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Picked up Axiom Verge 2 in the latest Steam sale. Feels more open that the first so far, and I like the less alien atmosphere. However, I'm kinda stumped on where to go at the moment. I've just talked to the big Babylonian statue, where the dialog implied there's a new ability in the area behind it, but I can't figure out any way to progress in there - both the upper and lower paths on the right end in areas I can only access with the drone, and there's nothing the drone can do in either of them. Should I be going somewhere else? If I'm going towards the marker on the map it's either through there or a passage at the bottom of the water area I've somehow missed, and nothing more in the water area seems to be accessible with my current abilities.
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Nov 27, 2022 19:23
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 18:08 |
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Anyway, I found out where I was supposed to go: I had failed to realize this was a platform.
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Nov 29, 2022 22:25
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Finished Axiom Verge 2. It's a fairly different game compared to the first - feels significantly more focused on exploration than combat. Where AV1 had a lot of huge bossfights, while AV2 has basically none - even the final fight isn't about killing the boss, only occasionally requiring you to whack the boss a few times to keep it from blocking the buttons you need to press. The extra-large drones spread around the map are closer to regular bossfights, but they are also completely optional. The new drone-only grappling hook is fun, if a little fiddly to use. If you're using it in the air, you have to release the button almost immediately to actually pull yourself up, otherwise you fall past the max hook distance and it fizzles. (Nowhere near as bad as AV1's grappling hook, where it felt like a challenge to swing along a flat ceiling.) Still, once you're at the point where you can switch between drone and human at will, I found myself gravitating towards the drone due to the increased mobility - it's way faster than the human wallclimb/ledgegrab. Storywise it's basically independent of AV1, with a few references here and there. Having played AV1 adds a lot of "I recognize this" moments - mainly the rebirth chambers and what the human NPCs keep turning into, but nothing that felt neccessary to understand anything.
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Dec 3, 2022 20:26
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SlothfulCobra posted:There's not really that many specifically combat-light metroidvanias. I guess Wuppo or Yoku's Island Express, but those don't exactly have tight controls (and considering how Yoku's Island Express). VVVVVV might be your jam, but it has a very specific kind of platforming and a world without that much detail. La Mulana is more exploration-focused than combat, but it's very hard, and the final boss is also very hard. I've also heard things about Toki Tori 2, but I don't really know anything about that. I enjoyed Toki Tori 2, but it should be noted that it's a very slow puzzle-based game. Considerin the original request was "I’m looking for a new game to play that I don’t have to overthink", it might be a poor choice. Puzzles aside, it is possibly the most open-ended Metroidvania I've played. You start with two abilites and never unlock more, while the game gently introduces new environmental features you can use those abilites to interact with. On a first playthrough you'll probably proceed on what feels like the only possible path to the village, after which you'll fast-travel back to the starting point and realize that it's perfectly possible to go left - and it also was when you started the game. There's even an achievement for finishing the game without ever going to the village.
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Apr 15, 2023 21:02
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Various thoughts on Rain World: The movement is kind of awkward at first, but I got used to it after a little while. Your main "weapons" throughout the game are pieces of rubble and pointy sticks, and while they are technically capable of killing other creatures, the fact that even the weakest lizards take 2-3 spears to kill (and you can only carry one at a time) makes combat more of a backup plan than a general strategy. And if you're playing as the Monk - which I did on my first playthrough - spears deal even less damage, making offense basically not an option. It nails the atmosphere of being all alone in a hostile, uncaring world. Most large creatures try to kill you, but nothing is specifically targeting you (unless you really piss of the scavengers). On the other hand this also gives you little reason to care about the world, or the few actual characters in it. Even the ending just feels like a thing you can do rather than something to work towards, even "in character". As a whole, it mostly feels like a sandbox. There's a lot you can do, but very little of it has any gameplay benefit, leaving the only reason to do most of it as "because it's there". The main noticable gameplay upgrade is the player glowing permanently after eating a Neuron fly, but this only means you no longer need to carry a lantern - no new areas open up from this. The extents of the story consists of small pieces of backstory contained in the colored pearls scattered around the world, which can only be read by one specific NPC at a remote edge of the game world. By the way - fast travel has limited uses, which each use being unlocked by a different achievement. The in-game map is hard to read, due to the decision to use different layers instead