Fatigued Souls (Part 1)

they did come up in meauxdal’s playthrough! Rei’s reaction made me laugh really hard.

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Man, cheaters are dumb.

I’m trying to be really specific with the early part of this playthrough. So I’ve been staying offline, to avoid invasions.

But, I accidentally left it connected one time and got invaded. invincible cheater. yay.

Daughters of Ash mod now ready for the remastered Dark Souls

Prepare to Die Edition (original Dark Souls PC release) version here

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been playing DS3 again

this is a link to a playlist containing (as of writing) the first 11 parts of a let’s play i’m recording

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Why didn’t you chuckle when that crystal beast awkwardly fell!

the DLC for DS3 is really hard. i basically gave up after i beat the final boss because friede is extremely hard and i haven’t even made it to the ringed city yet because the dreg heap keeps handing my ass to me

Damn this reminds me I bought both and barely started Ashes when it came out. Jumping in now shouldn’t be such a big deal but with the entire game experience almost 3 years ago I’m gonna feel really weird.

it is def. worth seeing all the level stuff firsthand, some of the best stuff, but I gave up at the final dlc boss and just youtubed it and do not regret it

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I don’t like the DS3 DLC very much at all. I like the bosses, which I don’t think are all that hard (friede is harder than the ringed city bosses imo, but some weapons make her much easier than others), but everything else ranges from uninspired to a total slog. they’re pretty, though.

if you think Friede is hard, wait until Ringed City bosses. jeez.

I had decided I was done with soulsborne games, excepting my quarterly (and so far, unsuccessful) attempts on Gascoine’s life, but then I picked up the DaS remaster and damn, I’m just steamrolling through it. Took out O&S on my second try, and most of the other bosses on my first attempt. Going with an End/Dex/Vit build and between the +5 lightning halberd and +4 queelag’s sword, there’s nary a bastard that can stand up to me

EDIT: I should mention that I don’t do any PvP, and go offline whenever I reverse hollowing. Last time I won a PvP match in DaS 2 I was called a slur and said nope, never again

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So, disregarding fatigue as much as possible:

Where do you guys rank Sekiro when loosely compared/included with Souls games and Bloodborne? (you can also rank Nioh in there, if you want).

I’ve been thinking about getting around to playing it. But, wonder if its essential, in comparison (so I guess still sort of considering fatigue).

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It’s different enough that it should bypass those fatigue feelings; it’s halfway to something like Ninja Gaiden in its speed and very tight central loop. It’s less of a Souls game than the new God of War is.

Level design is superb and extremely vertical. Much of the new work was in incorporating the tricks of games like Arkham and Assassin’s Creed: easy stealth kills, automatic movement (ledge hangs, grapples), synchronized, choreographed kill moves. But it’s all done with a light touch and to the benefit of the game – pushing the player into faster, more brutal stealth action loops than you find in the Western games this originated in. Repeating level segments now feels like learning the optimal stealth-kill route, which you can master in about 3-5 runs, and then it’s much less time than a similar boss trek in a Souls game (unless you sprint past).

It can be very unapproachable, as the core loop is played much faster than prior games. It’s actually much simpler and easier if you make it to figuring out how combat works, but they do a poor job of teaching you the expected rhythm. Be aware (or ask for help as we may be able to talk you to the expectation – I’ve had interesting experiences testing out levels of talking-through on friends to gauge their frustration).

I’d end up sorting them now as Bloodborne -> Demon’s -> Sekiro (I think sometimes about incorporating King’s Field/Shadow Tower in these considerations as we move forward but at the moment I think the jump to Demon’s is still much larger than the jump to Sekiro).

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Sekiro is wonderful but an odd game. It’s basically a single-player fighting game spackled together with Tenchu levels. Rather short and there’s a decent amount of reused content, i think they did a good job of hiding their budget.

The combat is really terrific — what Bloodborne does for dodging and parrying, Sekiro does with blocking and deflection — but the game is a little too punishing too quickly and it makes itself more difficult to learn than it needs to be. You get a living training dummy (who’s actually a really cool guy) that you’re going to want to train with at least a little bit.

Neat little game, definitely worth playing, though it’s more of an in between than the next big thing people imagined it would be. I’m curious to see what Elden Ring carries forward from it.

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Whoah, I think I still clocked in at 60 hours, which I guess is lower than the 80 I get on the other games, but these games still take me months to get through. How long did it take you?

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Oh i meant less in terms of hours and more ground covered, it’s a rather small game. Like once you know how to fight everything you can tear through it in an afternoon. Idk how many hours lol i really slowly picked away at it though.

Oh, yeah, this long sprawling thing turns into a nice little puzzle box once you cross the hump. I think it’s similar to the threshold crossed in the Souls games, but much much more so as the combat is so subject to that line of mastery.

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It can’t really be ranked relative to Souls and Bloodborne because it’s too different. I think it’s essential in a similar way that Demon’s was. It’s carving a path to a new type of experience, it basically succeeds in that, and it’s willing to suffer a lot of rough edges in service of that ambition.

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sekiro is definitely one of my favorite games ever. the action is way more satisfying than in any souls game. going from souls to sekiro, you trade customization and infinite replayability for the best action From has ever done

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