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I haven't gotten to the frustrating parts of Ultros yet, just started playing around with the network. It plays a little rough and I barely ever have any idea what I'm doing, but I really like just how different it feels from the sort of template a lot of metroidvanias slot into these days. Very weird, very refreshing.
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Mar 3, 2024 02:29
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nemesis_hub posted:Finishing up Blasphemous and I’ve been loving it. How’s Afterimage? It looks interesting but I never hear people talk about it? afterimage is like if hollow knight was a castlevania, or maybe the other way around. it is very big and open and the exploration is excellent, but the plot is very difficult to follow, the combat is generally a pushover (but feels fine, it's quite castlevania-y or maybe megaman zero-ish?) and has very superfluous rpg elements. it also gets pretty inscrutable about what you actually need to do in the endgame. i definitely recommend it as long as you're fine with the combat not being deep or challenging
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Mar 3, 2024 02:39
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lih posted:afterimage is like if hollow knight was a castlevania, or maybe the other way around. it is very big and open and the exploration is excellent, but the plot is very difficult to follow, the combat is generally a pushover (but feels fine, it's quite castlevania-y or maybe megaman zero-ish?) and has very superfluous rpg elements. it also gets pretty inscrutable about what you actually need to do in the endgame. For what it's worth, the "normal" difficulty listed was added after release, the original difficulty is "hard" or whatever's listed. I had to switch to normal near the end but it turned out I'd missed a few areas on the way so it might not have been as bad.
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Mar 3, 2024 02:46
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lih posted:afterimage is like if hollow knight was a castlevania, or maybe the other way around. it is very big and open and the exploration is excellent, but the plot is very difficult to follow, the combat is generally a pushover (but feels fine, it's quite castlevania-y or maybe megaman zero-ish?) and has very superfluous rpg elements. it also gets pretty inscrutable about what you actually need to do in the endgame. Thanks for the opinions on this one, guys. I liked Blasphemous so much that my metroidvania itch is back, big time. I'm gonna try Hollow Knight and The Mummy Demastered. Speaking of Castlevania, I guess they are classicvanias, but are Bloodlines and Dracula X worth playing?
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Mar 3, 2024 09:15
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Dracula X Rondo is arguably the best classicvania and Bloolines is a pretty fun time but probably the worst of the 16-bit games (not counting to weird SNES version of Rondo)
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Mar 3, 2024 12:42
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I'd take Bloodlines over Super Castlevania IV.
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Mar 3, 2024 14:23
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Never
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Mar 3, 2024 15:11
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If you haven’t played Hollow Knight you are in for a treat.
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Mar 3, 2024 16:21
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Tortolia posted:If you haven’t played Hollow Knight you are in for a treat. And thankfully it got a sequel a few weeks back, named The Lost Crown, so you're in for a double treat.
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Mar 3, 2024 18:02
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The Difficult and Souls-Like tags on Steam keep me away from Hollow Knight.
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Mar 3, 2024 19:21
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Kheldarn posted:The Difficult and Souls-Like tags on Steam keep me away from Hollow Knight. It's souls-like in needing to retrieve your money when you die, and the vague and diffuse storytelling that invites you to speculate on specifics. There are 1 or 2 bosses which are punishingly hard, but most can be brute-forced if you're the kind of person who goes in on collecting character widgets and experimenting on what combinations work best for you.
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Mar 3, 2024 19:29
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Kheldarn posted:The Difficult and Souls-Like tags on Steam keep me away from Hollow Knight. It's really only a souls-like in that it requires some patience between attacks and you gotta get your gold back from your bloodstain (by fighting it). I wouldn't call it hard outside of the DLC.
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Mar 3, 2024 19:30
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Mechanically, the combat is entirely unlike Dark Souls because it's a sidescrolling platformer without RPG stats. In some respects that can make it harder because you can't just go level up or switch weapons to change the way you're taking on a boss, but you're dashing and jumping and slashing and pogoing so it's a very different kind of combat. It is disingenuous to say the game is unlike Dark Souls because it takes very heavily from the vibe and overall premise as a game about exploring a ruined kingdom full of the animate corpses of the former denizens who all respawn when you rest at It is a hard game at times, but I think it's a very worthwhile experience even if you only get halfway through the game. The perception of difficulty isn't helped by the fact that it's filled with optional extra-intense challenges for the people who want that. There's gotta be like 20 optional bosses.