of having a single scrollable area. I quickly ended up using the maps from the wiki instead, since those are actually readable. After going all the way through the game as the Monk, I decided to try out the Hunter - which only unlocks after finishing the game with one of the "normal" characters. The actual unlocking criteria is a bit finicky - it seems like you need to start a new game as Hunter without quitting the game after reaching the ending, as I exited the game after reaching the ending the first time, and the the Hunter was still locked the next time I botted up the game. Gameplay-wise, the Hunter is kind of ridiculously difficult, with a whole bunch of upgraded enemies (leaping lizards, vultures with harpoons) and generally a lot more of them (the normal starting region suddenly has a lot of Dropwigs). Also you get basically no food pips from bats/fruits, which is somewhat compensated for by being able to eat from dead lizards and other predators. Your spears to a bit more damage to compensate for this, but the food restrictions overall felt like a bigger issue than more/stronger monsters. Still, I actually found the difficulty level more entertaining that frustrating - and the fact that the Hunter has an actual objective made that campaign a lot more interesting than the regular game. Since I kinda liked playing as the Hunter, I ended up bying the DLC. So far I have only played the Gourmand campaign, where you play a really fat slugcat with an objective of eating a lot of different food. His main drawback is running out of breath after running/jumping too much or throwing spears, after which you need to stand still for a few seconds to regain normal movement. However, to compensate for this your spears deal TRIPLE damage, which is enough to oneshot a lot of monsters. Also, you can injure/kill monsters by jumping on them from a higher platform. Overall this makes the Gourmand feel way more effective at killing things than the Hunter, and since he can also eat just about everything he feels overall stronger even with the "out of breath" mechanic. It should be noted that the DLC also makes a few changes to the base game, including an additional region in the middle of the world - mainly useful as a potential shortcut. It also makes the colored pearls appear in the Monk campaign, where they were previously absent. Oh, and one last thing: Do NOT play this game if you're scared of spiders.
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Jul 20, 2023 16:00
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Finished up the other Rain World characters. Artificer: Basically infinite access to explosives (cost one food each), plus resistance to explosive damage which lets you use them in close combat without killing yourself. You also get a double jump with controllable direction, and an innate AoE stun/shockwave. To compensate for this, Scavengers hate you and actively hunt you down. You're powerful enough that you can reasonably defend yourself against that, but it's still a firm reminder of why staying on their good side is preferable. Lots of fun, not too hard. Spearmaster: Can generate an infinite amount of spears for free. Can't eat, only gets food from hitting living things with spears. Worst food restriction by far - the other characters that have to eat big creatures get 3-6 food pips per kill, Spearmaster only gets 1-2 (nothing after the target is dead). Monster Kelp is one of the best things to encounter, since they take mutiple hits before dying and are incapable of dodging. Interesting, but kind of awkard. Rivulet:  Gotta go fast. Basically the regular Survivor except significantly faster, and with a breath timer long enough that you'll basically never drown. Gets shorter time before the rain begins, but the speed boost more than makes up for that. Besides, you do not give poo poo if a room floods.Awesome. Easily the best character in the game. The only disadvantage is that it is hard to go back to any character with regular movement speed afterwards. Saint: Rain replaced with snow, with a whole new set of mechanics to go with that. Has an innate grappling hook, with far better control than the worms other character can use for that purpose. Can only eat fruit and vegetables, no batflies or baby centipedes. This varies between unnoticeable or crippling depending on the region you are in. You goal is to visit enough Echoes to raise your max karma to 10, at which point you unlock flight and the strongest attack in the game. Has a separate final area where you need that to survive, really OP until then (and arguably also there). The new world mechanics take some getting used to, but otherwise not too hard to deal with. I'm not going to try the secret character, as that one just sounds miserable. Oh, and I've found the monster that really does creep me out. Stowaways.
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Aug 3, 2023 21:35
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I decided to try out Expedition mode in Rain World. HO HO HO It's actually way worse at killing things than spears
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Sep 25, 2023 20:39
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Alright, stupid question about Blasphemous: How do I scroll the text in the inventory?  Because I can't see the final line here, and I think it might be important.
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Oct 1, 2023 13:31
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Dr. Clockwork posted:It’s I and K for some reason. I tried these, but no effect. So ended up just trying everything, and apparently it's Y/H for me. Don't know why - I did some rebinding, but I never bound anything to these, and I didn't rebind the Inventory key. K is apparently still the key for approving sword upgrades, with no rebind option.
