#looks like your average bloodborne enemy

[the-daily-male]

Today's daily male is Karl Heisenberg from Resident Evil Village!

for anonymous!

[elvenchevalier]

Lies of P

So I just finished this game and let me tell you something, I never loved Pinocchio more than I do right now. Genuinely, I would not have expected “Bloodborne meets Pinocchio” to work so harmoniously.

Lies of P wears its Bloodborne inspiration on its sleeve, and all the love and passion the devs had for Bloodborne shines through. It’s probably the best spiritual successor it could possibly have asked for. If we had ever gotten that sequel, I’d have wanted it to look something like Lies of P—despite P not having guns.

The story, unlike Bloodborne and other Fromsoft games, is mostly told on its face. It still has lore in item descriptions, but unlike Fromsoft’s games it doesn’t rely solely on environments and item descriptions to convey its story, and that’s hugely to its benefit. One of the flaws of Fromsoft’s souls formula games is that it expects you to dig deep to find the story; Lies of P actually tries to tell its story, and it’s all the better for it.

I’m going to say Bloodborne more times than Lies of P this writeup, I swear.

The weapon crafting system was a little strange to get used to at first, but once I did it felt like the perfect evolution of Bloodborne’s trick weapons. They don’t change form mid-combat, of course, but at any Stargazer or the weapon shop in the hotel you can mix and match to your heart’s content—for normal weapons, anyway. Boss weapons, earned from boss Ergo in the same vein as Remembrances in Elden Ring, cannot be separated into blade and handle like normal weapons can. But there is a wide variety of normal weapons to choose from, so the possibilities are virtually endless.

And that goes almost double when you run an Advance-focused build—Advance, as opposed to Motivity (Strength) or Technique (Dexterity), focuses on elemental weapons (Fire, Shock, and Acid). Advance only boosts your base damage by a tiny amount, because most of your damage is in making the most of elemental weaknesses, and it is STAGGERINGLY effective. I’m glad to have done my first run as an Advance build.

Aside from the not!trick weapons, Lies of P offers another method of attack in the form of the player character’s left arm, a changeable weapon referred to as a Legion Arm, and each one fills different niches. The one I ended up sticking with was a defensive option called the Aegis, but the Puppet String was also a lot of fun. If I had to lose guns for anything in a hypothetical Bloodborne 2, the Legion Arm is a pretty damn good option.

The voice acting was ON POINT. I didn't skip a single voice line in the entire game because the cast went all out. Venigni is painfully Italian--it's very funny.

If I had to give a flaw for the game, I would have to say I strongly dislike the visual similarity between each of the armor pieces. The converters and cartridges all look the same save for their colors and size for progressively stronger variants—and the size is almost negligible, easily missable if you’re not paying attention, sometimes causing you to equip a weaker version of the one you wanted if you aren’t diligently using the storage to prevent that. The liners are the worst of the lot, with three variants all looking nearly identical because they have no colors.

Another problem was that some enemies felt too aggressive; it’s fine for bosses, but when an average mook or even an elite is so aggressive that you barely have a chance to heal, it can get pretty frustrating. I have died more times to aggressive elites than most of the game’s bosses.

Man, it’s hard to come up with stuff to talk about that isn’t riddled with spoilers! Speaking of which: SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

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Holy crap the King of Puppets difficulty spike was MASSIVE. It took me the most tries out of any boss in the game, and it’s not even close. KoP took me something like 12 tries, while no other boss broke 5. He’s tough as nails and it’s great—I love a real challenge.

(For the record, the boss that took me the most attempts out of anything in Bloodborne, LoP, and Elden Ring was the Orphan of Kos at 22.)

(I don’t count Shadow of the Erdtree’s final boss.) (Fuck that guy.)

(Fuck that guy with Simon’s giant fist.)

(He wasn’t a “challenge”, he was just actively unfair to any but the cheesiest builds.)

...Anyway,

Every boss in the game was interesting, unique, and a LOT of fun. Each fight felt fresh and like a brand new puzzle to solve. I don’t think there was a single boss fight I did not actively enjoy, even when KoP was kicking my ass, and I can’t wait to get my ass kicked some more using different builds and new weapons.

Speaking of unique bosses, the game actually managed to make use of two early-game bosses again, but organically and in a way that made sense! The green monster in the Fromsoft Special’s second phase made use of the Scrapped Watchman by basically using its outer chassis as armor, and then the Parade Master after the game reused the first TWO areas—again, organically—was the same except with bonus attacks. They made sense, they were great, they demonstrated how the story was developing…ace. Absolutely ace.

Also, sidequests don't always end in horrible tragedy and/or death! Looking at you, Elden Ring. You actually feel like you're making the world a better place by doing Lies of P's sidequests, whereas you actively make the world better by IGNORING most sidequests in Elden Ring, save for like, Nepheli and Kenneth, and Ranni of course.

(It is VERY nice that the stargazer teleport menu shows when you can talk to someone to progress a sidequest. Again, looking at you, Elden Ring.)

One thing to really shake me was the reveal that P is Carlo. I actually did not manage to pick up on that before it was outright stated, but it was wonderfully foreshadowed in retrospect. Taking some notes on that one for sure.

...Speaking of foreshadowing, I realized during the Romeo fight that you can actually read the puppet speech—it’s just the regular text but garbled. It’s still very legible. My friend made sure to tell me not to do so, though, cuz it could have meant spoilers—so I don’t know what any of them say. I’m a little scared to find out when I take my character into NG+. Or just start a new run, because I can just read them then. Cuz I rule like that.

The final area is ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE. It comprises the whole of Chapter 11 and is big enough that there are ELEVEN Stargazers. The run up to it is incredibly foreboding, what with the Ergo crystals everywhere and the Ergo flowing toward the peak of the tower, and the actual climb actually feels as big inside as it looks outside. There are a few points toward the top where you’re granted a view outside, and you can see Krat and the St. Frangelico Cathedral in the distance. The area is also big enough to house six whole bosses—though two are avoidable.

The first one, the Door Guardian, actually made me tap into my latent Bloodborne instincts! Dodge, hang by the left leg, get shots in when you have an opening. Very, very cool fight.

And the MUSIC. For most of the climb, the music is this ominous chanting, fitting for a final dungeon, but toward the top the music actually STOPS, which actually feels MORE foreboding. Like you're finally coming up on the end. It's now or never. Heaven or hell.

Final notes:

Sophia is best girl,

Venigni is best boy,

And you can pet the cat 10/10 goty every year

That’s a wrap, everybody! VERY good game, will absolutely be playing again, probably soon. But next up is going to be Oracle of Seasons which I’m also nearly done with, so I might even have two writeups posted today LOL we’ll see.

じゃね！

[stoopidnightcrawler]

Long time no see, Tumblr! Heh... it's like we've become good friends. Anyways, today I'd like to talk about fromswoft games.

Let's start with what I drew.. For those who don't know, the art shows the Aquamarine Blade and Throwing Gladiuses (DS3 and ER).

Their specialty is the depth of gameplay. What am I talking about? Let me explain. Aquamarine Blade is a dagger in DS3, but its playstyle is more like a straight sword, due to its Weapon Art. The weapon art opens up a "stance" with a long blade, the speed is relatively the same (although in reality it's slightly slower), but the moveset itself is different. Yes, yes... the weapon art (aka Ashes of War in ER) opens up a moveset.

Is your dagger gameplay focused on 1v1 combat? Is your dagger playstyle very close quarters? Do you play daggers against crits? Forget it... Aquamarine Blade has an almost fully fleshed out moveset (all that's missing is jumping attacks). It has wide strikes, a long blade that combines with follow-up strikes, and Aquamarine Blade didn't find itself in the trash. Aquamarine knows her worth and intentionally understated her crit rate.

Great, isn't it? The weapon can give a completely different gameplay experience from the usual. What could go wrong? Yeah... The Aquamarine Blade has received a lot of criticism for its speed, stamina consumption, and requirements for herself. It's a shame, because there is a sickle for darkness with the ability to get dirty. With the most basic step and, in many ways, low requirements for itself, the Dark Sickle has become the most used dagger, even surpassing the basic dagger for crits.

Such a cool idea, it was rejected for some reason. But we'll get to that later. In the meantime, let's talk about our next patient.

Namely, what my Wife holds. Throwing Gladius.

And for context. I came to the game with a bow. That is, the bow often acted on par with the sword for me. The only inconvenience of this style is the constant switching from sword to bow. I wanted something average between them. A weapon that would be aggressive enough, keep the enemy at a distance and, in principle, close (thanks to the ashes of war on cold weapons) you can fight back.

And fortunately, my wishes were heard. A weapon with a medium range, with a good fire rate, can be tempered to any element and has large options for choosing a weapon art (aka ashes).

At first.....yes. I felt a little uneasy.. it was strange. The native weapon art for throwing knives did not impress me. Some weapon art disgusted or puzzled me. But, in addition to Souls, Bloodborne and Elden Ring, I also played Sekiro. And because of Sekiro, I gave a chance to Raptor of the Mist. I will also return to it, but the fact is. I played with this weapon art. I tried something new, with something old and....Man. This combination is just imba! The gameplay itself became somehow reactive, more aggressive and even the old crutch weapon art revealed itself from a new side. This combination became so amazing and pleasant that I literally reassembled my "build" and style of play.

You could say that a new game+ (for real) has started for me. Enemies that used to burn all my estus flasks are now (almost) no damage. Only positives. What could go wrong? Well... *Sight* Well...... Throwing knives were also covered in shit. Low damage, awkward gameplay, awkward weapon art's. People didn't like something new again. People didn't want to look for something new again, but decided to take the meta.

And now, we can get to the heart of the matter. Players. They don't want to learn. Or rather, not so. Players, don't want to explore. Soulslike, with claims to Exploring, does not want to be Explored.

And now... for example, did you know that stance (Square Off) is a chain weapon art? In DS3 you can hit Guardbreak and immediately continue the weapon art with a thrust with hyper armor and a long range (which you can use to catch your enemy pretty well). This is not in ER (which I really miss). Why, you ask. The answer is simple. People do not explore games for real. The maximum they will check the game on a superficial level, through wikis/fandom/bloggers on YouTube. The developers have a logical question.

"Why work on the game so deeply when you can focus on width?" The developers came up with an absolutely groundbreaking concept for weapon art that can dramatically expand the capabilities of the weapon in your hand (literally on par with the weapons from Bloodborne), in the form of the Aquamarine Blade. And players played with it and came to the conclusion that it is... bad.

The same goes for many, even smaller gags that are added to the game. For example, the feather from Sekiro, which can radically change the state of the battle and the position of Okami in space. Yes, if you forgot, the Feather from Sekiro can change your location. Not bad, but for universal love it lacked a "casual feature", like, for example, firecrackers. But the feather is not about casualness. It is about possibilities and complex use with other gags. For example, you can cast poison on yourself and activate the feather instantly, without implementing the condition from the outside. Or, you can use the feather against blows that are difficult for you to defend against. Or you can use the pen when you have almost no concentration left and restore it with Ittimōjin.

Literally falling on the enemy from above. I'm not even talking about the combination of the pen with the blade of the immortals... oh. I just did that. But the fact is, Mist Raven is a good tool. Not such a one-button win joke, but a very serious and complex tool. Yeah... I remember how people didn't like it, and later, when I had already played Sekiro, they were surprised by my "discoveries" with Mist Raven.

I see the consequences of Mist Raven criticism in ER, where Raptor of the Mist received a downgrade. In a game where the player's position is extremely important, the tool that could do such a trick was deprived of such an opportunity. Many things that were in previous Fromsoft games, overlived a wild downgrade (even paired stances... who didn't know, you could make a "cross stance" with different types of weapons like a katana and an axe in DS2). Fortunately, the story with Raptor of the mist, for me ended not so badly. The developers gave me knives, where at medium range the weapon shows itself very well.

Why is that? Players. They don't want to explore. To really learn. They want to raise a huge sword over their head and shout "EXCALIBAAAAAAAAH" drop the sword on the ground and fart a huge damage number. It would be good if this blow restored their health.

But... is it really that interesting? Everyone wants Bloodborne, but they don't want the game to be like Bloodborne (dynamics, action, depth of weapons and gameplay).

And the developers understand this. Why work with such development if the players will swallow it anyway? And most players are happy, and the developers get nominated for game of the year (winning). Everyone wins?

Maybe so.. But I am not satisfied with the development of mechanics in Fromsoft games. They do not grow at all, but rather downgrade. Many things that were encountered earlier in the studio games have become less developed. And fewer and fewer developed mechanics appear in their games in general.

I can't say that the developers are doing something wrong. No. They are doing everything right. The target and casual audience dictates its requirements, the studio listens to them and in the end both sides get what they want.

But, the only spark of faith left in Sekiro. I don't believe in Fromswoft anymore. Especially in Nightgale. Will I buy more games? I doubt it. Will I follow their games? Well, for a while, yes. But in fact, sooner or later I will burn out on them completely. Consider that I am becoming hollow, in relation to Fromswoft games. But, I can perfectly well fill my soul with other games.

You can agree with me, you can criticize. I will not hold you. I have used my freedom of speech and I will not hold you. And I cannot do it.

Ah yes.. if i do not play new games, it doesn't mean i drop old and gold ones. That's not the last word about Fromsoft games.

[myverycoolproject]

Designing my first boss

This is me designing my first boss for my game. 

There two types of firs bosses: 

Mechanical bosses- tests the player of the mechanics they have learnt and to prepare them for the future challenges. 

Story bosses- Kicks off the story, either being an important character or part of a larger thing. 

My first boss is Head commander Lancelot, champion of Excalibur (Reference to king Arthur and the knights of the round table), who I have designed to be difficult but easy to beat. He is a more mechanical type boss, allowing to show the player the pace and difficulty of the game. It also shows the player how weak they are and what the rest of the game holds.  

This is what he would look like (But probably in some fancy knight armour). I wanted to make him look like your typical fairy tale hero, with golden hair and eyes to show that to others he is your average good guy but in reality, he is not a good guy. 

The battle begins simple enough with some simple combos, he is slow but packs a punch. He will not give the player any time to breathe, forcing the player to play defensively and exploiting every opening. At this point in the game, the player will only have basic combos and a few simple spells so the player will have to be careful. Once Lancelot reaches half health, he will start becoming much faster. He will also introduce an attack that summons multiple swords, either as projectiles or create a new combo. The player will have to become a lot more careful, as he becomes much more deadly. But to deal lots of damage, the player can dodge last minute when a sword is thrown towards them and a prompt will come up, when pressed the player will grab the sword and throw it back at Lancelot which will throw him off balance and allow the player to get a bunch of hits. When Lancelot is weak, the player has to shadow grab and finish him off.

I took some inspiration from Father Gascoigne from Bloodborne, who is the second boss of the game but is very challenging. Gascoigne is very tough because of his move set is so similar to the players, as he is a hunter enemy meaning he uses the same tricks and tactics as you. When he has a quarter of his health left, he turns into a monster which is much more deadly forcing the player to change fighting style quickly. I wanted my boss to be very similar in the way that it forces the player to fight one way before quickly switching to a different style of fighting.   

[cerastes]

so Drimo for those of us who do not know what is the Armored Core series about [leaves out convenient soapbox for no reason]

If you asked a room of 100 people nowadays, "do you guys know FromSoftware?", the majority of them would stand up and answer, "oh, yeah! The guys that made Dark Souls, right?" You would hear about people wondering when Bloodborne will be ported to PC, or when it will get a sequel. You would hear lamentation for the lack of Sekiro DLC. You would hear praise and anticipation for Elden Ring DLC.

If you were in 2008 and asked a room of 100 people, "do you guys know FromSoftware?", maybe 4 would stand up and say "Oh, the guys that make Armored Core, right? My cousin had it, it looked ok."

The truth of the matter is, FromSoft was a niche studio before Demon's Souls planted a seed and it grew into the massive tree we know as Dark Souls, and its countless branches lush with beautiful flowers, like Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring. It even inspired nearby trees, all beautiful in their own right! Trees like Code Vein, Nioh, and others.

But I'm not here to talk about fucking trees and their god damn branches.

I'm here to talk about the sterile wasteland, the wilderness of fallen angels, where the ocean meets the sand. I'm here to talk about pre-Soulsborne FromSoft, when FromSoftware was an unknown, niche, small video game developer barely hanging on to relevancy. They had games like King's Field. They had games like Shadow Tower. They had games like Armored Core. Hell, all of these games still live on in Soulsborne! Did you know? The notorious Mushroom enemies that punch your entire lifebar out from Dark Souls are originally from 1999's Shadow Tower:

Iconic boss fight, Seath the Scaleless from Dark Souls? He's originally from King's Field 2!

