Starker on 25/5/2020 at 07:00
The story itself is not very complex in Dark Souls -- you learn that you have been chosen (either to prolong the Age of Fire or to usher in the Age of Dark) and you're being led to that by two serpents, one who tries to manipulate you by telling lies and the other by telling the truth. It's all the background info and lore where things get murky on the details of what really happened and what significance did the events have.
Incidentally, I've been getting into Demon's Souls again (I've only played it a bit before), and so far I like it nearly as much as Dark Souls. I think I still prefer the Castlevania / Zelda style level design, as it gives the place more of a sense of a continuous world, but the Mega Man style level structure kind of makes the world feel like a bigger place. It also helps that the worlds you teleport into do have some continuity and a unified theme. Other than that, it feels very From in all its aspects and I'm seeing lots of parallels from the old King's Field games as well as their newer ones. Latria was a surprise, though -- did not expect to see those fellas.
Also, reinstalled Code Vein (basically anime Dark Souls) and Sekiro, whose saves I lost in a recent hard drive crash, but I don't know if I can be bothered to go through the motions again. I wasn't that far along in Sekiro, but I must have put some 20 hours into Code Vein. Hmm... maybe I should try out that Wasteland 3 beta before they take it down.
Thirith on 25/5/2020 at 07:16
The two games using the Dark Souls kind of storytelling/worldbuilding that worked best for me were Bloodborne and Hollow Knight; with the latter, I still didn't fully understand what was going on while I was playing, but I definitely felt the pathos of that dying world more keenly. Other than that, From's games work for me as tone poems rather than stories, they're what a fantasy movie by Terrence Malick might look like (with all that entails, good and bad).
I'm finding myself surprisingly engaged by Mass Effect Andromeda by now. It's still not great and I still don't particularly care about the characters, but I'm definitely having enough fun to want to continue. I do wonder if it's a case of accepting the game's flaws and adjusting my expectations, as well as having a better understanding especially of the combat, or just giving it more time, or if it's mainly that the first couple of hours are simply a bad introduction to the game and it improves later on.
Sulphur on 25/5/2020 at 07:59
@Starker: Sekiro has cloud saves, so if you were playing while online it should ideally have your progress saved.
Starker on 25/5/2020 at 08:04
Yeah, the post-apocalyptic aspect of Dark Souls really appealed to me, the melancholy sense it gave you that you're just an insect walking among the ruins of a once great civilisation. And in the end, it's just ashes and dying embers, whether you blow on them one last time or not.
re: Andromeda, I think it's just that the best parts of the game are found outside of the main path, or at least for me it was the side plots and characters that I was most engaged with. It was things like pondering the ethics of creating an immortal AI and assisted suicide or the hit and miss sitcom with your dysfunctional crew that openly disrespects you or even just generally driving around and taking in cool sights. The moment that won me over, actually, was when I jumped on the ship and got scolded by the pilot -- when a game bothers to put in little things like that, it can't be all bad.
re: Sekiro, I just checked, but I play off-line most of the time, unfortunately, so no cloud saves for me. But I wasn't really that far into the game and it has been months since I last played it, so I think I could use some practice anyway. Code Vein, though... ugh...
jkcerda on 25/5/2020 at 23:40
war machines, trying to figure out how to make it work with a controller as opposed to the keyboard.
Danielo on 30/5/2020 at 19:56
Bloodborne is about all I've played since it came out. I've burned out on it a couple times and I've played a few hours of a bunch of other games (only finished a couple) but nothing has really grabbed me in the same way.
Sometimes I buy something that's on sale and I feel terrible when I drop it a few hours in because I get an itch to play Bloodborne again. Also because my backlog is so long and I'll probably never touch again most of what's in there.
Anarchic Fox on 30/5/2020 at 21:10
Quote Posted by Danielo
Bloodborne is about all I've played since it came out. I've burned out on it a couple times and I've played a few hours of a bunch of other games (only finished a couple) but nothing has really grabbed me in the same way.
Sometimes I buy something that's on sale and I feel terrible when I drop it a few hours in because I get an itch to play Bloodborne again. Also because my backlog is so long and I'll probably never touch again most of what's in there.
Eh, at least it's a superb game that you fixated on. Pity the poor souls whose one game is a Paradox one. Or... *shudders*... a MOBA.
twisty on 31/5/2020 at 03:53
I don't get to use the PC much these days apart from a few hours over the weekend, but here's what I've juggled over the past 2 months.
* Call of Cthulhu - A fun, relatively short game, that will probably be the last "big" budget Cthulhu game we will see for a long time. Great voice acting, characters and an interesting detective story that had me hooked until the end. Definitely not a perfect game, with a few annoying puzzle sequences here and there, and it also got a bit silly in some parts towards the very end.
