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I absolutely love Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance but like a lot of Platinum games it seems a bit ashamed to be a character action game so 2/3 of the VR missions are gimmicks based on bad mechanics like stealth or platforming. Neither are too bad in the regular game because they feel absolutely optional (stealth can actually be detrimental in a few places and the only platforming is there to hide a few collectibles) but obviously in the VR missions there's a ton of auto-fail stealth and platforming over bottomless pits. I'd trade every VR mission for a simple Bloody Palace type thing. Lesser complaint: like every other Platinum games, despite being a short game meant to be replayed to get a better and better score/grade, getting all S ranks is pretty tedious. It's not as bad a Bayonetta was but there are still hidden optional fights that you have to backtrack and do every single time (I'm pretty sure they count as Ds if you skip them), there are still gimmick sections that you have to S-rank (although there are way fewer and they're way less gimmicky and way easier to S-rank) and you still have to replay an entire mission for your new score to update.
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Mar 22, 2024 16:45
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In some fights you can get easy S ranks by dismembering enemies without killing them. I thought that was a very neat.
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Mar 22, 2024 20:23
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Restarting Dragons Dogma 2, fun. Because not only does my character run like a schoolgirl for some reason, which is kinda taking me out of it, but my pawn, despite having a moniker, didn't actually get a name and is just called MainPawn, and there is literally no way to change this. Kind of dumb.
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Mar 23, 2024 02:44
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Morpheus posted:Restarting Dragons Dogma 2, fun. Because not only does my character run like a schoolgirl for some reason, which is kinda taking me out of it, but my pawn, despite having a moniker, didn't actually get a name and is just called MainPawn, and there is literally no way to change this. Kind of dumb. Yeah they really should have let you preview the run animations in the character creator. My character's walk animation looks great, love it, no notes. When she runs, she looks like a some kind of gremlin dancing.
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Mar 23, 2024 09:58
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We've spoken a lot about the DS and ER quest lines but I've come to realize that what From is doing is actually requiring online engagement and discussion of what's what to fully peel their game onion. Not sure how I really about that, though, because what winds up happening is I have my console fired up and rocking the game, my phone next to me (because God forbid I miss a call) and my laptop also at the ready so I can look up poo poo that there's no god damned way I'd ever figure out just from the information the game is giving me. From Software is assuming a level of YT/Reddit and online investigators/communities involvement and solving all of this poo poo as an actual extension of the game itself, and they have enough confidence in the quality of their product to automatically know that this will happen, but I'm still not nuts about it. In some ways, it actually takes me OUT of the game experience by making me interact with the real world when the reason I'm playing is to escape all that poo poo (my phone, my laptop, etc.) It's the modern equivalent to the old days of having to call a hint line or buy a strategy guide, basically.
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Mar 23, 2024 16:52
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Tbh I feel like you’re only “meant” to talk to friends playing the game and that it’s assumed you’ll miss at least some poo poo no matter what. It’s kinda obnoxious since there’s definitely instances where something that’s useful for your specific build is easily overlooked, but at the same time I kinda have to give props to the stones on Fromsoft, say, making Archdragon Peak in DS3 never permanently missable but just hidden enough that it’s probable that a zone with dozens of hours of dev time poured into it is just not seen. It’s the antithesis of modern game design, or really just game design period.
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Mar 23, 2024 17:07
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Yeah, I'm torn on it because it is really annoying when you go left instead of right at an area you didn't even realize was a fork and miss the absolutely vital and perfect item that is the cornerstone of your build. But then you play a non-fromsoft modern game and BEHIND YOU BEHIND YOU HMM I BET I COULD CLIMB UP THERE TO PULL THAT LEVER BEHIND YOU LOOK OUT LET'S CHECK THIS ROOM FOR SUPPLIES HEY WHAT'S THAT BEHIND YOU HEY LISTEN BEHIND YOU
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Mar 23, 2024 18:12
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I find it kinda weird that I can kill a dragon in Skyrim but Captain Hargar in the Broken Oar Grotto is kicking my rear end.