The well-loved bald rascal with a penchant for annoying fighting styles and kicking, Patches? Originally from Armored Core! Lucky Patches AKA Patch the Good Luck:

The Moonlight Greatsword? That's originally from King's Field:

Knight Commander Dragonslayer Ornstein? The Bloodborne Reiterpallasch? Armored Core originals, baby:

The truth is, Soulsborne is as dear to old school FromSoft fans such as myself as it is because it carries the past of FromSoft, it carries part of all the old games. The old, niche, unknown FromSoft that we fell in love with lives on in this new, successful, popular FromSoft of nowadays, all without selling out. FromSoft's design philosophy and mission statement has always been to make things that are out there, that aren't generic, that have that slab of esotericism to it, that are inspired and raw and difficult and challenging and oh so rewarding. Soulsborne wasn't a surprise hit. Soulsborne exists built on a foundation of trial and error that carries in its DNA years upon years upon years of difficult, niche titles. I've not even mentioned all the Tenchu references that Sekiro has! How the Powderkeg weapons from Bloodborne are mostly Armored Core weapons scaled down to human size, such as the iconic Stake Driver being the mighty Kiku from Armored Core!

Armored Core was the biggest franchise FromSoft had prior to Soulsborne. The biggest. And it wasn't too big, to be honest. A rather niche, unknown game franchise with numerous titles that did just well enough to justify sequels, with strong cult followings, Armored Core is all about that mecha high octane action, right? Well, it's 50% about that mecha high octane action! Your average Armored Core is a high intensity, breakneck fast game full of machine guns, laser swords and huge explosions when you're in the field, but in order to be able to do that, you must construct your machine, your Armored Core, piece by piece. Not just the chest core or the head piece or the arms, we're taking about generator, radiator, targeting system, thrusters, subsystems, all of that! And each given piece has a stat screen that looks like this:

This is a single laser rifle's stat screen. Every piece has about this many numbers to it. As you can imagine, it wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but for those that took the time to understand it? That familiarized themselves with the game well enough to just be able to look at a piece and understand what it did and roughly how well it performed? Oh, this was to die for. The amount of unique builds, of mechs that were your very own, unique creation, catering to your own specific tastes, was basically infinite. You could make your own dream gameplay machine, that operated in exactly the way you wanted it to. 50% of the time, you were in your garage, tinkering, mixing and matching different parts to improve your Armored Core more and more, to make it better, comfier, stronger, cooler.

Do you know what was influential in Dark Souls' success? And I say this with all the love in my heart, as a massive Dark Souls fan: It was simplification. Dark Souls is a different beast in many regards, of course, compared to Armored Core, but what Dark Souls did was simplify the Armored Core formula, in both comparative gameplay execution and building, and focused on other aspects, like making incredibly cool unique enemies, polished combat, great enemy placement, the works. But end of the day, Dark Souls is a simplified Armored Core. You're not boosting around and firing laser weapons in Dark Souls, but the fundamentals are all there: Tempo based fighting, with intensifying speed, lots of numbers to play with in order to optimize your character to your preference and needs, and the flexibility to switch around builds to certain degrees, more so in the mid game and late game. Hell, the ever-present "little plain white number above the enemy that shows you how much damage you did recently" and how Poise works in Dark Souls are both originally Armored Core things. Most every Armored Core veteran that I know, myself included, that played Dark Souls just felt it click naturally after a bit. Because it's an extension of Armored Core (and King's Field/Shadow Tower).

Armored Core, since its inception, has been about being a mercenary in a callous world where companies that are as powerful as countries, plural, wage in economic war with each other. Rarely has there ever been a good guy in Armored Core, it's the pristine FromSoft absolutely horrid and doomed world narrative that they love so much. You can even go into debt! Your rewards at the end of any mission are affected by how much ammo you consumed and how banged up your AC got, you have to foot the bill for repairs and ammo (unless your client specifically states that they'll cover it for you), and if you don't perform too well and end up going into sufficiently big debt? Why, you forcibly get put into the Human-PLUS program to offset your debt, which actually makes your stronger, since it gives you the ability to ignore Total Weight restrictions and gives you infinite energy! At the cost of, you know, your humanity. At that point, you're literally just a corporate drone with more machine than brain in the nogging. It's a fancy Easy Mode toggle, so to speak, that comes with lore. This game is from 1997. Even from back then, they were making stuff like this. The setting of Armored Core is ruthless, cruel, and brutal... And yet, beautiful, the little things, they are there. But I won't tell you about them. You have to find them yourself. The beautiful things only have value if you find them in a horrid world by your own merit.

This is true for Armored Core, and this is true for Dark Souls.

Armored Core, on a personal level, is what I grew up with, what inspired me as a child, the kind of storytelling that gives you a few explicit morsels, and the rest, figure it out yourself. Armored Core is basically what came before Dark Souls. I consider Soulsborne sequels to Armored Core. They are so very alike.

Brutal gameplay, challenging management, ruthless storytelling... It's heaven.

Armored Core is a series of a gaming era long gone. Armored Core is the opposite of "cinematic experience" games. Armored Core is brutal, it wants to test you, it grants you no quarter, but it wants you to succeed. Armored Core wants you to master its management systems and its high speed combat. Armored Core wants you to be a sharper, better you.

Armored Core is a video game series about giant robots blowing each other to bits.

Armored Core is both a test and teacher, and it wants you to win. It wants you to become the you that can beat it.

Armored Core loves you. Armored Core will do all in its power to prevent you from winning. Armored Core knows you can win, which is why it tries so hard.

Armored Core is a good video game.

[thomasroach]

Top RPG News Of The Week: April 28th (KH3, Persona 5 Royal, Bloodborne and More!)

The post Top RPG News Of The Week: April 28th (KH3, Persona 5 Royal, Bloodborne and More!) appeared first on Fextralife.

Happy weekend from Fextralife! If you’ve been too busy to keep up on the latest in the games we cover or are looking for a refresher we’ve got you covered! Here’s a bite-sized version of the Top RPG news of the week. Taste all the latest news across the Fextralife Wiki Network.

Check out the video above and read on for the text!

Kingdom Hearts 3

In a Twitter post by the Director Tetsuya Nomura on the official Kingdom Hearts’ account, an announcement was shared with the release date for the free DLC update which will add Critical Mode to Kingdom Hearts 3. The new mode was made available on April 23rd. The mode was revealed earlier this year, set to add further difficulty for those looking for more of a challenge.

The tweet also revealed that the mode will be different from previous iterations in the franchise. Previous titles have added increased damage dealt by enemies, but it looks like this won’t be the case for KH3. Critical Mode gives players access to quite a few abilities when you start the game as well as “Critical” abilities to help you deal more damage. Sora’s max HP and MP have also been halved in this mode, as well as there are lower frequency of situation commands and magic.

This is not the only release KH3 will have this year, a story DLC is set to release by the end of 2019 and it will not have a Final Remix version but instead further DLC content.

Kingdom Hearts 3 is available to play on Playstation 4 and Xbox One with the free DLC Critical Mode which launched on April 23rd.

To read more about this news find it here in Kingdom Hearts 3 Critical Mode Releases On April 23rd.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

The developers FromSoftware have released a new patch for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice which comes with various updates and fixes for the action-adventure game.

The latest patch 1.03 brings a range of improvements which includes the adjustment efficiency and Spirit Emblem cost for select Prosthetic Tools, Combat Arts as well as certain items. It also reduces the Posture dealt by the first hit from the Combat Arts known as “Senpou Leaping Kicks” and “High Monk” which was due to it creating more damage than it was suppose to in certain situations.

There are also some fixes which include Posture and Vitality of Blazing Bull which was meant to help in terms of game pacing as well as bring more of a balance when it comes to timing in combat.

For a full list of updates in Patch 1.03 you can read the details on our wiki patch notes page for all the latest updates.

To read more about this news find it here in Sekiro Shadows Die Twice Patch 1.03 Update.

Square Enix

Making some changes to the lineup at E3 this year, Square Enix has shared their press conference slot which will be on June 10th at 6pm PT, which traditionally has been held by Sony in the past. As Sony forgoes E3 this year, Square Enix will be taking the time slot. This is just a few days after Octopath Traveler launches on PC on June 7th.

As for what they will be showing this year, hopefully its more on the Final Fantasy 7 remake which has been a little quiet on the details so far. After Tetsuya Nomura finished up with Kingdom Hearts 3, fans have been hoping to see the progress for FF7.  Previously the director has shared the possibility of making compilation titles. It was also earlier this month that they announced Naoki Hamaguchi as Co-Director for Final Fantasy VII who was previously project lead.

Square Enix have also revealed along with the recent release of the Critical Mode for Kingdom Hearts 3, there will be further DLC content which could be outlined further at E3.

There could be more surprises at this year’s E3 but we’ll have to wait and see what they’ll reveal on June 10th.

To read more about this news find it here in Square Enix Sets Their E3 Press Conference For June 10th.

Bloodborne: The Board Game

CMON games have launched their Kickstarter for Bloodborne: The Board Game, with the project already exceeding the initial pledge goal. The board game is based on FromSoftware’s dark RPG Bloodborne that originally released in 2004.

It looks like the project has got well over the needed amount for its fruition which was set at $200,000 as the number has already gone well over $1 million. The estimated delivery for the board game has been stated for May 2020.

The game sets to bring the title to a table top board game, with figurines, cards depicting the action, hunt track board and tiles to bring it all together. There are also dashboards that will depict your Trick Weapon, hunter status and more. You can play with 1 to 4 players with an average playtime for game of 60 to 90 minutes.

If you want to back Bloodborne: The Board Game Kickstarter campaignyou can do so for the next 20 days. The campaign ends on May 15th at 9:00AM AWST/May 14th at 6:00PM PT.

To read more about this news find it here in Bloodborne: The Board Game Kickstarter Has Over $1 Million In Pledges Already

Slay the Spire

The Playstation 4 version of Slay the Spire will be releasing in May and developer MegaCrit have released a new trailer showcasing the card game that mixes in RPG elements.

The deck builder card game lets players choose from three characters who each have their own card set to battle it out against enemies using strategy. With a range of 250 cards to sought after, there is many ways to replay the game. The devs also add items and events to help change things up, which will effect the way your deck plays.

Originally Slay the Spire focused on more single-play action, but MegaCrit add some competition aspects by having a Daily Climb. The tower challenges players to a number of particular enemies to best, as they try to make their way to the top of the tower while competing for the best spot with players around the world.

Slay the Spire is currently available on PC and will be coming to Playstation 4 on May 21st. A Nintendo Switch version is set to launch later this year.

To read more about this news find it here in Slay The Spire Releases Official Trailer Ahead Of PS4 Launch.

Persona 5 Royal

Altlus have revealed Persona 5 Royal which is a more expanded version of its school based JRPG and it will come to west next year for PS4.

Atlus have already teased about Persona 5 Royal, releasing a trailer in March featuring a new female character that appears to be playable. But more details of its release have been shared as it will come to PS4 in the west next year.

During Atlus’ Persona Super Live concert held in Japan, the publisher teased more features for Persona 5’s expanded edition. These will include new areas to explore in Tokyo, new characters, reworked dungeon design with new foes to face, graphical and UI improvements. There will also be new music to enjoy and a new third semester at Shujin Academy.

Persona 5 has sold 2.7 million units and has now joined Playstation Hits with a permanent price of $19.99.

Persona 5 Royal sets to release in the west sometime next year and in Japan on October 31st 2019.

To read more about this news find it here in Persona 5’S Royal Edition Will Launch In The West On PS4 Next Year.

Persona 5 Scramble The Phantom Strikers

But that’s not it for Persona news as Atlus have revealed a new title Persona 5 Scramble The Phantom Strikers which was announced at the end of day 2 of the Persona Super Live P-Sound Street 2019 concert.

The title was teased earlier in April as Persona 5 S, now being given its full name Persona 5 Scramble The Phantom Strikers. This also sets to be the first action-RPG in the series. The project sets out to be a joint collaboration between Atlus, Koei Tecmo and Omega Force.

A new trailer shows the Joker defeating masses of enemies. You can also see the elemental weaknesses system which is present in the Persona games. The game also is a brand new story and features a new character which is seen at the end of the trailer.

There is currently no release date as of yet for Persona 5 Scramble The Phantom Strikers but it will release on Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch.

To read more about this news find it here in Persona 5 Scramble The Phantom Strikers Action-RPG Unveiled for PS4 and Switch.

Anthem

Bioware has decided to delay the release of its post-launch content for Anthem which includes the anticipated Cataclysm which adds the first four-person raid type activity to the game.

Bioware are set to release some features as part of their “Act One” of post-launch content. This decision was made as they are trying to make improvements to the games current state.

This isn’t the only feature that has been postponed, the game it set it gain a mastery system, guilds, new legendary missions, weekly stronghold challenges, leaderboards and further freeplay events. There is no news as of yet when these additions will be implemented into the game.

According to the roadmap that was released for Act One, only the new Stronghold mission called The Sunken Cell is on schedule as this arrived yesterday. Further updates came with 1.1.0 which include access to the Forge anywhere in the world, ability to launch new expeditions from the expedition menu, and access to contracts without having to go and collect them.

To read more about this news find it here in Bioware Delays Post-Launch Content To Prioritise Game Fixes.

Blizzcon 2019

BlizzCon 2019 will take place on November 1st to 2nd in Anaheim, hosting a range of tournaments for Blizzard games including the Overwatch World Cup.

Fingers crossed for a Diablo 4 or remastered version of Diablo 2 announcement after the whole mobile game fiasco of last year, fans will hopefully not see a repeat (even though we do have phones). However, they may announce the release date for Diablo Immortal.

We could also be seeing the first glimpse of the next expansion for World of Warcraft and the release date for Warcraft 3 Reforged, the remastered version of the original which was announced at the last BlizzCon.

Blizz goers will also be able to get their hands on some collectibles which will be included in the price of the ticket, celebrating 25 years of the original Warcraft game release. Choose either a footman or an orc grunt, alliance or horde.

Tickets will go on sale in two sessions, starting Saturday May 4th and then on Wednesday May 8th.

To read more about this news find it here in BlizzCon 2019 Dates Announced Along With Collectibles.

Well, that’s it for the Week in Wikis. Please join us next week for yet another great week of gaming! Remember to check out our VIP program for some exclusive supporter benefits, and budding writers should take advantage of our Become an Author initiative! Thanks again for being a part of this great community. Keep checking in with us for news, reviews, YouTube streams and vids, and general wiki goodness!

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The post Top RPG News Of The Week: April 28th (KH3, Persona 5 Royal, Bloodborne and More!) appeared first on Fextralife.

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[wisteriafield]

Miyazaki’s ambivalence for dueling culture in From’s games is more apparent if you look at the shift of a given player’s total health economy available to them in DS1, and the mechanical direction led by Tanimura in DS2, vs. Bloodborne and DS3

Not healing when fighting someone 1v1 is a basic tenet, or rather a courtesy afforded, but because your sources of healing are a dependable constant, so its fair to consider that part of your HP right? The difference is that its often an opportunity cost for an attack, and there’s a chance you’ll be killed before you get a chance to use it. The leeway your average max HP provides you and opening you need to successfully heal greatly differ in each game.

DS1+2 allowed extremely high maximum HP pools, and not many monsters at NG can put a significant dent into it, though this is slightly mitigated by the bullshit levels of damage you could do to other players. DS1 was either that you only could get one swing in, or you could swing until they ran out of HP or you ran out of stamina (provided they don’t understand toggle escapes), so DS1 is kind of a wild card in that regard since they didn’t integrate the more straightforward stagger mechanics until DS2. While you could get a truly absurd 20 estus, its largely expected that you’ll be kindling to 10 for most of the game, and dealing with 5 otherwise, since humanity is pretty rare and multiplayer activity isn’t always reliable.

In DS2 your damage mitigation could actually go a long way, and you needed it, since it had the lowest estus cap in the series, and lifegems cost a lot in the long run if you keep having to buy them. Healing was extremely slow and punishable, so hosts getting invaded were basically unable to heal themselves, and it was better to treat an invasion like a duel, than risk drawing the ire of a duelist who would run to pretty brutal mobs, while Seeds, at their most powerful, were created to prevent invaders from camping mobs

Both games featured arenas that were relatively flat, you had less healing, but it was more potent and slow to use.

BB has percentage based healing, and 20, while first lifting restrictions on healing and introducing a max HP penalty, requiring hosts who wanted to fight to draw bullets to create an even ground, and the lack of arena means that two fighters will never be on the same HP range without it. You’re expected to use vials after almost every encounter, as you many enemies have set vial drops as well. Not only that, but hunters will die to 3 attacks at least if neither side is healing, a fight could be over in a matter of seconds, and it leaves no room to glimpse your opponent’s personality. This isn’t even getting into the complications of the bell system. Whats even more of a waste is given that how diverse and useful all of a weapon’s moves were, players are stopped dead in their tracks by how easy it is to parry, and how any visceral will spell certain death, halting all of BB’s defining aggression in its tracks.

