Video Games: Devils Die Twice

[Heartofice]

On 3/29/2019 at 2:18 PM, Toth said:

I haven't played EU4 in the last two weeks, but it might be neat to show where I currently am: https://s16.directupload.net/images/190329/6kjnutfg.jpg

 

I can say that Brandenburg is definitely one of the more challenging and enjoyable factions I've played in EU4. The first few years can be quite challenging, I've had to play and replay it a few times to make sure I never got sucked into the wrong wars, that seems to be the best way to avoid total disaster. I'm enjoying reading your posts as I've never bothered to get further than about a century in.

[Inigima]

I uninstalled Sekiro. Too frustrating for me, and I'm an OG Demon's Souls player. Good luck to those sticking with it.

[Heartofice]

39 minutes ago, Inigima said:

I uninstalled Sekiro. Too frustrating for me, and I'm an OG Demon's Souls player. Good luck to those sticking with it.

I've watched tons of videos of people playing this, I don't know how people put up with the frustration.

[Red Tiger]

I just beat it. It's shorter than the other Soulsborne games. It doesn't have levels for you to grind, but the arts/skills you learn can be far deadlier than the levels you gained in previous games, provided you pick the right ones. The Mikiri Counter and Breath of Light saved my bacon more times than I can count. I suspect many of the people who quit on this game also prefered Dark or Demon Souls over Bloodborne, as Sekiro is far more rewarding to an aggressive playstyle.

[Caligula_K3]

On 3/27/2019 at 8:16 PM, Ramsay B. said:

I’m like 35 hours into AC: Odyssey and I’ve barely touched the southern part of the map. This game is insanely big and there’s almost too much to do. I’ve decided to ignore basically all side quests before I get burned out. I’m hunting cult members only now.

I'm at a very similar point in the game (about 37 hours played), but I think I've hit burnout. I love exploring this world, I love sailing around in my ship, and the writing for many quests is a big improvement over past Assassin's Creed games I've been playing. I also think the Kassandra voice actress does a fantastic job. But I hit a point in the main quest where I've been asked to collect a bunch of MacGuffins on top of killing cultists and doing the main quests, and there was a big level jump for the next main quest... I'm getting pretty tired of raiding forts and doing often-mediocre sidequests for XP. I think it might be break time for me, and maybe I'll come back to it in a few months.

[KiDisaster]

22 hours ago, aceluby said:

Which boss was this?  I just

  Reveal hidden contents

took out Genchiro, who I only after 4 or 5 tries was able to take down w/out getting hit, but could not for the life of me use the same strategies for his lightning phase.  Had to change my strategy for that phase and take a less aggressive approach that took advantage of the mikiri and lightning counters when given space.

 

Same boss you mention in your spoiler. It's a really great fight. 

Getting the timing down on the lightning reflects and throwing it back in his damn face is so goddamn satisfying

I'm pretty much at the end of the game now. I have one boss I'm pretty sure is optional that I'm working on now and then I think all that's left is the final boss. 

2 hours ago, Red Tiger said:

I just beat it. It's shorter than the other Soulsborne games. It doesn't have levels for you to grind, but the arts/skills you learn can be far deadlier than the levels you gained in previous games, provided you pick the right ones. The Mikiri Counter and Breath of Light saved my bacon more times than I can count. I suspect many of the people who quit on this game also prefered Dark or Demon Souls over Bloodborne, as Sekiro is far more rewarding to an aggressive playstyle.

I'm one of those who prefers Souls to Bloodborne, but I played Bloodborne pretty much exactly the same way I played Souls despite the lack of shield since it doesn't force you to be aggressive like Sekiro does. I was getting pretty frustrated in the beginning but by now I'm absolutely loving this game. It might finally replace Dark Souls 1 as my favorite From game. 

Minor end game spoilery stuff: 

One thing From did that I think is a really nice touch when you reach the final phase of the game is to toss a few more mini-bosses into old areas who are essentially reskins of earlier mini-bosses. I've seen some people call this lazy but I think it's a great choice, for me it resulted in taking another shot at these enemies who absolutely destroyed me the first time I fought them and this time they didn't stand a chance against me. You realize how much better you've actually gotten at the combat since the first time you took them on and it's a really, really cool feeling.

