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re: Last Faith I went through the swamp (which really was just a few screens) and ended up in a city area (Gates of Erlim) I can explore for now. The other option is the frozen caves which I think is a place many people will quit the game. Ice puddles, falling icicles, enemies throwing projectiles, the big ice troll guys just having way too much HP... what the hell did they even think with that place?For now I'm continuing with the city, putting off the ice caves for as long as I can. It feels wrong when no amount of leveling (granted, my weapons - whip and gunblade - are just level 2, since I haven't found the next level upgrade materials) helps me at all in that place. I have no idea how far I'm in the game, I'd guess early-mid game? If that place is mandatory for progression, please save my soul since I don't want to be rage playing my way through. e: Erlim has been a lot more fun to explore and the (mini) boss fight was actually a lot of fun The Starborn hunter (drat it's Starfield yet again!) who is basically like the Doppelganger from SOTN. The Ice wall spell worked very well against him. There's also a few Metroidvania classics I feel like we could have a game without; such as challenge rooms (when were those ever fun? In Last Faith they seem particularly hard) blocking progress and enemies that grapple you mid-dodge roll. Esk Mansion has those annoying crawly dudes who do this, and Salt & Sacrifice especially had that a lot. You're in the middle of your charging attack, and instead of getting hit themselves, the enemy grabs you mid-air. e: The Esk mansion bossfight was pretty fun too. I focused on Yegor since his attacks seemed easier to dodge and watched what Lenna does out of the corner of my eye. Got a couple of "finishers" mid-fight which helped take Yegor down. Lenna alone didn't get any new attacks, just added one extra fireball. When she was about to do the big horizontal fire burst, I tried to get behind her so I could get some free damage in. TeaJay fucked around with this message at 13:22 on Nov 19, 2023 |
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Nov 19, 2023 11:31
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Really grateful for you post-beta testers refining the game for the rest of us. I'm sure when I buy it in a years time all the rough edges will be sanded down and I'll have a much better experience.
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Nov 19, 2023 13:02
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There have been a few of these Metroidvanias that are so close to greatness but defeat themselves in this way. Cathedral was so close to being amazing, until it got absurdly unforgiving. I wish these games had gone through a more robust QA process.
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Nov 19, 2023 16:40
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Last Faith really needed an early access run. It's pretty, but it's rough. I didn't even get far enough to notice the scaling issues yet. The awkward, slightly off controls did me in. It feels slightly more sluggish than the animations suggest, like the camera following the jump only near the zenith making jumps feel shorter than they really are.
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Nov 19, 2023 17:42
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guppy posted:There have been a few of these Metroidvanias that are so close to greatness but defeat themselves in this way. Cathedral was so close to being amazing, until it got absurdly unforgiving. I wish these games had gone through a more robust QA process. That's like Aeterna Noctis for me. It has all the ingredients of something great, but then it gets up its own rear end and in its own way to actually be worth completing. 9 Years of Shadows was the opposite. Afterimage is long but so far it's been reasonable and fun, though unlike Aeterna, it has pure dogshit for writing and plot.
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Nov 19, 2023 19:05
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Last Faith also gives you a strange feeling by giving you an air dash but no regular dash which kinda fights against my every genre sensibility and leads to me trying to dash off platforms only to fall into death spikes below. Speaking of which, I was so glad when Blasphemous 2 removed insta kill spikes and only made you take some damage from them... only for Last Faith to go back to instakill spikes territory. Here are the weapons I'm rocking with currently:  This scythe replaced my whip even when I have nothing on strength. It's crazy good. Trying to rack up a few coins (what is the currency here, anyway?) to level it up now.  And aside from magic, this offhand repeater  Which does just what you'd expect. Currently clearing Liturgical pass and made some progress towards the top of the Ice area too, which seems like it opens up a new area too. TeaJay fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Nov 19, 2023 |
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Nov 19, 2023 19:10
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I made it far enough into the snowy area last night that I found a long bridge with flying enemies on it. These were not just the bat-level mooks, they were a flying ice witch with two attacks; a pitifully short-range cloud burst attack that you could bait out and heavily punish, and a tracking infinite-range laser beam that you can only dodge by getting behind her. If you were fighting one of these enemies, it was pretty easy to just switch back and forth between the two sides until they did the animation wind-up for the breath attack. Unfortunately, they have infinite leash range and will aggro from the edge of the screen, so while you were fighting one witch you could have another one appear from just off the edge of the screen and join the fight. They're a lot harder to manage when there's more than one of them firing an infinite laser that follows your movements, and once you're fighting more than one you have to kill them. If you run away, they will just float over to whichever corner of this giant bridge you're currently on and hit you with the homing laser. At a certain point I had run out of a lot of resource, starting running to another corner of the map so I could hopefully grab a checkpoint, and stumbled into a challenge room. Lost 20k souls (started with 0) and realized that during this entire first big run through the snow area, I hadn't found anything I could use to improve my character besides those 20k souls. While leveling up is all well and good, I'm not playing these games for incremental +5% bonuses to my weapon damage from stats, especially if those +5% bonuses actually add up to "only have to hit this enemy 15 times instead of 16 to kill it" it does not inspire me with any level of confidence that the screenshots I have seen from other people show their weapons at level 2.  Where do you even find the prototype blueprint?