DS3 follows many of BB’s tracks: healing is fast and plentiful (after a certain point), and your max HP is a lot smaller than it looks, especially if you’re not embered. It has a tendency to give invaders a run for their money, instead of sending them to inexperienced hosts on their own, but a set of inexperienced players, which is... rough around the edges, but a concept I admire. But also consider that halfway into the game’s lifecycle is when DS3 got and arena and that it took the game’s entire life to get a flat arena. Its vastness also made people realize why a large flat arena is bad: Infinite backpedaling.

It harkens back to Armored Core for Answer, one of the only “Flat” arenas was the Desert, which had the largest boundaries in the game (and even then there were dunes), allowing certain machines to continually backpedal outside pursuers range and picking them off. Almost every arena has some kind of natural obstacle or obstruction to provide environmental tactics, the same applies for every DS3 arena except for the Round Plaza. Thankfully, they applied this to the Spear boss fight as well, as the columns give some breathing room (otherwise you’d be screwed when it comes to 3 different Chaos Bed Vestiges and Crystal Soul Spears).

Its understandable finding invaders being able to heal as a mistake, but some of the most memorable invasions are the fearless hosts that charge through a level and fight invaders while healing throughout, having taken my part as a phantom in that situation, it gives an unreplicable feeling

[theultimateegghead-blog]

Top 10 best first bosses!

The first boss of any game has an important job. They are meant to set a tone for what is to come and serve as a tutorial for players who are still adjusting to the game’s mechanics. As such first bosses tend to be quite easy, laughably so in some cases. Sometimes games can go astray and have a first boss that is far to challenging in an unfair manner, such as Deus Ex Human Revolution’s first boss. These first bosses that I bring to you are not bad. They all serve a purpose and serve it well, whether that be easy, a challenge or serve a more passive role in the series, these are my top 10 first bosses that I think are the best.  One rule is that no two entries can come from the same series.  Finally, as always, this is my opinion, you are free to agree or disagree, but respect my opinion and I will respect yours in return.

10 - Garland - Final Fantasy

Garland is a very simple boss. Being the first ever final fantasy boss is what gets him a spot on this list. Inherently there is nothing special about Garland. He is simply just a hard-hitting physical attacker with decent hit points for the point of the game he is in. Once your party’s average level exceed level 5 Garland is a pushover. He has no special abilities to speak of. What makes him special is that Garland was the start of a legacy, a first impression for the many bosses to come. The original Final Fantasy was going to be Square’s final game, luckily this was not the case. So, Garland has secured the number 10 spot not for a intense or unique fight, but for being the start of one of the game industries largest franchises.

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9 – Doctor Robotnik’s Flame Craft – Sonic 3

Another simple boss. This boss was the first boss fight I ever fought. After setting the entire first level on fire and pursuing Sonic with a massive airship, Robotnik chases Sonic and Tails down to a cliff in front of a waterfall. Robotnik will destroy the bridge to the cliff and then proceed to shoot fireballs at Sonic and Tails. He will duck behind the waterfall to move around, only emerging to fire. He leaves plenty of windows to hit him and is overall a very easy boss. If Sonic has the flame shield this boss becomes almost impossible to lose against. What puts this boss on the list is its nostalgic impression it has left on me.

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8 - King Bomb-omb – Super Mario 64

The first boss of the first 3D Mario game. King Bomb-omb is a simple foe. In fact, he has no direct means of harming Mario other than throwing him off the mountain. This boss serves as a tutorial to fighting larger enemies and has a weakness similar to Bowsers. All you need to do is get behind him, pick him up and throw him. Just make sure you don’t throw him off the mountain or the battle resets. Yeah, its ok for him to throw you off but you can’t throw him off, what a villain. King Bomb-omb falls into the same category as Garland does, as in it was the start of something. Being the first 3D Mario boss, king Bomb-omb secures a spot on this list.

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7 – Darkside - Kingdom Hearts 1

The first boss of kingdom hearts is the giant Darkside Heartless. The Darkside is one of the most recurring bosses in the series. What puts it on the list is that it is a great tutorial boss. The Darkside is not very difficult to defeat, even the souped up end game version is not very hard either. Its attacks are simple and easy to read and avoid. It does not have a complicated or many dangerous moves and those that are dangerous can be seen coming a mile away. The Darkside is a great way to introduce the combat mechanics of Kingdom Hearts and also serves as a lesson on how to deal with big bosses.

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6 - Cleric Beast - Bloodborne

The Cleric beast is an optional boss but can be the first boss the player will encounter in Bloodborne. Most players who are aware of the beast will opt to challenge it first, as the other boss, father Gascoingne is INCREDIBLY difficult for new players. The Cleric beast is not easy, but it is forgiving in some ways. It serves as a tutorial for players to get used to fighting big monsters. The other boss serves as to how to fight human foes. The Cleric beast has a dynamic entrance and an intimidating presence. It will howl and trash about on the bridge. Luckily, it is not extremely strong, you will be able to survive a hit or two from this thing in the early game. Its limbs break easily, and it can be stunned for massive damage. The Cleric beast is one of the easiest bosses in Bloodborne, but it is no cakewalk so be prepared.

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5 - Gohma - Ocarina of Time

Gohma, like Garland and King Bomb-omb is a historically critical boss fight. Being the first 3D Zelda boss, Gohma does a good job in setting the standards for what’s to come. Gohma is a simple boss with only a few moves and is overall not very difficult. In fact, a more skilled player can down her in a manner of seconds. What makes her great is that her boss is a solid early game fight, pitting the young and small Link against a much bigger foe. She has a specific weakness that can be exploited to stun her, and she is moderately built up before the actual fight. Gohma is by no stretch difficult, and yet she can be a pretty fun boss to fight against.

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4 - Iudex Gundyr - Dark Souls 3

Gundyr is arguably the hardest boss on this list. He is fought very early in Dark Souls 3 and sets the stage of what is to come. He is encountered so early that the player will not yet be able to level up. This means he must be fought at the default starting level. Gundyr is a two-stage boss fight, with his first phase he is essentially a large human foe. His attacks are slow, and he seems to be a bit sloppy, but will punish players who overextend their attacks. He has a long reach as well, so he will test a player’s defense. If there is a flaw in your defense, he will relentlessly pummel you. His second stage involves him transforming into a large black mass. In this form he is even fiercer. His attacks cover a wider range and he does more damage. This boss will test you severely and may cause some to quit all together.

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3 - Poseidon - God of War 3

Poseidon is a very cinematic boss. He sets the stage for God of War 3 nearly flawlessly and pulls out all the stops. The first boss is the god of the sea, a giant made of water riding upon a watery horse like creature. Armed with his signature trident, you fight him upon the moving body of the titan Gaia. Multiple stages and an assortment of lesser enemies to pester Kratos. After multiple stages and some brutal beat downs, Poseidon is finished off in a very over the top manner and it sets the tone for what is to come. You know I would feel sorry for Poseidon if he were…well a good person.  But let’s be honest, Poseidon was NOT a good person.

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2 - Metal Gear Ray - Metal Gear Rising

Now this is a cinematic boss fight. The whole Metal Gear line is designed to be nearly unstoppable war machines, with Ray being introduced in the same game as Raiden. So, for a metal gear to appear in the opening level was crazy, what’s even more crazy is how it is fought. Within the first 10 minutes of the game you are throwing a 70-foot-tall robot into the air, jumping on it and slicing its arm off to the amazing song ‘rules of nature’. Eventually it returns to defeat Raiden after seemingly being destroyed, and the epic battle continues. Raiden rides a missile and runs down a vertical wall to ultimately cut it in half. This boss perfectly sets the stage of the truly epic gameplay that is Revengence.

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1 - Toriel - Undertale

Toriel is the first main boss of Undertale. She is not fought immediately, and in fact she serves as a mentor of sorts to the player. A bond is formed and depending on what type of run you are going for, she will either be killed or sparred. Many players killed her on accident, not understanding the games mechanics. What makes this boss great is that unlike all the other bosses on this list, this boss has an emotional connection with the player. She is surprisingly difficult for new players, with a somewhat sporadic pattern. If she is sparred, then she will let the player go. If she is killed she will show sorrow… However, if she is killed in a no mercy run, she laughs manically and dies. So, what will you do? Spare her or not? FYI – Napstablook is a mini-boss, Toriel is the first main boss.

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Well, those are my top 10 personal favorite first bosses. They all served their purpose well. Tune in next time when we will be looking at some more weapon specialist! See you then!

[metalempire]

So I finally finished Dark Souls Remastered on PS4, which was my first time playing Dark Souls 1, so I’m gonna write a big long post about all my thoughts on the game since it deserves that much. I’ll put the long bits under readmore and give a brief synopsis of sorts here. 

For background info, I’ve played Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3 and Dark Souls 2 Scholar Of The First Sin, so I’m not inexperienced with the Souls series and thus this game wasn’t as brutally hard for me as it would be to a Souls virgin. My first game was Bloodborne and considering I died to Gascoigne 30 times on my first run I can safely say I empathise with new players to the series as it’s a hard but good one to get into, but I myself am no longer in that position. Anyway, the short version of this is: Dark Souls good. The long version of this is under the cut, but effectively will be saying the same thing, though my criticisms of the game will still remain. 

With all that said, let’s begin. 

Just as a mild disclaimer I didn’t really die too much playing this game. The most a boss killed me was 5 times before I beat it and that was a boss I liked so I didn’t mind. Game’s kind of easy once you get into its slow, deliberate, patient style and pacing. It’ll punish you, but you can punish it. Most of the time, anyway, as with all Souls games, there is artificial shit to make the difficulty annoying or some enemies that break the flow of the game that they’re in (looking especially hard at a certain DLC boss from Dark Souls 3!) but on the whole the game is only as hard as it needs to be. Everything can be learned and overcome with the tools you can find and utilise and that’s damn great. I played the game with a strength build, utilising weapons like the Man-Serpent Greatsword and the Zweihander and occasionally pulling out a Dragonslayer Greatbow to mess around with things. That should give you the idea of how I played. This is more an impressions style assessment and if I was making a novel length essay I’d play through the game as every main build and see how they stand up. For the most part I was either medium or fast rolling, mixing and matching light and medium armour and dodging alot, mostly two-handing my weapons with a Grass Crest Shield on my back for the passive stamina regeneration. This is a pretty standard offensive playstyle and it allowed me to force myself to adapt to how Dark Souls handles compared to its sequels by giving myself less margins for error, fitting with how the game effectively makes differing levels of demands of mastery from you. 

So we’ll get into the systems of the game now since that’s easiest to understand just by playing it really and we’ll start with the combat, since that’s what you spend most of the game doing, other than walking around and listening to weird people talk in vague sounding voices about their shopping lists like it’s an average dismal day in Stoke. The combat in Dark Souls is rather well done, every action having weight, time, consequences and a cost to performing it, alot less lenient than any other game in the series, stamina management being a solid focus that always kept me mindful of my options and had me learning fights as to better think ahead of what actions to do. There’s also a nice tiered system to your defensive options. Blocking is generally low-risk, low-reward. A good thing for strafing and handy for projectiles and other stray hits, as well as making weaker enemies recoil, blocking is functional but you can’t use it too offensively. Rolling is the medium risk-medium reward, only heightened by how much or little armour you wear which effects the invincibility frames and speed of your roll, heavy armour means you tank better but can’t avoid very well whereas the opposite is true for light armour. It’s a good system for this game in particular and keeps you thinking again about options. I started as a Knight and while having high defences is nice, I soon gravitated towards having a more useful roll since it has manoeuvrability uses as well. Finally, parrying is high-risk, high-reward move, (on enemies that actually be parried, still annoyed you can’t parry the Hydra) if you pull it off you can do incredibly high damage which is great for tougher enemies, but if you do the timing wrong then you get smacked in the face and look like an idiot and probably die in process. Again, this all ties back into options and how you use them. With how slow and methodical Dark Souls is, especially compared to the fast-paced Bloodborne, having all these options and picking them rather than reacting poorly and getting a broadsword lodged up your bum is all the more rewarding in the little micro interactions you have with enemies.  Finally, the healing system is really admirable. In Bloodborne you could farm for healing but only carry 20, in Dark Souls 2 you only start with 1 Estus and have to build your healing up with Shards, however you can use Lifegems instead as regenerating health and carry 99 of them and stack multiple on top of each other so healing is a joke let’s just pretend Dark Souls 2 didn’t happen please God, and then there’s Dark Sous 3 which gives you 3 Estus at the start and lets you build up the supply with shards dotted about fairly frequently. Dark Souls uses the Estus Flask but does it very well, you have 5 at base at all times, whenever you rest at the bonfire, you fully heal, get it all back, but reset the area’s enemies. You can kindle that specific bonfire with Humanity, a somewhat common-ish resource in the game, to have 10 Estus, then later in the game you can kindle to 15 and even 20 Estus. This healing system is quite good since you can try the challenge of just 5 Estus to see how many mistakes you end up making and how well you do with boss fights, then look at your own performance and self assess on if you need to kindle the bonfire, and how much Estus you need. Player choice is a good thing and putting that choice in their hands is a good thing in my eyes, since it lets you honestly assess your own performance and you can decide to practice and get better at the enemies and the area to the point of perfection, or crank up the Estus and just carry on at your own pace with a bit of a net to fall back on. Kindling is a good system. 

Before we get to the levels and all that I just want to note I mostly played offline. I dabbled in the multiplayer and found invasions to be hell for both invaded and invader, while coming back towards the end of the game in the Path of the Dragon covenant and doing some duelling proved to be quite enjoyable. On the whole I’d say the game is better experienced single player for the most part, but can definitely be enjoyed with others if you’re struggling with a boss or area.

I’ll try and be broad about the world as a whole but I do feel that overall, Lordran is the best world I’ve played through in a video game in a long time. It’s design its strangely evocative of Digimon World on the PS1. Lordran is a highly interconnected world that loops around and back into itself, with areas leading into each other and into other ones with a ton of secrets and shortcuts to find. It’s a joy to explore unless your name is Lost Izalith. The level design itself for the first half of the game before you get the Lordvessel is absolutely astounding with tons of verticality to it. It feels like a real cohesive place and the feeling of adventure I had while playing through Lordran was incredible. I adore the exploration in this game. Levels themselves tend to embody this too. The Undead Burg is a great example in many ways, you can find alot by exploring, like a merchant and some treasure, and you have things to do there while also finding other things. There’s a Bell of Awakening to ring, as well as the key to the Depths to get, as well as a path to the Darkroot Basin and the way over to Sen’s Fortress, all leading back through the Parish back to the main hub of Firelink Shrine is some truly brilliant level design, full of all sorts of tests and encounters. The Firelink Shrine is also a part of the game I really like. It connects to the Undead Burg and Parish, to the Catacombs, to New Londo Ruins, back to the Northern Undead Asylum, and is even where you go to access the final area. It’s your safe haven and where all your NPCs for things like magic and the like go. There’s also a free kindled bonfire there and a Firekeeper who can upgrade your Estus Flask to make it heal more. It’s the one place you feel safe, your haven, the place you set out from for a good chunk of your journey. 

And now, for that aforementioned journey. 