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Mar 23, 2024 21:19
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Alhazred posted:I find it kinda weird that I can kill a dragon in Skyrim but Captain Hargar in the Broken Oar Grotto is kicking my rear end. You are Dragonborn, not Hargarborn
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Mar 23, 2024 21:49
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I think of the obscurity of quests in FromSoft games as a tie-in to the new game+ system. Play the game over and over and discover new things each time so you don't get bored. But as someone who doesn't have the free time to finish most games (let alone replay them) I definitely look things up because I want to see the content. In Elden Ring I tried as hard as I could to find things on my own though, I don't think I looked up a guide until I was close to 100 hours.
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Mar 24, 2024 08:15
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The problem with FromSoft questlines isn't necessarily their obscurity, so much as their sensitivity to how many weird things can go wrong. If a quest has hit an apparent dead-end, is it because: -The NPC is in a super weird part of the map that you haven't been to? -There was a previous step that you didn't do when it was active because you didn't find it until it was too late? -You did a tiny little thing that causes an anticlimactic bad end for reasons that will only barely make sense once you look it up online? -The game just straight-up broke because the questlines are apparently the buggiest things in those games? It's a mystery! And will very likely remain so, because no website that documents poo poo about these games is actually good enough at describing these questlines to diagnose them.
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Mar 24, 2024 09:39
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See also: the quests they made jank and obtuse on purpose. Like, I have no doubt that the lion’s share of easily broken quests are just oversights, but there’s at least one in every game where you’re meant to eat poo poo the first run. Solaire and the Sunlight Maggot, Greirat dying in Ithryl, and Boc dying unless you literally use an emote on him are probably meant to happen with their survivals just being a neat Easter egg option at all because one of the devs liked them.
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Mar 24, 2024 10:15
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And Elden Ring is too long and wide-spread for the "it's for ng+" argument to fully work. There's so much game and even if you roomba around the map you're gonna miss a lot of stuff. There's apparently a guy who sells shrimp and is involved in the Volcano Manor questline somehow?
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Mar 24, 2024 12:19
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If you didn’t tell Boc he was beautiful you didn’t deserve to have him in you’re game 
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Mar 24, 2024 12:23
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RandolphCarter posted:If you didn’t tell Boc he was beautiful you didn’t deserve to have him in you’re game I’m gonna be totally honest, I hosed up the quest the second time around because I thought just having the “You’re Beautiful” emote item was enough to let me tell him that in the Mimic Tear prompt, not realizing that just broaching the subject is enough for him to do a suicide run to the Academy if you decline giving him a Tear and you have to use the actual item. I mean, I guess the amount of runes he saves you is objectively a joke, but I still kinda felt like throwing my controller for a second game. 10/10 game, can’t wait for the DLC.
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Mar 24, 2024 12:58
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I don't really like the souls level design either but I'm surprised to hear similar criticisms of Elden ring, I still wound up looking up a lot of stuff for later playthroughs but on a totally blind run a lot of stuff was very well signposted environmentally and the stuff I missed felt like a cool secret I got to find out about later. I didn't even make it to the haligtree and tbh I doubt I was ready for it at the time either
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Mar 24, 2024 13:20
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Elden Ring is WAY nicer than the other From games about it, but also Elden Ring is just a loving huge largely non-linear game that gives A lot of freedom in how to accomplish its main “goals” so you’re all but guaranteed to miss some poo poo.
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Mar 24, 2024 13:57
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Last Celebration posted:Elden Ring is WAY nicer than the other From games about it, but also Elden Ring is just a loving huge largely non-linear game that gives A lot of freedom in how to accomplish its main “goals” so you’re all but guaranteed to miss some poo poo. Also, the only one of those problems I described that actually went away was that you might lose the NPC off in some random corner of the map, because they're now marked on said map. They can still bug out, get esoteric bad ends, or just lose you in a missable obtuse nonsense step. In fact I'm pretty sure I had all three of those happen in the one Elden Ring playthrough I did.
