i’ve spent the last week playing through Ashen. i was really loving it, but the 1-2 hit of terrible dlc and a miserable final boss has really killed my motivation so i uninstalled it. pretty bummed out now, so playing the ace combat 7 dlc.
the sa-x can technically do more than you can because she is dramatically more powerful than you for 99% of the game
2 Likes
I don’t disagree. I was hoping for a more cerebral exercise with setting up physics experiments with enviromental objects and calculating balistic angles in bullet time. It’s something more arcadey but not quite tight enough for that perfect arcade experience but still fun enough.
1 Like
I’m thinking about getting Ashen. Without giving too much away, can you elaborate on why the DLC and final boss were so bad?
I’m playing on the third of four difficulty settings (the first two read as “ridiculously easy” and “regular easy”) and I don’t die a ton, but it does happen often enough. Against many enemies you don’t take damage well and as noted the tells aren’t great. I also was stuck on only three “estsus” heals until just recently which I’d guess is at least past the halfway point as I think I overlooked some (I just went back to the first “real” planet with my unlocked abilities and found two more) which did not help.
The game does seem to be fairly light on boss or even mid-boss encounters though, and the penalty for falling to your death is just a loss of maybe 15% health, so it lacks the elements that often rack up the deaths in various Souls games.
That said, it does do that thing where it puts a much higher level enemy in an early area that you really shouldn’t come back to fight until much later.
1 Like
the dlc is very boring, really bland design.
the final boss is pretty tough and just has a really long run up to it, however much i loved playing through a lot of the game, difficult combat was never the drive, so i have just lost all motivation here.
i really did love the first 3/4s of the game though.
Good to know thanks. I will consider all of that.
overall i played like 20 hours and loved 15 of them. of all the souls like games, it’s the one that makes me think of dark souls 2 the most.
1 Like
speaking of naked woman this Quiet shit makes me extremely uncomfortable lol
though I find it funny that Kaz is like “ew no boss girls are icky come on man boss bro dude”
12 Likes
that’s pretty much the only stuff i remember hearing about the game around when it came out and unfortunately it sounds like it only gets worse the further it “progresses”
theres a side mission with quiet later that legitimately made me quit the game because its so disgusting
My Friend Pedro’s controls are trying to solve a Rubix’s Cube blind.
A. you reminded me why Phantom Pain and Bloodborne are games of the decade for Rudie.
I really really like Phantom Pain, but recently watched a secrets and easter eggs videos and Quiet was worse than I remembered. It is just bad all around with that. But the game of scoping a base with sweet Nocs and then clearing it out is very very good.
2 Likes
Hearing about this stuff at the time, I thought killing quiet would improve the game, instead it just kind of bummed me out how little that choice mattered (also bummed re: killing a defenseless person while someone yelled at me over the phone to do it) and immediately made me quit
I honestly considered pulling the trigger but the drawn out scene of pointing a gun at a defenseless naked woman made me kind of sick to my stomach. And now seeing Quiet for the rest of the game is just making me feel shame for playing this. Everything about her character both visual and narrative is uncomfortable.
Like Kojima seems to love shitting on disabled people. You basically have the choice to kill a nonverbal autistic woman, is the entire vibe I’m getting. It’s really hard for me to view this as anything else. “We made her mute so our sexy doll doesn’t have to talk back” like okay but real people also have this affectation and I feel like I’m basically kidnapping a disabled woman for sexual pleasure. I felt pretty shitty about Huey too, like the paraplegic character is seen pissing himself in the first moments and everyone bullies him and knocks him down and takes away his mobility and it’s played for comic effect like he’s some court jester. I get that he’s an Emmerich and their whole character lineage is “wimpy embarrassing nerd” but this just felt tasteless to me. Snake fucking cuts his legs in a cutscene, which I had no control over, and then the game expected me to carry him around in-game, and that didn’t make me feel good. Like I’m actively controlling a character who would just run up and shove someone out of their wheelchair.
Or you can keep her as a pet and put her in a cage to look at, and she’s butt naked the entire time, while the camera makes every effort to peer right at her chest.
12 Likes
anyway I feel dumb for ranting like that, those were just my immediate impressions and I feel like I have to get it off my chest
I’m gonna continue playing and enjoying the game but jeez what a big source of discourse that I am not mentally equipped to filter
1 Like
I think that’s right but I also think there’s more intentionality to it. MGSV is about a character we already know is evil, about performing actions we’ve been repeatedly told are wrong, but about the mask of protagonist averting our eyes.
Every time Snake goes back to base to check on Huey and Otacon the cutscenes avert their gaze from the actions being performed; the player isn’t directly informed exactly what Otacon is doing to the soldiers you kidnap, but Huey and Quiet exist, right there. Snake has his time alone in his helicopter to brood but the player isn’t let in on his thoughts, because the player is supposed to be generating those thoughts, then. The servile organization built around the player enacts the limitations of the player’s vocabulary and the paralyzed, feeble leadership Snake shows – able to act, unable to lead or mentor or even hear the voices of his female staff other than as flesh to ogle.
1 Like
I certainly generate the thoughts. Regardless of intent, the game does a very good job expressing its themes through gameplay.
Well, I’m simply an oldschool gamer and I want to play as the good guy, not the villain.
5 Likes
I’ve played some very degenerate pornographic visual novels and somehow the audio depictions of sexual violence that were front and center in Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes managed to be more disturbing than any of them and it completely put me off from even trying newer Kojima games so I get where you’re going from
6 Likes