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Nov 19, 2023 19:34
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Well, in my case, I just found the Severance reaper, upgraded it to +3 and I could go +4 but I put some levels on myself too. (found it in upper ice area, but you'll need air dash before you can go there) I went back and got the whip and used it until now. It was very satisfying to beat the crap outta those ice spiders with the scythe. For me personally it was best to forget the drat ice area for a while and look around for stuff I had missed. The gloves you can buy from the blacksmith/inventor open up some secret rooms. The swamp, however, leads to a new area which was a lot better than the ice zones, which I already mentioned. And that also leads to a new area where you can get a major upgrade. I've found three charms so far and each have very good bonuses. So it seems like it's not like Dark Souls where you get a billion of +1% upgrades, the ones I got gave me something like +15% all damage and -15% all damage taken and the latest one gave me crit chance and crit damage. And yeah like I said the ice areas are terrible. Everything else has had some frustrating moments but manageable. The flying bats will throw stuff at you from off-screen and indeed follow you to wherever. At some point I just ran past the witches and the zombies and tried to find a savepoint (which was luckily very near). Only after getting the scythe and upgrading it a bit I started to feel like on par again. But the whip took me that far. The witches' beam can also be dodged for a while with an upgrade you get from the area past the swamp. IIRC the first blueprint you find is in Esk mansion which is probably where you should go instead of the ice zone. TeaJay fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Nov 19, 2023 |
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Nov 19, 2023 19:44
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Where is the HoM?
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Nov 19, 2023 19:58
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I didn't remember the name of the area correctly but you get there by going through the swamp area and then the area after it. Both are on the smaller side, Esk's mansion/Hall of Mirrors is a proper progress area
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Nov 19, 2023 20:07
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Finished last night, not sure if I got the true ending if there is one, don't really care enough about the gibberish writing. Had an S scaling greatsword and hit the softcaps for strength and vitality, and I have to say, after Edwynn it felt like I could play sloppily against almost all the other bosses. Was killing most enemies in 2-3 hits, and felt like I was outlevelling the curve.
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Nov 19, 2023 20:30
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Koburn posted:Really grateful for you post-beta testers refining the game for the rest of us. I'm sure when I buy it in a years time all the rough edges will be sanded down and I'll have a much better experience. I'm in the same boat lmao. Make sure y'all give this feedback to the devs so I have a good time later
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Nov 19, 2023 22:58
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The whole "ranked stat scaling system" for weapons is so needlessly obtuse. It only matters if you give your enemies such large HP pools that min-maxing is the only way to play. This game honestly sounds like yet another case of "the devs really liked Dark Souls and had no idea why, so they just aped the systems".