Your vague objective initially is to ring the two Bells of Awakening, the one in Undead Parish, and the one in Quelagg’s Domain. One above, one below. This first half of the game is the adventure really. The journey takes you through the Undead Burg to reach the Parish, fighting hollows, Black Knight minibosses and Demon boss fights all to overcome the annoying gank fest of the Bell Gargoyles and ring that first bell, but damn if it isn’t satisfying. The Burg and Parish are a little microcosm for the game at large and is a great motivator on the whole when beaten. The design is stellar, even if the bosses are dull or annoying, fuck off Capra Demon. The Depths is where you go after and it’s a level I really like, you descend downwards in a fun little maze that loops around and connects to itself with all sorts of encounters and things to find, all capping off with the fairly enjoyable test of skill in the Gaping Dragon. I liked The Depths alot actually. By now you’re further and further away from your home base and Blighttown is great at reinforcing that. Enemies inflict toxic, there’s alot of the classic Bad tier FromSoftware platforming and an even greater descent downwards towards Quelaggs domain. The level in relentlessly unpleasant but that’s thematically fitting as you’re heavily outside of your comfort zone and adapting harshly to one hell of a challenge. On a sort of note but I got lost when I reached the bottom and found the Great Hollow by sheer accident, then descended gleefully down it to find Ash Lake, discovering the incredible sights of the area and the Path of the Dragon Covenant. This moment was defining of Dark Souls for me, that I had journeyed deep down away from my sanctuary, braved a place where everything was out to get me, then suddenly discovered a secret area and an another one below that, only to find a mystical lake and the ethereal ancient dragon resting there that let me join what felt like a secret club of sorts. It really was impactful, that I was so far along on my journey that it had yielded a moment of genuine bright-eyed discovery that had made all the pain getting here worth it. The world of Dark Souls really is like that, in that no matter how rough it gets, taking a moment to reflect on the journey you’ve had really feels satisfying and even a little incredible. Climbing back up to Blighttown and beating the really rough Quelagg and ringing the second Bell opens up a new set of challenges, though I went to see what was beyond the area, picked up an armour set and then got one-shotted by Ceaseless Discharge and decided to come back later. You then have to climb back out of Blighttown through a new route cos the old one isn’t able to be used to go back up because of the drops, so you find the way up and out, then back through the Valley of Drakes over to New Londo ruins and back to Firelink Shrine in a truly brilliant moment. For one, your adventure comes full circle and you’re back in your sanctuary, the world’s interconnectedness really shines here, and two, you return to find the Firekeeper murdered by Lautrec and thus the bonfire no longer lit. Your sanctuary has been defiled and thus you have your own personal mission to track down the killer and restore Firelink Shrine to the way it should be .From here there’s a ton of adventures I had, the Darkroot Basin and Garden were all fun challenges with some really beautiful bits to admire, the whole place is serene and distracts you from the invasion and NPC hell. Thanks Alvina. The Catacombs has an interesting gimmick where the skeletons keep coming back until you kill the necromancers controlling them that hide and run away from you. It’s not a bad area really. Then there’s Sen’s Fortress which is an absolute madhouse of traps and scary timing. It’s pretty exhilarating even if I initially got stuck there cos I couldn’t see a fog gate. Overcoming it and seeing the view of Lordran from the walls of the fort adds to the feeling of accomplishment the game gives you. I can absolutely see why there’s so many spamming of “Dark Souls helped me cope with depression” videos on Youtube when the game can feel pretty uplifting at times. Then they reward you even more with the heavenly sight of Anor Londo, a gorgeous city at the very peak of the world itself, the kingdom of the gods. It’s a true test of everything you’ve learned, large imposing enemies, tough knights, nimble fighters, very deadly ranged attacks, tricky footing and traps, tight maze-like navigation, secrets and interconnected level design. I actually went back to the Undead Asylum before this and found the Peculiar Doll, so I got sucked into the Painted World of Ariamis when I found the painting in Anor Londo, sucking me out of the adventure I was in and into a new one, which was really exciting. The level itself was fairly challenging and was like a mini version of the one I was just in, with a wide variety of enemies and puzzles, ending in a boss fight that was hilariously easy and then my escape from the painting. I probably shouldn’t have killed the foot fetish lady who told me to fuck off but then again no one with a tail tells me what to do. Back to Anor Londo and the boss of that area is arguably the best one in the game, more on that later with bosses. At the end you get to meet Gywnevere and are finally recognised as the hero of the game, the Chosen Undead, you also get to kill Lautrec here and get your Fire Keeper’s soul back. The whole game leading up this moment where you get the Lordvessel and beat Anor Londo is absolutely fantastic, it really is your own hero’s journey that forges you into someone able to handle the divine mission Gwynevere gives to you. The first half of Dark Souls and the journey it gives you is an absolute treasure and arguably one of my favourite adventures in any video game. It captures that feeling perfectly and executes it wonderfully with excellent payoff at the end of the first half of the game. 

Sadly, the second half of the game exists. From here your new mission is to acquire the Lord Souls for the Lordvessel so you can become the next Lord yourself. There are 4 Lord Souls in all belonging to 4 bosses in 4 areas, 3 of which are locked to you until you place the Lordvessel down on its’ altar. Those bosses being Bang Bros, Seath the Naked Dragon, Sans Undertale, and the Bed of the Chaos Emeralds. From there the adventure effectively refequires you’ve done all the other areas first, as the bosses hang out in areas that are tacked on to other areas, the Dukes Archives is a part of Anor Londo, to traverse the Abyss and un-flood New Londo ruins you need the Lordvessel and Artorias’ ring, the Tomb of the Giants is after the Catacombs and Lost Izalith is after the Demon Ruins that are behind Ceaseless Discharge. You can do them in whatever order you please, which is nice. New Londo was alright for me, the gimmick of the ghosts and having to use transient curses and having a time limit and resource limit to how much you can fight them for added tension, and the Four Kings boss fight is more or less DPS test, where you get ganked if you’re too weak and obliterate them if you’re strong enough. The Duke’s Archives is the best of the four, it’s got alot of puzzles, has you captured after a forced death to Seath and there’s some nice design to the level overall. The Crystal Cave isn’t good though since it relies on messing with what you can and can’t walk on, with some crystals having you slide right off if you stand on them funny or try to strafe the crystal golems there, and alot of invisible bridges from Indiana Jones. Seath is a pretty boring boss. The Tomb of Giants is dark and plays around with light as a mechanic. It’s not all that fun but at least it’s different. Nito is annoying because of the skeleton gank party but at least he kills them for you. The Demon Ruins was interesting, getting to re-fight Taurus and Capra Demons as regular enemies added a feeling of progression to see former-bosses be something you can take in droves now. Lost Izalith can go fuck itself. It’s whole thing is using a ring to walk on lava so you only slowly burn to death, then navigate alot of boring areas with boring enemies and fight the lower half of undead dragons for some reason. It’s the lowest point of the game in terms of level design and really it’s fun, and there is a special place in hell for the Bed of Chaos which is probably the worst Souls boss ever made. After getting all the Lord Souls I went into the DLC levels and had a blast with them. Despite being 3 somewhat linear levels in structure, they still all employ design aspects of the main game, such as connecting back and around to one another. The boss fights there are all really good too, and all decently challenging. I liked the DLC alot and I’ll talk about that later. The journey ends with me getting all the gear I wanted and then murdering everyone. Oh yeah and Kiln of the First Flame. It’s a moment that feels like it’s really building to something, fighting off the last five Black Knights as the final obstacles before finally reaching Big Lord Sad Dude himself in a pretty fun duel before choosing to either light yourself on fire to bring in an age of light or walk away and become a lord of a new age of the dark. The ending is alright in that regard, though really the game would’ve been fine ending when you beat Anor Londo, since the level design takes a real hit in the second half as most of the areas don’t have the strong design and the encounters are alot less crafted than they were in the first half. On the whole the journey of Dark Souls in incredible but is bogged down by it’s second half being such a drop in quality. 

OK after that long affair, now onto the boss fights which were actually kind of mediocre overall for me. Alot of fights are just bland really, especially all of the starting bosses, and while some fights are fun, there’s also some fights that aren’t fun at all. The bosses I really enjoyed were Gaping Dragon, Ornstein and Smough, Gwyn Lord of Cinder, Knight Artorias and Black Dragon Kalameet. The bosses I despises were Capra Demon, The Bell Gargoyles, Dark Sun Gywndolin and The Bed of Chaos. The rest I’m either indifferent to or just find to not be interesting at all. Anyways I’m gonna talk about all of the named bosses here since they reflect the best and worst of Dark Souls fights and what they have to offer.

The Gaping Dragon is massive, which means it rewards paying attention to what it does, balancing an offensive and defensive manoeuvring and keeping the pressure on it as it does to you. I just really enjoyed bringing this huge monster down and the challenge of doing it with limited healing. It was a good fight to learn really and concluded The Depths in a very satisfactory way.

Ornstein and Smough might very well be the best boss in this game and one of the only scant few good gank boss fights in Souls. Their attacks compliment each other really well with Ornstein being fast, precise, nimble and very snappy as well as having a couple of ranged attacks. Smough is large, lumbering, slow, a heavy hitter and able to charge you. The whole fight is a patient balancing act of using their AI (to amusing effect) to work against them to block each other off and damage the one you want dead first. It’s a great test of camera control too. The second phase is great since when one dies, the other powers up using their fallen comrade. Smough gains lightning powers to give him some AOE effects and extra damage, while Ornstein becomes larger and gets some new moves like Smough’s. I beat them with Ornstein as the last to die, and thoroughly enjoyed the fight, learning the ins and outs, adapting accordingly. It was all good fun and really embodied the game in its’ challenge. 

Gwyn was a good final boss so good they reused him in the third game since he brought alot of things to the table that tested what you had learned. He could be parried, dodged, or blocked to good effect when used properly, he keeps the pressure on you, yet has drawn out animations for you to use as well. He’s all about being careful and pacing yourself, taking your opportunities and knowing when and when not to act in a certain way. Plus the sad music since you’re built up on this guy and his story and the world he’s built and ultimately he’s just a husk, a shell of who he was and so you lay him to rest and shoot his daughter in the tits with a Dragonslayer Greatbow because I have no restraint whatsoever.

Artorias is another sad character but the fight is amplified by it, Before you even face him you’re sort of built up on the heroic image of him, he has a grave guarded by a covenant, he fought the abyss, he has a giant wolf with a sword guarding his grave, you use his ring to fight the Four Kings and kind of finish what you think he started. He’s a bit of a hero that you build up in your mind as having done alot and having made an impact on the world, and so seeing him in Oolacile, corrupted by the very thing he fought just makes you pity him. The duel itself is good, I killed him quick so it was short but sweet. He fights pretty fairly, he’s fast and acrobatic, but his sword is still weighty and he has his pauses and openings. It’s a fairly fast paced duel that’s always rewarding to pull of well, and thematically, the hero of old being laid to rest by the hero of the present always had a sombre sort of vibe to it. A real standout of the DLC. 

I’m going to brag here but I beat Kalameet on my first try and I’m pretty proud of that even though I beat alot of bosses first try, this one was supposed to be one of the hardest in the game and I felt damn well accomplished beating him. As for the fight itself, the hitboxes are very tight, alot of care went into the moveset. Everything feels as fair as it can with a dragon, to me it’s a more ideal version of the Gaping Dragon fight, having a proper flow and balance to it with some breath and flying attacks to keep you on your toes but without the animations lasting for ages and ages Midir so it always remains interesting and fun to play. Plus Kalameet just downright looks cool. 

Capra Demon is just cheap. It has dogs to gank and interrupt you and the smallest boss arena that makes navigation and avoiding it an absolute pain. It’s also cheap that as you’re walking through the fog door it’s already lunging at you while you’re still locked into the animation. Not enough space to work with really, it’s just annoying and frustrating, especially the dogs.

Bell Gargoyles was for me the most annoying boss since the moveset was always hard for me to dodge, since most attacks where to dodge and when never seemed clear and the range it had was irritating. Then the second one arrived and Dark Souls has a major weakness here, almost every enemy encounter flat doesnt work in the game engine its in with the combat system its running with more than one enemy. If it’s not a hollow then all the attacks do is overlap and you cant actually use the openings correctly since the attacks are constantly ongoing and there is no moment you can get off an attack animation uninterrupted. Eventually I caved and summoned best waifu Solaire to distract one for me so the fight would function. 

Gwyndolin is a secret boss, but a bad one. He’s also a magic boss, and the other two mage bosses were the boring Moonlight Butterfly and the dull Seath the Scaleless. Gywndolin is the annoying one. The boss arena is a small hallway with pillars that loops. The snake fetish wizard spams ranged attacks at you and you run back and forth at him and get a hit or two in before he teleports ahead and you repeat. Range spam in Dark Souls is annoying and here it’s even worse, the damage is high and he has moves that go through and around the pillars, so you have an even harder time avoiding the spam. It’s just not fun or varied and very range spammy, like a Smash Bros 4 player.

The Bed of Chaos is the low point of Dark Souls. The boss is a gimmick fight. It sweeps at you with its branches that kill you easily, while you get to the 3 glowing spots at it to kill it and hack through the vines in your way. The floor also collapses from under you and the boss’ massive arms sweep you into it all the time with fuck all you can do about it. Once all the floor is gone and you’re on the final phase the last leap is utterly painful to time with all the arms trying to sweep you into the pit. It’s the polar opposite of fun, fair, challenging, and interesting. 

Also, special shoutout to the Asylum Demon for being fought 3 times. The first time in the beginning was fine, and rematching it in the return to the asylum was cute, but the third time in Demon Ruins was silly considering how uninteresting a moveset the boss has. FromSoftware do like their padding.

And now a mention on the DLC, Artorias of the Abyss, a great expansion to the game. It takes a previously visited area and gives it a new spin. Although the layout is initially linear it links around more and gives you a new perspective on something you’ve seen before. I don’t like the Santuary Guardian but at least its out of the way and dealt with early. Artorias is a fantastic part of the DLC and a good namesake. I like the design of Oolacile, how it twists and turns a bit, has things to discover, alot of varied encounters and the way it presents its enemies and has you learn them is pretty well done so you never feel bullshitted. That said the one encounter across the bridge after the shortcut elevator can go fuck itself. The descent into the Abyss is mystifying and eerie, but fairly unique and is a better done execution of the concept for the Tomb of Giants, all capped off with a frantic battle with Manus, also beaten first try, who moves fast and aggressive and really rewarded me for being a dodging and hard hitting fighter. There’s also the optional fight with Kalameet and overall I had a blast with the DLC, it did good to play it after Lost Izalith as it was really well designed and executed, there’s also little details like the elevator in the Chasm of the Abyss leading back up to the Royal Wood just outside of Artorias’ boss arena. Again, mimicking the main game’s design. The DLC really compliments Dark Souls, and emulates all of the things that made the first half of the game so good while providing its’ own experience that was well worth having and really added alot to the game as a whole.

So, final verdict on Dark Souls. The phrase “flawed masterpiece” is often used to describe it. I can see why but honestly I think it’s better to summarise it as more like this. The first half of Dark Souls, the majority of the game in fact, is a wonderful journey like no other, the level design, world design, combat systems and encounters, battles and feelings of progression that generate a little tale unique to the player themselves, overcoming the odds and enjoying the true adventure they experience, culminating in a grand level and a true challenge with Ornstein and Smough at Anor Londo is an absolute masterpiece and one of the best experiences one can have with a video game. However, the second half of the game is a large drop in quality, focusing on weaker areas and aspects of the game, going for gimmicks and not fully encapsulating the game’s strengths, abandoning the feeling of adventure and ultimately featuring weaker level design and encounters that does bring the overall quality of the game down. The first half of Dark Souls is a masterpiece, with nothing quite like it, the second half is not, and a hollow cry of the game. The DLC helps to redeem it in the end, but the damage is still done. Dark Souls is one of the best games ever made, yet still has its’ own faults that really bogs the experience down overall. That said, I still thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game beyond compare and don’t regret playing it at all. It was one hell of a ride and the best adventure I’ve ever been on. The world design was what really did it for me, since it’s, to me, a perfect middle ground between a linear world design and an open world. Linear worlds move you forward, but don’t connect and feel real, nor are they open enough to feel like a journey you’re making yourself across a real place, whereas open worlds have wonderful places to explore, but lack proper crafting, structure and balancing to the areas which can make playing them feel slightly dull or not too fleshed out of an experience. Games like Dark Souls, Digimon World and the Pokemon games prior to Black and White feature a move connected world design that really does lend itself to having a world that both feels good to explore and adventure in, while also having a solid level of craft to it that makes it truly enjoyable. In the end, Dark Souls is a great culmination of alot of good game design, and while not perfect, it’s damn great with alot to love and a real, tangible feeling of accomplishment, excitement, satisfaction and triumph evoked by it’s almost masterful execution for the majority of the experience. 

Dark Souls has easily become one of my favourite games ever made, and if you have an appreciation for video games, their craft, their design, the challenges they can offer and the experiences they can provide, then I wholeheartedly recommend it. If you’re more of a casual game player, but you want to get a bit deeper into the hobby, then if you’re willing to stick with the game and endure a high learning curve, then Dark Souls will give you that deeper appreciation for the artform of the medium of games by showing you what one of the best and most timeless experiences is like. 

Shame about that shitty sequel tho

[6ad6ro]

dark souls

an analysis of every game in the dark souls series by a big fan, but not a fan-boy. someone who isn't so clouded by toxic competitiveness and false pride that they can't see the obvious flaws. a sorta guide for the average person so they can enjoy all the great things souls has to offer, while avoiding the substantial amount of garbage that 95% of players will genuinely hate.

tl;dr - play ds3 or bb first. they’re the best and most fair. maybe watch playthroughs of others to see if you can handle the series’ flaws. a more detailed, WAY longer write-up is underneath the readmore cut! - souls games from best to worst - 1. dark souls 3 GOOD: best souls, best action, great aesthetics, best mixture of everything series did right, best starter game, most fair, least issues. BAD: broken early game co-op due to smurf invaders ruining it for everyone. still has issues that are in every souls games like no offline pausing and artificial difficulty. 2. bloodborne GOOD: fresh new take on souls, made the action better, fair difficulty, souls for people who don’t care about tolkien fantasy, another great starter souls. BAD: confusing multiplayer, shorter than most souls, aesthetic direction limited variety of everything, “chalice dungeons” suck. 3. dark souls 2 GOOD: co-op is the BEST in all of souls, fixed many difficulty and balancing issues brought in by ds1, not a miyazaki game but that can be a good thing sometimes. BAD: without co-op is probably worse than demon’s tbh, rigid laggy combat, kinda linear compared to ds1, not a miyazaki game and you can tell. 4. demon’s souls GOOD: really started it all and deserves the credit, short but sweet, weirdly happy but still evil aesthetics, feels like a fun set of obstacle courses, many ways to mitigate the difficulty. BAD: horrible co-op, confusing mechanics, comparatively too short, almost level-based which takes away from exploration, “world tendency” isn’t great, still very rough around the edges. 5. dark souls 1 GOOD: best aesthetics/music/characters/world/lore of any souls, originated souls exploration, plenty of secrets and replayability, HUGE game, the fan favorite, the deepest levels of masochists will love the abuse from this game, an exploit in all versions to “cheat” and help mitigate the bullshit. BAD: almost not worth playing due to insane cheapness and difficulty right from the start, the fanbase of ds1 is so toxic and horrible and elitist i have to include it, “ornstein and smough”, “curse”, even the world exploration is frustrating in this one, i have never labeled a game as “abusive��� until now, is so broken that i have to include a cheat as a fix. 6. dark souls 2 on ps4 GOOD: a remixed version of ds2 that manages to feel very different, way better visuals and 60fps, potential for co-op paradise with ability to play through all of ds2 with 3 friends simultaneously (i wanna try thisss). BAD: worst souls, least fun single player of the whole series by far, most of the balance and fairness brought in by vanilla ds2 is gone, literally patched balanced bosses to break them and make them artificially unfair, feels like a sloppy ds2 fanmod made by a ds1 purist, combat seems even laggier than the original, as much as i hate on ds1 at least it was a fully original game, just go play the other versions unless you’re desperate.