 

[Red Tiger]

Im looking forward to Cyberpunk 2077, Persona 5 The Royal and Horizon Zero Dawn 2 (because we all know it's coming). April 24, get here soon!

[aceluby]

2 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

Same boss you mention in your spoiler. It's a really great fight. 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Getting the timing down on the lightning reflects and throwing it back in his damn face is so goddamn satisfying

 

So far, it's been the most fun for me.  Definitely saw a pretty steep change in the way I played as I progressed through

Spoiler

The Swordman Shenobi Hunter -> Perfect counter + attack took him out in 30 seconds.  Died at least 20 times before figuring this out and then it was cake.

7 Spears -> Perfect counter + mikiri + firecrackers and staying aggressive.  Was really hard, but again, staying aggressive, close, and countering were key.

Saze -> Just block his two quick hits and then kill him.  Was an aha moment for sure.

Genchiro -> Hit, counter, hit, counter, perfect block his overhead slam + mikiri/dodge attack made his first phase a cake walk.  Change up strats to just do mikiri & lightning throwbacks made for one of the most fun fights I've had in a From game.  Baiting attacks and countering to get the posture up.  Now I feel like I know what's expected of me.

Going to take on Lady Butterfly this afternoon

[KiDisaster]

https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964

Another really fantastic write up from Jason Schreier about the current state of Bioware and the rocky (understatement of the year) development of Anthem. Makes me feel so sad for the developers there. 

[briantw]

26 minutes ago, KiDisaster said:

https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964

Another really fantastic write up from Jason Schreier about the current state of Bioware and the rocky (understatement of the year) development of Anthem. Makes me feel so sad for the developers there. 

I'm sure most of the good ones from BioWare's glory days are gone now anyway.  

[Inigima]

6 hours ago, Red Tiger said:

I just beat it. It's shorter than the other Soulsborne games. It doesn't have levels for you to grind, but the arts/skills you learn can be far deadlier than the levels you gained in previous games, provided you pick the right ones. The Mikiri Counter and Breath of Light saved my bacon more times than I can count. I suspect many of the people who quit on this game also prefered Dark or Demon Souls over Bloodborne, as Sekiro is far more rewarding to an aggressive playstyle.

You might be right, I don't have a PS4 so I didn't play Bloodborne. I had problems adapting from "training" to the real deal -- Hanbei will let you practice the Mikiri counter, for example, but he's super easy to read. Literally every other thrusting enemy is much harder to read, and often delays or stutter-steps the thrust, and it's very difficult to tell what you're doing wrong -- are you too early? Too late? Who knows also now you're dead because most enemies can take you from full health to dead in a couple hits so now you also have to do a bunch of work to get back there to try to learn the fight. That's how most of the game was for me, a few minutes of prep work for 15 seconds of boss fight before dying. It's tough to learn the fight when you can't stay alive long enough to experiment and the game doesn't give you much feedback other than killing you.

I tried to be aggressive because I read that that's the way to go, and that works on a lot of grunt type enemies, but on bosses of course you can't just go ham all the time, and it can be hard to tell when you need to stop the onslaught and prepare to defend.

[aceluby]

5 minutes ago, Inigima said:

I tried to be aggressive because I read that that's the way to go, and that works on a lot of grunt type enemies, but on bosses of course you can't just go ham all the time, and it can be hard to tell when you need to stop the onslaught and prepare to defend.

Each boss is different, but basically you get a swipe or two in before a boss will block and counter.  You can pretty much spam L1 once they attack as you're learning to get some good counters yourself, then swipe swipe until they block then start blocking yourself again.  Large overhead attacks have been the easiest for me to get a perfect block with, which is usually followed by a thrust which you can mikiri counter pretty easily, or you can dodge/jump out of the way.  Just be sure to dodge right back in with a swipe swipe, then start blocking again. 