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Mar 3, 2024 19:56
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Kheldarn posted:The Difficult and Souls-Like tags on Steam keep me away from Hollow Knight. I had a long rant about that tag, prior to playing the Souls games. After binging DS1-3 in the past two years, I can now revise my opinion to... a long rant still, those comparisons are goddamn stupid. It basically boils down to a bunch of morons who've played only a single video game in their life seeing the save/heal/respawn mechanic and hooting like a bunch of monkeys. They are nothing alike.
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Mar 4, 2024 00:03
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I definitely don't like games with bosses that are designed to take multiple attempts to beat. I ain't got time for that and my daily life has enough challenge in it already, satisfying and frustrating alike. Unfortunately this kind of boss design is everywhere these days. The bosses were hands down the worst part of Lost Crown but at least there I could turn down the difficulty for bosses. I really wish more designers made bosses like Kojima does: intimidating but they don't do massive damage per hit which gives you a fighting chance to beat them in an attempt or two. But they have enough health and variety that those few attempts last a while and are pretty interesting.
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Mar 4, 2024 00:12
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It's more like a philosophy than a genre. Dark Souls expects you to be in fear for your life and probably die a bunch of times throughout, sometimes fighting the same boss over and over. So does Hollow Knight. Both can be tough but are usually fair. Many MVs aren't like that, plenty are pretty easy. For whatever reason, the generic tag of "Difficult" doesn't get the same thing across, since it could mean a million different things. It's very subjective.
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Mar 4, 2024 01:05
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Serephina posted:I had a long rant about that tag, prior to playing the Souls games. After binging DS1-3 in the past two years, I can now revise my opinion to... a long rant still, those comparisons are goddamn stupid. It basically boils down to a bunch of morons who've played only a single video game in their life seeing the save/heal/respawn mechanic and hooting like a bunch of monkeys. 
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Mar 4, 2024 01:14
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For me a big part of Metroidvanias and 3rd person adventure games like God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn is just the exploration and puzzle solving. I'm less enthused about challenging combat, so the Souls format of "beat your head against the wall against the same boss repeatedly" just isn't fun for me anymore.
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Mar 4, 2024 01:26
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Hollow Knight but an Igavania would be great
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Mar 4, 2024 01:59
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fez_machine posted:Hollow Knight but an Igavania would be great Id actually finish it, yeah.
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Mar 4, 2024 02:04
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Medullah posted:For me a big part of Metroidvanias and 3rd person adventure games like God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn is just the exploration and puzzle solving. I'm less enthused about challenging combat, so the Souls format of "beat your head against the wall against the same boss repeatedly" just isn't fun for me anymore. yeah, I've enjoyed a few metroidvanias that are fairly difficult like blasphemous but I really don't think difficulty or gameplay is the most important part of this genre, it's presentation and vibes. the gameplay just needs to have enough friction to make finding secrets engaging while also not being frustrating enough to take away from the exploration. running back to the same brick wall boss for 45 minutes doesn't add anything to the experience.
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Mar 4, 2024 03:21
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fez_machine posted:Hollow Knight but an Igavania would be great this is afterimage but probably not in the way you're after hollow knight is pretty reminiscent of dark souls, but it's mostly just the story & general atmosphere apart from a few mechanics - the corpse run is very blatant and the heal is somewhat similar. there is a similar appeal in precisely learning boss patterns too and the combat generally being punishing, but it isn't very mechanically close to souls combat unlike some games which very blatantly try to do 2D dark souls lih fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Mar 4, 2024 |
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Mar 4, 2024 03:24
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I mean even actual, literal dark souls isn't really about difficulty. The game is hard, but the difficulty is in service to the vibes, not the other way around. It's not like there's anything like Hollow Knight's postgame boss arena in any Souls game I'm aware of.
