Joined: Sep 22, 2013 Posts: 5700 Location: Inside my own head
Identity: Human
I'm done. I might post here with random thoughts, but I don't care enough anymore to post reviews here.
original post
In an attempt to actually write more reviews and such that I like doing, I've decided to make a proper thread for it, much like mjack's anime review thread in the Off-Topic Room. Most if not all of my own reviews will be copy/pastes from my googlebloggerbog, but if things go well I'll probably begin amassing reviews from other people, too.
The games I play will probably end up being relatively narrow and possibly somewhat redundant, since most of the time I don't play a game unless I've watched a review anyway or at least seen some actual gameplay of, meaning a lot of games I'll be talking about will already have some decent coverage. I tend to prefer indie titles, though, so some of these may be lesser-known games. At the moment I don't know if I'll be stepping outside the realm of video games but it's always possible.
I hope you'll all forgive me for being as pedantic as I will be.
(Index and such to follow.)
Last edited by Lord LunaEquie is me on Sun Jul 24, 2016 2:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Joined: Sep 22, 2013 Posts: 5700 Location: Inside my own head
Identity: Human
(Originally posted in January of this year)
FTL: Faster Than Light
A Delusional RevIew • FTL: Faster Than Light A really basic review which also happens to be the first review I've ever finished writing.
Basic Explanation In FTL: Faster Than Light, you are the captain of a space ship with information vital to what is vaguely referred to as "the Federation", as "the Rebel Fleet" is on its way to overthrow the Federation. If you can make your way through the eight galactic sectors, you might just save the Federation from total defeat at the hands of the Rebels. You never know just what you might find in deep space, though...
Executive Summary Faster Than Light is a game where rogue-likes meet Star Trek. Even on easy difficulty it's quite easy to find yourself under a lot of pressure without hope for winning. Expect to die a lot as you learn how best to play the game – though one way this game stands out is by giving you many different and, more importantly, equally valid strategies to win. This is not a story-driven game by any stretch, although the text-delivered snippets of lore and dialogue have a Star-Trek influence to them for anyone who would enjoy that. However, with the amount of content available even without enabling the Advanced Edition, it's quite easy to get lost in the effect. While the minimalist graphics style and chiptune soundtrack are nothing to write home about, they don't detract from the experience.
Overall, it's an easy game to recommend to someone who enjoys rogue-likes, and the aesthetic delivers to anyone who wants that feeling of being a space-faring captain. The size might turn some people off since you might invest 2 or 3 hours into a run and have to start completely over if you fail, but there is lots of content to find and the procedural generation multiplies the replayability. If that's not enough for some, there are a number of simple mods available that can almost completely change the game's experience.
In-Depth Overview To start, the game has an interesting premise: not-quite dungeon-crawling exploration, not-quite micro-management strategy; just somewhere right in between. For someone like myself who gets a little overwhelmed by the larger-scoped real-time strategy titles, this suits me just fine, as I prefer a turn-based game most of the time. While you don't have any troops to command, you'll have to constantly consider the location of your varied crew, as each alien species have their own unique advantages and disadvantages, and sometimes manning certain systems (such as your shields or engines) can be more valuable than repairing damage to your hull or putting out fires. With the ability to pause at virtually any point in the game, it might as well be a turn-based rogue-like, though you will likely still feel like you're under a time restraint as you only have so many turns of jumping from one beacon to the next before the advancing Rebel Fleet catches up to you, forcing you to go to the next sector. Luckily the Rebels don't advance to take over the sector until you move, meaning you can spend as long as you need in battle or even repairing your ship (or waiting for the oxygen levels to fill back up) without worry of being overtaken.
There is a glut of content even in the base game. Without the Advanced Edition content enabled, there are still 7 unique alien species (including humans, of course), 8 ships to unlock as well as the B layouts of every one, 12 separate systems and subsystems (which each ship has empty slots for you to fill during your run) and quite possibly hundreds of different events/outcomes as you traverse space. Advanced edition adds another 5 systems and subsystems, another unique race, unlockable C layouts to most of the ships, and many new encounters and events. Even without mods, with all of this and three levels of difficulty, the game easily has a hundred hours' worth of content on its own.
