maybe some stuff in Deepnest I haven't explored yet. I think I've explored everything else, outside of stuff that obviously requires the double jump (which you get from the Broken Vessel, from my understanding).

Anyone got suggestions for where to find mask or soul shards? I've only managed to upgrade my mask once, and I'm still looking for enough pieces to upgrade my soul.

Thanks, guys!

I think I'm pretty set on upgrades for now. Managed to get 7 total masks, a soul jar upgrade, a second sword upgrade (of 3 total, I think), two of the three Nail Arts, and the second-to-last Notch upgrades.

Getting that last Pale Ore from the hidden Deepnest boss was a pain-and-a-half. Took me several tries, but he actually seems a lot more predictable than most other bosses, just seems like you gotta get your inputs and positioning correct. I recognized a pattern where he'd do his jumping attack whenever he ended a charge with you close-by (so that you don't get a huge pause to heal, I imagine), and he only ever threw out his corrosive slime when he was in the center of the room (to keep you from pogoing him and to distract you from his followup charge). He was an extraordinarily well-designed boss that barely used any random elements while still managing to kick your ass. My biggest frustration is that he didn't really allow any room for your Nail Arts to be used, which is dumb considering he's probably a late-game boss, and Nail Arts are optional and end-game to begin with.

I'm finally going to explore the Royal Waterways, it's just been really really boring to explore so far since I don't have a map (and it seems Cornifer is walled off on the other side of a void wall that's stopping me from reaching him). I am a really lazy gamer, and I'm incredibly forgetful, so having no map is a quick way to make me give up halfway through.



On a side note, I am a major nerd for innovative game design, and I am really impressed with the depth of design in this game.

The platforming and Dark Souls mechanics are standard and nothing much different than you'd expect from Edgy-Bug-Megaman. However, a few big things that I noticed:

• Even though the game has several abilities that are required for progress (the dash, the ability to climb, the downwards smash, super-dash, until eventually the double-jump), there's not really an inherent requirement for what order you need to gather them all, and not all zones are blocked off from the same requirements. You can play the entire game without the ability to swim in acid, despite the fact that acid-water can be found in almost every zone. The double-jump isn't necessary to solve some of the jumping-puzzles in Deepnest, but it certainly helps! As a result, the game actually gets easier the more you play, because of the fact that you're utilizing your new tools, not because they're required and not because an artificial growth system (like Experience) says the game should be easier.
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• There are these secret collectable creatures you can save that you get rewarded for, the Worms. They make a cute sound when you're nearby so that you know a hidden worm is in the area that needs saving. The thing is, the developers knew that the player would naturally adapt to the sound of worms, and so they included enemies that take advantage of that fact by being hidden and hurting the player when they're obliviously checking walls and such for secrets. This starts out as these weak little bush monsters in Greenpath, but later on that same role is assigned to these damn bats that scream when you reach their line of sight before they charge at you and explode for huge damage. As a result, you're taught to learn the subtle differences in the telltale sounds of a worm vs. a bat, and you have an increased sense of paranoia that goes with the theme of a dark world turned darker.
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• There are three optional sword powers you can get from three Nail Master brothers that are all on opposite sides of the map, blocked by some kind of major challenge. While they're all hidden and difficult to reach, you can hit them with the Dream Nail (a tool used to read the thoughts of people and corpses, mostly useful for lore purposes) to find out where one of the other brothers are. So a player can always know where at least one brother is as long as they've found one naturally. A clever way of rewarding players for learning more about the world.

If I had a complaint, it's mostly how dull the world is. You see fragments of how the world WAS, and that seems really interesting and fun! But in Hollow Knight, you see the same 2-color greyscale, with the occasional green or orange thing trying to kill you, with personalities to match. Everyone's tired. Everyone's sad. The most interesting place in the game is a graveyard full of dead people you can talk to that don't actually do anything or add to the world. Rather, the game felt worse after visiting it, since it felt like so much more could have been done.

Maybe that was intentional, to give a false sense of longing to a world that nobody gets to experience now, but the cynic in me says that it was a false way of giving color to the world without actually putting in the work for it. It would have been a lot more work to make that world, so they give you a taste of it so that they can make it work with a high-action Dark Souls game that's planning on killing you with very little plot going on. By telling us "Well, the world USED to be like that", there's not much room for complaint, since we can't actually interact with it, yet it feels like it's a well-made story. And don't get me wrong, Hollow Knight has story, but it's usually in like 1 sentence lines from dead people, or people that are about to die, with about 30 minutes of fights and jumping puzzles in between.

Rather, it doesn't HAVE a story. It HAD a story. It feels like playing in the corpse of a world I actually want to experience.

Kinda reminds me of Dead Cells, in that way. I just feel like Dead Cells doesn't try to...cover it up? Hollow Knight tries to make the plot feel important (when it's not, I still don't know what I'm actually doing besides the plot points I accidentally looked up, and I'm probably 70% of the way through the game), while Dead Cells realizes it's a wacky game that you play because you want to move fast and murder things. There's no DC also has a better color scheme for the same "desolate civilization" shtick , but maybe that's just a stylized thing.

I do appreciate the level of technical requirement from Hollow Knight. It has a very Guacamelee vibe about it, but what it did particularly well is incorporate combat with it, while Guacamelee had a problem with dividing its combat and its platforming challenges into being two very distinct things. Hollow Knight ends up feeling like Guacamelee mixed with Dead Cells, it just happened to forget the color and then tried to patch it up with more grey.