THE READMORE

this will kinda be in order of release. one last thing to note before starting the series is that souls IS inherently cheap and unfair by design. even avoiding most of the worst parts and doing extensive research won't save you from all of it. the concept of souls is that wasting your time retrying parts isn’t enough of a punishment for errors. the creators wanna really hurt you. and they refuse to include difficulty settings! but imo some of the pain is worth it tho, because the storytelling, world exploration, and aesthetics might be better than any game in the last ten years. and highly competitive, “i wanna prove myself” types will eat this gameplay up. this is like if castlevania symphony of the night and silent hill had an incredible but problematic baby.

demon's souls: GOOD! a gorgeous, tough, medium-sized game that really started it all. rough around the edges, but so cool! don't skip this one. this is like your favorite band right before they hit it big. it's still hard, but a lot of the difficulty can be dealt with by choosing an overpowered starting class (royal), and grinding for levels and healing items. the aesthetics are through the roof. it's somehow a happier game than any other souls, which makes it stand out imo! sadly no expansions for this game. i'd have loved more!

there's some bad stuff for sure though. like having to keep track of inventory carry weight. and other things that became staples of the souls series but are really horrible design. like inability to pause even offline. plentiful cheap traps and "gotcha" guess and check mechanics everywhere. super easy to accidentally attack an npc and literally break an entire playthrough. horrible autosaving. confusing awful multiplayer. forced invasions by (usually) smurf players who aren't looking for a fair fight. i'd say "play this one offline" but sadly the servers just went down for good so you don't really have a choice anymore.

it's also comparatively short. maybe a third the size of ds1. maybe even less. and the whole "world tendency" mechanic is just... so so confusing. meaning most players will miss out on a ton of content. it was a cool idea, but it just kinda didn't work with how they did it. too much research required for too little reward. in it's defense, that made the whole game feel very mysterious? idk even with the issues it's still a fav.

dark souls 1: TERRIBLE! i have a lot to say about this one. it's a bit sad, because truth be told this has THE best style and THE best lore and THE best music THE best characters and THE best world design of any souls. aesthetically, this is the pinnacle. it's also a HUGE game with tons of replayability and hidden stuff everywhere. it even has dlc that's really really cool! as far as world exploration goes, this had my favorite part in any souls game ever ("under the tree").

BUT... you have to actually play the game to see all that, and that's the problem. it's just not fun to play unless you're an insane masochist and don't value your time. they kicked up enemy numbers like crazy, made the ai way smarter, REMOVED grinding for health items, and made grinding for levels not that effective at all. everything in this game is tedious work. escapism that's harder than real life? no thanks. there's artificial difficulty walls everywhere you turn, usually in the form of bosses.

seriously the bosses in ds1 are the worst. think of a normal tough game. take that difficult last boss fight. imagine you're now fighting three of those final bosses simultaneously (stun-lock included). now imagine that fight is at the start of the game. and that's the benchmark of ds1's bosses. they aren't ALL that impossible, but a lot of them are. there's this one particular boss fight, "ornstein and smough", that is by far the most misplaced, unfair, stupid boss fight i've ever seen in any game ever. whoever developed it is truly a moron. i almost forgot about the “curse” status effect! about half way into the game, you’ll run into this. it requires an expensive and rare consumable item to deal with it. it’s very easy to miss these until it’s too late. why am i bringing this all up? because not only does curse kill you almost instantly, you respawn with half your health missing until you heal it. imagine all your hard work leveling, all gone to waste from just a single status effect. and this is before teleporting between bonfires was just a part of souls games from the start, so even if you figure out where to go to heal it, you still need to slog through some of the worst areas with half max health to get to them. and then there’s always the risk of getting cursed again when you go back? big issue, because most likely where you’re at in the game the curse removing items aren’t unlimited. bad bad bad bad baaad design.

but, thankfully, there's a way around all these issues. kinda. CHEAT! there's an exploit that lets you consume boss souls an unlimited amount of times even on consoles. it still takes a while to do. it's not instant god mode. on the contrary, the game is still super hard even if you're over-leveled. by doing this, ds1 will feel more fair, like the other souls games. you'll have way more fun.

i NEVER cheat in games normally, but cheating in ds1 takes a bad, horribly flawed game and fixes it. you may hate cheating, but this is more like ripping off an evil casino or like the mob without taking any risk, since the game is so so so unfair to begin with. if you don't wanna cheat, i'd say play the first parts and then watch a playthrough of the rest. the deepest levels of toxic elitist souls fanboys absolutely WORSHIP this game. don't listen to them. even the creator himself has moved away from a lot of this games bullshit.

dark souls 2: GREAT! those same souls fanboys i just mentioned? hate this game. because it's noticeably easier. because it made co-op viable. because their impossible game was suddenly moderately more accessible to everyone else. it's still super tough, super cool, super beautiful. the original creator may have stepped down from this one to do bloodborne, but it's still DEFINITELY souls. and it's an overall better game than ds1 by a long shot simply because your ticket to fun doesn't come at such an unreasonable cost. oh and omg they added back grindable healing items! they also removed the STUPID tutorial area/mandatory boss fight before you can level that every other souls has. and just a lot of the other player-unfriendly changes made between demon's (des) and ds1 have been sorta reversed.

it might seem weird but, since the game is comparatively unpopular, it keeps the majority of toxic soul elitists from playing. the kind of people who get off smurf invading so they can bully others? to stomp new players so they can feel misplaced joy in their otherwise pathetic, purposeless existences? yeah not really here thank god! most invaders are regular people looking for competition, and usually even have a good sense of humor.

outside of that making online totally do-able in this one, it makes online co-op really fairly easy. in comparison to des and ds1, i mean. it's still unintuitive silly bullshit, but imo in this one it's SUPER worth it. amazingly fun! get a good friend. play through the entire game together! a++++. just make sure to keep that soul level similar to each other!!!

there are bad things tho. the single player isn't nearly as good as cooping through the whole thing. the aesthetics aren't quite as good as ds1. the exploration is kinda worse. the gameplay feels weirdly sluggish sometimes too. it's just insanely tanky. people that wanted "dark souls 2: more dark souls 1" would be a bit put off by this bc it was more like how ds1 was to demon's souls. unconnected in lore. imo i kinda liked that but... still. it's biggest flaw was it's lesser story/lore polish compared to the other games.

oh, and while the dlc zones (THREE whole big dlc this time!) are pretty cool, the bosses are just crazy tough to the point of not being fun. still worth getting the dlc for the awesome levels, but the bosses were disappointing in their frustration.

dark souls 2 ps4: THE WORST! this is a sorta weird one, but it deserves it's own little analysis. theoretically, this should've been really cool. a tougher, remixed version of ds2 with dlc included and better graphics/framerate. tbh the game IS beautiful. some if the little touches and changes, while subtle on the surface, completely change how you path through the entire game. it's what "zelda oot master quest" WISHES it could be. also, theoretically, you can play co-op with up to three other people this time (was two before)! neat!!

*should have been neat. because their "remixed enemy placement" really just added way more way tougher enemies. made everything insanely harder. certain bosses that were tough but fun before now just devastate you with no explanation. imagine a shoddy fanmod made by a ds1 fanboy "to fix the casual play". that's what this feels like.

ds2 rode a fine line between cheapness and fairness before, but now all the balance is gone. frustrating annoying bullshit. if you're that kind of ds1 masochist i mentioned before, this is the ds2 for you. everyone else should stay the fuck away. just replay the ps3 version again. i suspect the reason it's like this is they balanced it around the ability to have 3 people helping you at all times? which is idiotic. bc the co-op was a way to compensate for the super hard bosses and invasions. but if you then raise the bar like that, it'd make any single player parts totally unfair. which is exactly what happened. btw i only played the dlc on ps4 and not on ps3, so maybe that's why i was wishy-washy about it?

had they included both the original enemy arrange of ds2 WITH this one, it woulda been cool. but as it stands now it's a much worse version of ds2 for more money. no thanks.

bloodborne: AMAZING! it's so odd to me. people kinda ignored des compared to ds1. they didn't like how ds2 was it's own thing compared to ds1 (see a pattern???)... but then the most drastically different souls game comes out, and almost everyone unifies and loves it. but i'm not complaining, i love it too!

suddenly super fast paced action in comparison. jrr tolkien replaced by hp lovecraft. a smaller game with more polish. it's great! some of the reactionary gameplay was traded for rewarding aggression and risk. but truth be told, that made the game easier. imo bb was the easiest souls game at that point by far. might still be?

but that's not a bad thing, because souls games are so inherently hard and cheap, that the "easiest" souls ends up being the most balanced and fun. the gameplay is just so much more responsive and better than any souls ever came close to being. as much as i missed shields, it was just better. no more slow responses. gameplay feels more like an action game "should".

tho there are a few flaws here too. there are still a few unfair bosses. not like ds1 or ds2dlc... but just the same, they kept up the annoying trend of moderately difficult and insanely interesting/fun world navigation, but with bosses as disproportionately difficult brick walls in your way of the game you really wanna play. the co-op was the most confusing souls co-op yet, to the point i've never even done it (thus could be all on me but still).

there's a whole big (technically optional) chunk of the game called "chalice dungeons", which should've been this amazing roguelike maze of seemingly endless exploration. think souls meets diablo. but it ended up more like the most boring (and often cheap) repetitive thing you've ever done in a souls game. the assets uses to make the random dungeons were too few and so every dungeon felt kinda the same. and they locked a bunch of REALLY good content behind this dungeon slog. i'd say use em for a bit of grinding and then ignore em completely.

my last little complaint, and i'm torn on this, is actually something i praised before. the aesthetics. in all other souls, even though it was "knights n dragons", there was a TON of variety. bright, beautiful locations. dark, evil places. alien landscapes. bizarre abstract things. legend of zelda. silent hill. but in bb, it's mostly just dark. everybody wears edgy black. it's all the same. the weapons and outfits are way more limited. it's more focused for sure, but there's just... less of everything. but souls is a confusing complicated nightmare of gear management, so this might be a good thing to some people.

dark souls 3: THE BEST! this is it. the best souls. they combined the greatest parts of every souls game into one. the amazing combat of bb, but with all the customization and variety of the other souls. the good kind of lore that was in ds1. it's actually the lore sequel to ds1 that everybody wanted, all while being it's own thing as well. there's even a weird aspect of navigation simplicity like des had? oh and it's possibly the easiest souls yet. they even removed soul memory to make co-op way easier! just everything is more intuitive.

a wide variety of aesthetics and locations. a "best of souls" while having it's own unique things. the "weapon abilities" feature is great. everything was polished and optimized. if this truly is the last souls game they'll make, then they went out on the highest note.

okay but now here's the flaws, lol. the removal of soul memory, while it should have made co-op simple and fixed it in comparison, it actually created a whole new HUGE issue. it made things so so easy for smurf invaders. in the earliest areas, you can't take more than a few steps in co-op before some loser with a obv troll name pops into your game and takes almost no damage whatsoever. you won't beat them. they're cheating.

smurfing via high end gear to this level is cheating. there's no other way to look at it. nobody would call an ant vs an elephant a fair fight. so to save time and resources that you need to play online (it's complicated), you have the host disconnect. and then you try again. it's tedious. i'm sure it's made countless new players just give up on co-op completely, and maybe even the whole game. souls smurfs are all so pathetic like i genuinely wish they would find a way to ban them. this is the biggest issue.

another thing is it's sorta linear. maybe even more so than ds2. it's not awful like i think there are more branches than bb but still it's definitely no ds1 in that regard. there are also a few cheap bosses. "nameless king" (optional), "sister" (end dlc thus optional), and "dlc dragon" (forgot his name but double optional). i also think "dancer" (mandatory) is a bit bullshit, but it's also really cool so...

the first dlc, while looking very cool, is kinda tiny and lackluster. it does have amazing npcs/lore... but as stated before, the final boss of it is awful. souls boss formula at it's worst. the second dlc is MUCH better, with maybe my favorite end bossfight in all of souls. it's so hard, but fair. they made the garbage secret bossfight in this dlc thankfully optional. oh and the dlc itself is beautiful and large. and very fitting in regards to lore.

it's kinda hard to not mix in good with the bad on this game. i genuinely love it. most of the typical souls bullshit is easier to avoid, but it doesn't take anything away from the good parts. if you played one souls game, play ds3.

well that's it. srry if it was too long. tried to make it as short as i could. i'm sure i forgot a few points, but i'll rant about this stuff even more extensively in my ds3 letsplay i'm sure. thanks for reading! hope it helped people interested in getting into souls!!

[entergamingxp]

DualShockers’ Favorite Games of 2019 — Laddie’s Top 10

January 1, 2020 5:00 PM EST

2019 was truly a wealth of gaming experiences that I loved, from Control, to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and more. Here are my top 10.

As 2019 comes to a close, DualShockers and our staff are reflecting on this year’s batch of games and what were their personal highlights within the last year. Unlike the official Game of the Year 2019 awards for DualShockers, there are little-to-no-rules on our individual Top 10 posts. For instance, any game — not just 2019 releases — can be considered.

As we entered 2019, my ever growing backlog of neglected or unfinished games had grown to epic proportions. I vowed to be better in 2019, so I made a New Year’s resolution that I would play and finish every game I acquired in 2019 before moving on to another. Well, it was a nice thought, but resolutions are meant to be broken and with only a few days left in the year, I have yet to play the very first game I purchased in 2019, Resident Evil 2.

Unfortunately this pattern continued as I found myself in a bit of a gaming funk, and for most of the beginning half of the year, gaming felt different, like I was doing it more out of habit rather than passion.  Had I truly lost interest in the one hobby that has been my comfort zone for as long as I can remember?

Don’t get me wrong, there were a few bright spots throughout my despondency, but it wasn’t until August that I finally got my gaming groove back. On a whim, I bought Remnant: From the Ashes, and that old familiar feeling was back, baby! Now, that game wasn’t previously on my radar and it’s not perfect, but sometimes you just need a little unforeseen inspiration to get you going again.

After Remnant, it seemed the hits just kept coming, and it was looking unlikely I’d get to finish the previous months’ games that I skipped. With that being said, I feel my top ten would look a lot different than its current state considering I have yet to finish Devil May Cry 5, The Outer Worlds, A Plague Tale: Innocence, as well as a few other titles that went unplayed. Never the less, top 10 lists must go on, and here are my favorite games of 2019.

10. Anthem

Anthem: it’s not only one of my favorites of 2019, it’s also one of the games that broke my heart with bitter disappointment. Early impressions of Anthem gave me the hope that BioWare was on track to release a game that would not only counter Destiny, but show Bungie how a looter shooter, live service game was to be done straight out of the release gate. Well, as you know, Anthem did not deliver any of this and released a glitchy game in a skeletal state that felt like an unfinished symphony. EA had perpetrated a betrayal that was of Aliens: Colonial Marines level and within weeks after Anthem released, the game was a ghost town as gamers went running back to Destiny.

Despite all of this, the game with the longest loading screens known to man still managed to give me a few moments of fun. First off, the game is graphically stunning, and is easily one of the best looking games from this generation. While the execution of the story was a bit bland and the characters were mostly forgettable, there was an underlying lore that could still be the impetus of a great game or even sequel. Anthem’s greatest strength was making you feel like Iron Man once you entered your Javelin, the powered exosuit that comes in three flavors to appeal to different gameplay styles. Donning the Javelin suit gives you a super fluid movement both in flight and underwater that was almost as enjoyable as Titanfall’s parkour and jet packs. This also made for super-fun gameplay that unfortunately was lost due to lack of content.

EA and BioWare have made some improvements and promise to continue making Anthem a better game, and I really hope they can turn it around, but with new games always on the horizon, even the biggest Anthem supporters like myself might be reluctant to come back.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Anthem.