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Nov 20, 2023 01:21
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Kurui Reiten posted:"the devs really liked Dark Souls and had no idea why, so they just aped the systems". This is another single player Soulslike that doesn't pause the game on entering a menu. It's also a full screen menu, so the only indication it isn't paused is the sound of you dying. Its almost like a cargo cult at this point. avoraciopoctules posted:I have not yet gotten to the hydra boss that convinced me to buy this game when I saw a trailer years ago Don't think it exists. The bulk of the stuff from the kickstarter trailer didn't make it into the final game. Fatty fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 02:06
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Fatty posted:This is another single player Soulslike that doesn't pause the game on entering a menu. It's also a full screen menu, so the only indication it isn't paused is the sound of you dying. It also doesn't pause when you activate things in the environment, and the switches activate with a weapon swing. I was damageless throughout my last run into the snowy area, hit a switch, and then got out of the cutscene in time to dodge roll through the killing blow of the enemy I was originally trying to kill  I feel better about the game now that Shadowscourge is dead. I went into the fight just going to see how good the gunblade is, ended up rinsing him with enough leftover syringes that the 5 I picked up after the fight ended up having a few go to storage  e: Protip: the boxes full of souls that you get as bonuses for exploring appear to be affected by the item that nets you bonus souls for a period of time. If you have an extra on-hand, pop it before breaking those boxes and you'll get a little extra payout bawk fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 02:11
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It's cool that the starting sword requires 12 Dex to use but if you choose Brawler you only have 9 and it makes no difference whatsoever It's especially cool that explosion hurtboxes remain on the screen and active far, far after their sprites have expired It owns, too, that in 2023, with approximately ten thousand of these games using this exact mechanic, that your dropped souls do not appear on the map to give you an indication of where you died It double owns also that the only viable build is strength, and that a magic build is impossible because there is no magic regeneration outside of haemolymph stones, which do not appear to drop, and finisher kills, which only trigger when they feel like it and are insanely unsafe to do all the time It is fantastic, and indeed owns, that no one has picked up on the fact that a core thing that makes Souls games feel good to play is that the enemy AI is reactive to other AIs around it, and that enemies will attack in a manageable but pressuring rhythm, but in every subsequent game ever made in a Souls-style format, enemies will crowd around you and attack when their AI pattern engages, so that enemies can get into a pattern that leaves virtually no safe zone for you to be in at any time, and you will take damage or die, not because of a mistake you made, but because the enemy AI triggered out of sync with the AI of another one, a thing that is impossible to manage
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Nov 20, 2023 02:25
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Are you telling me that games that slavishly ape successful titles are just cargo-culting, and not carefully refined labours of vision and skill? Shocking!
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Nov 20, 2023 02:40
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I found a challenge room in one of the first areas that contains 1 regular enemy, 1 bat-like enemy, and 1 "elite" enemy that has a pretty varied moveset. Each of these enemies, on the way to the challenge room, takes about 3 or 4 hits to kill. Inside the challenge room, they take about 10-15 each and hit for over half my health bar. That's not terrible since it's only 3 enemies, just prioritizing the flying one would make the fight much easier. Just gotta jump to get over the fireball attack while I--oh, I stood slightly too close to the closed doorway into the room, headbonked on a ceiling that doesn't exist and got two-shot by the fireball/flying enemy combo.  e: lmao when you beat the first group of enemies it spawns in two old ladies with baby strollers (easy dub) and then the last round is 2 extremely tough miniboss enemies with 2 mooks who also 2-shot you. And like somebody previously said, the mooks' AI don't give a gently caress so when I dodge the miniboss charge attacks, they'll happily start a swing while I'm mid-roll and then two-shot me with some beautifully choreographed synchronized attacks. I can tell I shouldn't be trying this room yet, but hot drat do they seriously not give a gently caress about even palette-swapping these super tough enemies 
bawk fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 02:46
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bawk posted:I found a challenge room in one of the first areas that contains 1 regular enemy, 1 bat-like enemy, and 1 "elite" enemy that has a pretty varied moveset. Each of these enemies, on the way to the challenge room, takes about 3 or 4 hits to kill. Inside the challenge room, they take about 10-15 each and hit for over half my health bar. Yeah. It's horrible. Also, there is a second phase to that fight, and I'm not spoilering because gently caress it. Once you beat them you'll fight two carriage ladies, who are humongous and take up half the screen. They will charge at you, and if they don't sync up in the right way, there will be literally no safe place on screen. I may have mentioned this above, because I was thinking of this exact room. When they collide with the walls, they will fire a stream of poison behind themselves, which is insanely hard to dodge because you either roll back into the enemy, or you roll into the poison, or you roll into the other woman. You will die. Also, when they turn around, with no indication that this is the case, their sprite spinning around is in fact a high damage attack that takes up half the screen and 3 frames of animation. This will kill you too.