* Hitman 2 - I purchase the standard version in a sale earlier this year believing that, as one normally would, that purchasing a game advertised as a sequel would include all of the main story content. It turns out that to get to see the ending you need to purchase a DLC that includes the final 2 missions at a price that is more than double the amount I paid for the base game. Apart from that, I enjoyed the missions up until that point. They are well polished, with some gorgeous settings, detailed environments and variety of options available to practice 41's dark craft. That said, the story is fairly lackluster, and is not helped by replacing the video sequences with low-res stills.
* Darkwood - Only started this recently. Very creepy. I can't say I've ever played anything quite like this.
* Ori and the Blind Forest - This is quite good, but nothing remarkable. Not really sure what all the accolades are for. I've played for 5-6 hours or so, so maybe this gets better later?
* Return of the Obra Dinn - Love the atmosphere, music and originality on this one. It takes me back to my childhood
* The Long Dark - Having completed all of the available Wintermute episodes (which are excellent, apart from a few quirky story choices), I'm currently playing survival mode with their new Fearless Navigator release, which keeps going from strength to strength.
* Bloodborne (PS4) - I completed my 3rd playthrough a month ago or so, after doing an E2E run through of Dark Souls 1 to 3. Probably the best game of all time.
* Nioh (PS4) - I've enjoyed what I've played of this so far but after the class leading combat fluidity of Bloodborne and DS, I probably need to take a break for a while to judge it on its own merits.
* Sekiro (PS4) - I haven't made it very far yet -- I can't even beat the first boss!
* No Man's Sky (PS4) - Fun at first, but starting to get very grindy. It also suffers from bland, poorly developed NPCs, that do little to break the generic, procedurally driven nature of the experience.
Sulphur on 31/5/2020 at 04:03
RE: Ori, really it's the pure charm and general design that's the most enjoyable part. It's also bastard hard, so that combines with a sense of relief and a wash of emotions when you plunge through an escape sequence and come out the other side to more gorgeous visuals. The new abilities that are dripfed are also quite fun when you're not, you know, ramming yourself into a spike patch. If that doesn't stand out, I don't think the rest of the game will. It's really just a profoundly pretty Metroid with a beautiful opening.
Having said that, Ori and the Will of the Wisps has made Ori much more agile and combat far more punchy, which is a great combination when you set it against those ridiculously gorgeous backdrops. The story seems slightly (slightly) more involved, too.
As for Sekiro, the first boss isn't that hard - if you're talking about Gyoubou Oniwa that is. He's pretty much a gating mechanic that tests how well you've learned to dodge and parry so far, as well as knowing when to pull back. He's doable if you have the grapple hook attack that lets you hook enemies and launch towards them, which lets you close the distance better.
Anarchic Fox on 31/5/2020 at 04:55
That's a great list, Twisty. I'm very happy to see Darkwood and Obra Dinn, as they merit all the attention they can get.
Here are a few smaller games I finished amidst the big'uns.
The Herbalist -- A crafting game. You play as an amateur alchemist, picking flowers out in the woods to make potions to sell. I appreciated the fact that there's no guessing once you figure out the pattern of potion tier, but the gameplay wasn't engaging enough for me to play beyond the ending. I did like that you could drink every potion yourself. Most of them are meant for adventurers, and useless to you beyond an amusing cutscene. Also, being a furry degenerate, I appreciated the effects of the speed and vision potions, turning you into a bunny and cat. Your character is so mortified that she hides indoors until the potions wear off.
Furwind -- A goddamn fox game. This one's a level-based platformer. It uses decent pixel art which looks much better in motion than in screenshots. The powerups are laughably ineffective, the translation is sketchy, the mood is cloying, and the story is forgettable, and yet I stuck with it and completed it fully. It requires a more patient, methodical approach to platforming, and that's what I was in the mood for. Also... it had heart. Silly as the game was, it was a work of genuine passion. The creators could do very good things if they found a sympathetic critic to point out their problems early in development.
Alchemist's Castle -- A budget metroidvania. A student project, I think. It lacked understanding of what constitutes good exploration in the genre. Good exploration has you gradually loop and weave through the map. The main place ungated by a new ability should be fresh in your memory. Outright backtracking should be optional, and when you visit old areas of the map you should do so from a new direction/entrance. Bad metroidvania exploration has you zigzagging constantly, so that a chart of your traversal looks like a bunch of superimposed Z's, with the gate for the next main progression area long since forgotten by the time you found the powerup to bypass it. This was a bad'un, but short enough that I didn't mind. I skipped the final (and only) boss fight because of the way the story was heading. I always consider "quitting just before the last boss" a valid ending, even if I have to supply the details myself.