As with most rogue-likes, however, the game is unforgiving, and many runs can be ended early by a lucky shot by an enemy or being caught unaware by some event. Even upgrading your ship isn't much of a guarantee as many encounters will cripple you in various ways – enemy crew aboard your ship, nearly disabling your engines at the start of a fight, halving the power you have to distribute to your systems, asteroid fields pounding your shields, or fires lighting up all over your ship due to being too close to a star. With the currency being used for everything from upgrading your ship to repairing to buying fuel, missiles, crew, weapons, and systems, it's also easy to find your wallet empty at crucial times, leaving you unready for the enemies you will inevitably encounter.
All this is not a condemnation of the game, however, as while it is unforgiving it never feels completely unfair. Oftentimes what brings a run to an end is simply a lack of proper planning, as it's easy to want to spend your currency early, leaving you without it when you need repairs, or on occasion when you're given the option at an event to buy something for a cheaper price than what you'll find in a store. Learning how to interface with the game – what strategies work with your play style, what combination of weapons or systems leads to easier victories, how to best outfit a ship to accentuate its strengths or shore up its weakness – is part and parcel to beating the game.
One area which I wish the game would improve in is the settings. While the minimalist nature means it doesn't really need much in the way of options, the graphics settings are limited to an unalterable window or a few different fullscreen resolutions.
Another small shortcoming I have with it is the barest hint of roleplaying it has. Often there will be events which you'll have choices to either help or ignore or even attack an innocent or down-on-their luck ship, and in a majority of cases, the bigger rewards come from doing the heartless thing. Many fans have picked up on this and created mods that improve on these events, like allowing you the option of surrender just as some enemies might, but it pains me that these aren't in the base game. As a big role-player, and one who doesn't indulge in villainy but rarely, it takes away from my experience to have to choose to be evil in order to be better equipped.
I'm no longer happy with this review, but I have yet to revisit FTL (I've played something like 90 hours altogether, but I only played another 10 or so after I had written this review). I actually had modded the game to be the Captain's Edition (which combines several fan mods), but ended up losing interest due to the mods and have been scared to start it back up.
Interesting note: you should be able to find this review on Steam, which is where I first wrote the review and probably why it ended up in a way I didn't like.
Joined: Sep 22, 2013 Posts: 5700 Location: Inside my own head
Identity: Human
(Originally posted in May of this year)
The Stanley Parable
Delusional Quickie: The Stanley Parable After buying it about two years ago, I finally played through The Stanley Parable. I spent 2 hours myself playing through all the branching paths I saw, and thought I was finished. Then I saw how many other "endings" there are and followed a walkthrough to see them all. That took only about another 2 hours.
Overall, I feel the game has many similarities to Portal. First, it was all rather short and yet I still feel satisfied with my handful of hours of playing it. Second, much like Portal the world you explore occupies a space firmly in the uncanny valley because of the complete lack of any enemies or really much of anything that moves. Except the doors that close on their own. Also like in the first Portal there are moments of complete background silence that are thoroughly unnerving. Without spoiling much, one of the endings has you exploring a dark space in total silence and it was a very scary experience.
To talk more of the game's uniqueness -- that is, the commentary on games and player interaction -- I found the game to be kind of obviously pretentious, but it's so open and honest about it (and written well, I think) that I just had a lot of fun experiencing it all. Like, for instance, one of the endings has the narrator wax philosophical about the "correct narrative choice" in games, and it actually makes some good points, but it's also done in kind of a fourth-wall-breaking way, so it's a great listen.
Do I think it's changed the way I look at games? Not really. Did I enjoy my play of it? Definitely. And really, a lot of why it didn't change my mind about games is because ultimately, I grew up in a post-Stanley Parable world. My opinion of how games are "supposed to be played" and how players interact with games was informed by people like John Bain and Jim Sterling and Yahtzee Croshaw long before I had even heard of The Stanley Parable. But ultimately I do like me an artsy-fartsy game, and I think this one counts.
