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- Thread starter Onhell
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I'll wait for it to be on a proper platform (PC) but I hope they do some interesting story stuff.
DJMayes
Ancient Mariner
I missed the DS chat, but I have recently restarted DS1 with an aim of finishing it before the Elden Ring DLC arrives. I've done this a few times before - normal run, SL1, and a couple of other challenges - but this time I'm looking at doing some of the NG+ cycles, which I've never really committed to before.
JudasMyGuide
The resident reactionary recalcitrant
Anyway, since I'm on sick leave, during the day when the kids are awake I play God of War on PC (between reading and other stuff) - when they go to sleep I usually turn to Lies of P on Xbox, to finish it. Did Black Rabbit Brotherhood and King of Puppets today and just now opened the big gate in Lorenzini Arcade.
The game's fun, can't deny that, but being able to compare now, having finished Bloodborne as well... it's a good soulslike, but it isn't From. The fun factor's missing something and it might be because the game wants to be all of From, but you know what they say about jacks of all trades...
So you get nerfed iframes on dodge, so that you deflect - okay, but the deflection is kinda janky, with weird timing that seems to be different for different weapons... it definitely doesn't hold a candle to Sekiro - so okay, you play aggressively at least, since the enemies regain their health and you have the kinda-rally system from Bloodborne... but since the rally system is negated each time you get damage you're not blocking, unless you use a weapon with a shitton of reach it's not really worth it.
With Puppet King I said fuck it and just dodged anyway and both phases of the fight took me only a few attempts. Black Rabbit Brotherhood, however... fuck that fight, really, it's tedious as fuck. Especially since the main bloke's sword has ridiculous reach (with some janky hitboxes, methinks) and long combos which you either deflect perfectly (good luck with that in this game) or you're pretty much fucked. I mean, sure, the parry system was kinda iffy in DS 1-3 as well, but it was more manageable and the game wasn't as built around it as this one is.
Once I managed to break the big geezer's weapon, the rest of the fight was surprisingly easy, but getting there...
There are tougher fights in from software games, but I wonder if there were any more tedious. Reminded me of my worst memories of Living Failures, the only boss I'd delete from Bloodborne if I could.
Other than that, like I said, the game is really a lot of fun, the atmosphere and music and visual design, it's all really, really good. Definitely worth playing, but so far I'm not really sure if it's worth replaying as well.
The game's fun, can't deny that, but being able to compare now, having finished Bloodborne as well... it's a good soulslike, but it isn't From. The fun factor's missing something and it might be because the game wants to be all of From, but you know what they say about jacks of all trades...
So you get nerfed iframes on dodge, so that you deflect - okay, but the deflection is kinda janky, with weird timing that seems to be different for different weapons... it definitely doesn't hold a candle to Sekiro - so okay, you play aggressively at least, since the enemies regain their health and you have the kinda-rally system from Bloodborne... but since the rally system is negated each time you get damage you're not blocking, unless you use a weapon with a shitton of reach it's not really worth it.
With Puppet King I said fuck it and just dodged anyway and both phases of the fight took me only a few attempts. Black Rabbit Brotherhood, however... fuck that fight, really, it's tedious as fuck. Especially since the main bloke's sword has ridiculous reach (with some janky hitboxes, methinks) and long combos which you either deflect perfectly (good luck with that in this game) or you're pretty much fucked. I mean, sure, the parry system was kinda iffy in DS 1-3 as well, but it was more manageable and the game wasn't as built around it as this one is.
Once I managed to break the big geezer's weapon, the rest of the fight was surprisingly easy, but getting there...
There are tougher fights in from software games, but I wonder if there were any more tedious. Reminded me of my worst memories of Living Failures, the only boss I'd delete from Bloodborne if I could.
Other than that, like I said, the game is really a lot of fun, the atmosphere and music and visual design, it's all really, really good. Definitely worth playing, but so far I'm not really sure if it's worth replaying as well.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
Very true.
I used the specter to divide their attention, took out the 3 weaker ones as quickly as possible, then cheesed the big guy by getting that big rock outcropping between myself and him and punishing him every time he did a big attack.
