Also, if an enemy has a shield up, you can kick them (tap forward + light attack) to break the shield guard. Extremely useful against the pike guys, who attack with their shield up.
Most enemies also have trouble tracking you, so circle-strafing is your friend. You can fish for backstabs on most human-size enemies this way, though phantoms and some enemies won’t fall for it. It’s the easiest way to kill the black knights.
I’d actually recommend you (@hellojed) practice on the black knight that was guarding the ring, as he can drop two of the best pieces of gear in the game (Black Knight Sword and Shield) and it’s a good way to learn how to take on the tougher guys.
another thing i remember from my first playthrough is really carefully fighting those guys every time, still treating the game as a slow cautious experience, then watching my roommate play and just break their guard + cut them down with 2-handed strikes
(i was very briefly put out but it was swiftly replaced by the joy of learning a new tactic by watching someone else play)
(also the black knight and balder knights quickly show the limitations of this approach if you don’t have the weapon strength to back it up)
Okay tried The Message From Deep Space demo and I can see the appeal. Sit at an old 1970s looking computer and type in the responses the alien frequency seems to be fishing for via math while you occasionally got comments from the rest of the team that sort of flesh out their personalities (random Labyrinth reference in a game set in 1973 was kinda weird). I put in a few hours and it both hooked me pretty well while also making we question if I could deal with the full game. By the time I reached the end of the 75ish transmissions in the game it had gotten rather tricky math-wise for someone who is good with numbers but hasn’t taken a math class in decades, dealing with functions and powers with teases at possibly dealing with logs and such in the future. The demo also ends with telling me to buy the full game to play the remaining 900(!) puzzles and… I both have no idea how complicated things will get to fill that out and my god someone get modern puzzle game devs an editor.
So kinda want to continue, kinda want to not, do think it has something going for it though.
Is it worth playing more than half an hour of Air Twister? Love Space Harrier and I like the aesthetic and goofy soundtrack here, but it’s… really boring to play? There is just no weight to any of the action
A for Effort might be top 3 for me. Good track and unexpectedly extensive use of stock images in a first party Nintendo game. Football Dreams also has a good track and classic framework. Seems like a stand in for Karate Man this time around.
Volley-Ballish 3 is our nightly boss fight and we still haven’t defeated it. Souls boss in Rhythm Heaven form. Feels so good to get an unbroken volley and score even 1 point.
One complaint is that some minigames require a specific direction on the dpad due to the directional nature of the action whereas some let you press whatever as long as its the dpad. This makes sense until you get to remixes or attempt perfects as the game doesn’t provide a little tooltip to say btw this direction is needed for the inputs. I think it’s a bit much for them to expect the player remember all dpad rules/allowances across so many games and could be fixed with an unintrusive UI reminder.
been playing Mortal Kombat X. Not a fight gamer but I always liked the stages and fighters in MK, so it’s the only series I have bothered to play entries in for any amount of time. And I can kind of play them, whereas for SF or Tekken I have no idea what’s going on. Dead Or Alive is another exception.
The stories in these Neather Realms games are entertaining to play through, but holy shit these seriously just playout the same beats as as a movie like Avengers End Game. And to think people say shit online like “yeah, after this one the stories just got stupid.” lol
I am having fun, but these are some of the ugliest character designs I have ever seen.
The minigames themselves are nice and smooth, but I played this for the first time last night and was struck by how…disappointing the menus look in this release.
The evolution of Netherrealm graphics from MK9/Injustice (horrifying) to MKX (better, still bad) to Injustice 2/MK11 (actually really nice looking) is something else.
MK11 is pretty fun though. MK1…some swear it’s better but I can’t stand the striker/cameo system. Story also blows.
Honestly 11 is worth playing both story modes just to see (well, hear, y’know what I mean) the late Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa ham it up as Shang Tsung almost 20 years after that first movie. He rules. You can tell he’s having a blast with it.
(Circling back - MKX is pretty fun to play though. But god I hate how awful the beads of sweat look on the characters after a fight. It doesn’t look right, it looks like someone super glued a ton of those little round flat aquarium pebbles all over them)