9. Remnant: From the Ashes

The term “Soulslike” tends to inspire rage in me, and I refuse to accept it as a genre. Now, my experience with Souls games is very limited and consists mostly of Bloodborne. It’s not the punishing gameplay that sent me running from Yharnam, but rather the lack of checkpoints in the beginning. I grew up in a time where games were often difficult and had bad checkpoints that didn’t save automatically, I appreciated the challenge back then as I didn’t have my own money to purchase every game that caught my fancy, so anything that prolonged my interest in a game was welcome. However, as an adult who wants to play all of the games but has limited time, I prefer games with overactive checkpoints and generally steer clear of anything described as Soulslike. On a whim, I purchased Remnant: From the Ashes and fell in love.

I think the thing that appealed to me most with Remnant was the combat, which like all good Souls-inspired games has a rhythm that depends on dodging as much as it does attacking. While most Souls games are hack and slashes, Remnant: From the Ashes is a third person shooter. As you get to know me, you will learn, I like to shoot things in video games. Early on I died a lot but instead of becoming frustrated, I actually enjoyed the challenge of getting better. The game also features procedurally-generated levels where the enemies differ each time you play. Combine that with the unique look and feel of the four main areas of Remnant: From the Ashes, the game never gets boring.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Remnant: From the Ashes.

8. Borderlands 3

Borderlands 3 for the most part sticks to the creed, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” While there’s a few slight improvements in gameplay and graphics, the game is still the irreverent, looter shooter packed with a “bazillion” guns that we have come to expect from the series.

Featuring an all new cast of Vault Hunters, along with a few familiar friends, the most notable improvement in Borderlands 3 is the ability to leave Pandora and visit other planets. Not only does this make the game more expansive, each planet has its own look and personality which is a nice break from the somewhat drab Pandora. Borderlands 3 isn’t rocket science; it’s hours of mindless fun, and at the end of the day, that’s all I really want from a Borderlands game.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Borderlands 3.

7. Destiny 2: Shadowkeep

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Destiny since the first game’s alpha. I always go back to Destiny but I have to admit that the constant changing of rules and its grindy disposition makes me a little crazy. I love Bungie’s dedication to the game and with Shadowkeep I feel that they finally nailed Destiny’s potential, even if it took them five years to do it.

While parts of Destiny 2 went free to play, Shadowkeep seemed to be a love letter to their dedicated community and proved Bungie can sustain this massive game even without Activision’s backing. Destiny 2 is one of the most frustrating and riveting gaming experiences I’ve had this generation, and while I’ll stray from it for weeks, even months, coming back to it always feels right.

6. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

There’s not a Call of Duty game that I haven’t played, but the epitome of the series for me were the first two Modern Warfare games. Since Modern Warfare 2, I’ll admit that the series has had its shares of hits and misses, but each year I wait unapologetically for the newest iteration and hope it will be great again. Since Infinity Ward welcomed back several key members who had left for Respawn after Modern Warfare 2 and created a new engine for the aging beauty, there was hope this was the year that the series would return to its former glory.

I have to say, I wasn’t disappointed. Finally gone was the Treyarch imprint of the Pick 10 system in multiplayer that I hated; in its place was a more streamlined and highly customizable system which gave average players like myself a chance to actually compete. Some of the larger maps took some getting used to, but for the first time in Call of Duty there is no paid DLC, and the new maps have been correcting some of the shortcomings of the launch maps.

After last year’s Black Ops 4 decided to focus on Battle Royale instead of a campaign, Modern Warfare was back with one of the best and most poignant campaigns to date. While it never reaches the level of   guilt that Spec Ops: The Line left me with, Modern Warfare does a good job of showing  the horrors of war by making you question the morally grey area of who is good and who is evil. This hits you the most when you play as Farah Karim. Her backstory is heartbreaking, but necessary to show how she became the kick-ass rebel commander of the Urzikstan Liberation Force.

Modern Warfare is one of the most engaging games of the year and has offered Call of Duty a new lease on life. I’m still regularly playing (and enjoying) Modern Warfare and looking forward to what it has in store for the future.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

5. MediEvil

MediEvil was a real turning point for me in gaming. Not only did it thwart my gaming habit to obsession, it also paved the way to my PlayStation fangirl-ism. For the record, my heart might belong to Sony, but I’ll play on anything you set in front of me. Up until last year’s God of War, I always credited MediEvil as being my all-time favorite game. In fact, my love of the game runs so deep, I’ve always said that if I ever won the lottery, I’d singlehandedly fund a Kickstarter for MediEvil 3.

The game looked like a scene out of Tim Burton’s A Nightmare Before Christmas and featured elements of action-adventure, hack and slash, puzzle, and platforming games. The end result ended up being an irreverent story of an unlikely hero that attracted a cult following who were very vocal in getting Sir Dan Fortesque resurrected from the dead and obscurity in a newly remastered version of the beloved game. I always felt MediEvil was ahead of its time, so it’s no surprise that it still feels like a fresh concept in 2019 that I still have a ton of fun playing.

4. Concrete Genie

Sometimes a game can still be fun and entertaining while raising awareness. Concrete Genie from Pixelopus tackles the subject of bullying as experienced through the game’s protagonist, Ash. Through Ash’s eyes and paintbrush, you will escape the wrath of the bullies through a visionary narrative where your art and imagination come to life.

At first it appears as if Concrete Genie is just a glorified graffiti simulator, but as the story unfolds and Ash gains different powers and abilities, the game soon turns into something that feels like inFamous Lite. It’s a unique and charming game that I won’t soon forget. It also contains an optional VR mode that really exemplifies the concept of art coming to life. I absolutely adore Concrete Genie.

3. Darksiders Genesis

The last new game of the year I played quickly earned a spot high on my top ten of 2019. I’m a big fan of the Darksiders games, and when I heard that a prequel dungeon crawler would release so soon after Darksiders 3, I was giddy with excitement.

Darksiders Genesis lets you play as Strife for the first time, but you can also play as War, who was the star of the first game. Despite its isometric view, Genesis still looks and plays like a Darksiders game. The ability to switch between Strife and War is like getting to play your two favorite Diablo classes at once. It makes for great combat situations as well, as opens up the challenge of figuring out when to use Strife and when to use War in various situations. Surprisingly, it might be my favorite Darksiders game yet.

2. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

From the moment I heard Respawn Entertainment hired Stig Asmussen and that he was going to be lead on a Star Wars game, I was over the moon. However, once I remembered EA was involved and that there hasn’t been a good Star Wars game in so many years, I started to worry that I was just setting myself up for disappointment.

You should always go with your first instinct, because Jedi: Fallen Order is so good. Everything about it just speaks to me. It feels like it’s an amalgamation of every game I have ever loved from Uncharted to God of War set in one of my favorite cinematic universes. Wielding a light saber in this game is the closest I’ll get to being a Jedi; well, I prefer the Dark Side, so we’ll go with Sith. For someone who has loved Star Wars for their entire life, I’ll be forever thankful for this game and Respawn Entertainment.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

1. Control

I fell in love with Control back in March when I played an early build of it at GDC; I knew then this game was something special. Remedy rarely disappoints and their games are all unique experiences, but Control is definitely Remedy at their best. I love the look of the game: it’s dark and eerie, which immediately sets the perfect mood and tone for what is to come.

What really attracted me was the gameplay. Sure, you have a service weapon that takes on various forms which is cool in itself, but once I started unlocking Jesse Faden’s psychic powers and learned how to use them all together, it was next level gaming. On consoles the game suffers from a few performance issues, but it didn’t diminish my love of Control.

The best way I can describe Control and the reason it is my favorite game of 2019 is that it made me feel like I was starring in an episode of The X-Files that was directed by David Lynch. Trust me: that’s the ultimate compliment in my world.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Control.

Check out the rest of the DualShockers staff Top 10 lists and our official Game of the Year Awards:

December 23: DualShockers Game of the Year Awards 2019 December 25: Lou Contaldi, Editor-in-Chief // Logan Moore, Managing Editor December 26: Tomas Franzese, News Editor // Ryan Meitzler, Features Editor  December 27: Mike Long, Community Manager // Scott White, Staff Writer December 28: Chris Compendio, Contributor // Mario Rivera, Video Manager // Kris Cornelisse, Staff Writer December 29: Scott Meaney, Community Director // Allisa James, Senior Staff Writer // Ben Bayliss, Senior Staff Writer December 30: Cameron Hawkins, Staff Writer // David Gill, Senior Staff Writer // Portia Lightfoot, Contributor December 31: Iyane Agossah, Senior Staff Writer // Michael Ruiz, Senior Staff Writer // Rachael Fiddis, Contributor January 1: Ricky Frech, Senior Staff Writer // Tanner Pierce, Staff Writer // Laddie Simco, Staff Writer

January 1, 2020 5:00 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/01/dualshockers-favorite-games-of-2019-laddies-top-10/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dualshockers-favorite-games-of-2019-laddies-top-10

[thegraytalon-blog]

Top 13 Console Video Games of Generation 8 (2012 – 2019)

Intro/Overview:

Hey everyone, The Gray Talon here, setting his sights on yet another unsuspecting prey and TODAY we are going to be talking and discussing the top 13 console video games of the current console generation. And why 13 some of you may be asking? Because the Gray Talon strikes with all of his 13 claws! Yes, he is that meta. 

So I know for my first list here it’s quite a broad choice, seeing as though we are about a little over 6 years strong into this cycle of console video games. I’m going to do my best here to be as unbiased as I can be, broadening my gaming palette and bringing to you the top 13 titles that I have played in it’s entirety over the past 6 years and felt stood out to me in terms of presentation, performance and overall replay value. And in terms of replay value, I don’t necessarily mean a physical replay value, but rather I ask “Does this game stick around either physically or mentally that resonated with me in the long run?” Another thing to keep in mind is that I am a tremendous fan of narratives and games heavily focused on story, which will play a factor in my list as well as I try to remain unbiased as possible, I do hold a soft spot for games with a focus on a good tale and character development alike.  This list will also try to stray away from remasters, such as The Last of Us for PS4 for example that is a port of a previous generation title without changing anything other than graphics and some technical performance such as framerate. I will be refraining from listing any Indie games as well  as I feel those games have become so prominent over the past few years, that they deserve the respect of having their own special list. And lastly, expect a lot of honorable mentions at the end of the video, because selecting a mere 13 games from a list of some amazing games from over 6 years was increasingly difficult. And yes, as you may have guessed, expect some SPOILERS AHEAD!

So without further delay, let’s get started!

     Number 13:   

Nier: Automata – PS4 – (March 17th 2017 initial release)

What do you get when you combine a pseudo post-apocalyptic android world with, well, this guy (show Yoko Taro pic)? A beautiful recipe of some of the most brilliant forms of mind-fuckery since the likings of Hideo Kojima first tried to scramble our brains when Pyscho Mantis read off our game save files in Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation. In this hack and slash with light RPG elements, dive headfirst into a deep and dark narrative, focused on the concept of humanoid replicant androids and sentient robots developing emotions, feelings and even their own personal ideologies, while trying to combat armies of machine robots from distant worlds. It’s one part Blade Runner, one part Matrix, and all parts awesome. Plus it’s made by Platinum Games, the developer’s of Bayonetta and the original Devil May Cry. So if that’s not enough incentive to immediately run out and play this game, I’m not sure what will convince you.

Number 12:

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor – PS4/XB1 – September 30th 2014

Well, this game surely came out of left field, but it sure was a sight for sore eyes. Developed by Monolith Studios, who were responsible for the successful F.E.A.R. games and piggybacking off of the success of the Batman Arkham series, Middle Earth provides some of the most fluid combat and free flowing action since the Arkham titles, indeed, only much, much more brutal. We’re talking more decapitations than the entire Game of Thrones series has accomplished. The story is the other half of the reason why this made my list. It tells the tale of the creation of the ring of power that led to the evil lord Sauron’s rise as you fight within the realm of Mordor before the events that transpired in Lord of the Rings or even The Hobbit as you take on the role of Tallion, a brave and noble ranger who once met his demise and is now joined with a wraith on a quest for vengeance against those who were responsible for his family’s death. A simple quest for revenge will snowball into quite a journey as you build up your armies by capturing orcs and lead the fight back against the evil forces of Sauron. If you’re a fan of action games with a sprinkle of Assassin’s Creed like platforming, then this will be a match made in heaven, or in this case, the hellish land of Mordor.

   Number 11:

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain – PS4/XB1 – September 1st 2015

In this final true entry in the Metal Gear Solid series from the renown mind of famed game writer and director, Hideo Kojima, you take on the role of Big Boss from the 80’s. After waking from a 9 year coma following the events of Ground Zeroes, you free roam the vast Afghanistan plains during the Soviet-Afghan war to track down those responsible for the destruction of your old mercenary group, Military Sans Frontieres. Along with returning compadre in arms and once rival, Ocelot, prepare yourself as you take on a slew of missions to uncover the truth about the plot leading to the creation of a new Metal Gear that could potentially destroy the world. The game is fun and addictive, giving you access to an array of dozens of missions and hundreds of side ops alike, ranging from action to stealth as you infiltrate bases, rescue civilians and soldiers, gather intel and take down enemy artillery. You get support characters too such as a dog and Quiet the sniper, who will come in more than useful to you along your journey. And if you stick to it until the very end, you will not be sorry as the saga of Snake comes to a head and a somewhat emotional conclusion too, knowing the history behind the series, legacy and even controversial drama leading up to the inevitable parting of ways with Konami and Hideo Kojima.

Number 10:

Resident Evil 2 (Remake) – PS4/XB1 – January 25th 2019

I know this game just came out a month ago, but I just had to sneak it onto my list here. It was just such a prestigious remake and I know I said I would not include remasters on my list, but this is not your average remaster. It is a complete rebuild of a 21 year old game from the ground up, completely reimagining the horrors and terrors, fusing together the elements of what made the original Resident Evil trilogy truly frightening with the beloved camera and controls of Resident Evil 4. Fear lurks around every turn in tandem with some intense action sequences. There are numerous campaigns to play through as well, 4 in total if you count Leon and Claire’s A and B sides. I am going to link my video review in the description as well for more information and greater detail. It truly is a match made in heaven, or at the very least, a match made in the depth of the darkest labs of the Umbrella Corporation. 

    Number 9:

Horizon: Zero Dawn – PS4 – February 8th 2017

From the developers of Killzone, yes that’s right my young padawans, Killzone, the first person shooter Playstation exclusive series, comes a third person adventure set in a beautifully rendered, lush, post-apocalyptic world with a vivacious and ambitious tale revolving around sentient feral like machines, with resemblance to prehistoric creatures that lived millions of years ago.. You take on the role of Aloy, a fierce female warrior from the 31st century tribe called the Nora. After proving herself when she becomes of age, she obtains an augmented reality device called Focus and after being attacked for looking like a scientist from the old world, she then embarks on a journey that leads to her uncovering quite an incredible story behind the creation of the cybernetic creatures that roam the landscape. The gameplay focuses on a myriad of weapon crafting for your arsenal of spears, bows and quivers, ranging from high end explosives to mines and traps. Crafting plays a big role in the game too as you must gather resources in the environment to build up your ever growing arsenal. Also you can free flow using platforming techniques and zip line from all over the huge map. The game feels like a robust and futuristic Tomb Raider and should not be missed of anyone that is a fan of an empowering action/adventure game mixed in with an interesting narrative along the way.

Number 8:

Dark Souls III – PS4/XB1 – April 12th 2016

Return to Lothric one last time to kindle the bonfires as you set out on a harrowing journey to take on Kiln of the First Flame! You are the Ashen one and must return the Lords of Cinder to their rightful thrones while embarking in a wonderfully interconnected medieval world, littered with brazen creatures, shortcuts, secrets and treasures alike. Well, in case you haven’t guessed, I am a pretty huge fan of the Souls series and the third and final entry in the series is no slouch. With dozens of David and Goliath like boss fights and some challenging sub-boss battles, go it alone or bring 2 other lost souls to team up in co-op as you fight for survival. Experience a variety of builds per class. Become a heavy brute and pound foes into the ground with that sweet ultra greatsword or take on the role of a cleric to zap opponents from afar with spells and hexes. The combinations of character builds are nearly endless and the replay value is incredibly high as you level up to be able to withstand the might of the overbearing world of Lothric. The mechanics are the most fluid and the game’s speed almost resembles From Software’s Bloodborne at times. Plus, with Hidetaka Miyazaki-san returning to direct this time around, it truly feels like the definitive Dark Soul experience. Any fan of hardcore action/RPG’s will be right at home here.