JudasMyGuide
The resident reactionary recalcitrant
Onhell
Infinite Dreamer
Still pushing through Borderlands 2. I was very happy with the DLC in the original Borderlands and only one was post game content. If anything due to the level required for the missions. However, Borderlands 2 doesn't seem as robust on the DLC front 2 of the 5 are post game. One actually tells you there will be spoilers if you continue since it's post-game, and the other one is Tiny Tina's Assault on Castle Keep or whatever which I've already played since it was released as a stand-alone.... it ALSO is post-game, but this one doesn't give the same warning. The Hunting grotto isn't exactly post-game, but like the one DLC from the OG game, the level required pushes it back a tad. So I've only done one DLC, a bunch, but not all the side quests available so far and I have to say... I'm cruising through it. I remember the first time I played it, it felt longer. I'm very close to the end game. The game itself is A LOT more fun than the OG. I still dig the humor and pop culture references. In that way it reminds me of Fallout, a franchise that smattered pop/sci-fi references from names of quests, items, people, etc. I'm looking forward to the pre-sequel. The first time I played it it felt like it went on forever and I just wanted it to end. This time around, I'm looking forward to that. I guess it's my level of stress, but they've been a nice escape.
I also got the HD version of AC III only because it was the only way to purchase AC Liberation since it got removed from the xbox arcade store. I'll play both, and the thing I'm looking forward to the most in AC III is the hunting challenges. I remember loving exploring the wilderness, tracking the animals and hunting... for HOURS. Will be another nice, mindless way to destress.
I also got the HD version of AC III only because it was the only way to purchase AC Liberation since it got removed from the xbox arcade store. I'll play both, and the thing I'm looking forward to the most in AC III is the hunting challenges. I remember loving exploring the wilderness, tracking the animals and hunting... for HOURS. Will be another nice, mindless way to destress.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
I actually did almost all of the side stuff as teenage Connor, and some of the missions read a bit weird that way…LOL. IIRC more options opened up as adult Connor, so I was kind of working against my own interests tackling things that way.
Vaenyr
Ancient Mariner
Finished the first 5 (out of 14) chapters in FFVII Rebirth.
So far it's a great game. The music is phenomenal, the visuals are amazing (though the lighting can be quite harsh and there are some issues with textures here and there), the variety in gameplay is impressive for a game of that size. The story so far is quite interesting as well.
That said, I'm not the biggest fan of the open world segments. Movement with the chocobos as well the terrain navigation on foot is frustrating. The overly anime dialogues are grating as well. FF XVI was my GOTY last year and I really appreciated that the characters in that game actually talked like realistic humans, in a fantasy setting that is, while FFVII feels like it's straight from some anime. The constant grunting and "huh" reactions to anything that happens is getting obnoxious.
On the other hand, not only is the game not afraid to be silly and ridiculous, it completely embraces the insanity and I genuinely appreciate that. Let's see how it continues.
So far it's a great game. The music is phenomenal, the visuals are amazing (though the lighting can be quite harsh and there are some issues with textures here and there), the variety in gameplay is impressive for a game of that size. The story so far is quite interesting as well.
That said, I'm not the biggest fan of the open world segments. Movement with the chocobos as well the terrain navigation on foot is frustrating. The overly anime dialogues are grating as well. FF XVI was my GOTY last year and I really appreciated that the characters in that game actually talked like realistic humans, in a fantasy setting that is, while FFVII feels like it's straight from some anime. The constant grunting and "huh" reactions to anything that happens is getting obnoxious.
On the other hand, not only is the game not afraid to be silly and ridiculous, it completely embraces the insanity and I genuinely appreciate that. Let's see how it continues.
Shmoolikipod
Stranger to the Light
I'm addicted to Balatro, if anyone here played Slay the Spire it's quite similar. You play poker hands to get enough points to pass the level, and buy stuff in the shop to power-up your deck. You win after 8 "antes", you lose because you the boss "just so happens" to debuff clubs when that's your whole build. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
JudasMyGuide
The resident reactionary recalcitrant
Just finished Lies of P yesterday and although I don't have the time right now to do a full write-up and I have to be brief, let's just put it here.
- gameplay-wise, it is not on the level of From, but as a game, meaning the whole package, I genuinely fell in love with it. The atmosphere, the characters, the collecting of records - I'm actually playing the soundtrack in my car from time to time, that thing doesn't happen very often with a video game. The city of Krat, the automatons, the score, the story, it was all really ... something, it amazed me absolutely.
- there were cca 2,5 boss encounters where I thought to myself - they overdone this, this is just bullshit, hard for hard's sake, trying to outFrom From - the second phase of both Green Monster and especially Laxasia were so fucking overtuned (especially with the somewhat janky combat mechanics of your character and the erratic movements of both; heck, Laxasia skating away on the thin ice of a new day while filling the screen with lightning is just an epilepsy simulator, tbh) I almost threw the game away and in the end I summoned. Manus' second phase was teetering on the edge of it, but didn't cross it to me, although I felt it was somewhat bullshit, especially with the waves he sends being so fast so they were bordering on unreactable. Still beat him summonless.
