I know this flow, early in my third run I started wanting to tackle the three fountainhead fragrance guardians soon as possible, and leave the rest just to stroll through or experiment with certain tool combos and screenshots.
Your posts are the one thing that made me consider rolling all the way toward double digit ng+ and see how it feels - only your attack power can increase while everything takes less damage and hits you harder.
Gundamnit Iām supposed to be done playing this
No need double digits.
like DS, NG+7 (#8 run) is the max diff, and I had full attack power (max is 99, cant go further) by mid way of NG+7.
Also, did half of that last run with the bell curse. As for damageā¦ wellā¦ yeah it is heavy. VERY
I.E. Ogre grab = one shot kill.
I wasnt sure if there was any change past +7, hmmmkay.
Really if I do this again, itās probably fresh ng, remove Kuroās charm add Demon Bell. If I donāt create more restrictions at least working with minimal tools/skills it will be another layer of challenging (if not eventually exhausting)
Edit: chipping away opponent health while constantly avoiding the one or two hits that would do you inā¦can grow a lot more monotonous than fun, but prayer beads and memories are a choice so thereās even more brutality to dance with
I use it as a lens to shape discussion; like all ideologies, strict adherence is death.
Diablo III is a game trapped in dialogue with itself and so far removed from the original dungeon crawl fantasy that the token objects are distracting more than illuminating; I normally refer to it as baroque design.
To a large extent the illusion of a world is built through solidity. And by this I mean its ability to impose its own rules over the game systems, to stubbornly be a thing everything else must work around. Player convenience features (commonly called āquality of lifeā) often work around the worldās little inconveniences, and if world presence is an important aesthetic I think these should be carefully considered.
Dungeon crawls, living on an aesthetic of hard, desperate exploration, need these solid worlds, and Fromās utter respect for their world (over the playerās desires, and certainly over their time) seems to give it weight; Diablo III is less a dungeon crawl and more an optimization obstacle course.
itās worth noting how Sekiro has naturally strayed from their dungeon crawls, at least starting with the stealth more stealth kill (immediate position of you can be that which lurks, from the get go).
Itās not really a term that could apply here much longer, anything I can think of front to back in Seki asā¦intimidating or horrific in the dark, the trepidation doesnāt much exist in the flow of the game other than aesthetic, atmosphere. Along with the simplification of stats and player empowerment, immediate capability
āYouāre trapped in here with meā
Jumping grappling and air swallowing would be different if defense and deflect were only very, very specifically able to be taken advantage of. Fear of being seen or detected in any sense would be actually tense and panic inducing, if hard to recover from then also highly consequential.
Yeah the stealth mechanic is a one-way player advantage in a way Iāve never quite seen before. If Iām not seen then I can crush them with that; if I am seen, well, guess Iāll just crush them a different way I guess.
Some legs of the game have Sculptorās Idols far apart from each other, while others have them placed in a way that feels (if not a little) haphazard then simply just to be convenient and considerate, which is fine. Just not in step with again, being more consequential.
The more I zoom out and start drawing the level designs, the sleeker and softer they get.
Why is Mibu village such a sponge? I can explain away with thematic reasons only so much. I mean the area before it is disorienting and (deceptively) made for a slow approach, but the whole idea of mist enemies you canāt keep track of is another thing great in idea, short lived in actual implement.
Tidy indeed
I didnāt much enjoy Ashina Depths as a whole. Bit of a Dark Souls 2 vibe to it with the chain of unrelated zones (such that I find it hard to remember what leads into what), reused enemies and even a fog forest.
Just saying, gonna start the 4 mini-rush boss.
but even before lady butterfly I have 9 gourds and 6 necklacesā¦ soā¦ difficulty on bosses right now is kind of a thing of the past (also a load fuck of skills).
Game broken?
[EDIT]
Also @Broco, ashina depths is my blight town in sekiro only for the grabby ground dudes annouance. Annoyance will always sound like blight town for me now.
[/edit]
Thats why Iām saying, if trying it on ng, add difficulties at will. Balder Side Sword vs Pugilist Mushrooms Mode
I have been following the āiframeā discussion and I was wondering: were there iframes in Ninja Gaiden, for example?
i beat the guardian ape on my second attempt ever. was able to work out the folding monkeys (amazing boss!) and acquired the mortal blade. feeling pretty good about all that, i strolled back to the top of ashina castle and got straight embarrased by Owl. holy shit that dude is no joke
I beat juzou the drunkard on my first try. Is he supposed to be difficult? Can I feel good about this?
He killed the shit out of me over the course of like 15 tries. So please feel good about it.
(Did your buddy survive?)
heās been a sticking point for literally everyone iāve talked to about this game
he did not :(
If I had a chance to practice the fight maybe I could have but I somehow managed to get through the whole thing without much issue. His grabs/sweeps are really telegraphed and donāt chain with his normal combos so I found a decent groove of keeping my distance until he starts comboing and then rush in to get some deflects in, and then get as much vitality damage as I can after. The fight went by pretty quickly this way but maybe I got lucky with him not going for grabs too often or something?
The weird purple dude on the roof who kicks a lot still kills me every time tho 
If you time it right you can Mikuri counter one of the last thrusting kicks, heāa also a prime member of the ākinda spam blockā club so you can get a bearing on the actual timing of his swipes. Heās the first in a series so itās very rewarding to get nailed down.
I have found that particular mikiri counter to be very difficult to execute. I feel like he is definitely an encounter where having higher posture makes a big difference because he is very relentless and is more likely to punish you fatally when your posture breaks.
Yeah he makes you feel especially fragile early in the game and most of the sword/kicks could wear posture fast. Purely for the sake of beating to start, I think mostly dodging then waiting till you see his leg wind back for the perilous āair burst forward kickā can help a lot. At least for the posture kill, otherwise itās a ton of nick away vit, get the hell back
Ninja Gaiden had tons of iframes across the moveset of certain weapons. Skills like Izuna drop, Flying Swallow had glaring ones, the former allowing you ignore everything else going on for maybe 1-2 seconds while Ryu piledrives something fierce.
I never felt bad exploiting iframes in those games because the speed and relentlessness of enemies makes you want to get every edge back possible. I donāt remember the basic roll dodge or dash equivalent giving much escape from damage other than the very quick initial quarter of a second.
Handling was much jerkier but NGās use of constant blocking up close, really is one of the nearest to Sekiroās feeling.
I think he is. It was a pretty enjoyable fight to master. Although it did feel REALLY out of place in this game. I felt like I was playing Dark Souls.