What Games are you playing 2015?

[SnowFire]

Hey, Elf's fault for playing on Normal.  (You still murder everything instantly on Hard, just you get murdered back as fast.)  I assumed the DMC2 comparison meant more "action game where the plot is mercifully out of the way" rather than "pew pew everything with OP gunz".  Guess Elf meant both!

Speaking of which...

Devil May Cry 4: Dunno why I started this, but I did, it's been my Steam game to slowly waddle through lately.  Anyway...  it's fun.  On Chapter 15 or so now?  Got back to Fortuna Castle.

I am a filthy casual so I far prefer Nero so far, I like me my God of War-esque "press button for dramatic finishing move".  No, seriously, while it starts off totally OP, the Devil Bringer is neat: you can't just throw the later "real" enemies, but have to manuever behind them or get them into a weak spot somehow, and it works very well with the bosses.  Being able to drag one enemy near you to get beaten up while the horde is safely far away is pretty cool too.  Meanwhile, for Dante...  I think the game assumes you played DMC3, which I didn't?  I have no idea what the styles are supposed to do.  Do you get more grade if you use the Swordmaster / Gunslinger specials?  And Trickster dodging seems generally less reliable than lock-on side-rolling.  Royalguard seems potentially cool but I don't trust my reflexes enough for it.  There's 0 indication of what leveling up the styles does.  So been pretty much ignoring 'em.  Without the Devil Bringer, Dante seems much more reliant on Air Hike as well for mobility.  On the bright side Dante's shotgun is cool.  (Nero's Blue Rose, unlike DMC2/Albus guns, appears to be a tool for hovering in midair, not for actually killing anything.)

Plot is basically a disaster but whatever, it's just an excuse for scenes of badassery, which it mostly succeeds at.  Dante is the worst assassin ever.  Nero is strangely uncurious about why there's a demon invasion immediately after His Holiness is attacked - the obvious assumption is that it was the assassin's fault, but he doesn't seem to connect that dot.  I'm STILL not sure why, actually; the demon invasion in C11/C12 makes sense at least, but demons just kinda randomly show up for Nero's path.  I *guess* the bad guys did that too, albeit without Yamato?!  Or maybe the demons saw Dante was in the area and decided to attack him, and the village was just in the way?  Yeah whatever.  At least the plot IS very good at making me want to kill Dante at least?!  Also the Order of the Sword is strangely confused.  Don't they worship Sparda?  Why freak out over Nero having demonic power?  Sheesh he's already trying to kill Dante for you (by running into your secret lab?!), just let him do that first then get pissy at him if you must.

Anyway, this game has a Ys Origin vibe, which is actually pretty high praise: run through basically the same environment twice but with different characters against interesting enemies to surprisingly good music.  Wildly different art styles of course but hey.

[Fenrir]

I actually hated that fight because of his tendency to fly out of camera range before stomping on your head. Did you grab his crown? It's not entirely obvious that it's sitting on the floor in the middle of the room (instead of forced into your inventory like most boss drops). Wearing it opens up a new area behind his throne. It's also pretty swank and part of my preferred outfit along with noble dress + knight's gloves and skirt. Looks very queenly.

OMG RUN worked pretty well for me when he started trying Mario Jumps on me. Infinite Blades were much harder to avoid.
Yeah I got the crown, I wore it until I found the cage later on. Incidentally that's how I joined the >:-) covenant and started collecting blood dregs for my queen.

I'm pretty burnt out on this latter third or so of the game but I'm trying to be thorough because I don't want to play this again. It's a very neat game, does lots of cool things and is definitely worth playing for any Souls enthusiast, but the shift from well-intentioned people tragically turning into monsters that it seemed like was Bloodborne's theme in the first half moving instead to "No actually the church was really always interested in UFOs and star children so here's all Chthulhuspace all the time" is really jarring and doesn't work for me at all, especially knowing I'm basically at the end of the game and there is nothing more to it than that. A lot of this stuff could've been better suggested than shoved in your face.

I felt it was kind of hinted at with the Amygdalas earlygame and didn't really mind.
Insight and Frenzy are also new things that were added to the game that felt very Lovecraftian (Insight actually reminding me of Sanity in Eternal Darkness in many ways)

Fenrir, is there another lamp in Unseen Village past the chapel warp point? I'm getting too frustrated trying to deal with the hunters keeping the prison lamp locked out, so if there's something else later then I'll just skip them and move on.