Joined: Sep 22, 2013 Posts: 5700 Location: Inside my own head
Identity: Human
(Originally posted in July of this year)
Rogue Legacy (first look)
A Delusional Quick Look – Rogue Legacy Basic Premise: You are a knight, tasked to explore and clear out this castle, the forest beyond, and a few other levels, of the monsters that plague it. But you're not strong enough to do it on your own, so when you die, as you inevitably will, your children will carry on your legacy. Too bad that the maps you made of the place no longer apply during their lifetime.
Rogue Legacy is a tough-as-nails action platformer with some rogue-like and persistent elements including procedurally generated levels, random item drops, and an emphasis on leveling up based on the spoils of your last run.
First Opinion: After playing for maybe 4-6 hours (I'm guessing on that number) and playing 40-50 generations, I generally don't like the game. Because of the emphasis on the persistent elements, each run feels less of a complete experience, such as games like FTL, Out There, Long Live the Queen, and Vagante deliver. The combat is similarly constrained, with melee attacks being either a regular swing or a mid-air downward attack, and for the most part characters only having a single magic attack (randomly determined as you choose an heir), and no new attacks are ever gifted during your time in the castle.
The game is so very well balanced as to coax the player into the “one more run” mentality, and I have found this to be very true as I keep playing despite not actually enjoying myself. I do feel like it could have a lot more going for it, but ultimately it's probably just not the kind of game I'm looking for.
Some Deeper Thoughts: As already explained, there are persistent elements, in the form of upgrades, equipment, and runes (abilities that must be equipped to your equipment). Gold from each run comes with you back to the town so that you can spend it on these things. With each upgrade or item you purchase, the cost of everything in that category goes up by a set amount (sometimes as little as 10 gold for upgrades, while upwards of 100 gold for runes when you buy one of them). You cannot keep your gold in any collection, and you have to offer up any unused gold in order to enter the castle.
The obvious problem this leads to is that you will often find yourself back in town with a new character and not enough money to buy anything, effectively making that run null and void. Because of the random nature of the level generation and the possibility of getting sub-par heir choices, this will often happen as you're killed early in an area you're unprepared for or otherwise unable to clear.
Choosing an heir isn't too bad, actually, since each time you have to pick a new character you're given a choice of three randomly generated heirs. As is typical for these kinds of games, the abilities and traits (things that aren't activated but oftentimes affect the gameplay in different ways) are not explained very well and it's expected that the player learn from experience what these things do. This isn't quite so bad, since it's both par for the course and lends the game an aesthetic of discovery besides just looking in chests.
The main problem I have with it this early in the game (I've only beaten one boss and cannot reliably move on to the “level 2” area) is that the emphasis is less on a player's skill during a run and more on using the character they got to gather enough gold to get another upgrade, then rinse and repeat. It also does not provide a good learning environment, probably in trying to keep with the tough-as-nails theme, but it's something that discourages me easily. I will likely keep playing and give an updated opinion of it at a later time.
(Originally posted in November of this year)
Rogue Legacy (Second look)
Delusional Review: Rogue Legacy (again) Once More into the Breach So, I've been playing the original Binding of Isaac lately, and it got me thinking about Rogue Legacy again. For those not in the know, The Binding of Isaac is a rogue-like with a basic top-down shooter control method and really dark themes dealing with such issues as religion and child abuse. It got me thinking about Rogue Legacy and my previous criticisms of it.
After looking back at the game for a while, I decided to actually start up Rogue Legacy again and give it another go or three to see if what criticisms I had still hold up and/or if time had made me more critical of the game.
It's still not great, but it maybe wasn't as bad as I had been thinking.
