For demons they are all non native english speakers. Which is definitely something more everything should do!
I’m at drangleic castle so I reckon there’s not too much I haven’t seen yet
I’m playing scholar of the first sin on PC which looks dramatically better than the 360 version. I found one mod that subtly improves the lighting (most of durantes stuff only works for the DX9 version of the game), and that helps obscure some of these things. the single biggest issue with the game’s visuals are the poorly tiled textures. there are seams and weird geometry if you really look for them, but pretty much every area has large sections where you’re just getting blasted with ugly tiled repetitive textures. it reminds me of hexen 2, and not in a great way.
the location that stands out the most for me in terms of being ugly/sloppily done is the entrance to castle in the forest of fallen giants. here’s a screenshot of how it looks from ground level in the little river area:
and here’s
the view from above, where they clearly did not think anyone would see it from this angle (despite, ya know, this being a prominent side area for this locale):
I still haven’t seen the full end game stuff yet, but what I’ve seen of drangleic castle is pretty bad, too. it reminds me of like N64 lighting and shading. the texture tiling is consistently awful throughout. the weird little mountainous area in the background looks like mount nibel from ffvii. don’t mean that in a good way. to the game’s credit, the art direction tends to triumph over these flaws. even the most problematic areas still are very atmospheric.
anyway, I’m enjoying the game a lot more the further I get into it. it’s a very different kinda experience than ds1, but I’m glad they didn’t just go for a slavish imitation without miyazaki at the helm. though this game kinda retreads some of the basic visual and level design themes, even the most analagous areas (like the gutter vs blighttown) take things in their own direction and are not very predictable. my biggest criticism is that the bosses are all kinda sloppy and forgettable. maybe I’ve gotten too good at souls games but I’m finding them to all be super easy. I haven’t really gotten stuck on ANY of them, and so far all the lord bosses (or whatever they’re called) I’ve beaten in one try, without too much thought. I think the spider boss thing took three or four attempts. as has been observed elsewhere, most of the bosses are just “some dude with a sword” variants, and they all tend to have pretty similar movesets.
what I really feel missing from this game is that aforementioned sense of interconnectedness. there’s limited degree to which I feel some forced backtracking is a valuable way to enforce a sense of space. this game sprawls so much that it has to have fast travel from the get go, which makes things feel even more disjointed. you will usually see the transition between areas once or twice and then never again. there is a decent effort to “signpost” future areas with landmarks, which does give a general sense of continuity. I really appreciate that all the way out in the huntsmans copse bridge leading to the undead purgatory, you can look and see a tiny swarm of crows by the fading sunset, which is a subtle signifier of the keep at the forest of loss giants. there are some nice touches like that throughout.
my favorite areas are probably huntmans copse, the gutter, and the iron keep. the gutter in particular is where the game’s otherwise kinda gimmicky torch mechanic really shines, and it’s incredibly non linear and sequence breakable. your first time through is super nerve wracking without any light, and I actually missed half the stage because I fell off somewhere I wasn’t supposed to. I’m still not sure that I explored that level in the “correct” order! it seems like there might not even be a correct order! I think that’s kind of incredible.
anyway sorry for all the rambling poorly written words! it feels good to ramble about videogames! haven’t done that in a long time!
3 Likes
DS2 has a lot of good things going for it, but the visuals and the bosses really aren’t them. And yeah, it is totally discontinuous, there’s no real way to build a mental map of areas with the way it’s constructed, sadly, as the places actually physically overlap. Thinking of the corridors joining areas as being longer than they actually are tends to make it feel more like a journey, which I think is the intention.
Gutter would be a lot cooler without the Interdimensional Hitbox Dogs, but it’s definitely memorable in its own way, moreso than most areas in either Souls game.
5 Likes
i finished my biyearly playthrough of ultima 7, a game that i somehow keep coming back to since i got it back in 1992
somehow i managed to clear with less than half of the main story completed, largely because i forgot exactly how it goes and just tried to do the big story beats from memory. apparently it doesn’t really care if you do them in order, as long as you get the three prisms and telekinesis talk your way into hook’s room. so many things are locked behind damage gates that you’re supposed to do story events to get around, but aren’t actually lethal, and what doesn’t kill you is totally fixable
i tried to use all the worst npcs in my party this time around for a challenge, in retrospect it’s kind of insulting that all the female characters are genuinely bad, when this has not been the case for earlier games in the series. wasn’t too hard but had to do some grinding to get their combat skill up to the point where they don’t instantly die in every fight even with maximum armor
though, i think it’s finally time to put it to rest. feeling like nothing in here really resonates with me anymore, although i consider it really important for me as a gamer, formatively
u7pt2 is A Very Warren Spector Game and i think holds up as a game better but is just worse as a story, and u7 engine is not good at being a game at the best of times
5 Likes
the part that drives me nuts the most is when you move from the shaded woods to drangleic castle, and you’re walking by that cool sotc looking bridge thing, and you go into this very short tunnel, and then all of a sudden you’re high up on this mountain and it’s raining and WHERE’S THE GOT DAMN BRIDGE
3 Likes
My favorite part of that game. Outrun and magical.
It turns out that Always Sometimes Monsters can be a pretty emotionally fulfilling experience if you’re coping with a breakup.
been playing a lot of table tennis
table tennis is the SHIT everyone
2 Likes
thas’t not a videogame
Oh it is, and it also rules pretty hard. It’s definitely rockstar’s best game
edit: basically what jodeaux said
but also irl table tennis is pretty awesome
Have you ever played on a micro table? The table is 1/4 size of the normal regulation size. It’s kind of intense and awesome
that sounds amazing! I personally love hitting big forehand smash shots so I’m not so sure how good I’d be at that but that would make me way better at pretty much everything else
I went back and finally beat King’s Field. That has inspired me to complete my collection of PS1 RPGs so I fired up Vandal Hearts II. For some reason I stopped playing it around halfway through the game. I forgot how unique the battle system was. Once I finish Vandal Hearts I may tackle Vagrant Story or Persona (another game I stopped playing midway through). Persona will be tough for me to go back to knowing that the original US release was so badly put together. Does the PSP version of the Snow Queen quest?
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is this king’s field (J) or king’s field 2 (J) / king’s field (NA)
both are great, but the latter is a goddamn masterpiece
Man the first/second KF games are super fascinating and kind of awful, I love em. Can’t remember which, but in one of them there’s a secret room behind a fake wall, but nothing’s in it. But, in the back of that hidden room is another fake wall leading to another fake room, which has the best weapon in the game. Shrug emoji.
They brought it back for that port, yeah!
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I certainly have heard this description multiple times.
Polygon’s Griffin McElroy argued that Freedom Planet successfully performs “a difficult balancing act, borrowing and transforming elements from games like Sonic the Hedgehog and Rocket Knight Adventures without coming off as derivative”.[31] McElroy and Pablo Taboada of the Spanish-language website MeriStation both compared the game to the work of developer Treasure. Taboada lamented the game’s obscurity and suggested that, had Treasure obtained the rights to Sonic and released Freedom Planet as an official sequel, it would have been more popular.[
Played book I awhile back.
It was nifty and really showed how different games are today in a lot of ways.
Sounds like Ash Lake!
1 Like