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Nov 20, 2023 02:53
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Yeah I'm pretty sure I've got a reliable strategy that I could use to get through all 3 phases of the challenge room, as long as I stay patient and focus down the knife guys in the last round. That being said, I don't feel like doing that fight with a level 2 weapon just to find out that the only thing it's gating is one of those stupid collectible babies or something equally stupid! e: It's a good question as to why I feel the need to keep playing, and then I run into a big loving dude named "Masked Obscenity" who throws an exploding spear at me, knocking me off a bridge and into a death pit, and the little part in the back of my brain that remembers the first time I met the silver knight archers in Anor Londo gets nostalgic
bawk fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 03:08
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I think some of those challenge rooms are tied to endgame item acquisition and certainly are not meant to be cleared on the level you first find 'em. They all are definitely tough and there is one pretty nasty one before the Reaper in upper ice area which I had to have a good think about how to clear it. (The big ice bats don't like bombs and flying witches don't like fire infusion, it stuns them on hits occasionally) However, after playing a bit, I feel like a dex/instinct build works just fine. I'm not sure if the weapon stat requirements do anything or are they just broken, but I had nothing for strength and the reaper still was a 100% upgrade for the whip even un-upgraded. (It main scales DEX) I plan to put a few points in STR to see if anything changes. TeaJay fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 05:04
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It took until just now to realize that the charms I've been picking up are equipped by... going to the equipment screen! e: with a +3 whip and the 15% damage boost charm on, I just rinsed that challenge room from earlier.  e2: yeah holy poo poo, the game's difficulty curve feels way better now that I' have the +15% damage boost/-15% damage taken charm + the 15% boosts to electricity damage charm on. I can't believe that I forgot that, I feel like a dipshit. I've blown through the HOM, started on the next major area from how the health bars are emptying. To be clear: I beat the HOM boss without either charm equipped, I literally realized it as I was trying to figure out how many equipment upgrade stones I had in my inventory and went to switch out my guns. bawk fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 05:34
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Serephina posted:Are you telling me that games that slavishly ape successful titles are just cargo-culting, and not carefully refined labours of vision and skill? Shocking! I really wish that indie metroidvanias weren't infested by all these drat soulslikes. I like Souls games as much as the next person, but sometimes I want to play something else. It's really telling how Sheepo and Islets being cheerful and breezy was a delightful breath of fresh air.
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Nov 20, 2023 07:04
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I don't think the stat system added anything good to the souls games either, they'd have been better off with a fully metroid style progression.
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Nov 20, 2023 11:54
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Once you go through the Frozen caves in Last Faith, try to find a little secret there's a whole secret zone hidden behind a destructible wall, Moonshade lake. I left that one for later because once you go in you're immediately jumped by a tough looking boss. Beat the boss on Liturgical pass and next I'm gonna hunt down all those strange black doors which I can now open and luckily I had the foresight of marking them on the map.
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Nov 20, 2023 12:44
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Not a huge fan of these ice caves, don’t know why they thought adding mobility problems would make the game interesting, but it’s really annoying. I’m struggling with the boss of the church though, the first phase is no problem at all, but I get killed in two hits from anything in the second phase, so I can’t tell what I should be doing. I was about ready to drop the game and wait for some updates, but then I found a cool great sword that doubles as a whip that kept me going, but now I’m not so sure.
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Nov 20, 2023 19:35
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The church boss (I assume we're talking about the Burnt Apostate) will pretty likely kill you instantly if you get caught in the fire tornado since for some reason you can't roll out fast. Happened to me a few times. But all in all I did not find her very tough. I basically kept dashing through her to attack her back constantly. Her non-fire tornado attacks are somewhat easy to dodge and rather slow, even the big fire splash dive which you can air dash away from. I don't remember if she takes lot of extra damage from the ice infusion. But more than likely if you get a bit lucky with the fire tornadoes you have the fight aced pretty well. (Granted I had my Severance reaper buffed quite a bit by that point and it does tremendous damage, even more so the focus special which is a series of fast attacks in contrast to the slower mains.) ^^ related to last point, it feels drat good to move through the ice areas now and now all the spiders and ice witches down in a few hits. at this point though I'm convinced the entire last part of the game is an ice area. Last Faith: The Ice Area. One thing I really like is that many zones have a mechanic where you might stumble across a big rear end empty room with some elaborate backdrop and you just know you have to do something there, and then you might find one component and see exactly what it does. In my case I've found a family crest (1/4) which fits in the Drowned crypt room and there are battle challenge rooms in the Ice zone that also fill a blood chalice in that area. So I know if I keep finding secret stuff, I unlock a bigger secret. Maybe a secret weapon or a boss! TeaJay fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 19:46