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Mar 24, 2024 14:36
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While we're on the subject, the purpose of gestures and where to use them is pretty vague too. There were a few instances where it was obvious or otherwise spelled out for me but mostly I just never use them and it doesn't occur to me to do so.
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Mar 24, 2024 15:24
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By Fromsoft standards, Boc's questline is thoroughly spelled out. The You're Beautiful stone's description is extremely direct and Melina even steps in to elaborate. I will say that something nobody ever seems to bring up is how confusing the dialogue options are when talking to NPCs. I think? they've been very literally translated because they seem to be written in a way that probably makes sense in Japanese but does not parse well at all in English. Or it's just Fromsoft weirdness. Like the choices are written in the voice of the character you're speaking to, which leads to options that don't actually indicate what you're going to converse about. John Murdoch has a new favorite as of 15:37 on Mar 24, 2024 |
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Mar 24, 2024 15:33
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I still don’t know wtf is up with that statue mimic that fucks up Anri’s quest on ds3
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Mar 24, 2024 15:37
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For Elden Ring sidequests I gave myself about 20 minutes to figure out where to go next, then looked it up in a guide. I played it primarily offline and so would probably still be looking for some of them without player clues.
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Mar 24, 2024 15:41
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Rockman Reserve posted:I still don’t know wtf is up with that statue mimic that fucks up Anri’s quest on ds3 That's a part of the extra special Lord of Hollows ending. The pilgrim disguised as a statue is trailing Anri in order to capture them for a ceremony in which you uh "marry" them. But yeah if you weren't already aware of that whole easily-missable process it's a complete non-sequitur.
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Mar 24, 2024 15:45
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My favorite hosed-up From character quest is the one in Bloodborne related to Gascoigne's daughters. Every permutation of their quest ends with one or both of them dying; the best possible outcome is to just not engage at all, and have them just 'disappear' as the night progresses, but presumably suffer the same fate as every other house in Yharnam. Really drives home what a hosed-up situation the city is in.
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Mar 24, 2024 16:14
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I do appreciate how several things that From puts in these games seem like they should do something but a good many of them are just red herrings and don't do poo poo. "..."
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Mar 24, 2024 16:41
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Muscle Tracer posted:My favorite hosed-up From character quest is the one in Bloodborne related to Gascoigne's daughters. If you listen to the dialogue closely it's pretty easy to assume the older 'sister' isn't a sister at all and there's something Iosefka-like happening. Bloodborne's sort-of central quest structure is just oppressive on the face of it - you can choose to send various NPCs to one of two safehouse locations as you find them. Except .... - one of the "safehouses" turns anyone you send there into monsters, this isn't exactly telegraphed -one of the NPCs will go to the opposite safehouse you suggest -one of the NPCs will murder everyone in the safehouse one by one if sent there (this one, admittedly, is sort of on the player - you find the NPC in question in a pile of corpses, what did you really expect?) -one of the NPCs will murder another if they're both at the same safehouse and you use one of their NPC services too much. This can possibly lock you out of the true ending, as you can lose one of the key items required (you need 3 but there are 4 in game, at least).
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Mar 24, 2024 17:46
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Rockman Reserve posted:
I loved this one in particular. Who are you gonna trust, the nice lady at a place with "clinic" in the name, or the cackling ghoul who's weirdly specific about how he likes people who are alive?
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Mar 24, 2024 17:57
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Muscle Tracer posted:I loved this one in particular. Who are you gonna trust, the nice lady at a place with "clinic" in the name, or the cackling ghoul who's weirdly specific about how he likes people who are alive? lol wait so which one is the true safe house?
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Mar 24, 2024 18:04
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To continue the "missing thinga entirely" chat I never went up the stairs in the starting building and never found the second safe house. Which turned out to be a mercy.
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Mar 24, 2024 18:04
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Call of the Wild: The Angler. The game starts off as close to fast-paced as these sims get, providing you a very limited toolkit that nonetheless gets great results in the starting area. But the more you build out your tackle box and explore the map, the slower, more boring, and more trial-and-error everything gets. I am deliberately not framing this letdown in terms of a fishing metaphor.