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Mar 4, 2024 04:11
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lih posted:this is afterimage but probably not in the way you're after I really like Afterimage but I would like it to be more Hollow Night and Bloodstained
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Mar 4, 2024 04:32
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Serephina posted:I had a long rant about that tag, prior to playing the Souls games. After binging DS1-3 in the past two years, I can now revise my opinion to... a long rant still, those comparisons are goddamn stupid. It basically boils down to a bunch of morons who've played only a single video game in their life seeing the save/heal/respawn mechanic and hooting like a bunch of monkeys. It's a souls game, it's just one of the only ones that actually thought about how they translate souls mechanics into a 2D metroidvania rather than just transplanting every mechanic and convention like for like
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Mar 4, 2024 11:22
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I'm not a huge fan of the Souls games but Hollow Knight is my favourite game of all time, for what it's worth.
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Mar 4, 2024 11:33
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nrook posted:I mean even actual, literal dark souls isn't really about difficulty. The game is hard, but the difficulty is in service to the vibes, not the other way around. It's not like there's anything like Hollow Knight's postgame boss arena in any Souls game I'm aware of. This is a pretty good way of putting it. There were frustrating areas but the vibes and exploring the world was super good. I never ever felt bad about cheesing difficult areas because it meant more exploration. Weirdly by ds3 I was burnt out on the boss fights because pretty much every boss had a "heat up" second phase. I lost my mind laughing when the second gargoyle showed up and owned me in ds1. By ds3 the novelty of grinding through a first phase to get owned in the second had worn off.
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Mar 4, 2024 11:46
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Salt & Sanctuary is what I think of when I think "Metroidvania, but Souls." I also hate that game. Hollow Knight is nowhere near.
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Mar 4, 2024 12:25
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Incidentally, Salt & Sanctuary is probably in my top 3 of modern metroidvanias, but I do agree that if something fits the idea of a soulslike 'vania, it's probably it. That and Vigil: The longest night.
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Mar 4, 2024 12:32
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salt & sanctuary is just one of many games that very directly tried to make '2d dark souls' and it sucks both at that and more generally. hollow knight feels way closer in spirit even though it doesn't have a stamina metre or dodge roll or anything
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Mar 4, 2024 12:33
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If there's a dodge roll and a bonfire/blood stain system it's a soulslike
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Mar 4, 2024 13:29
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lih posted:salt & sanctuary is just one of many games that very directly tried to make '2d dark souls' and it sucks both at that and more generally. hollow knight feels way closer in spirit even though it doesn't have a stamina metre or dodge roll or anything Correct
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Mar 4, 2024 13:46
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I didn't honestly know people didn't like Salt & Sanctuary. This is an eye opening experience (I even liked Sacrifice a lot)
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Mar 4, 2024 14:07
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If your 2D metroidvania doesn't have a map it's dead to me
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Mar 4, 2024 14:09
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Sanctuary was good. Cant speak to Sacrifice (believe its in epic hell still?)
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Mar 4, 2024 14:09
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Salt and Sanctuary was good, yeah. Sacrifice seemed to be trying to be a different sort of game, which completely killed any interest I had in playing it.
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Mar 4, 2024 14:10
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Fuligin posted:Sanctuary was good. Cant speak to Sacrifice (believe its in epic hell still?) This is my view. I enjoyed Sanctuary, even if it basically had Stonetoss art for character heads.
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Mar 4, 2024 14:41
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Sacrifice is on Steam as well now. It took a route towards Monster Hunter where you go through a portal to a zone for a mage hunt but the zone itself is very interconnected with shortcuts and secrets. The epic release got some balance passes and the Steam version on my 2nd playthrough is a lot better than the epic one I played back then. I read a lot of comments of people wanting Just More Of The Same and while it would've been fine with me, I totally understand the devs not wanting that. (Incidentally, that might also be why we're still waiting on Silksong)
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Mar 4, 2024 14:47
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Laff Silksong isn't real.
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Mar 4, 2024 15:18
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https://x.com/Wario64/status/1764713665427890586?s=20 Any standouts?
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Mar 4, 2024 19:17
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