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TeaJay posted:The church boss (I assume we're talking about the Burnt Apostate) will pretty likely kill you instantly if you get caught in the fire tornado since for some reason you can't roll out fast. Happened to me a few times. Yeah, it's this boss, I'm finding the first phase to be a non issue but I just can't hang in the second phase, any of her attacks do like %40 of my health and I have super low burn resistance. I also feel like I'm having a harder time dodging some of the moves than I should, for some reason. I'm sure part of my problem is just needing more vitality, I'm still only around 30, because I needed strength and mind for the sword I wanted to use, and I had to grind out resources to get it upgraded. I went exploring looking for some more upgrades and found the boss of the ice caves, which appears to just be Edwyn again but ice this time, and I'm not impressed with that at all
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Nov 20, 2023 20:15
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Well, he has a sword stuck to his head .... which you will apparently receive after the fight, and it's a good sword For me he was quite a bit easier than Edwyn, but I'm loaded for damage quite a bit more in relation to early game. However after that fight you get the ice resistance charm which helps in the upcoming zones. I don't have that much vitality either. (level 72 currently with 27 VIT, 18 STR, 37 DEX, 18 MND and 25 INS) I found that doing a lot of DPS beats surviving in this game. Once you find a good weapon everything starts to click together. If you don't mind going DEX I can heartily endorse the Severance reaper. It's at the top of the ice area, after the climb which comes after the ice bat boss TeaJay fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 20:35
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Yeah, I went heavy into strength and have been using the great swords I've found because the higher DPS was so important. I've found one that adds dark damage and has a great weapon ability, that I'll stick with for now
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Nov 20, 2023 20:38
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TeaJay posted:Well, he has a sword stuck to his head .... which you will apparently receive after the fight, and it's a good sword Yeah, that boss was significantly easier than I had anticipated, it only took one actual attempt. I think that 37 dex is a big part of our different experience with that other boss, since you probably have almost double my fire resistance
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Nov 20, 2023 21:07
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So, how does The Last Faith stack up against similar games like Blasphemous 1 and 2 and, I suppose, Salt and Sanctuary?
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Nov 20, 2023 22:12
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It's hard to say because it will depend entirely upon how much they listen to feedback.
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Nov 20, 2023 22:36
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I think it's been fun? I've complained about some questionable design choices, but I've been doing stuff and generally enjoyed my time. I wouldn't put it on the same level as the big three (Hollow Knight, Blasphemous 1&2 and Salt & Sanctuary/Sacrifice) but up there with Ender Lilies, Lone Fungus, Vigil: Longest night, just to name a few good 'vanias I've played in recent years. Definitely could use a balance pass and some changes to certain mechanics. When I'm finished I'll make a more complete list on what I liked and disliked. Just beat another boss in the palace and unlocked double jump. Next time for some more backtracking. TeaJay fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 23:25
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Puckanas posted:So, how does The Last Faith stack up against similar games like Blasphemous 1 and 2 and, I suppose, Salt and Sanctuary? Not as good as Blasphemous IMO but I bounced off S&S hard for feeling sluggish and stilted. Last Faith clicked immediately for me because it matches tempo with Blasphemous. If you finished B1 or B2 and wanted More, this will get you a different flavor of More. Not the same, but close-ish. Its much more ghouls-and-ghosts-and-nightmares in setting than sins-and-hell's-eternal-punishments, though
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Nov 21, 2023 00:23
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Yeah, I definitely think with a few tweaks and adjustments it could be much better, by I'm enjoying my time with it for the most part. My biggest gripe at this point is I've found a few cool weapons, but upgrades are expensive enough to disincentivize using multiple weapons. I agree with whoever in the thread recommended watching a showcase of the weapon to see what kind of options unlock.
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Nov 21, 2023 01:46
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TeaJay posted:Salt & Sanctuary/Sacrifice
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Nov 21, 2023 03:55
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It's literally 2d dark souls. It's a meteoidvania. Dark souls is a 3d metroidvania
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Nov 21, 2023 06:42
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DS1&2 had a persistent map that you traversed and could revisit areas in (for not much reason save maybe a secret powerup), but the shortcuts where just doors with keys you found. If Zelda1 wasn't a 2d metroidvania (lol), then DS isn't a 3d one. edit: This is in no way a defense of the game, if we want to call it a rehash of another IP with a dimension chopped off to save on assets and plumb a different market, then by all means it's a 2d Dark Souls! Serephina fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Nov 21, 2023 |
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Nov 21, 2023 06:56
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ExcessBLarg! posted:I thought Salt & Sacrifice was very deliberately not a Metroidvania? Like I'm planning to skip it entirely for that reason. Sanctuary should be skipped for the crime of not having a map in a 2D exploration game.
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Nov 21, 2023 08:37
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