The game's pretty good, tho, despite that. I'm probably just being too cynical. Props for the devs, though. This was their first game, if I remember correctly.

Awesome. Enjoy it, man. My first (and att only) playthrough was... a lotta hours.

I sorta agree with the world bit. For me, one of the best parts of the game was the atmosphere. In that sense I wouldn't call it dull at all, but I get ya with the is v. was bit.

[Razade]

If I had a complaint, it's mostly how dull the world is. You see fragments of how the world WAS, and that seems really interesting and fun! But in Hollow Knight, you see the same 2-color greyscale, with the occasional green or orange thing trying to kill you, with personalities to match. Everyone's tired. Everyone's sad. The most interesting place in the game is a graveyard full of dead people you can talk to that don't actually do anything or add to the world. Rather, the game felt worse after visiting it, since it felt like so much more could have been done.

Maybe that was intentional, to give a false sense of longing to a world that nobody gets to experience now, but the cynic in me says that it was a false way of giving color to the world without actually putting in the work for it. It would have been a lot more work to make that world, so they give you a taste of it so that they can make it work with a high-action Dark Souls game that's planning on killing you with very little plot going on. By telling us "Well, the world USED to be like that", there's not much room for complaint, since we can't actually interact with it, yet it feels like it's a well-made story. And don't get me wrong, Hollow Knight has story, but it's usually in like 1 sentence lines from dead people, or people that are about to die, with about 30 minutes of fights and jumping puzzles in between.

There is some more variety the further into the game you go. But still, it's intentional. Dark Souls didn't have too huge of a color pallet and it's because the world is in decline. So is Hollow Knight's. It'd ruin the feel if it was bright and vibrant. But you should already have found some lush forests, which breaks up the gray colors. There's a lot more color the deeper in you go, it's just not bright and cheery.

Rather, it doesn't HAVE a story. It HAD a story. It feels like playing in the corpse of a world I actually want to experience.

Kinda reminds me of Dead Cells, in that way. I just feel like Dead Cells doesn't try to...cover it up? Hollow Knight tries to make the plot feel important (when it's not, I still don't know what I'm actually doing besides the plot points I accidentally looked up, and I'm probably 70% of the way through the game), while Dead Cells realizes it's a wacky game that you play because you want to move fast and murder things. There's no DC also has a better color scheme for the same "desolate civilization" shtick , but maybe that's just a stylized thing.

If you're 70% into the game you should have found more color at this point

But the game does have a story, just in the same way Dark Souls has a story but better delivered imo. You actually will get answers and if you've been diligent reading and keeping up with all the areas you can actually read at in the game, it should be fairly clear what's going on.

[warty goblin]

I'm rather curious to hear how it compares to Odyssey myself. Just finished playing that recently, and was surprised and fairly impressed by it - I think it's the clear best AC I've played. But I don't have enough faith in the series as yet to grab a new release right away without hearing the general reaction to it, so I'm waiting on deciding whether I want Valhalla or not.

I haven't played a lot of either Odyssey or Valhalla (yet), but I think on net I like Valhalla's systems better. It feels much more focused on melee combat than archery or sneaking. So dodging and parrying look really good, and the amount of creative body modification you can do with an axe is... impressive.

And it nails some very Viking things just perfectly, like pulling your kingship up to an enemy settlement and pressing the go button. All your hairy murderous bros just go charging out yelling their heads off, and the excellently freaky soundtrack gets going and you are 100% down for some dark ages mayhem. Most fun I've had leading the muderbois in a game since heavy cavalry charges in Mount and Blade.

[Zevox]

I haven't played a lot of either Odyssey or Valhalla (yet), but I think on net I like Valhalla's systems better. It feels much more focused on melee combat than archery or sneaking. So dodging and parrying look really good, and the amount of creative body modification you can do with an axe is... impressive.

And it nails some very Viking things just perfectly, like pulling your kingship up to an enemy settlement and pressing the go button. All your hairy murderous bros just go charging out yelling their heads off, and the excellently freaky soundtrack gets going and you are 100% down for some dark ages mayhem. Most fun I've had leading the muderbois in a game since heavy cavalry charges in Mount and Blade.

Hm, okay. I'm curious about the equipment system - it was my biggest criticism in Odyssey, where your equipment had its own levels, and you needed to upgrade it at blacksmiths constantly to keep its stats from falling behind, becoming a major money/resource sink and sometimes necessitated grinding to keep up with. Is that still the case, or did they overhaul that?

[NeoVid]

I started playing Vermintide 2 when it was on a free trial week for it's 5th anniversary and seemed like a decent hack&slash co-op game, which tend to be few and far between. I decided I liked it well enough to pick up the main game for its heavily discounted price but not enough to spring for all the DLC.

The Vermintide games are the best First Person Stabbers out there, and I love 'em, but they really hate explaining the game mechanics. There's a guide I point out for all new players, "All you need to know in 10 minutes." Which I've learned to also send to veteran players, as this game has plenty of features most people would never figure out on their own, no matter how much time played we've got.

[LibraryOgre]

Back to TES: Oblivion. Only one of the main-sequence TES games I haven't beaten, largely because I get to a point in the storyline and am just... meh.