The Legacy Lives On Rogue Legacy is still a below-average rogue-lite in my opinion. I've grown fond lately of the idea of even "hard" games being doable if you're good enough, like the idea of being able to solve complicated puzzles in one go for those able to easily wrap their heads around it. The skill required in Rogue Legacy to do it in one go (and for Rogue Legacy that means more "beating the first boss" rather than "beating the game") is ridiculously high. Part of that is because most of your passive and active offensive abilities have to be unlocked, but part of the problem is that a lot of the upgrades are straight stat boosts, meaning you are hamstrung on the ability to go forward because as you encounter tougher enemies you cannot do more damage to them unless you die, whether on purpose or by overwhelming numbers.
That's problem number one. I'm for rogue-lite elements where reaching certain milestones unlocks better gear or another character, or even persistent elements like an overall level based on how far you've gotten in the dungeon or the number of times you've died, and these are roughly things that are in Rogue Legacy. However, the game doesn't have a persistent gold pool: you have to give any spare gold you pick up to the gatemaster before you can enter the dungeon again. So many runs will see you with exactly the same setup as the previous one, especially since the way the costs scale up with every purchase means crippling yourself to save up for the more expensive upgrade is mathematically the better choice. So the persistent elements are kind of lackluster.
Then there's the movement options. While there are slight differences in speed between the different classes, most of them move at a sluggish pace that makes progress very sloooooooow. One of the possible runes (enhancements) is to increase your speed by 30%, and I found that to be a barely acceptable pace for this kind of action platformer. Even that, though, is a trade-off since that takes up one of the five slots you're given for abilities, effectively holding you back for the sake of a decent speed. The same model is used for the movement abilities, which include mid-air jumps, dashes, and flight, although having those on a risk/reward system makes a bit more sense. These movement option runes are stackable, allowing you two or three or more dashes or air jumps, but they all have to be unlocked to be used by finding them in the dungeon (and then purchasing them but that ties into the persistent elements a bit more), something which is extremely difficult as not only you have to hope the random number generator has gifted you with the chest to find it, but then you have to find said chest among the maze of rooms, and then complete whatever challenge is chosen for that chest, which can sometimes be completely impossible unless you have certain runes equipped (Don't Jump is one of the possible chest-opening goals).
The main problem with the movement options is the aforementioned sluggish pace of a non-enhanced character, but unlocking the different dashes and jumps at completely random intervals doesn't appeal to me.
While a completely subjective thing, I also dislike the risk/reward nature of the main attack. I suppose because the playable characters all carry around swords as large as they are, the main attack is an overhead strike that requires a half-second of windup, like some sort of golf swing. What this means in practice is that you have to time your attacks very carefully, as when you press the attack button is not going to be when you actually do damage. It just feels like artificially increasing the difficulty by way of making the controls feel less responsive (note I say feel because they are responsive, just the attack is delayed).
The Final Verdict Rogue Legacy doesn't deliver enough entertainment for me to overlook its flaws. The core gameplay loop is too regular and self-similar to deliver on any aesthetic other than challenge, and I don't even think it's balanced well enough for me to enjoy that. I can see the appeal of a rogue-lite 2d action platformer, but I feel there are plenty of other games that deliver on much more.
While I never fully enjoyed Rogue Legacy, mjack helped a lot in forming my opinions of this game into proper criticisms of the systems seen in the second review.
Joined: Sep 22, 2013 Posts: 5700 Location: Inside my own head
Identity: Human
Party Hard
Delusional Quickie: Party Hard I picked up Party Hard on the Steam sale this weekend, and was actually fairly excited to play it. For those that don't know, Part Hard is a 2d top-down stealth game (in an 8-bit art style) where your goal is to kill everyone in the level without getting caught. There's typically between 40 and 60 people in each level when you start — though that is always subject to change — and you have to use the various traps around the levels (such as exploding speakers), a few rare pickup items (such as smoke bombs), and your quick one-hit-kill knife stab attack to slowly kill off every one of the partygoers as they wander around the level in varying states of drunkenness.
I played through the whole "story" (even though the plot was paper-thin) between last night and today, and also went at two of the 7 free levels added post-launch, putting around 7 hours into it according to Steam. Overall, I think it's a decent enough stealth game, although I expected and would have preferred a bit more random events than what was in the base experience.
