found my way back to the tutorial boss and got revenge first try which was nice
1 Like
iāll attempt to explain my feelings about it although theyāre not fully formed yet.
as someone who was very skeptical about what the open world would add, itās working a lot better for me than i was expecting. it communicates scale and journey and a sense of place. i love stupidly large swamps and impossibly tall castles in the background and the open world removes the contrivance of having to navigate a series of unintuitive mazes to get there.
i never get my ābearingsā in souls games ā rather it just feels like iām memorizing a series of nodes connected in an arbitrary way. i think that design is tight and provides a consistent play experience, but it turns out iām also willing to give some of that ātightnessā up if it means i feel more connected to the world.
i also think the open world accentuates that feeling of excitement when entering a new place. when i go a hole in the ground in this game, i have no idea whether itās gonna be some small hovel or a giant mine or and entire underground city. and even if that happens in other souls games, the limited number of nodal connections makes it feel less special, like it was inevitable iād stumble upon it rather than āexploringā and it being entirely missable.
mechanically the open world isnāt the tightest but itās giving me sense of wonder and awe and scale and discovery and iām able to get immersed and role play without running into āartificeā (or the feeling of artifice) as often. i feel like a kid!
9 Likes
Oh yeah Iām gonna do that to Iām just gonna play the game for an hour or two first and then Iāll get back to work on more essential things I promise
2 Likes
is there anything particularly interesting in the town around the magic academy? Iām just about ready to move on to the east for now but I canāt shake the sense I havenāt covered enough of this place. I found the eastern mines and the eastern underground city and the cuckoo castle, all of which were incredible high points, but I just want a gut check.
I also havenāt been able to find my way up to a couple of plateaus in this area but I suspect those are tied to the belfry portals
I wish they had been a little more thoughtful with the map icons they make available. Whatās useful to note is merchants, NPCs with dialogue, stone gargoyle locks, other types of locked doors. Iām having to invent my own system with random symbols like the animal and the castle.
Also my boss map notes tend to be way off the mark. I run away until the music stops and then open the map and go āuh, I guess it was here?ā
5 Likes
I hate that they let you take a sip of tears when you are at full. I keep mistaking the two or not inputting down on dpad and wasting drinks at really shitty times.
Iāve had my summons in the quick-access menu, but gonna swap them out for my pots instead. Triangle+Left for Health and Right for Mana.
1 Like
yāall are so much farther ahead of me, iām still struggling with the lion boy in morne castle and just figured out that Ashes are reusable. Iām such a slowpoke!!
My opinion on this so far is ānot as revelatory as Dark Souls was for me, but does everything about an open world game exactly the way I want it to.ā Iāve always thought it was such a waste of resources to make these massive games and then fill them with Nothing At All, and this game is definitely packed to the gills with Things. Itās a really solid game full of surprises and pretty fuckin good design decisions, even early on.
Anyway loving it, hoping to not burn out on it too bad though. I might need to switch tacks and find a different boss to throw myself against now.
4 Likes
I think Iām really early on too Cania, no idea what half anyone here is talking about!! Iām 14 hours in and done a lot of exploring but only killed Godrick
I did just get an item with a 54 stat requirement. Tells me that the end game is about really investing stats and build viability into very specific class types. Love that so much. The most exciting thing about this game to me is how long you feel like youāre in that early Souls phase, where you REALLY are a character with 8 strength but 13 intelligence, which usually passes so quickly.
1 Like
25 hours in and exploring as much as possible, all the smithing stones Iāve seen systematically cap out at level 5. And the wiki says they go up to level 9. Starting to seriously suspect Iāve only seen half the real map
1 Like
anyone who knows the location of more gravity sorceries should HMU
iām using rock sling as a staple which staggers armored enemies, i want more of these
my character is just stuck here and I canāt teleport and after getting summoned it just brings be back here what the fuck
4 Likes
happens to the best of us
you have to go lower, thereās a point of grace in those mines
I mean stuck literally in the rocks and canāt move
1 Like
ohā¦ will it let you use the memory of grace at all?
thatās only a few hours ahead of me and, well, there are supposed to be at least 5, probably 6 main āregions,ā and if Iāve only really covered two and a half of themā¦
1 Like
It doesnāt seem like the kind of game thatās going to let me travel to another continent by boat or airship. But I have a guess as to where those continents are ā¦
2 Likes
okay that worked
lost all the runes I had after dealing with those bullshit heatseeking web attacks
1 Like
Just made it to the grace point in Redmane Castle.
This gameās difficulty curve is immaculate. Not just in the āenemies get gradually tougher as you venture outwardā way but in that the dungeons and castles get increasingly more souls-like as you make progress. The runs inside the areas get increasingly longer, and the grace points become more deliberate and scarce, giving it more of a classic Demonās feel between starting a level, finding a checkpoint, getting a shortcut, and running to the boss room. Itās great.
Also there are two lions in the courtyard, and and empty room to the left of them, so I just stayed there casting spells at them while they clawed at the doorway damaging each other until there was one left to fight. Classic stuff right there
4 Likes
A big highlight for me so far is Caelid Divine Tower. Terrifyingly precarious and vertiginous, like outer Anor Londo but vertical
Climbing-oriented open world games have a lot of zones like this but it hits different when thereās no āclingā button
1 Like