IIRC there are two checkpoints there, the third one being gone forever at this point IIRC? At least I couldn't find it.


Harry Potter Gaiden: Cthulhu no Densetsu



(Not my picture but I have the exact same guy)

Cleric Beast was pretty rough, I panicked once I used my 10 cocktail molovs and realized he still had a ton of health back. Wasted a ton of bullets trying to parry until I realized I should have targetted the head.

Meanwhile Pops G went down super fast, like three easy counters with the pistol + two cocktail molotovs once he turned into a werewolf.
I had like 10 deaths against him the first time!


The whipcane is pretty bad compared to my old axe, but I'll live. I'm looking for something else.
The pistol is much better than the blunderbuss, I don't even know the blunderbuss' purpose at this point. Maybe the parrying window is higher with it?
The flamethrower actually looks decent with an arcane build, check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20kX_cR41j8

I read a ton of spoilers and now know that's there's a way (an insane way) to become best pals with the crazy dude in Old Yharnam, so I'm going to try that.
I'm also sending everybody to Iosefka this time to see what this changes. Yay!

[Captain K]

So when's the PC release date?

[Fenrir]

it's going to always be a ps4 exclusive guys

[Fenrir]

One neat thing about Bloodborne is that you can have your character name appear online instead of your psn name. My enemies will be greeted by "Harry Potter has invaded your game"
You can also get the most Harry Potterish clothes

[Grefter]

So you didn't need to create a dummy PS4 account called Eurowizardharry just for the gimmick?  Cool.

[Sierra]

Fenrir I was going to post a pic of the hatcage when I figured out how because I absolutely knew you would wear the fucking thing as soon as you found it. Always good to have my understanding of the world verified.

Re: Iosefka's: (But I won't say anything else. I'd suggest not personally entering the clinic until the moon turns red, though.)

There are a lot of neat combat items that have Arcane requirements, consume bullets and are basically the only thing like magic that Bloodborne has. Could be worth playing with those? (I haven't, much.) The most ridiculous one has a requirement of 40, but most are much more sane (think 25 is otherwise max, which is where the soft damage cap hits anyway). The expense of molotovs far outweighs their actual usefulness at the end of the game, sadly.

I found the whip really useful for slagging random mobs but not so much for bosses. Sometimes the range is a godsend, though. I don't think there are too many melee weapons that benefit from arcane but I can absolutely recommend Eileen's daggers.

[Fenrir]

:)
Hugs




Yeah I've been frustrated by not being able to use all these arcane items, my firt playthrough! The arcane build should be fun. I could sacrifice health for more bullets. (I hope you can use it an unlimited amount of times?)


I don't find that the whip has that much range considering its slow speed, especially compared to the axe. Damage is pretty low. Stagger can indeed be nice, but that's only against rather weak enemies. Good crowd control in an open space I guess.

Iosefka gives you items if you send people to her clinic. There might be some nice stuff!

Also I already went through the backdoor last playthrough (before the moon turned red), and I know one of the awful alien things was initially the guy in the Forbidden Forest that I sent there. So I'm guessing all the NPCs are going to end up mutated just like him. But hey, cool items!

Also, people didn't really have cool lives in the Cathedral Ward anyway so whatever. Old woman: Dead (why?), Nurse: Catatonic, Prostitute: Terrified of giving birth to Cthlhu, Paranoid guy: Paranoid (I guess he turned out fine for Souls standards)

[Sierra]

Paranoid guy wouldn't even go anywhere for me and I have no idea why.

And yeah, they're infinite use. The magic weapon buff item in particular is fairly cheap to use and grants a really nice bonus (obviously doesn't work on already elemental weapons, though).

[Dark Holy Elf]

Snowfire: Yeah, the whole list of bullet points I had was the list of things I felt DMC2 had in common with Albus Mode. Don't have a terribly high opinion of either, and I don't think HM would help in either case!

As for DMC4, I also prefer Nero's gameplay overall, and that's despite the fact that I think Nero is an insufferable, annoying trope and Dante is awesome. That said I did think the game was better for having both, since they felt clearly different enough that you had to learn the best way to fight enemies as each.

My enemies will be greeted by "Harry Potter has invaded your game"

For years I have wondered why the invasion mechanic in these games even exists. Now I finally know. Never change, Fen.