See, the thing about Party Hard is that it was also designed for integration with Twitch streaming, where the viewers can vote on random events to happen such as S.W.A.T. teams or a bear. This can, potentially, drastically increase the difficulty of the levels, but it also adds some nice variation to the gameplay and can lead to funny moments since the game has a lot of cute humorous touches, like a guy who climbs out of the sewer dressed as Mario who locks off the shortcuts if you use them too much, or how the aforementioned bear can go around killing people but also sleeps and dances.
I really expected those kinds of events to just be random happenings during the single-player experience, but it really wasn't. Though I didn't exactly learn all the game's quirks, and didn't unlock any of the other characters except the one you get for completing the game (because apparently you unlock characters by completing achievements?), I learned a lot of the game's motions and found them to be fairly predictable. In almost every level you can make a phone call of your own (whenever partygoers find a body they'll call the cops to bag the corpse) and someone comes along, but those are usually limited to one, maybe two possible events per level, so it doesn't really introduce a lot of extra mayhem. In one level, it just summons 3-12 new people that you have to kill, meaning that it just plain makes the level harder/longer.
Since there aren't any checkpoints, if you do get caught you have to start the level over again, which with the number of people means potentially 20 minutes or more of time thrown away. Luckily each time you try a level there's small differences, like different traps or more or less people, so that shakes things up a bit.
The extra levels go really insane with the aesthetic, one being a rooftop party on an alien spaceship where all the partygoers are blue or green aliens, but I found it to just be more of the same, and after having beaten the entire rest of the game, I didn't feel like going through all of it. After 7 hours, I already feel like I'm done with it.
Did I have some fun for a few hours? Sure. Did I find it lacking? A bit, maybe. Overall, I feel this was designed specifically for Twitch streamers to get the most out of, and anyone else isn't going to get as much of a game out of it, which I think is a bit of a shame because it's a neat title. It's not often you get to play a dark version of "Where's Waldo?".
Hopefully from here out I can be more rigid and standardized in organizing and planning these reviews.
Last edited by Lord LunaEquie is me on Thu Dec 10, 2015 2:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
Joined: Sep 22, 2013 Posts: 5700 Location: Inside my own head
Identity: Human
Some quick thoughts on Titan Souls based on the demo:
Titan Souls is a very minimalistic top-down... adventure game? Imagine an old 2d Zelda game where it's nothing but bosses, and you've got a rough estimation of Titan Souls. Each boss has a specific and repeating pattern, and you have to find its weak point to kill it. Controls only consist of a roll (which can be held down to run) and an arrow, which has a small charge time. You only have one arrow which you must collect either by touching it where it lands or by holding the fire button to bring it back to you (magic, I guess).
Aesthetically and control-wise, I love it. The overworld appears kind of cheap and easy at first, but then you see the grass move and the tree shadows and you can step behind stuff and ohmygod you can even swim how neat is that. It even has special rules involving rolling and stairs: you can't roll up stairs nor can you roll to the side while on stairs, and if you roll down stairs you continue rolling until you reach the bottom. There's just a lot of neat little touches that don't just make this "retro inspired indie game #4,981".
The battles though... They're rather tough, and you always die in one hit. I can't help but feel there's some influence from the Dark Souls series, though. I noticed, as I threw myself at this one eyeball-cube boss over and over, that 1. I blamed myself every time I died, and 2. that I survived much much longer when I wasn't charging in trying to end it quickly. Most bosses seem to only need one hit to kill, so theoretically you can kill a boss in seconds, but the more you push it the more likely you are to die. At one point I found myself pacing out exactly where the boss was going to attack when I woke it up, and I realized how the game had, without any hints or dialogue or text of any kind, told me that I need to slow down and think.
Joined: Oct 30, 2013 Posts: 16394 Location: Secret Lair
As Promised
Review of Bloodborne: The Old Hunter's DLC
This is going to assume people reading this have played the main game and are interested in more. If you haven't..... well go play Bloodborne. It's worth the money if you are wiling to deal with the high initial difficulty (you will get better at it).