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Oct 1, 2023 15:55
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I've gotten the first two endings in Blasphemous. Haven't tried for the DLC ending yet, but apparently I'm locked out of that one after killing the penultimate boss. Not sure if I would have tried for it anyway - the bosses you have to fight to ulock it seem significantly harder than the ones in the base game, which were already kicking my rear end a bit. I checked out the wiki after the getting the first ending, and I don't think there's any way I would have figured out how to unlock the second ending on my own. Deliberately breaking the statues that have a beneficial gameplay purpose is not something I would have tried to do. Apparently there is quite a few things in the game that are permanently missable, which I don't really like in a Metroidvania. These include a min-boss that only appears once, and several sidequests that you fail if you kill some specific bosses before completing them. Although apart from the DLC ending, these mainly amount to missable achievements, you still get the items from the guy who is slowly turning into a tree even if you bring the item he asked for too late. My main annoyances: There are quite a few breakable walls and floors hiding important upgrades, and I never really saw a recognizable tell for most of them. Limiting you to only equipping 3 relics at a time feels unneccessary. You can swap them at will, it is always obvious where they have a benefit, and it's not like you'd gain an unfair advantage by equpping more - they only affect platforming. Switching between them mainly feels like busywork. The most clever thing the game does traversal-wise is giving you a relic that lets you jump into "bottomless" pits, which makes the dump you on the next area below instead. This opens up some new areas in a way you'd never think to look for beforehand, and I think it's cool when a game amanges to do that. Of course, this can also get you killed if you unequip the relix and forget you did. Final note: There is a dog, and you can indeed pet it.
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Oct 7, 2023 20:01
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After finishing Blasphemous the first time, I told myself I wasn't going to try for ending C - mainly because Chrisanta kept kicking my rear end the first time. Then I decided to at least play a new run so I could do the boss fight against Esdras, and after clowning on the first three bosses on the refights I felt confident enough to to a full attempt at the challenge bosses. Isidora kicked my rear end a few times, but Sierpes is kind of a pushover in comparison. Supercharged Chrisanta is still a bit much, but by that point I was significantly more determined than in my first playthrough. After seeing the third ending, I can confidently say it was worth it.  I think the main thing I did different from my first playthrough was realizing the power of the damage resistance beads - doubling down on the relevant resistances can shave off 60% of incoming damage.
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Nov 8, 2023 20:06
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I've recently started on Blasphemous 2 after picking it up in the current Steam sale. I ended up picking the sword at the start, but switching to the censer after picking that up as my second weapon. I jsut got to the spot where I assume I would have picked up the sword if I didn't at the start, and found an item that game +15% sword damage. Is this dependent on the starting weapon? (i.e. did I permanently miss out on a possible +15% damage to the censer?)
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Nov 23, 2023 23:01
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Alright. Thanks for putting my mind at ease.
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Nov 24, 2023 17:37
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Another Blasphemous 2 question: Are the bosses supposed to give you permanent guilt? After I die, the guilt doesn't away when I collect the guilt fragment, and I end up having to pay the NPC in town to get it removed. The fact that the confessor NPC is getting new dialogue makes it seem like this might be intentional, but the general behaviour feels more like a bug to me.
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Nov 24, 2023 19:10
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If anything, I'd argue that Blasphemous 1 bossfights got easier after your first death, since the guilt fragment gives you health and fervour when you pick it up.
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Nov 25, 2023 10:09
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For most of Blasphemous 2, I found the bosses fairly easy, even killing several of them on the first try. And then I reached Eviterno, who is basically supercharged Chrisanta from Blasphemous 1 straight off the bat. I feel like I'm getting killed without making any progress - even when I know all his attacks I can't see the coming. It feels like he keeps teleporting on top of me and then immediately hitting me before I can react.
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Nov 26, 2023 19:18
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Just finished Bloodstained: Ritual of the night. Overall easier than most of the metroidvanias I've played this year. Your moveset isn't all that good at dodging attacks, but you largely don't need to, between your ever-growing stats and the ability to carry loads of healing items. First impression was "too much". Too many different weapons without meaningful differences, way too many shards that all just deal damage to things in front of you, and loads of crafting ingredients that you either get in excessive amounts without even trying, or have a 5% droprate from an enemy that appears twice in the entire game. I settled on swords before the first boss, and basically never switched except for the part you need to use emo guy's katana. Used shards for hitting small enemies on the ground, since most weapons are incapable of doing that even when crouched (except the whip). Shard wise, I settled on the wind cast that travelled along the ground and the arrow shotgun, and used those for the majority of the game. I feel like I should have experimented more, but since you get a new cast every few minutes I ended up not bothering. I had to check a guide for where to go after beating the blood boss, and in the process saw a recommendation for the chain lighting shard, as well as the hellhound summon, so those were my go-to loadout for the rest of the game. Used the fairy familiar for most of the game. Briefly tried the knight, found it did neglible damage if it even managed to hit something, and didn't really bother with any of the others. As far as I could tell, only the fairy would point out breakable walls, which easily made it win out. I'll probably check a guide and get 100% of the map (I'm already over 99%). I might also try to complete the bestiary, but I'm definetly not going to bother with all the items. Overall, its solid, but I feel like nothing about it really stands out.
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Dec 9, 2023 23:50
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On The Internet posted:What's the map situation like in Rain World? Metroid-vania-y? It's kinda hard to read. Here's the in-game map of (part of) the starting area, as a sample:  The half-visible areas in the background are part of the same area.
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Mar 4, 2024 22:21
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