Nier - I visited a house haunted drained of all colour and met Cyclops Jr. after the house's butler hit on my daughter. Still enjoying the game pretty well despite how weak the gameplay is. For all my slagging of DMC2 I'm pretty sure it's a straight-up better action experience than Nier is. (Obviously Nier wins everything else.)

[Grefter]

errrrrrgh stop making things sound good when other things sound bad.  Cost:Benefit analysis of trading HP for offensive resources and then conversely being able to convert healing items into offensive power is one of the mechanics that I always find appealing.

[NotMiki]

Subterranean Animism

Has a pretty high learning curve no matter the difficulty, so go easy on yourself.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I'm just rather frustrated that the rustiness caught up to me this badly. Back when I played SA when I was still regularly playing Touhou, even Normal wasn't hard to accomplish. But I just feel like those years went to naught right now.

[NotMiki]

SA is kinda special in that regard because it more than any other Touhou game relies on remembering the flow of stages (ok UFO is more tricky in that regard but for reasons that don't count).  Just having skill isn't going to be enough.

[Fenrir]

errrrrrgh stop making things sound good when other things sound bad.  Cost:Benefit analysis of trading HP for offensive resources and then conversely being able to convert healing items into offensive power is one of the mechanics that I always find appealing.

Actually it is really great here!

Essentially you sacrifice some of your health (= a little less than one potion?) for 5 blood bullets. Usually you have a 20 potions / 20 bullets limit , but this means you could go with like 10 potions / 70 bullets instead.

Bullets =
- Either more parries
- Or more magic
- Or pure damage with guns if you go with something like the flamethrower.

This singlehandedly should make pure magic / pure gun builds viable, at the cost of healing. It also allows a lot more parries which are genuinely good. (the parry window is a lot better than in your usual Souls games, and it works on more attacks)

I would have probably had an easier time with the game if I used this more but you know, I didn't want to sacrifice my healing. (which means I got hit more and had to heal more etc, which was ultimately worse)


Also, remember the mechanic that allows you to regain health lost in the last few seconds if you manage to hit the enemy back?
If you are extra cocky/badass you can walk up to an enemy, sacrifice your health for bullets, immediately shootparry the enemy, and frontstab him to get all the health back. One dead enemy, no health loss, and 4 more bullets than before.
I have tried this once and have died.

[Sierra]

I tried out the magic tools and sadly they are all pretty bad. Generally I'll get at least comparable damage out of one R2. I knocked an invader on his ass with the Force equivalent I guess? That's something. Apparently there's a full-party healing bell but I can't vouch for its effectiveness because I didn't find it. As far as melee weapons with Arcane scaling go, I have learned that there is a wheel that you can hit people with. We don't really need to say anything else, do we?

Also, Fenrir, I don't know whether you got the Roar gesture or not, but I recommend you give it a shot. It sounds completely ridiculous.

Anyway, Nightmare of Mensis. This place aspires to be as bad as Nightmare Frontier. I don't think it quite manages it but it definitely tries. The brains are worse than anything else in the entire game, but you also don't have to deal with them to get anyplace mandatory. (They're guarding the only piece of +10 ore in the entire game instead. God dammit you guys.) Which is good because they're total BS, frenzy builds up too fast even with the most resistant equipment, drops down incredibly slow, and even builds up while you're stuck in their grab attack of doom. Geez, why are sedatives so expensive? (Why is everything so expensive?) Mico was irritating, definitely a different kind of boss but after a couple minutes I just wanted him to sit still and shut up. MWN was cool though, superb visual design, mean skillset that demands some very precise timing but is pretty fun once you get the hang of it.

Quite a shock heading back to the dream after that. I told spoilers No and some unpleasantness ensued. I died three times and decided to call it a night there because oddly I did best on the first try. Will probably try and properly finish the game tomorrow when I'm hopefully more coordinated? I'm surprised to find you actually can summon in that particular location, but don't plan on doing so. It's a super-stylish duel and should totally be played that way. There's still one (stupidly obnoxious OHKO-happy) optional boss out there that may or may not exhaust my patience first I guess? Also I tried one chalice dungeon and am not sure whether I'll bother with more. Granted, I was notably overleveled for the one I tried (the multiple instances of "and then four dudes spawned immediately on all sides of you" still came close to killing me though, really bad form there you guys), but still, not too thrilling. If there are cool bosses hidden in there somewhere then I'd be interested in seeing them, but none of the first three I hit in Pthumera or whatever were much of note.