Weapons: The DLC adds about 10-12 new weapons, and the real benefit of these is not their powerlevel so much as their uniqueness? Most of them are "cool" and have some unique gimmick that will make series veterans excited to try them out. That being said, while most of them are "good" the ones I'm planning on using I'm probably going to use for specialized pvp purposes. For example, the Boom Hammer is going to be an excellent weapon for encounters with the Blood Starved Beast, and the Beast Cutter is the strength version of the Threaded Cane useful for some builds in certain crowd control situations. However, outside of the new arcane focused weapons, nothing screams "I'm better than what you've got". Aside from niche situations, Ludwig's and the Chikage just outdamage all the dlc weapons by a metric ton, meaning that they really are more attractive for the gimmick of the thing than damage output.
Armor Sets: The DLC gave me a bunch of armor sets I'm never going to wear AND two sets I am. This section is where I mention I'm not wearing 80% of the dlc armor and the two I like are for the best looks and the best stats.
Maria's Set, purchasable from the Insight Shop after beating the 4th dlc boss, is one of the best looking armor sets in the game. It also has the best blood defense, so you can mix and match pieces of it for use in pvp.
The harrowed set, found in the last area of the dlc, is Simon's set. It's ugly as sin, but it is probably the best general purpose pve armor in the game now, with the bone ash armor keeping its title of best pvp armor still and several other niche things still maintaining their niche (frenzy and poision resistances anyone?).
^ Other than these two, the dlc stuff really is kind of forgettable and meh, and unlike the weapons I'm not even excited to try it. Most of it really does look like what we already have, with the exception being the Lumpy Head Thing that i am certainly not going to be wearing.
Areas and Enemies: The DLC is split up into three main areas. The first is a trek through ancient Yharnum, which is now infested with hunters as well as beasts. The main theme here really is the hunters, and here is where you will get most of the "general use" weapons that don't have a special UNIQUE history such as the beast cutter, the boom hammer, etc. Almost all of them drop from hunters or can be found on the ground left unattended, although a couple like the boom hammer have a nice surprise in store for you instead. The second half of this area is a literal rive of blood with living corpses in some areas, infested with the giant ticks from the Cainhurst courtyards, and it's particualrly visually stunning / disgusting to walk through.
The main problem I had with this area is that, at least on NG+, some enemies have 6000 health and take a 3rd of yours away at 50 VIT. It feels like a very large amount of artificial difficulty was present, and while there were some really clever traps and pressure plates (oh how I loved dying for the boom hammer), there are repeatedly situations where I feel like my opponent is just unfairly stronger because that's how the dlc has to be doesn't it? But it's really really weird pacing to die 7 times to a gatling gun hunter and then have the blood starved beast in the next room, with full stats, be a relative pushover that you one-shot.
The most memorable new enemy from this area are the triplet of Cthulu Giants. The first one you meet as it rips a new one into two hunters invading Lawrence's church (Amelia's in the future), while the second two (same as the first while the second has a cannon; it is a literal gank) hang out later on in the blood river, near the 2nd lantern right before the boss. These are two of the most memorable fights of the dlc, and it was a genuine joy to get to fight these enemies. Espeically after they powerd up. But again... just a bit too much health.
The Second area of the DLC is the Astral Cocktower, and it is here that we start to learn that the Healing Church is slightly more **** up than we had previously though. Throughout our journey through hell, where we witness the churchs's experiments (it turns out that the church is probably responsible for the Winter Lanterns), it's kind of ... well dark and depressing. It's nowhere near as good as the first or third area, the enemy design is much more limited, and it's just.... not as fun. You basically kill variants of the same thing a couple hundred times while chasing up and down the tower. And again, while there are some really cleverly placed traps and some really cool things to be found here, the parts of it where I had trouble just felt like artificial difficulty.
And by far, BY FAR, I died the most to gravity. Gravity is op.