Number 7:

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Switch/Wii U – March 3rd 2017

We return to the ever enchanting land of Hyrule as the heroic Link to embark on yet another tale to once again purge the evil that Ganon has loomed over the land. In this first truly open world Zelda game, you really can feel the utmost sense of wanderlust as you feel the need to explore every nook and cranny of the vast landscape, which seemingly has no limitations whatsoever. That is the biggest draw of this particular Zelda game. The liberating sensation to do almost anything you can imagine, whether it be collecting ingredients to sizzle over a frying pan to cook up that next concoction to withstand the extreme cold of the uncharted Hebra valleys or the intense heat of the Goron volcanic mountain ranges, or climbing up the side of a thousand foot wall to try and reach the top without running out of stamina. The world is truly your oyster here and you can even take on Ganon right out the gate, although I highly recommend you don’t unless you’re some kind of Hylian sorcerer. And lastly, the shrines in the game which provide upgrades either to your stamina or hearts by solving puzzles, are possibly the most addictive part of this game. You will have to literally pry yourself away from the game as you scour the land, high and low, seeking out those hidden little caves of wonders.

 Number 6:

Super Mario: Odyssey – Switch – October 27th 2017

When I first saw the gameplay trailer for the latest 3D Mario title, I knew instantaneously that it would be fun, but I did not realize it would be possibly the best 3D Mario game I would have ever experienced. My all time favorite 3D Mario game is, by quite the unpopular opinion, Super Mario Sunshine. I was glamoured by the freedom of roaming from world to world in tandem with being the sole member of a clean up crew tasked with ridding Isle Delfino with that grimy, inky substance. Plus the normal Mario platforming levels were fun to boot. But now, in Super Mario Odyssey, everything is dialed up to 11 in the Mushroom Kingdom realm. I mean, you can become a freakin’ T-Rex with an Italian mustache  for crying out loud by the simple toss of a hat! Or don the fierce and angry explosive power of a mustached Bullet Bill. Or launch yourself as a Chomp-Chomp to breakdown barriers and obstacles in your path. Plus, the 2D sections are a serious retro nod to Mario games of the time of olde and transition seamlessly from 3D to 2D as you might expect. Lastly, the freaking addiction for shines, well moonshines, this time around becomes real as you pretty much sell your plumbing soul for a shot at getting all of them per world.

 Number 5:

Bloodborne – PS4 – March 21st 2015

From Software really knocked this one hit wonder out of the park. From the makers of the Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls games, comes a dark, gothic title with a dee and, mythic lore.  As a hunter of beasts, try to purge the plague from the land as you fight back against creatures of folklore such as Lycans, Trolls and Cthulhu type monsters.  A game that forces you to face your fears and strike back in the face of towering difficulty and strife in a fast paced, hardcore action/RPG that will cause your blood to boil at times with intense combat sequences, leaving your heart pounding and yearning for more and if you strike back quickly enough you may just regain health after being hit with the regain feature as well. This was my first From Software game that I not only played through once, but twice on it’s new game plus mode as I was consumed within the Hunter’s Dream in the far away land of Yharnam, so it will forever have a special place in my heart. 

 Number 4:

The Witcher III: The Wild Hunt – PS4/XB1 – May 19th 2015:

Well, if it wasn’t for the finale of good ol’ Geralt of Rivia here coming out in 2015, Bloodborne would have been my GOTY (Game of the Year), but, alas, once The Wild Hunt dropped into The Gray Talon’s claws, they were clenched for what felt like an eternity. If anyone asked me what my all time favorite action/RPG is of this generation that is the complete package, the gaming Oscar would go to The Witcher III each and every time. The level of detail present in this game cannot simply be put into words. While the graphics themselves may not be up to par with other games of this generation, the attention to detail in the beautifully crafted Continent Geralt is on is astounding to say the least. For example, you;’ll just be walking into town minding your own business when you’ll happen to notice out of the corner of your eye a water wheel connected to an turnstile system with flowing water that if you follow it closely you’ll begin to see how the irrigation system of that specific town works. The game is just that damn intricate. Not to mention the plethora of quests you can do ranging from aiding warring empires, which makes you feel like you’re playing the unofficial Game of Thrones game, to slaying beasts of burden whilst concocting tonics and potions like the true Witcher you are. Plus the downloadable content is probably better than the main story too, which is possibly the first time that’s ever happened and must be experienced that gives Geralt of Rivia the true ending he so rightfully deserves. 

 Number 3:

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End – PS4 – May 10th 2016

Now that we have gotten into the final big three here, I want to remind everyone that the next three games have been personally chosen because of their heavy and robust focus on delivering a strong narrative, which is my one true Achilles’ heel. The final chapter in the Nathan Drake saga goes out with such a beautiful bang, I damn near had to play through it twice just to soak up all of its memorable moments. Everyone from the previous three games returns and in a glorious fashion to boot. From fast paced motorcycle chases in the Middle East to traversing the Sahara by jeep to hike and climb up mountain trails, this final chapter does not pull its punches for anything. There’s even one part of the game where you feel like you’re freaking James Bond, pulling off a heist in an exotic locale that ends in an Indiana Jones infused madness of swinging from whips and ropes through a series of windows and objects to make your daring escape. The Uncharted series to me always felt like a modern day Indiana Jones anyway, which does not disappoint when it is doing what it does best. Exploring mystical lands in hopes of finding famous treasures left behind by legends of the past that usually end with high octane explosions, chases and perilous escapes from life threatening scenarios. Also the story has charm and heart, leaving you more than satisfied more and more with each entry in the series leading to the conclusion in which you cannot help have a smile on your face. The game even ends in a way that the esteemed developer Naughty Dog can even pick up at any time they want in the future. It’s brilliant writing like this that should be commended, recognized and put high up on a pedestal to be praised, such as now in this list.

         Number 2:

Red Dead Redemption II – PS4/XB1 – October 26th 2018

If I was making a top list of games for last generation, Red Dead Redemption 1 would have been my top game hands down. In no way, shape or form would I have ever imagined that  it’s numbered sequel would also make another top tiered game for me in this present day and age. The critically acclaimed developer, Rockstar Games, once again tantalizes and does not disappoint with their newest title. Set approximately 15 years before the events of Red Dead Redemption, the sequel, or prequel rather, sets you into the high top post 19th century boots of Arthur Morgan, right hand man to Dutch Van Der Linde as they all try to learn to adapt to the new 20th century American lifestyle and leave the criminal life behind…or do they? The snowball effect is immensely present as you struggle to survive the onslaught from one bad move to another that Dutch makes for his gang. Without spoiling too much, I will just say to ready those Kleenex, because for those of you who played the first game know, expect one teary eyed ending once again, in both the good, the bad and the ugly. Another reason why this game holds my second place slot securely is because of yet again it’s exasperating attention to detail. If Witcher III was so refined in showcasing the intricate workings of a wooden water wheel, then get ready to completely crap your pantsuit as Red Dead Redemption II dials the attention to detail up to 11, possibly even 12 as they turn it into an obsession to detail with such things as going as far as making a horse’s private parts grow or shrink depending on what climate you are presently in on the map. You can also become dirty and need a bath after traveling for many in game hours along with growing hair and facial hair in real time that can grow as long as a rock star and look like Odin from Asgard if enough time passes. Plus, there are some random encounters that are just as emotional as some of the story segments and can pop up at any given and unprompted time. In terms of the core gameplay, you’re a gunslinger in third person (but there is also a first person option) and use a slow motion deadeye mechanic to carefully pick apart your foes. Take to riding horseback and even carriages to soak up what remains of the old west. Overall this is a game not to be missed by any means necessary and some parts of it’s illustrious and gritty tale will stick with me in my mind until the last day I draw breath.  

     Number 1:

God of War – PS4 – April 20th 2018

From Sony Santa Monica Studios and the ingenious mind of the game’s writer and director Corey Balrog, comes the likes of something we have never bore witness to. A video game franchise that was 13 years old had been completely and utterly transformed and reconstructed from the ground up to feel so fresh and new yet retaining enough familiarity with beloved antihero Kratos and the rich lore found in his previous titles. What shocks and awes me first about this game is while the setting and lore completely shifted to that of Viking mythology, it somehow manages to keep the focus on the weight burden of Kratos and his actions that he has carried over after leaving the ravaged lands of Ancient Greece behind. Kratos not only carries with him a now repressed curse of his choices, but is left with a son as well. (THE BOY!!!) Shortly after losing his wife and mother of his child, Kratos sets off on a simple journey with his son to scatter his mother’s ashes atop a summit on a snowy mountain. However, little did they know the perilous adventure that awaited them. The new God of War delivers such an emotional performance from Kratos with several call backs to previous games in ways that slowly build up and shape his character arc even more than imaginable. He goes from suppressing the all too well known Spartan rage to slowly unleashing it by the journey’s end in ways quite unfathomable. The core gameplay has been completely redesigned as well. The new camera provides a more focused over the shoulder angle and each swing of that ever so faithful Leviathan Axe has an extreme presence as you bear dominance over your foes. Plus, the callback feature of the axe where you press the action button and axe comes flying back into your hands like you’re flipping Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader never gets tiring. There’s a light focus on upgrading your armor and gear this time around too, where the focus is not just weapon or magic upgrading but finding the rarest pieces of armor that scale to your level so you can go toe to toe with some of Norse mythologies most relentless of foul beasts. This title also won many GOTY for 2018 awards and rightfully so.  It has achieved so much and deserves such acknowledgement for breathing a new form of life into this once aging franchise. This is my number 1 game of this generation thus far and while this console generation is not yet laid to rest, I will find it increasingly difficult for the Ghost of Sparta to be toppled anytime soon. 

Conclusion:

So there you have it folks. This was The Gray Talon’s top 13 games of this console generation. Thank you tremendously for watching as always. Please share and like this video and please subscribe so you don’t miss out on the latest content from The Gray Talon’s lair. And finally, please find the honorable mentions listed below:

1. Infamous: Second Son – PS4 – 3/21/2014 

2. Bayonetta 2 – Wii U – 10/24/2014

3. Sunset Overdrive – XB1 – 10/28/2014

4. Yakuza 0 – PS4 – 3/12/2015 

5. Batman: Arkham Knight – PS4/XB1 – 6/23/2015 – (Honorable Mention)

6. Rise of the Tomb Raider – XB1 - 11/10/2015

7. Far Cry: Primal – PS4/XB1 – 2/19/2016 – (Honorable Mention)

8. Doom – PS4/XB1 – 5/13/2016 – (Honorable Mention)

9. Titanfall 2 – PS4/XB1 – 10/28/2016 (Honorable Mention)

10. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice – PS4 – 8/8/2017

11. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus – PS4/XB1 – 10/27/2017 – (Honorable Mention)

12. Detroit: Become Human – PS4 – 5/25/2018 – (Honorable Mention)

13. Octopath: Traveler – Switch – 7/13/2018 – (Honorable Mention)

14. Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise – PS4 – 10/2/2018

15. Pokemon: Let’s Go Eevee – Switch – 11/16/2018 – (Honorable Mention)

[darkarm66]

Nier: Automata review-To The Glory of Execution

I never thought much of the PlayStation 4. It just seems like an apology for how the PS3 turned out for the first two years. It's successful as fuck, despite a lack of actually compelling software. Bloodborne was intriguing but I haven't even considered getting PS4. Until Nier: Automata showed up with that fancy trailer and showed all kinds of ass-kicking. This was gonna be the game that made me finally plunge on a PS4. And for the most part, Nier: Automata was the experience I thought it would be.

All I knew from this series was a heavy dose of esoteric weirdness and cult-like devotion because like Nier and Drakengard before it, this ain't the most accessible series. The plots are dark and moody, determined to pee all over RPG story conventions. Hero are assholes and worlds of people are pushed beyond points of insanity, despair, and hatred until all that's left is for everything to die. So, on that front, Nier: Automata suceeds in keeping that tradition alive.

Post-apocalyptic worlds don't lend well to happiness and sunshines, so it starting with Androids sent from a moonbase to keep decimating machines to make thing safe for humanity. Of course things happen, hidden truths are revealed, twists happen, some existential questioning ensues, and in the end, the story ends in a place not a lot of people expected. I'm sorry if I seem down on it, not even the New Game+ felt like 'new games' but  just continued the story. A lot of the plot devices led to interesting and surprising bits of story telling (more on that later) but a lot of it still felt linear, due to the fact that a lot of these plot elements are revealed after beating one quest to unlock another quest. So for all the praise it receives for its unconventional story, it goes through a fuck ton of convention to reveal it.

And speaking of convention, the game play of previous Nier/Drakengard games would scream to have gameplay this good. Bringing in PlatinumGames to do the meat and potato of a game should always be on every publisher's to do list, except Microsoft. Having responsive and tight combat with flimsy shoot em up mechanics does make any and every encounter seem engaging. Even the twin stick controls for the hacking segments are a nice touch to break up some monotomy in the game. Compared to other games in the series, this gameplay is a god send. But....it's 2017 and gaming isn't short on great hack/slash titles or bullet hell/shoot em ups. And honestly, after the first 10 encounters, the combat and hacking got super monotonous....which rarely happens from Platinum. No matter the weapon, location, or enemy, combat and hacking just gave me a feeling of 'get on with it already!'

So while the gameplay and story left a lot to be desired, I found genuine moments of actual exhilaration. For one, this is a very beautiful game to look at. For a world that's been pretty much dead (and conveniently put together), this game has some very excellent desolation to take in with the eyes. Destroyed building overtaken by sand, trees, canyons are a damn delight. And speaking of delightful views, as stale as the combat gets, the boss battles are some visual porn. Sure it never got more challenging than your stats determining how well you put up with it, it doesn't mean it never got boring to look at it and at times, is worth the price of admission alone. 

I was even genuinely shocked that hacking comprised a good portion of the combat, which is fun, if briefly diverting. A shame that portion didn't have a  customization/level up feature. Add in a customization that actually determines how to go about on a play style through its chip system, it made the difference between a RPG one slogs through versus one can plow through. No matter how quirky this world got and how unconventional the story became, a fetch quest is still a fetch quest, backtracking makes a game seem more padded out and escort missions are still painfully boring to do. However, this is more of annoyance than it is bad design choice.

However, the side missions led to some interesting characters, mainly Pascal, who is probably the only likable character and gets a cruel ending for his trouble. For all the themes about humanity and what it means to be human, to be alive and to exist without pain and despair, Yoko Taro creates a character that embodies it and after several games of showing characters do bad things for right reasons, creating a character and giving him a storyline that actually filled with genuine heroism and empathy, the plot thread ends with one of the cruelest things I've witnessed in gaming. But considering his previous stories in games, I really should've seen this coming. 

One thing that did stick with me is this gorgeous and ecletic soundtrack. The amazing music gave me vibes of Xenogears and pretty much Square's late 90s output: earworms that burrow into your heart that gives the game's story the emotional pulse (that it doesn't earn at times). Hypnotic vocal melodies and lush strings heightens the hopelessness Automata's world feels through most of the play time. Might possibly be the best game soundtrack of 2017.

So overall, while I was down on the game through most of my playtime and do not believe it's near the masterpiece reviewers claim it to be, Nier: Automata's ambitions, matched with an above average execution, are unparalleled. For my qualms with the story, there's an intriguing one being told through out every minute this game runs. As tired as I got seeing the same environments over and over, they are very beautiful sights. And as much as I hated hack and slashing the same type of robots, the combat is surprisingly solid and fluid. Nier: Automata is truly one of the things in gaming we should clamor for more of, despite its flaws.

[cerastes]

My thoughts on Save The Queen as a whole are:

Bozja Southern Front is wack. It’s okay in a group but I didn’t enjoy doing it solo. A large part of it is because of, in my opinion, how badly designed the enemy placement is. If you want to go anywhere, “anywhere” being Skirmishes, because let’s be honest, you are not there for anything else that doesn’t involve Skirmishes in one way or another, you have to go through enemies tightly packed together and risk getting a Bloodborne-tier aggro distance found only in here (or, at least, not anywhere in the normal overworld of FFXIV) of 1 to 3 enemies on your tail while you just want to get to Skirmishes before they get vaporized, OR you can make a looong safe turn that wastes time and is objectively Not Fucking Fun because of how much you’ll have to do it (and even during Skirmishes, you have to stick to the ‘center’ because if you stray a little too far, BOOM, aggroed enemies from outside the Skirmish). It took me a lot of thinking to figure out why I just didn’t like Southern Front at all, and among the other, lesser, subjective reasons, I think this one is pretty objective: The enemy placement sucks, and having to do big, wide, time-wasting circles just to not aggro some Rank 3 or 4 enemies that’ll just fuck you the hell up if you have no Essences on and will pester you while you just try to do Skirmishes every single time is just bad game design. It feels like almost all direct ways from one Skirmish to the next just have these, deliberately or otherwise, but still, it’s really a big damper when you Want To Play The Damn Game and you have to instead make sure to pray a strong mob doesn’t just turn around while walking past it and aggroing you, or else, waste time taking the scenic route.

Castrum Licorice Lithuania or whatever the name is, is pretty ok. It’s deliberately got a lot of old school MMO raid design but otherwise it’s nothing to write home about. The final boss drags on for too long, though, especially during the Lyon phase. It’s cool in concept but the execution is kind of annoying, with a trillion adds and their respective aoes that they are wired to launch at the same time.