[Meeplelard]

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: In the Ice Island place.  Game does some creative things with platforming and humor remains amusing.

Codename STEAM: TIME TO SAVE WASHINGTON DC! Not because it is the capital of the glorious United States, but because it has an ancient book of almighty magic that allowed for the creation of DARK SCIENCE...note that DARK SCIENCE is not actually evil in this game.

[Grefter]

Dark Science is the kind of Science you do with the lights out.

[Cmdr_King]

I get the image of people replacing bunson burners with make-out sessions.

[Grefter]

Make out by Burner Light.  Add a bit of copper to the flame for extra romance.

[superaielman]

Civ 5- Testing Sage's patch. Do do do it's interesting- *gets battering ram on turn 2 with Atilla* Things escalated quickly from there.

[Fenrir]

I tried out the magic tools and sadly they are all pretty bad. Generally I'll get at least comparable damage out of one R2. I knocked an invader on his ass with the Force equivalent I guess? That's something. Apparently there's a full-party healing bell but I can't vouch for its effectiveness because I didn't find it. As far as melee weapons with Arcane scaling go, I have learned that there is a wheel that you can hit people with. We don't really need to say anything else, do we?

Also, Fenrir, I don't know whether you got the Roar gesture or not, but I recommend you give it a shot. It sounds completely ridiculous.

The Cthulhu Tentacle High Five looked like a pretty cheap magic skill that could be gotten quite early, I hoped to rely on that for damage.

Yeah I never finished that questline so I didn't get the Wheel and Roar gesture. As far as gestures go, I do miss the WELL WHAT IS IT and hope that Roar will make up for it. As of right now I am quite happy with the Clapping gesture though.

I have seen gameplay videos of the wheel in action. You just bash people with a big chariot wheel. I... guess that's really the best way to harm someone with a wheel.
It looks terrible in a fight and I need it.

Mico was irritating, definitely a different kind of boss but after a couple minutes I just wanted him to sit still and shut up.

Hahahah they really screwed that up and I was laughing the entire battle.
Also this is the best thread on gamefaqs right now: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/805577-bloodborne/71527528

Edit: Context, for non-El Cid people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lQs2ZXJEBI

Quite a shock heading back to the dream after that. I told spoilers No and some unpleasantness ensued. I died three times and decided to call it a night there because oddly I did best on the first try. Will probably try and properly finish the game tomorrow when I'm hopefully more coordinated? I'm surprised to find you actually can summon in that particular location, but don't plan on doing so. It's a super-stylish duel and should totally be played that way. There's still one (stupidly obnoxious OHKO-happy) optional boss out there that may or may not exhaust my patience first I guess? Also I tried one chalice dungeon and am not sure whether I'll bother with more. Granted, I was notably overleveled for the one I tried (the multiple instances of "and then four dudes spawned immediately on all sides of you" still came close to killing me though, really bad form there you guys), but still, not too thrilling. If there are cool bosses hidden in there somewhere then I'd be interested in seeing them, but none of the first three I hit in Pthumera or whatever were much of note.

I've heard the chalice dungeons get way better eventually, I'll comment on that later. I fought some pretty cool giant fire dog boss there, he walked like a pimp for some reason.

[Sierra]

The Warren Zevon shoutout in that thread absolutely made my day.

Yeah, firedog was as far in as I went (it was an okay fight I guess, compared to fatties who just got hosed terribly by endgame offense). I think what I'm going to do this afternoon is beat up Spoilerclasm because the scythe you get from that fight is absolutely built for my character and the only other things I can use it on outside chalice dungeons would be frue final or NG+ (and NG+ing Bloodborne doesn't appeal). Supposedly mysterious crying woman in white dress is a boss somewhere down in Pthumeria so I want to at least try and search that out.

Not sure I got the clapping gesture, where was it? I tend to stick with Curtsey/Joy/Shh!/Respect/Church Bow (female variety duh)/Pray/Make Contact. It took me forever to notice, but it's nice that you can put some items into quickslots accessed via the right select button. It lets me toss the multiplayer triggers somewhere that's easier to find than in main inventory, but without them fucking me up by cluttering up my HUD item wheel in battle.