The third area of the dlc leaves the clocktower behind for a lovecraftian fishing village. Um.... by far the best of the three areas, the sea creature themed enemies here had a large number of the genuinely memorable dlc moments and environments and this is the area that really makes it worth playing. At the same time, the BIG enemy introduced here is just spastic as **** and not fun to fight.
By not fun to fight, I am going to site the Rakuyo encounter in particular. BY FAR the hardest weapon to attain in the game as far as fights go (the beast claws and a couple others win out on hardest due to geography), you end up fighting a 10,000 HP HARDER variant of one of these things and a 5000 HP variant of one of these things simultaneously down in a well, with one of them (I forget which) dropping the weapon upon death. Particularly unpleasant, this is probably one of the most unfun fights int the game and I literally just cheesed the **** thing on my 5th attempt rather than do it honestly.
One of the more memorable parts of this 3rd area is that this is where a hunter, who is particularly fond of lead elixirs, starts to invade you, and these are probably some of the best fights in the game outside of bosses. Yes, you can go kill him in the flesh without losing anything, but I think it's forth fighting him for his armor than collecting it from his spawning areas.
Oh. Um...... 2 Winter Lanterns show up. .... Yay.
Bosses There are 5 new bosses added by the dlc. 4 are "mandatory" while one is "optional", but true consumers will get the most out of their $20 by doing them all.
Ludwig is the first mandatory boss of the dlc, fought at the end of the first area. This is a two part fight and it is THE flagship fight of the dlc as far as advertising pre-release went. The first phase of the fight is where the boss acts like a "beast" on all fours, similar to other bosses in the game, while in the second phase he gains the holy moonlight greatsword, energy attacks, and the ability to stand on hind legs. Um.... this boss is just cool. The best part about this boss is that both phases are bone crushingly hard to do alone, outdoing anything that can be found in the main game other than Ebrietas, and they are so DIFFERENT that most people will spend a good dozen fights just learning the first moveset before getting surprised by the cutscene and forced to do it all over. But it's still fair, and it truly is a really good boss worth experiencing. Um.... a bit disgusting though.
The Living Failures are the 2nd mandatory boss of the dlc. Um.. the only thing worth saying about this boss is that it's kind of bland and too easy if you can damage them faster than new ones rise up. The entire gimmick is that they keep spawning and share a health pool, but wearing the Choir armor and having a ton of damage on your weapon makes the fight really easy for veterans.
Maria is the 3rd mandatory boss of the dlc. This feels like the Gehrman fight, only... more epic? I mean the third phase of this fight involves the boss dancing around you with blood and fire. How does that not sound epic? The problem here is that she can be staggered, so phases 1 and 2 are a bit too easy.
The final boss of the dlc is not going to be spoiled. Um... this is the only real story point of the dlc worth spoiling, so I won't. <- But it is HARD, at least on NG+.
Lawrence is the optional boss of the dlc and it's basically a fiery cleric beast that has explosions added to its attack pattern for the first phase. At about 40% health, it will lose its lower half, it will become A LOT HARDER, and lava will start to enter the fight. Here the boss can only be really fought from the front for most of the fight. The reward for beating this fight is the Beast Transformation rune, which when combined with the Beast Claws is probably the only new damage option that can rival older pvp standards (albeit with the very harsh tradeoffs that beast mode entails).
Good Things Some random really good things that this dlc added. Um... the only really notable one is that we got a new blood rock. Since you can only reliably get 3 from the chalice dunegons and the rest require A LOT of farming (very unlikely) or going through the campaign over and over, adding a 2nd blood rock to each playthorugh of the campaign does A LOT for quality of life. It's even banally easy to get (well aside from being right before the final boss of the dlc so later in the dlc) compared to the one guarded by the Mother Brain.