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Mar 24, 2024 19:14
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Sally posted:lol wait so which one is the true safe house? the true safe house in the gothic horror game is the cathedral with the cackling leper dude. if you send people to the clinic with the nice lady that gives you healing items they are turned into freaky huge headed monsters by her
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Mar 24, 2024 20:11
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more poo poo to kill
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Mar 24, 2024 20:31
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The Oedon chapel dweller is the nicest guy in the entire game. He just wants people to be safe, and he wants to be friends with the Hunter.
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Mar 24, 2024 20:37
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lol amazing. love From
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Mar 24, 2024 20:37
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I never reeally tried to interact with or make sense of those games, it's just too much effort. I'm like 20 years past having infinite time to search out tidbits of lore scour the map for something I missed. The gameplay is good enough on it's own terms and it's always pretty clear where to go next and what to do, so yeah. I gotta kill a lady sorceress now? Sure. Oh that guy I beat earlier came back with an upgrade? Whatever. There's a big loving giants in my way now? I'll kill it but gently caress me if I know how he relates to everything, I just have to get to that tree and beat whatever's there. I'm sure I'm missing out on a lot of stuff that I would've loved when I was younger but I just don't have enough time anymore amd even if I do take the time I'll lose interest before I actually finish the game. Things dragging games down: becoming an adult.
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Mar 24, 2024 20:43
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I'm just finishing the Dice Gambling place with Haruka in Yakuza Kiwami, and I'm turning the difficulty down to Easy. The best way to describe the combat in this game is "constantly in the way" It's OK when it's random street thugs who you can style on in 20 seconds, but I have yet to have the "Eureka!" moment that suddenly unlocks this combat system being secretly good for long-scale fights. If you commit to any punch at all when there's multiple characters to fight, you will get dinged by some random mook and lose a huge chunk of your Heat bar. I've unlocked the abilities that let you immediately block after getting interrupted/immediately dodge after getting interrupted and they don't seem to actually do anything, no matter which style I'm currently using. If I get hit, I will press the dash button repeatedly while getting wombo-combo'd by two bosses, and then have to button mash to stand back up because they've also taken away all the Heat.
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Mar 24, 2024 20:48
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Muscle Tracer posted:I loved this one in particular. Who are you gonna trust, the nice lady at a place with "clinic" in the name, or the cackling ghoul who's weirdly specific about how he likes people who are alive? I like how there is a way to figure out what's going on ahead of time, but nearly everyone is going to miss it their first play through. This is from memory, so some of it may be off: The lady running the clinic gets replaced at some point, but it's hard to tell because you talk to her though a door. When you meet her, she gives you a healing item, but her dialogue only really updates if you use it and come back for another. She eventfully warms up to you and becomes friendly. But at some point, she starts acting differently, which is a big hint that the woman on the other side of the door is someone different, and she murdered the first woman. If you don't keep coming back and replacing the unique healing item, you'll never notice this.
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Mar 24, 2024 20:51
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Pulsarcat posted:I like how there is a way to figure out what's going on ahead of time, but nearly everyone is going to miss it their first play through. I'd say there's also some unmissable tells, namely that the deeply horrifying opening cutscene happens at the clinic, and also the medicine they are giving you is literally human blood, but that's all likely to get lost in the haze of "It's a game! Healing items! Yay!"
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Mar 24, 2024 21:00
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bawk posted:I'm just finishing the Dice Gambling place with Haruka in Yakuza Kiwami, and I'm turning the difficulty down to Easy. The best way to describe the combat in this game is "constantly in the way" 100%. Great games, but the boss combat just sucks.
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Mar 24, 2024 21:18
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The reason I never beat the original Yakuza when I played it on emulator was the terrible overly-difficult and long railshooter highway section at the end of the restaurant. Those sections suck in games that aren't built for them.
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Mar 24, 2024 21:24
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