In general, the game was harder for me than any fromsoft game I played (and I play quality builds without summons, cheese or shields). Maybe I'm just bad at it, don't know, but at times I felt it was almost too much for me.
On the other hand, I absolutely loved the Archbishop fight, Nameless Puppet, first phase of Green Monster, Corrupted Parade Master and surprise surprise, even the rematch against Brotherhood (it's mostly the arena, the second one gives at least some cover). Victor I didn't personally vibe with, but I get why people love him.
- level design is much more linear than in From (but that's not necessarily a negative thing), but as for the atmosphere of the levels themselves, I'm again flabbergasted. I am really looking forward to going into NG+ this evening, I need to return to Krat. The way the environments change, the way they are re-used and revisited and recontextualised - the levels and the enemies also - it felt really great. Kinda reminded me of Alien Isolation, in more than one way - both felt long, but not overlong, changing it a bit and making it interesting for the player (A:I by confrontations with humans, robots and the alien, each of which was quite different to handle, LoP has it somewhat similar with the automatons, carcasses and humans) and so on.
- I have avoided the popular tropes of Victorian era, La Belle Époque, steampunk and clockpunk all my life. I hated it, found it stupid and cringe. This game absolutely changed me. I want to read Verne, re-watch Hugo again and I want to be predictable and clichéd. My springs reacted, to put it succintly.
(also, did you know someone put the restoration of early movies by Lumière bros with documentary commentary on YouTube? An absolute treat for both history and film buffs)
The game is in many ways so clichéd I should hate it... but I can't. I fell in love with it, honestly.
- gameplay-wise, it is not on the level of From, but as a game, meaning the whole package, I genuinely fell in love with it. The atmosphere, the characters, the collecting of records - I'm actually playing the soundtrack in my car from time to time, that thing doesn't happen very often with a video game. The city of Krat, the automatons, the score, the story, it was all really ... something, it amazed me absolutely.
- there were cca 2,5 boss encounters where I thought to myself - they overdone this, this is just bullshit, hard for hard's sake, trying to outFrom From - the second phase of both Green Monster and especially Laxasia were so fucking overtuned (especially with the somewhat janky combat mechanics of your character and the erratic movements of both; heck, Laxasia skating away on the thin ice of a new day while filling the screen with lightning is just an epilepsy simulator, tbh) I almost threw the game away and in the end I summoned. Manus' second phase was teetering on the edge of it, but didn't cross it to me, although I felt it was somewhat bullshit, especially with the waves he sends being so fast so they were bordering on unreactable. Still beat him summonless.
In general, the game was harder for me than any fromsoft game I played (and I play quality builds without summons, cheese or shields). Maybe I'm just bad at it, don't know, but at times I felt it was almost too much for me.
On the other hand, I absolutely loved the Archbishop fight, Nameless Puppet, first phase of Green Monster, Corrupted Parade Master and surprise surprise, even the rematch against Brotherhood (it's mostly the arena, the second one gives at least some cover). Victor I didn't personally vibe with, but I get why people love him.
- level design is much more linear than in From (but that's not necessarily a negative thing), but as for the atmosphere of the levels themselves, I'm again flabbergasted. I am really looking forward to going into NG+ this evening, I need to return to Krat. The way the environments change, the way they are re-used and revisited and recontextualised - the levels and the enemies also - it felt really great. Kinda reminded me of Alien Isolation, in more than one way - both felt long, but not overlong, changing it a bit and making it interesting for the player (A:I by confrontations with humans, robots and the alien, each of which was quite different to handle, LoP has it somewhat similar with the automatons, carcasses and humans) and so on.
- I have avoided the popular tropes of Victorian era, La Belle Époque, steampunk and clockpunk all my life. I hated it, found it stupid and cringe. This game absolutely changed me. I want to read Verne, re-watch Hugo again and I want to be predictable and clichéd. My springs reacted, to put it succintly.
(also, did you know someone put the restoration of early movies by Lumière bros with documentary commentary on YouTube? An absolute treat for both history and film buffs)
The game is in many ways so clichéd I should hate it... but I can't. I fell in love with it, honestly.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
I aced Green Monster on the first try, so I'm not sure what issues you were running into. Maybe build differences?
Laxasia's second phase sucked balls until I decided to use the perfect guard grinder and reflect all that lightning back at her. Still a nailbiter, but much more manageable.
Surprised you didn't mention Nameless Puppet, as I had to completely respec and change my loadout to beat him, and only after a stupid number of attempts.
By the end of Lies Of P I think I was seeing enough of its seams that I wasn't really interested in NG+ the way I would be in most From games, but I did enjoy that first pass through it.