Disapointments This is just things that disapointed me when I realized them: - No New Chalice Dungeons - No New Soul Farming Spot (literally the best one pre-dlc is still by far the best one, no competition) - No Good Way to Farm Chunks (something I was really really hoping the dlc would provide, since these are such a massive pain to get) - Relatively Short (it definitely requires multiple playthroughs and tons of use of the items outside of the dlc to be worth the price of admission to all but the most hardcore) - Does not make arcane builds that much more viable (it just really doesn't; like not at all) - Does not make beast mode that much more viable (it's still just really gimmicky OR game-breaking, depending on how good you are at not getting hit, and this doesn't change that equation much) - Didn't add much real content to the lore
Overall, I really liked it but I'm a diehard fan. I am not particularly sure anyone but the hardcore would really enjoy it to be honest. I don't think it was worth $20, objectively speaking.
Joined: Sep 22, 2013 Posts: 5700 Location: Inside my own head
Identity: Human
Truth be told I feel that the player character could move around faster in Titan Souls without losing much. But again, I only played the demo. It was an okay time and I might pick it up on sale. I've got my eyes on a couple of games on the GOG sale right now, actually, including that and Towerfall Ascension, which I only mention because of the archery combat.
I've got to see if I can put my thoughts together about Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons before they fade. I wouldn't be opposed to playing through it again, though. It was a hell of an experience.
QUICKEDIT: that review for the Bloodborne DLC was on XBone, right?
Joined: Sep 22, 2013 Posts: 5700 Location: Inside my own head
Identity: Human
I guess I had that coming, since a quick google search tells me it's a PS4 exclusive. I don't follow the consoles anymore. If it weren't for the fact that Nintendo releases the same dozen or so games over and over (exaggeration for effect) I probably wouldn't even be able to spot their exclusives.
Joined: Oct 30, 2013 Posts: 16394 Location: Secret Lair
So something good I feel IS worth adding.
It took me, from the beginning of NG+2 until getting back to the dlc, exactly 34 minutes. <- And I killed an extra boss I didn't have to, opened up some shortcuts I didn't need, and generally durdled around in Central Yharnum for quite a bit longer than necessary.
Now I realize that killing the Cleric Beast, Father Gascoigne, and Vicar Amelia in less than 34 minutes requires a certain amount of familiarity with the game. Not to mention a bit of leveling you wouldn't have on a brand new save file. But for sheer availability after you screwed up the milkweed rune, well it's very easy to get back to on a second playthrough. Feels nice.
Edit: Um.... bit of context. The Kin covenant rune can be easily missed in the dlc and I **** up that questline so I missed that and items related to it in the dlc. Feelsbadman. Since I finally beat the last dlc boss and got everything else in it, I wanted to go onto NG+2 (NG+ Gehrman only took 2 tries ) and reunlock the dlc to get this relatively quickly.
Joined: Sep 22, 2013 Posts: 5700 Location: Inside my own head
Identity: Human
I've been playing some of Sword of the Stars: The Pit and am trying to compose some thoughts on that before downloading the DLC and upgrade I already own. I think the best selling point for me is the control scheme for keyboard.
Would you be interested in playing Prop Hunt sometime?
Oddly enough I wish I had friends to play Prop Hunt with every time I watch Markiplier's videos on them. I'm not sure it would be the same without at least 4 people, though, and I don't feel like Garry's Mod would be worth it without a lot of friends to play around with. Incidentally Trouble in Terrorist Town also looks fun.
Joined: Oct 30, 2013 Posts: 16394 Location: Secret Lair
You might have to get Counterstike: Source to be able to play some maps too (it seems a lot of prop hunt textures are part of that).
Prop Hunt is actually designed for 32 people. Youtubers artificially make the games go faster, or otherwise it really wouldn't work at all. 2 vs 4 is not that big of a deal, as long as we agree to some rules (ala some of the videos) to make sure things actually happen, and I am sure we could find at least a 3rd somewhere on the forums. I would be willing to play a bit (or a lot) after finals are done (December 21st onwards) if you are interested.
Edit: Never mind. I actually looked up the process involved and.... I don't think it's a good idea no more. At least not with my internet.
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) and reunlock the dlc to get this relatively quickly.