Delubrum Regina is deadass one of my top favorite if not my top favorite raid in the game. VERY fun. I LOVE the Twice Come Ruin mechanic (if you get hit by two mechanics in the space of 2 minutes, you die, period, no ifs and buts, even if you survive the HP damage), the bosses and midbosses are really fun, Trinity Avowed and The Queen are legitimately my favorite bosses in the game, and I think the whole experience is just packed, condensed high impact Fun. It doesn’t fuck around, it needs you to be awake, and punishes your mistakes while rewarding your successes. I think it’s the best designed challenge overall in the game.

Zadnor is a huge step up from Southern Front and I enjoyed it a lot. I was dreading it being Southern Front 2, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. The one weakness it has is that it is too damn big of a map, and that’s it. Everything else feels like a step up: More varied Skirmishes (Southern Front Skirmishes were, for the most part, pretty boring, generic tank and spanks with a few exceptions), not necessarily easier but better designed Critical Encounters (much easier to break into learning the CEs without making them easier! That’s good game design!), and THANKFULLY, much better enemy placement. There’s a bigger “outer ring” where the non-Skirmish mobs hang around the Skirmish area, meaning you can move more without fear of instantly aggroing 2-3 mobs, and it also means they are less densely packed together, meaning it’s MUCH easier to go from Skirmish to Skirmish without needing to waste time looking for a safe way through. Every Skirmish is also surrounded by Magitek enemies this time, which are the ones the majority of people will want to be killing between Skirmishes in order to trigger CEs. It’s such a huge quality of life improvement I don’t think is appreciated enough, and I think the devs deserve credit for it: You’re done with a Skirmish and there’s no other active Skirmish in your zone? No problem, just kill the conveniently place Magitek enemies to accelerate CE spawn rate and farm Bozja Clusters in the meantime, then, when one pops up, just mount and go to it! It’s seriously good and it immediately tells me the devs must have noticed just how incredibly annoying it was just to move around Southern Front. I did a bit of it in a group but I mostly did Zadnor solo and it was VERY fun.

The Dalriada is strictly good, not incredible, not average, just good. Not much to say about it because it’s a properly conceived finale for the Save The Queen saga with a comprehensive game flow, a pretty good final boss, and a really, really fun second to last boss. It gets the job done and deserves a nice tip when it’s time to ask for the check.

Overall, I feel like Save The Queen is backloaded in terms of quality, there’s clear growing pains with a start I personally feel kinda eh that transitions into a midgame and finale that I can confidently say are very fun, well designed, and good. It’s worth noting that my initial thoughts on Southern Front weren’t as negative, just painfully average, but upon seeing what they did with Zadnor, which effectively rectifies everything I didn’t know I hated about Southern Front to the point it made me aware of these flaws, it really makes me see not how lacking Southern Front is, but rather, how willing the devs are to look at their product, say “ok this isn’t too good, huh” and then do better and address these things in the next release, which I think is incredible not only as a fan of the game, but as someone who had very much lost all faith in Square after every game that came out after Final Fantasy X was just a huge stinker in my opinion, in particular because of how stubborn and proud Square has been throughout the years.

It might be a YoshiP thing more than a Square thing, to be honest, but the praise still stands.

[thomasroach]

Bloodborne: The Board Game Kickstarter Has Over $1 Million in Pledges Already

The post Bloodborne: The Board Game Kickstarter Has Over $1 Million in Pledges Already appeared first on Fextralife.

The Kickstarter for Bloodborne: The Board Game launched on April 23rd and has already surpasses its initial goal of $200,000. With 20 more days to go, it has already $1,135,350 at the time this article was written and steadily going upwards.

Bloodborne: The Board Game Kickstarter Has Over $1 Million in Pledges Already

CMON games have launched their Kickstarter for Bloodborne: The Board Game, with the project already exceeding the initial pledge goal. The board game is based on FromSoftware’s dark RPG Bloodborne that originally released in 2004.

It looks like the project has got well over the needed amount for its fruition as the number has already gone well over $1 million. The estimated delivery for the board game has been stated for May 2020. If you want to get your hands on the Blood Moon Early Bird Pledge which includes the board game, exclusive Kirkhammer Hunter and all applicable stretch goals you will need to make at least a $90 pledge in the next 10 hours.

The game sets to bring the title to a table top board game, with figurines, cards depicting the action, hunt track board and tiles to bring it all together. There are also dashboards that will depict your Trick Weapon, hunter status and more. You can play with 1 to 4 players with an average playtime for game of 60 to 90 minutes.

Set in the mysterious town of Yharnam, players can take on four different campaigns which all include 3 chapters with unique tales and variations in enemy behaviour. There are 28 monsters to rival made up of hunter mobs, Beast Patients, Church Servants, Huntsman’s minions, scrouge beasts and church giants.

You will meet 5 bosses which include Vicar Amelia, Cleric Beast, Father Gascoigne, Father Gascoigne in his transformed state and Blood-Starved Beast.

Images via CMON Kickstarter Campaign

Images via CMON Kickstarter Campaign

Like with any Kickstarter campaign there are stretch goals, which have mostly been unlocked. These include Chalice Dungeon rules, Chalice Dungeon tiles, Beast Possessed Soul and much more.

If you want to back the Bloodborne: The Board Game Kickstarter campaign you can do so for the next 20 days, but the early bird will finish in 10 hours allowing you pledge $90 or more. The campaign ends on May 15th at 9:00AM AWST/May 14th at 6:00PM PT.

If you want more Bloodborne news be sure to read next Bloodborne: The Board Game Kickstarter Campaign Starts April 23rd and Bloodborne Dataminer Uncovers The Purpose Behind The Yharnam Stone. You can also check out Bloodborne Opening Cinematic Location Revealed By Player.

The post Bloodborne: The Board Game Kickstarter Has Over $1 Million in Pledges Already appeared first on Fextralife.

Bloodborne: The Board Game Kickstarter Has Over $1 Million in Pledges Already published first on https://juanaframi.tumblr.com/

[thomasroach]

Sekiro Review: Shinobis Die Many Times

The post Sekiro Review: Shinobis Die Many Times appeared first on Fextralife.

In this Sekiro Shadows Die Twice Review I’ll explore FromSoftware’s new Action game and answer some burning questions you have such as: Is Sekiro like Souls? Is Sekiro worth buying? and Is Sekiro a good game?. Please be mindful that this review contains mild gameplay spoilers of mechanics and an early game area.

Important: To understand our score, read the Fextralife Review Guidelines. Sekiro falls between “Great” and “Brilliant”. Every reviewer has their own “compass” for what numbers mean, so for reference I gave Dark Souls Remastered an 8.8, Nier: Automata an 8.7, and Bloodborne a 9 and I love them all.

Sekiro Review: Shinobis Die Many Times

Genre: Action-Adventure Developed by: FromSoftware Published by: Activision (Int) FromSoftware (JP) Release date: March 22th, 2019 Platforms: PS4 (review platform PS4 Pro), Xbox One, PC. Review code provided by Activision. Price at the time of the review: $59.99

  Sekiro Story & Setting

Sekiro takes us to a fantastic version of Sengoku Japan. Sengoku is a famous period of Japanese history, during which war ravaged the entire country for over 150 years. The strife and unrest was fueled by political cues, led to the extermination of prominent Japanese families, and completely reshaped the power structure of Japan.

Given the enormous scale of the battles, Sengoku is a popular time for both historians and fiction writers, which usually focuses on the Battle of Sekigahara and the surrounding main actors.

Sekiro does not follow this path, instead creating a fictional version of Japan and the Sengoku period, and adding mythical elements such as an ancient Dragon Bloodline to fuel the plot. This is likely a good choice, as the gaming world is saturated with Nobunaga and Tokugawa references by now.

Unlike previous works, Sekiro delivers the story in a more straight-forward manner. With a set and even voiced protagonist, the world moves in a much more coherent story than Souls games might have done for others. Everything is explained quite clearly and dialogue options can be revisited as many times as possible. This does not mean that Lore hunters won’t have anything to do, as there is plenty of folklore and FromSoftware’s own interpretation of Yokai to find and talk about. It is just a lot easier to access for the average player that might skip reading item descriptions.

So how is the story, then?

The protagonist is a well realized character, and it is clear from the get-go that you will find story twists that challenge the initial world view. This does not detract from the plot and the decisions the player must make, and you will find yourself intrigued by the many characters you meet and want to see their tale through. I very much enjoyed talking to NPCs as I explored the landscape, and the concept of revisiting memories and advancing the story through trips to the past was well executed. All in all, FromSoftware has successfully made their storytelling more accessible, and whilst I miss some of the quirkiness of the old ways, many will appreciate this new approach.

The Wolf is a dedicated Shinobi, following the “Iron Code”, but what twists and surprises await will test the limits of your devotion

Sekiro Gameplay

Action games live and die by gameplay, and Sekiro has delivered a fine-tuned and glorious realization of a Shinobi fantasy. That said, and before I go any further, I must disclaim that we just came out of playing DMC5, and that has the best gameplay possible for an action title, so Sekiro is against some really tough competition in this regard.

Gameplay focuses on the optimization of the skills of your main katana, the Kusabimaru. You will also gain access to special Prosthetic Tools that allow you to grapple onto ledges and enemies, as well as throw Shurikens, Firecrackers, a flame thrower of sorts, and much more. This sounds really enticing but players soon discover that, like many action games, you aren’t going to get your toys for a while. This is an understood concept, however I personally felt that the initial progression (say the first 5 hours of the game) dragged on in specifically keeping my toys away from me.

This was likely done to encourage you to learn how to use your katana properly, which will challenge players with its complex deflect, counter and posture systems. However it had the strange effect of making me ignore the prosthetic completely, as its effects on enemies were sub-par, and instead focus on stealth to get by, with an overly-cautious approach. Why did this happen? Well because:

Death is truly horrifying

With Souls, I learned to not care about souls. If I died and lost all my souls, I would go co-op a boss I knew and make them back, or simply focus on upgrading my weapons instead. Sekiro’s death penalty is extremely punishing when you start the game, taking away 50% of your experience and gold each time you respawn. This is mitigated by something called Unseen Aid, which negates the loss but has a measly 30% chance of triggering and then goes down from there. You can keep Skillpoints you have earned (meaning you filled a bar and it turned into a 1), but anything after that is going to slowly disappear as you attempt a hard section. Further, since you have no easy access to merchants, your gold will most likely be gone too if you don’t have the mechanics down.

But wait, there’s more! If you die a lot, you will also spread Dragonrot, which sickens NPCs and actively blocks their questlines. A completionist like me is thus extremely alarmed right from the get go: I don’t want to miss out! So the game’s start saw me being overly-cautious and wasting time with stealth because I didn’t want to risk my lack of familiarity with the controls deleting half a bar of experience gained and ruin NPC quests.

But why do you care about XP?

The game’s main attraction comes in the form of Skills and Skill Trees, that players can unlock to improve Sekiro’s arsenal of moves. Some of these skills are passive and make a large difference in the core mechanics, whilst others are active and perform extraordinary feats. But they all cost Skillpoints, and if you’re dying a lot you’re unlikely to fill up that bar. So you’re stuck in this strange place where you really don’t want to die because there’s no chance to regain your losses, which means you might want to go farm to fill the XP bar and spend all your gold before running into any boss room.

Git Gud!

The essence of any souls game is to overcome a challenge, and people will say “Just Git Gud“. Elitism aside, this is valid commentary, and it is extremely important for veteran souls players to truly discard their previous muscle memory when approaching this game. Players who struggle with quick reactions will also want to fully explore the Stealth mechanic and focus on gathering those skillpoints to unlock important perks. But most of all, you’ll want to be specific about progressing the game in an optimal order, as the Prosthetic Tools you find can be key to success in certain fights.

So, is the gameplay good?

Sekiro’s gameplay is the most refined FromSoftware work to date, taking it a step further than Bloodborne went. The split-second execution of amazing maneuvers and counters is flashy and satisfying, and the many skills and prosthetic tool upgrades available complement the light RPG “Stats” upgrades the player can pursue. All in all, players might be disheartened during the first few hours by the extremely punishing adjustment period, but there’s a specific wall that “lifts” if you progress in the right order, and after that you will get in the “gud” zone of “git gud” and flow through the game with great enjoyment.

Gameplay includes fan-favorite Builds, as you have limited points without farming and could create great combinations.

Sekiro Audio & Visual

Fromsoftware began conceptualization of Sekiro in 2015, and this unfortunately shows. The game’s graphics are good, but they are nothing amazing and the PS4 pro visuals are not necessarily outstanding. The rendering of backgrounds and locations is quite scenic, however, and the level design and enemy concepts are fantastic and very enjoyable.

That said, when you go into the “Action” line you start to compete with games like God of War, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Devil May Cry, and FromSoftware is not at the top of that game (yet). We are quite looking forward to their next engine and the visual upgrades that will come with it, but for now Sekiro sits at a very comfortable “Good graphics” veredict. They are scenic and set the mood, they won’t blow your mind away.

*Note for PC players: You will likely see better graphics than console users, this is a score for PS4 users.

Performance is of course an important factor, and we found that the game’s performance is stable, and have experienced no crashes or glitches. The framerate is not locked so it will fluctuate wildly, but we have not encountered any Blighttown-esque slideshows so you can go forth and slay with precision.

Level Design is a strongsuit of FromSoftware and they successfully delivered an intriguing and interconnected world with plenty of hidden areas to explore. The sheer size of some areas, like Ashina Outskirts, is rather daunting for any completionist. The world building truly delivers in this area, and brings up the overall score.

The music score for Sekiro was rather underwhelming to me, but it might be more impactful to those unfamiliar with Japanese tunes. There’s a definitive tempo to the combat sequences and each area has their own idle and action scores that ramp up the intensity of your play. In this regard, FromSoftware is competing with itself and has a difficult task in attempting to match or surpass the fantastic work of their previous titles. Since none of the songs stuck in my head after playing for hours and hours, I would say they have fallen just short of the task, but still delivered a great score.

Finding all the hidden corners of the world is really fun, and exploration is very much a thing.

Sekiro Replayability

This is the biggest question on the internet, and one that is extremely difficult to answer: What’s Sekiro’s Replayability? The honest answer is: we don’t know because it all depends. The game is extremely challenging to start, which will add a lot of hours to your playthrough if you aren’t a skilled player, but even beyond that there are many nook and crannies to explore if you want to obtain all the upgrade materials, special tools and rare quick items. This means that a skilled player with little interest in exploration is likely looking at 20 hours of gameplay for one playthrough, whilst a less skilled player or completionist will instead get at least 40.

But what next? Why keep playing?

Sekiro has intriguing NPC questlines as well as several endings: that alone would likely encourage most to go onto NG+. But there’s more, in NG+ you will get to face enemies with a fuller arsenal of skills, and since there are so many trees and you can only (without farming) fill up about 2 of them in one go, you will probably want to revisit and become even more flashy.

The motivation to go to NG+, to me, was always about getting more things, or facing a boss again. With Sekiro, you can do both of these things and I feel FromSoftware has done a good job in this department, so that you are happy to continue your adventure because you want to make your Wolf even more amazing.

Character Progression provides plenty of reason to keep looking around for things

Sekiro Pricepoint

As with all our reviews, Pricepoint covers the contextualization of a game, to see if you should buy it now or wait for a bargain, or skip it altogether! In Sekiro’s case, clocking in 20-40 hours minimum, it is rather comparable to other action games in the market such as Last of Us or God of War.

What Sekiro lacks in graphics, it makes up in replayability as you continue into New Game Plus to unlock more skills and try different endings, which would net a good 20 hours added to both skilled and unskilled players.

Relative to the market, there are not many releases this Spring, besides DMC5 which you really should have bought already, so Sekiro is a good investment for your gaming dollar as it will certainly entertain you for a considerable amount of time. The game has no microtransactions or announced DLC, meaning that at the time of writing you’re getting a full experience for your money, so this is a big plus to the score.

The lack of multiplayer is certainly to the detriment of both Pricepoint and Replayability, but I feel that Fromsoftware’s unique touch and approach shines through the game and makes it a day one buy for any Souls fan ready to let go of RPG and get fully into Action.

The Price is Right!

Sekiro Review Final Thoughts

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has been a roller coaster for Souls fans, who were initially thrilled, then disappointed at no multiplayer or customization, then reassured by a skill tree and upgrades, then concerned at possible ease from resurrection, to now horrified of actually dying.

This emotional rollercoaster matches the game’s story and setting well, and should fuel your thirst for deathblows, as you annihilate everyone that stands in your path. The Wolf is a surprisingly well-realized character, following a convincing story path, with challenging gameplay that rewards the bold.

Sekiro is not souls, and might not surpass souls, but it is an excellent side-step and a worthy journey for FromSoftware followers as they wait for their favorite developer to deliver more RPG content, hopefully incorporating some of the outstanding action of Shadows Die Twice.

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