JudasMyGuide
The resident reactionary recalcitrant
Nameless Puppet was real fun to me, although tough - it reminded me of a slightly harder Lady Maria fight (which was probably my favourite boss fight from Bloodborne, based on pure feel alone - I just like the fast swordsmen, usually, Romeo was also quite a lot of fun) - the first phase was quite easy to manage, I opened the second (when he is most aggressive) with the perfection grindstone to break his posture a bit and learned which moves to parry and which to dodge and finally to start use fable arts consistently and it was fine.
(Although I was using the trident weapon - I started using it with Manus, because it has 30 % chance to crit, which combined with the amulet that strengthens critical damage, another boss-made one which strengthens consecutive attacks and another one that strengthens attacks vs humans/puppets/carcasses absolutely demolishes everyone, every third attack or so is critical and you get the boss to half health quite quickly. Maybe a bit overtuned/too meta for my liking, but I decided to use everything I had, since the bosses were overtuned also.)
The second Green Monster Phase was way too erratic and chaotic for me to get a hold on, I couldn't either dodge or deflect consistently, even the moves that were re-used from Scrapped Watchman, something was off. I more or less mastered the first phase and the second was so frustrating, full of visual bullshit and in such a cramped arena and proccing decay and fucking up my weapon's durability all the time (and after the first phase, which I managed quite well, but was tedious to redo each time) I just couldn't remain motivated and I summoned a Spectre in the end.
Laxasia was kinda similar, even with the Spectre the win felt a bit RNG, way too quick, overtuned, visually confusing, with her skating like the Flash and hitting like Hulk and fucking lightning everywhere and kinda long first phase made me cry bullshit. And to think I used to complain about the fucking Valkyries in GoW (2018).
I just didn't have the patience, though I will be returning to the fight later.
Oh, gameplay-wise, definitely, it is flawed very much... but somehow... it worked for me as a whole. I'm returning to it because the atmosphere, some of the ideas, everything, it just... clicked, somehow.
Kinda like the original Posel smrti (it was sequelled and re-made as Black Mirror, but I'm talking about the original Czech point-and-click adventure version), the atmosphere and the escape there makes me want to revisit it, even if the gameplay is iffy sometimes.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
This was probably part of my issue -- I dabbled with other weapons over the course of the game, but the Booster Glaive blade with some other hilt (I forget which) just fit my natural playstyle better, so I was never won over enough by anything else to switch. And I had a Motivity build, so the Technique weapons weren't really on my radar (though I suppose I could have respecced, but that seemed like a hassle).
JudasMyGuide
The resident reactionary recalcitrant
Vaenyr
Ancient Mariner
Currently around 2/3 through FFVII Rebirth. Spoiler free impressions:
While the highs are much higher than in Remake, the lows are muuuuch lower. There are far too many minigames, the exploration of the open world is a chore and the open world areas start to drag more and more. I'm super happy with the overall story, but the cutscene direction can be quite obnoxious when it goes too far into weird anime tropes.
The positives: The music continues being amazing. The character interactions are super fun. The combat in general shines and that's before doing any of the end game content.
If this continues like that I can see liking it a bit less than Remake. Rebirth doesn't even come close to touching XVI though.
While the highs are much higher than in Remake, the lows are muuuuch lower. There are far too many minigames, the exploration of the open world is a chore and the open world areas start to drag more and more. I'm super happy with the overall story, but the cutscene direction can be quite obnoxious when it goes too far into weird anime tropes.
The positives: The music continues being amazing. The character interactions are super fun. The combat in general shines and that's before doing any of the end game content.
If this continues like that I can see liking it a bit less than Remake. Rebirth doesn't even come close to touching XVI though.
Meliegree
Evening The Odds.
Would you recommend this game? I'm on the fence right now. When I'll finish the Arkham Knight then I would like to try something new.
Shmoolikipod
Stranger to the Light
In general, each run looks different because you get different offers in the shop, and you adapt your build accordingly. There's good variety, about 150 jokers which are your main power source, a whole bunch of starting decks with different bonuses, it succeeds as a roguelite.
There are a few balance issues maybe, for example flushes shouldn't be stronger than straights in a game where you can fish for cards, and additionally there's a fair bit of luck involved, especially in the higher difficulties.
I'm enjoying it, and I wasn't expecting to because I prefer dungeon-crawlers, so I'd recommend. Try watching a video of it, shouldn't be hard to follow.
Edit: if you're playing on Steam, you can ask for a refund no problem as long as you played less than 2 hours and not two weeks after buying.