The magic items tend to all do around the same ballpark damage for me at 25 Arcane (300ish, nothing great in most circumstances) so the distinctions are really what else they do for you. Tentacle is cheap (1 bullet) so it's spammable and you can easily knock dudes down with it. It also keeps you locked in place a tad longer than I'd like, so if someone dodges then there is a decent chance of you getting punched in the face. SKULLFACE gloves are about the same except ++ bullets, pass, you just can't be as badass as Pope Gwyn. Lightning rod is just way too expensive for what you get out of it (6 bullets I think?) I'm really curious what the force roar claw thing can deflect since the description mentions projectiles? I'm wondering now if it could deflect the mortar shells in Forbidden Woods, but not about to go try (you find it just after the mortar anyway so this is academic). I can't comment on the thing that needs 40 Arcane because seriously, game. Best one is probably just the infinitely reusable magic weapon buff item (2 bullets, very good deal, vastly more cost-efficient than buying coarse paper from the store). I forget when tentacle becomes available but I guess it might be okay for damage purposes early on if you beeline for it?

Some things I forgot to mention in last night's fugue state:

-Wow, Patches has really seen better days. Pretty great reveal there, though. I'm curious whether I would've got more than a gesture out of him if I'd refused to forgive him (like he tries to bribe your friendship in DS1 if you say No in the Tomb of the Giants).

-When I got to the top layer of Mergo's Tower and saw the standard enemies were demoted mid-game bosses, I just broke into a run and barreled through the area without fighting. Everything followed me, and most of everything got trampled to death by murderpigs while in pursuit. Free echoes!

-By this point I've done enough co-op to feel confident betting money that a full 50% of Bloodborne players main Ludwig's sword.

-You can totally cosplay Pyramid Head in this game if you want to.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Metroid Fusion - I decided to download this on the WiiU Virtual Console and play it. Loved it. Great game, great atmosphere, love the you vs. the world feel, love the boss design, love the decrease in clunkiness of the system compared to Super Metroid. Main knock on the game is that it's a bit more linear than SM but I didn't really mind too much since I played both of the games by the book anyway.

The Last Story - I finished Chapter 1. Syrenne is amazing.

[SnowFire]

Just saw the new Fire Emblem trailer.  The bits from the gaming journalists about the blank slate main character mattering / making decisions seems total nonsense as usual, which is fine by me, give me two-well developed paths over a bunch of tiny decisions that don't matter.  (Unless you can do it well and are New Vegas or something, which is pretty darn rare.)  Anyway, the way they're selling the big decision split rubs me the wrong way: apparently you're, by blood, a noble of the "good" kingdom, but were raised by the "bad" kingdom's nobles.  And...  that's not a choice at all, barring some really horrible revelation about your parents (e.g. you were kidnapped or the like!)!  They're selling it as "blood vs. loyalty" which sounds like a reverse Catiua situation.  Like, if I want to take the path to join the "good" kingdom, let's have it be because they're right in our bland main character's opinion, not because he's related by blood.  This is what was always incredibly discordant about Catiua's plot arc in TO: Catiua has a variety of good reasons to become disenchanted with Denam, but she never articulates any of them except "but we're not REALLY blood siblings, so I must now oppose you."  It comes off as a temper tantrum rather than a real split, so mending it is less meaningful.

On the TO note, since this is What Games Are You Playing... dunno how it works in Chaos, but Catiua & Vyce both come off really badly in Neutral path, while Denam & Leonar's stock go up.  Denam never really has a split with Catiua, she just doesn't come along after being rescued at the start of C3 for no particular reason nor any fanfare as to why.  This doesn't stop her from randomly murdering people for no reason.  Meanwhile, Leonar really, really should have joined up in Neutral path to give it some sauce: Leonar & Denam are bros, with Denam rescuing Leonar again, Leonar being "I'm the only one who really understands you" and the like, him having a heroic speech, and all.  Sigh.  At least N-Catiua >>> N-Vyce, not that this is hard.

Neutral path, while interesting enough, does have 1 more horrible mission I think I recall Meeple complaining about other than "save Cerya": you fight endless waves of monsters at a volcano.  The reinforcements spawn right in the middle of your backline and massacre your mages, oh and by the way the various dragons & golems & stuff are champion physical tanks so you really need your mages and a cleric for exorcisms.  If you're thinking of moving to the bridge toward the middle to be able to create a chokepoint, be warned that it drops off into a pit, so you're risking an insta-death if you get knocked off.  Yeah I just suffered the reinforcements instead.