There are more specific strategies for each of the bosses, but the game is all about that close dance, for the most part (sometimes it's swipe, dodge, swipe, dodge; but still aggressive and close).  The firecracker has been pretty effective for bosses as well, while the shuriken slash skill has been invaluable for taking out grunts.  Most of the time there's a pretty easy path to a mini boss as well, for when you do die and need to make it back.

[Werthead]

5 hours ago, briantw said:

I'm sure most of the good ones from BioWare's glory days are gone now anyway.  

Weirdly, a couple have come back recently.

The worst part in that story is that they apparently talked about doing Knights of the Old Republic III but instead EA wanted another crappy open world Star Wars game and then that got cancelled and never got anywhere.

Why the hell EA bought a company known for doing excellent, story-and-character focused, single-player, linear CRPGs and have gotten them making open world, multiplayer-focused bullshit I have absolutely no idea.

[KiDisaster]

I reached the final boss of Sekiro tonight. What. A. Bastard. 

Haven't been able to get to his final phase yet but I've gotten close. Love the feeling of making progress against a tough enemy in this game. 

[Fez]

I picked up Operenica: The Stolen Sun, it's my first foray into purchasing something from the Epic Game Store. Seemed like a straightforward process, I still don't get the fuss some people make about it.

As to the game, it seems pretty good so far. It's an old-school dungeon crawler, but with some modern conveniences, like having complete control of a free-moving camera (which is so good actually that's easy to get tripped and try walking where you can't because movement is still on a grid-based system) and all dialog be fully voiced. There are also puzzles to solve; most have been pretty easy so far, but it's a nice touch. Combat is pretty straightforward for this kind of game. The writing, especially in the journal, is good. I think the developers are Central European and it seems like the game is at least partially based on old folk lore (e.g. the wise, long-dead king who brought peace to his realm only for it to all fall apart after his death is named Atilla).

The only knock I have against it so far is that the prologue does not create a good first impression. It's one of those ones where you have an endgame level party full of temporary characters. The menus are not available, having that many abilities slotted is kinda confusing, and most of the voice acting is pretty bad. However, once you're gone and you control your proper level one main characters who the studio clearly hired better voice actors for, things get much better.

[Inkdaub]

On 3/29/2019 at 6:47 AM, Fez said:

Something that helps is that several of the later areas of the map have zero main quests or story-driven side quests (and several more than that do have story-driven side quests, but the main quest lines will never take you there). So the map is less intimidating than you'd think, if you just want to beat the game.

Oh I'm still doing alright just going along where they send me.  I'm level 22 so I have a way to go yet.  I like the idea that I likely won't clear the map.

[Inkdaub]

20 hours ago, Red Tiger said:

Im looking forward to Cyberpunk 2077, Persona 5 The Royal and Horizon Zero Dawn 2 (because we all know it's coming). April 24, get here soon!

I was glancing at the thread and saw this and almost fainted.

[Werthead]

Borderlands 3 has also gone Epic Store Exclusive, though only for 6 months. Still, that's a very big scalp for Epic to claim. Interestingly, Gearbox have made it clear the decision had nothing to do with them, it was down to Take Two.

I'm calling it now, Red Dead Redemption 2 PC will be an exclusive on Epic and that's when the shit will really go down.

[KiDisaster]

Was able to beat Sekiro last night. The final boss is a really tough but amazing fight. Now I'm trying to decide if I want to go through NG+ and try for one of the other endings. 

12 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Borderlands 3 has also gone Epic Store Exclusive, though only for 6 months. Still, that's a very big scalp for Epic to claim. Interestingly, Gearbox have made it clear the decision had nothing to do with them, it was down to Take Two.

I'm calling it now, Red Dead Redemption 2 PC will be an exclusive on Epic and that's when the shit will really go down.

I kinda hope this happens just because the gamer salt will be glorious to behold. 

[Corvinus85]

The latest DLC for Total War: Warhammer II has a most glorious trailer due to the homage it makes.